MotoGP championship leader Jorge Martin “more mature on the bike” now
Martin believes he’s taken a step since the summer break
MotoGP championship leader Jorge Martin feels he is “more mature on the bike the last few races” as he is “not crashing that much” now.
Martin made several critical errors in grands prix in the first half of the campaign, crashing out of the lead of the Spanish and German Grands Prix as chief rival Francesco Bagnaia won.
But since the summer break, Martin has finished every race while Bagnaia was involved in a collision at Aragon and fell while running third last weekend at Misano.
After the Emilia Romagna GP, Martin leads the championship by 24 points over Bagnaia having finished second in all but one Sunday race since the British GP.
“Well, the good thing is now it seems I’m more mature on the bike the last few races,” he said.
“It seems like at the beginning of the season that I had some problems that I didn’t recognise, and I was crashing, like at the Sachsenring or Jerez.
“Now, I think we’ve found the solution, for sure last weekend [in the San Marino GP] I did the wrong choice [by pitting for my wet bike] and I lost points.
“But I’m not crashing this much, so I’m happy I found a good base set-up.
“I know my bike really well and I feel like I can control the limit. So, I hope next time I can be focused in Indonesia and the next few races to keep this gap or even increase it.”
Martin noted after the summer break that his crashes in the first half of the season were down to him running something different compared to the other Ducati riders, which was affecting braking.
The Pramac rider lost the Emilia Romagna GP in controversial circumstances after Enea Bastianini pushed him off track in a last lap overtake.
But evaluating his situation as a whole after that incident, Martin said: “I think I did a great weekend.
“For sure, I wanted to win but it’s ok. I’m happy with my performance, I’m happy with my qualifying.
“The target is the end of the season. I will keep working, keep learning and I am happy. If I look just at the final results, today it could be better. But let’s move forward.”
