Jorge Martin on nearing MotoGP dream: ‘If I relax, I’m more nervous’

Jorge Martin says he will continue to push like normal in the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix despite his championship situation as he is “more nervous” if rides too cautiously.

The Pramac rider took a crucial sprint victory on Saturday at the Malaysian GP, with title rival Francesco Bagnaia crashing of second on the third lap.

Martin is now 29 points clear in the championship and only has to outscore Bagnaia by nine points on Sunday to win the title at Sepang.

Speaking to the media - including Crash.net on Saturday - Martin says he cannot relax despite his favourable title picture as this is when he makes mistakes.

“I feel that when I breathe and try to be relaxed, I’m more nervous and everything becomes more difficult,” he said.

“So, today I was a bit nervous in the morning. So, I said to Gino [Borsoi, team boss] ‘I will go for it’.

“I mean, I don’t want to finish second, third. I want to win. If Pecco is stronger, he will win. If not, he won’t.

“So, tomorrow is a bit the same - try to do it. If Pecco is much stronger, it’s ok.

“But I will give my best and it’s the only way I can be 100% focused is to give my best. So, I will try to do that.”

Martin believes he is “more mature” at this stage of the 2024 title battle than he was last year, when he “wasn’t ready to win”.

With Bagnaia having “nothing to lose” now, he anticipating the factory team Ducati rider to “risk a lot” in the 20-lap grand prix but feels his own pace is good enough that second is “worst case”.

“I think last year, I wasn’t ready to win,” he added.

“I was fast, but I wasn’t ready. I was scared and in difficult moments, this is where I am more mature.

“For sure it’s a privilege to be here at this point with this advantage.

“But nothing is over till it’s over, so I need to be focused for tomorrow. It will be a really long race.

“I think Pecco will risk a lot tomorrow to win, so to beat him in these conditions is really tough.

“He has nothing to lose now, so it’s all or nothing. I will try my best. I think we are a step forward than the others, so in the worst case I will try to finish second. And then we will see in the future.”

When Bagnaia crashed out of the sprint, Martin admits he didn’t try to ignore this and was even considering losing the lead to Marquez if it meant extending his championship advantage.

“For sure, it happened. I didn’t think like it didn’t happen,” he said when asked what his thought process was when he saw Bagnaia had crashed.

“You have to think about it: ‘Ok, Pecco crashed. Be careful, you need to finish’.

“At some point I even thought ‘maybe you have to wait for Marc and finish second’.

“But on the other hand, I had eight tenths [of advantage] so there was no sense to wait, just keep doing the thing that you know how to do, which is ride.

“I was really focused on my marks, my reference on braking, just trying to do everything the same and not change anything.

“And even so I was increasing the gap. So, having good information for tomorrow, I think finishing today was important to have more information because we are never used to doing these long runs here because we don’t have time.

“So, a lot of problems came from today’s race and it’s important and good info for tomorrow.”