Jorge Martin: ‘Overall, 2024 bike is better, we have more power’
Jorge Martin has sent out a worrying statement to Ducati's rivals after claiming their 2024 bike is even better than last season.
Jorge Martin, along with many Ducati riders including world champion Francesco Bagnaia, dominated results in MotoGP last season.
And the Pramac rider was again in blistering form on day one in Sepang as he topped the opening day by over two tenths.
Martin produced the lone sub 1m 58s lap time and has already gelled with the new bike, despite having small issues to iron out.
“It’s better to be fast than to be slow but today I didn’t look too much into the lap times,” said Martin. “I was more focused on understanding which engine was better because we were focused on the new engine.
“I did the lap time with the new one but this is not the most important thing to look at.
“The most important thing to look at is the performance, the handling, the connection with the throttle.
“We found some positives but also some negatives so we need to keep working on it.
“Tomorrow we will move onto both 2024 bikes so it will be easier to work on it. I think overall it was a good day.”
Martin was very busy on day one as he completed 59 laps, some of which involved testing Ducati’s new items.
Some of that was to do with a new fairing which he said will be one of the main focuses over the next two days.
Martin added: “For the moment I prefer the 24 engine but as I told you we need to work on it because we don’t want to make the same mistakes as 2022.
“We have to work on the small details because we have more things to try including the fairing.
“It seems like we have a little bit more power which is good because I saw that other brands like Honda and Yamaha improved.
“I saw on the track that they were quite fast. To have more power is important.
“The handling was good and is really similar to 2023. Maybe we have some weak points and I cannot tell you much more. But I think, overall, it is a better bike.”
