21 points, only 21 points separate Jorge Martin from his lifelong dream. Will he be able to wrest the scepter from Pecco Bagnaia or will he have to settle for becoming vice-world champion? This weekend will give us the answers, the MotoGP arrives in Valencia for the last decisive race of the season, an all-in for the Spaniard, who will try to stop his opponent’s race.
However, if from Barcelona Martin had proven to be significantly faster than Bagnaia, the recovery in the last few races has become more complicated and now he is forced to win to try to bring home the title: “It will be a bit difficult, compared to the past in where we recovered points weekend after weekend, it will be more complicated. It won’t be easy to win, we’ve also seen the other races. But I’m happy with what I did this season. I have nothing to lose, so I will try to enjoy this weekend, on a track that I like and where I am quite fast.”
However, Martin demonstrated that he has what it takes to reach the top step of the podium: “I will try to win both the Sprint and Sunday’s race. I know I’m capable of doing it. In the past 21 points were a lot, now not too many, so I think we have opportunities and, whatever happens, we will be happy. If we win well, otherwise we will be happy anyway. It’s my country, I’ve never won at home in MotoGP, I’d like to do it this weekend. The fans will help me push.”
Valencia is a track where the Pramac rider has never won in MotoGP, but this year it could represent the breaking down of the taboo. After having won the last two pole positions, he is now aiming for success: “I didn’t like it very much when I was in Moto3, but when I won my first race in 2017 I started to love it. Here I have always been fast and I have always had a good pace. I’ve had the last two pole positions, so I’m confident. It’s a track that can allow us to win both races, but sometimes it’s not enough. We’ll see what happens”.
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing
Meanwhile, Martin has something to celebrate about. Pramac won the team title one race before the end of the season and it is the first time in history that an independent team has won it: “I am very happy, even arriving in the top 3 of the team classification is nice, but winning is something spectacular! I am very proud of what they have done and this gives me the motivation to fight for the future, also for next season.”
In Qatar, Bagnaia managed to increase his championship margin thanks to an excellent performance, combined with a forgettable Sunday from Martin. In fact, the Spaniard ran into a tire that wasn’t at his best, launching into vitriolic statements. However, Martin realizes that he was overly impulsive and backtracks on him: “I realized it wasn’t my fault and it was easy to forget it. I was the one who had to console the guys in the team, I don’t want to think about it anymore and I want to focus on this weekend.”
“Do we have answers? No I do not know. It happened on the first lap, these things need to be analyzed calmly and with time. Maybe I even talked too much after the race because I’m an impulsive person. We don’t know exactly what happened, but we’ll see in a couple of months, we’ll see,” she continues. “Maybe I was lucky, because it didn’t happen to me until last Sunday. Sometimes maybe in qualifying or in free practice you feel that there is one tire better than another, but not a second. Not like what happened in Qatar.”
At the end of the first season with the new format, we begin to take stock and, if Quartararo showed his doubts about the Sprints, Martin said he was satisfied: “For me this format is fantastic, we could even do two Sprints on Saturday ! It is certainly very demanding physically, for me it is even more so than on Sunday. But that’s why we train, I feel confident. It’s a great job for both the drivers and the team. But it also allows you to see what others are doing. Having a race on Saturday means you have to push from Friday, but sometimes there’s nothing ready to push. This is why maybe we fall more, the more races there are and the more risks we take.”
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