After a break of almost a month, MotoGP returns to action at Silverstone, where this weekend the British Grand Prix will take place with a “vintage” flavour, as all the various teams will have special liveries to celebrate 75 years of the world championship.
Jorge Martin is hoping that the summer break could represent a starting point, as he lost the championship lead to his most fearsome rival, Francesco Bagnaia, during the last race before the break. A tough blow, because at the Sachsenring Martin was actually already savoring victory after a race in the lead for a long time, but that fall at the end of the braking section of turn one completely reopened the game, putting him in the position of having to chase.
Regardless of what happened in Germany, however, where he had achieved success in the sprint before crashing in Sunday’s race, for a few rounds the Spaniard seemed to be in slightly more difficulty than Bagnaia, as if he was lacking something in terms of pace and confidence in the bike. A problem that had already arisen in Spain and that then reappeared at Mugello, where he managed to patch things up despite a very difficult Friday and a crash in the sprint.
Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
For this reason, Martin is not only looking for points useful for the championship fight, but also for a little more speed useful for clashing with the current champion in office who, in the last appointments has reduced the number of errors by concretizing the opportunities, so much so as to score five victories and a podium in the last three weekends. However, attention inevitably could not help but go to what happened in Germany, with that crash on the last lap in which Martin sees aspects similar to other errors already committed during the season.
Precisely for this reason, the break represented a good opportunity to stop and recharge the batteries in view of a second half of the season in which there will be a lot to play for, but also a chance to calmly analyse certain episodes.
“It was good to stop for a while. I didn’t stop training, I wasn’t able to stop completely, I continued training even on the beach to not lose my form. I tried to think back with the team to the last crashes, like the one in Germany, at Mugello and Jerez”, commented Martin.
“It felt like a similar situation to me, so let’s try to work on it and figure out how to avoid repeating it in the future, because I think we lost the lead in the championship and some good opportunities to take home some wins. So let’s look forward and race here at Silverstone as we like to do.”
Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Despite the crashes, Martin will not change his approach, because his way of riding is what has brought him to be in a position to fight for the world championship, even if he will try some small adjustments to try to avoid new crashes.
“Absolutely not, I won’t change anything. When you crash, of course, you try to understand why it happened, so you can improve for the future. But I think I was the strongest in Germany, so I have to keep the same mentality, the same riding style, trying to be aggressive but also as fast as possible. But we have to take it one race at a time, every race is different and you have to understand and see what your opportunities are on each track, trying to do your best.”
“It’s all about small things, without going into too much detail. On the one hand I think it’s positive because I understand why, but on the other hand I think it’s very difficult to identify it while I’m riding. I’ll try to look and do some tests to improve on that. I also have some ideas from my team. But I don’t want to obsess over it, because my riding has brought me to this point and I want to continue in the same way.”
One of the biggest news of the summer break was Freddie Spencer’s departure from the steward panel at the end of the year, with the latter being replaced from 1 January 2025 by Simon Crafar, a figure that Martin appreciates and respects. The Spaniard is convinced that Crafar will be able to guarantee greater consistency in decisions: “For me it’s a big change, important”.
Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“I know Simon well, I know he still rides motorbikes, so he will surely understand better how the motorbike moves and how things can change very quickly. For this reason I think he can be a little more consistent in his judgments in different situations and he always tries to understand the sport, also trying to learn about us by asking us different questions. I am sure he will be very good at his new job.”
Finally, Martin also wanted to talk about the team’s choice of colors for his bike for the Silverstone weekend, where each team changed their livery. In the case of Pramac, the choice was to honor one of the greatest legends of Spanish motorcycling, Angel Nieto: “It’s fantastic to race on Sunday with his colors and his helmet. Paolo was a good friend of Angel and when the opportunity to do so came up, they decided to pay tribute to his classic bike. Then I also like to change the helmet livery and see a change to the bike, so it’s fantastic.”
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