MotoGP | Martin: “We have to improve, we don't want to be fourth”

Jorge Martin had podiumed in all three Sprints and two races so far this season, so Sunday's fourth place in Austin is his worst result in 2024, but it's enough to keep him at the top of the championship and increase his advantage over Pecco Bagnaia, who finished both races this weekend behind him.

“It was a very tough race from a physical point of view, but perhaps better than I expected, other years I have suffered more on this track,” said Jorge Martín. “It was complicated, the opponents were very difficult, at the beginning with Pedro Acosta I struggled to pass him, and when I managed to do so I made a mistake and Pedro and Marc Márquez overtook me. Then I resisted as best I could until the end “, He admitted.

“Enea Bastianini had something more than me in the last two laps and managed to pass me. I tried, I'm happy because we had a solid weekend, I'm happy with the overall result, we got 20 points more. But it's clear that we have to keep working and improving, because we finished fourth and that's not where we want to be,” he said.

Leading the world championship and with Bagnaia behind in the race, one might have thought that Martin did not want to take risks and took fourth place in the key championship as a good thing: “I played all my cards in the previous laps, especially when Bastianini passed me for the first time. once and I managed to overtake him again. Then I did my fastest laps of the race, I pushed hard, but when he passed me I had nothing left, I took my last breath and maintained fourth position until the end of the race. race to score points, which are always very important”, was his explanation.

“We already have 80 points, but I don't want to think about the world championship. I just want to take everything race by race. It's a circuit where I've suffered a lot in the past, so it's not bad. I think there are many riders who have the chance to win the title , but Pecco is the reigning champion Marc (Marquez, ed) is very strong, as is Pedro (Acosta, ed). The good thing is that we are consistent. We must continue with this dynamic. If I finish fourth on a bad weekend, I can be satisfied,” he told her.

The Grand Prix was complicated for Martín, with two crashes in Q2 and a sixth position on the starting grid: “I think that after yesterday, with the two crashes in qualifying and the saving of the Sprint, we worked a lot to improve the bike and I think that we succeeded a little, but we are far from being one hundred percent comfortable with these vibrations, we hope to improve for Jerez.”

Martin was one of the riders who chose the soft compound on the rear, unlike Maverick Viñales, winner of the race, or Pedro Acosta, second at the finish line. Perhaps with the medium tire the result would have changed for the Pramac rider: “Not I have no idea, this weekend we didn't get the strategy right, we didn't try the medium tire in FP3, which would have been fundamental to understanding this tyre.”

“I had no choice but to use the soft tyre, because I couldn't go out in the race with a tire I hadn't tried. But I did my best and when I was first and had a certain advantage I made a mistake, they attacked me and the race got complicated. We knew that the soft was a risk and we saw that the medium was more competitive today, so we'll take note of that for next year,” said the Spaniard.