Exhausted Jorge Martin: “Like your head is cooking inside the helmet!”
The Pramac rider briefly ceded second position to Fabio Quartararo after a braking error but he superbly claimed it back.
Martin was on his knees, visibility dehydrated, as the race ended.
“It was a concentration thing,” Sylvain Guintoli said on TNT Sports about Martin’s initial error.
“He was hanging, at the end of the race, physically.
“It’s like your head is cooking inside the helmet! You lose senses, you lose vision, you lose sharpness.
“He made a bit of a mistake. He had a margin on Fabio then made a pass, super-aggressive, on the limit.
“It was fair and square.”
Michael Laverty noted that riders were in their leathers half-an-hour before the 37-minute Indian MotoGP is hot conditions.
“You’re already sweating, losing fluids, sodium, potassium, magnesium,” he said.
“A 5 percent fluid loss equates to a 30 percent performance loss.
“You could see he was gone. I’m impressed he was able to fight back with Fabio.
“He knew he had to fight for those points and he did.”
Marco Bezzecchi won the Indian MotoGP a day after Martin won the sprint.
Francesco Bagnaia, the championship leader, crashed out of Sunday’s race and has lost more ground in the title fight.
“It was a tough one between the two main men in the championship. They wanted to dice it out,” Guintoli said.
“Pecco was trying to stay in front but Martin had more pace.
“Those two dicing was a nice spectacle, it was nice to see the respect too.
“We also saw the issue that we have in MotoGP at the moment with the draft - at the end of the straight, you can’t stop the bike anymore and it’s hard to judge.
“We’ve seen near misses and we’re talking about the top riders in the world who don’t get much wrong.
“It’s a very difficult sensation to explain. You don’t get it as much with Superbikes, for example, because there is no aero, wings or ride-height devices.
“With MotoGP the front tyre is overworked and the wind stops you, like a parachute.”
Laverty added: “Unfortunately Pecco had another slightly unforced error.
“He did have the harder front than everyone else which caught him out, it was the wrong choice.
“He felt it would give him braking stability towards the end of the race but it left him in the gravel.
“Another huge dent in his championship, giving away 20 points to Martin and 25 to Bezzecchi.
“It was a momentary thing, your reactions are never going to catch it.
“Heartbreak for Pecco, we’ve seen it over the years.
“Championship-wise he’s going to start to feel it.”
Guintoli said: “Martin is in great form, he has a good feeling with the bike.
“Bezzecchi is not out of it.
“There are opportunities to score points or to make mistakes.
“They push each other and are on similar machinery.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
