Jorge Martin 'feared for life', 'pushed Pecco's bike away with hand'

Jorge Martin's Qatar MotoGP season-opener came to a brutal end was he was taken down by fellow Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia.

Starting from pole position, Martin lost momentum during a near miss with eventual winner Enea Bastianini off the line and finished the opening lap in seventh.

"I didn't start well, anyway I was still top three, but I got close to Enea and had to close the throttle. A lot of riders overtook me and from then everything went wrong," Martin said.

Rather than mount a recovery, the Pramac rider found he couldn't overtake the Aprilia of Aleix Espargaro and lost a further place to the Suzuki of Alex Rins.

But things got a lot worse when Bagnaia then dived for the inside at turn one, the Italian losing the front of his Desmosedici at 150km/h, which then rammed into the side of Martin.

Last year's Styrian winner, who missed four races of his rookie season after serious injuries in Portimao, then became dangerously sandwiched between the pair of GP22s as he slid off track and bounced through the gravel trap.

"Actually, it was the first time I had a fear about my life because I was really fast into the gravel between both bikes and I think I pushed one bike, Pecco's bike, with my hand," Martin said.

"I have pain in my right thumb, so we will check tomorrow in Barcelona. I hope nothing is broken and we can race well in Indonesia."

Bagnaia immediately rushed over to check on Martin and the Spaniard shrugged it off as a racing incident.

But Martin was more concerned by his lack of top speed and pace.

"I'm not happy. I mean, crashes sometimes happen. I'm just angry because we were uncompetitive today," Martin explained. "I was expecting to be fighting for the podium or even the victory. But the pace wasn’t there. We had some issues and we need to understand.

"I couldn't overtake even an Aprilia or the Suzukis. I don't know exactly which is our strong point now. We don’t have a strong point. So we need to understand well and focus to try to improve because I think 7th-8th place was the maximum today."

Martin set a top speed of 352.9km/h during the race, which was matched by team-mate Johann Zarco, Bagnaia, VR46's Marco Bezzecchi and Honda's Alex Marquez.

But the best of the race was a 357.6km/h by Suzuki's Joan Mir, followed by Bastianini on 355.2. The Aprilias of Maverick Vinales and Aleix Espargaro, Suzuki of Rins and Honda of Marc Marquez were also ahead of Martin on 354.0.

While Bagnaia and factory team-mate Jack Miller have the 2021-2022 engine mix Martin, Zarco and VR46's Luca Marini have the full 2022 engine.