Jorge Martin remains at the top of the World Championship despite the crash he suffered in the last stage of the calendar in Jerez a fortnight ago, while he was leading Sunday’s race. Determined to put the crash behind him, the Prima Pramac Racing driver was the fastest on the first day of Le Mans testing, where, in addition to setting the best time, he also shattered the track record.
There is no better way to face one of the key weekends for the future of the Spaniard, who aspires to be promoted to the official Ducati team next season and who is fighting for his place with Marc Marquez and, to a lesser extent, with Enea Bastianini, current owner of the red Desmosedici GP, but who seems to be the least likely of the three drivers in contention.
“I don’t remember the last time I was first in both sessions. It’s not easy to do that. I think I understood the track conditions very quickly. On this track I felt better than usual, and now it’s time to try to improve “, said Jorge Martin, who preceded Bagnaia by a tenth and a half, second in the afternoon session, in which only four tenths separated the top twelve.
Marc Marquez, on the other hand, did not go beyond 13th place and will be forced to go through Q1, so he could have some difficulties. Martin, however, put the Gresini Racing driver in contention for the podium, both in the Sprint on Saturday and in the long race on Sunday: “I have enough pace to fight for the victory. And I think that Pecco, Enea and Marc are the three stronger together with me.”
Jorge Martin
When asked about the strength of his performance on Friday, #89 was more modest, probably so as not to have too many illusions. “I feel like I always do. I always tend to see myself as worse than I am, maybe this is one of my problems. Let’s see if I win tomorrow and change this mentality,” said Martin, who had expected to make only two attempts in the time attack, but he made a third of it. In the last attempt he came within a whisker of beating the set time, but a mistake led him to go too far and have to interrupt the lap.
“I did one lap more than I had planned. I didn’t expect to improve and I think I could have done more. When you have clear references and put on a new tyre, you have an advantage”, added the Madrid driver.
Amidst all the noise generated by the mini-Olympics that Ducati has organized to decide who will be its second official rider for the next two years, Martin was pragmatic: “I don’t give weight to what is said outside. The only What I can do is focus on myself.”
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