MotoGP | “Mature” Martin can be a real threat to the title

Jorge Martin leads the championship with an 18-point advantage over second after the first two races of the season, and for the first time in MotoGP he has led the standings for more than 24 hours. Before Portugal, he had led the championship on two occasions: once after the Sprint in Indonesia last year, before crashing while leading the grand prix, and again after the Sprint of the Qatar GP in 2024, before that Francesco Bagnaia won on Sunday. His win in Portimao was described as “really mature”, and this maturity was confirmed by the way he managed the race, as well as a key lesson he learned from last year.

The defeat in Indonesia in 2023 changed his approach to the Portuguese GP three weeks ago, two races that were identical in many ways. In both, Martin was absolutely dominant as leader, controlling the pace and maintaining enough of a margin to fend off any assault from the riders behind him. In Indonesia, this allowed him to gain a lead of more than three seconds before crashing out in the closing stages, handing 25 crucial points to title rival Bagnaia.

It was not repeated in Portugal at the end of March this year, with Martin managing things as best he could to inflict maximum damage on the reigning champion following his controversial race finish with Marc Marquez. “Certainly when they were three, two tenths away it wasn't easy,” he said of Portuguese GP rivals Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini. “But when I brought the gap to seven tenths, I said to myself 'ok, now it's time to maintain this gap.' Remembering Indonesia, I thought that winning by eight tenths is the same as winning by three seconds. On Sunday it was enough. If they had taken me by a tenth, I would have pushed for a tenth. I had that margin to push a little more. I'm very happy because I think it's a very mature result.”

Already after two races of the 2024 season, Martin is on 60 points and is averaging 30 points at the weekend, after a victory in the GP and a third place in the Sprint, plus a victory in the Sprint in Qatar and a third place in the GP . Last year, after two races, Martin had only scored 22 points, although the accident with Marc Marquez in the Portuguese GP contributed to this result. In any case, he had failed to recover in Argentina, where he had not only been eighth in the Sprint and fifth in the GP, after having been second in the Portuguese Sprint.

King of the sprint format in 2023 with nine wins, Martin believes the GP24 works better in long-distance races than in short Saturday ones. But if damage limitation is podiums every time, the consistency that ultimately prevented him from winning the title last year appears to be eradicated. While this weekend's Grand Prix of the Americas will have all eyes on Marc Marquez, at a circuit that usually guarantees him victory, it is Martin who looks the most dangerous threat ahead of the third round of the year.