Jorge Martin once again trailed Bagnaia to the finish line as he struggled to keep pace with the reigning world champion in the middle stages of the race.

With two consecutive defeats to Bagnaia in the Austrian round, Jorge Martin now relinquishes the championship lead to the reigning world champion.

Second places are hardly bad results but with Bagnaia ramping up five victories in the last six races and scoring three doubles in the last five venues, the pressure is on Martin to find a solution to his most recent struggles.

Despite his recent winless streak, Martin has been closely matching Bagnaia in all his recent wins since Barcelona, with the biggest gap recorded at 3.676 seconds at Assen.

The key contributor to Martin’s inability to achieve the same results as Bagnaia, despite having similar pace, has to be his lacklustre early pace compared to the Italian in the grand prix.

Frustration and seeking answers

“I’m frustrated because I feel we are super strong and nothing is missing to win races,” exclaimed Jorge Martin after yet another bittersweet second place. “But still, Pecco is getting that result.”

“[Although] my moment will come, we need to change the strategy. As you can see, he has really good confidence at the beginning of the race with the full tank, and he’s able to keep that first position.”

“It’s difficult to improve [on the pace]. It’s difficult because he has my data, and I have his data.
So it’s difficult to make the difference. Today, the difference was to lead into the first two laps. He understood it better than me.”

“I was 10 laps behind, and it was easy [to keep up]. But from one lap to another, all that effort was gone because my friend said, we need to stop here!” Martin joked as he mentioned the tyre temperatures going up.

“So, yeah, we need to work a little bit better. I think, as I said before, he’s not faster than me. I’m not faster than him, but we need to work a bit more on the strategy and understand how to win races.”

90 percent of the win is done in the earlier laps!

“And I think after three or four laps, if you are in first, you have 90 percent of the win done. So afterwards, I tried to fight back at the end when my front tyre was refreshing a bit. But it was impossible to close that gap, and I did my best.”

“I’m a bit frustrated because I feel I had the potential to win today also but Pecco seems to be a bit better at the moment.”

“I did a good race and I did a good start but the moment, I was in second, I lost almost all my possibilities for the victory.”

“Overall, I think I did a good race [despite losing out]. Even at the end, I was having a good pace, a big difference compared to the rest [of the field].”

“It seems like now Pecco and me are a step ahead. We’ve got more points, four second positions in a row. So hopefully, I can improve that result next time.”

Why should I be angry at him?

The Spaniard has been engaged in a monstrous showdown with Bagnaia for a second season in a row, reiterated his respect for Bagnaia as a rival and hopes to keep the relationship in a similar manner for years to come.

“We still have a lot of years to fight against each other and I think if I give my best and he is better than me, why should I be angry at him? It’s just respect. If everything is respectful out and on track, I’m even happy for him for his victory, and I hope this relationship keeps like this all our lives.”

Finger? A non-issue

When asked about his finger troubling him during the race, Martin was quick to shrug off his finger injury as an excuse for losing out to Bagnaia.

“No, no, it wasn’t an issue,” Martin clarified. “Yesterday, I said it was okay, and today, it was not a problem.

“Now [sitting here], it’s a bit [painful; for sure, it gets a lot of inflammation. It wasn’t an issue at all during the race. It was okay.”

Aragon not a nice racetrack for me, but I will give my 100 percent!

In two week’s time MotoGP will be heading off to Aragon, a venue where his chief champion rivals Bagnaia, bastianini and Marquez have all triumphed in the past but Martin only has a best place of sixth to his name.

On paper, it looks like yet another favourable round for Bagnaia who will look to extend his championship lead. However, compared to 2022 where he struggled to conserve his tyres, Martin now is a much more transformed rider and with resurfacing being done on the Spanish venue, Martin will be eyeing his first win since France.

“I really enjoy riding in Aragon, even if it wasn’t a nice racetrack for me in MotoGP, but in Moto3 and Moto2, I was competitive. So I think we can give it a go and I will give my 100 percent.”