Franco Morbidelli teases where loyalty lies in MotoGP title battle

Jorge Martin enters this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix with a mathematical possibility of winning his first MotoGP World Championship, but his Pramac Ducati teammate Franco Morbidelli was unclear on his intentions regarding the title battle.

While Morbidelli is Martin’s teammate, he is also a training partner of Martin’s title rival, Francesco Bagnaia, with both a part of the VR46 Riders Academy.

As a result, Morbidelli’s allegiances in the title fight are unclear, and therefore it’s uncertain whether he would choose to help either Bagnaia, Martin, or neither, given the opportunity.

Speaking after Friday practice at the Sepang International Circuit, Morbidelli laughed: “I’ll let them both through,” when asked if he would attack Martin if he found himself behind his teammate in either the Sprint or the Grand Prix this weekend.

“If I discover what I’m going to do, there will be no surprise. I want to make a surprise for you,” he continued.

Morbidelli has not finished on the podium yet in 2024, whereas both Bagnaia and Martin have rarely finished a race this year and not picked up some silverware. As a result, any interjections from Morbidelli at this stage in the championship would be somewhat against the grain of the season’s story so far, but it’s also true that the Italian showed promising potential in practice.

“[I had] Good time attacks,” Morbidelli said. “Good enough to go direct to Q2. Today was tight, and it’s a pleasure to go directly to Q2.

“It’s something really important to make a better weekend, and today we managed to, we did a good job, the whole crew did a good job.

“Usually the Friday is our weakest day, and it was the case also today in the time attack; in the race pace I was really good, but I think we still have room to improve, let’s see how much.”

Morbidelli’s ability to utilise what he feels is a good pace in the race will depend on him improving his one-lap speed, then.

“It’s going to be crucial, as always, [...] the qualifying, the time attack, and today I was not on the pace I was on with race pace,” he said.

“I was around P3, P4, P2, I was very close to Jorge [Martin], instead with the time attack I’m further back.

“Let’s see if we can turn up some things to make a better qualifying.”