Jorge Martin talks about dehydration towards the end of MotoGP Indian GP for the moments he had, as Francesco Bagnaia adds on his crash.
Pramac Racing –
For the 50th time Prima Pramac Racing is on the Moto GP podium, thanks to an exciting race by Jorge Martin who overcame every difficulty and grabbed a precious second place for the championship. The Spanish champion, in fact, fought to the end, resisting Quartararo’s attacks and achieved a historic podium for the team which thus reached 50 podiums in the top series. A very good race also for Johann Zarco who reached sixth place, taking home very important points for the championship.
Martin (via voice message): “You have to trust me when I say I gave my 100%. I was dehydrated when there were eight laps to go, so it was really difficult to finish the race. Even though I was able to keep a good pace, in the last lap I did a big mistake because of the dehydration. So, I ran wide and Fabio overtook me. But I could overtake back and I’m very happy to take this second position. We recovered some points in the championship. I think we need to keep the same mentality as we did coming here, trying to win, trying to be fast in all the practices and this is the way to close that gap.”
Ducati –
The first-ever Grand Prix of India at the Buddh International Circuit came to an unfortunate end for the Ducati Lenovo Team rider Francesco Bagnaia after the championship leader was forced to retire from second place on lap 14 following a crash. Bagnaia, who started third on the grid behind Bezzecchi and Martin, led the race briefly on the opening lap but was soon overtaken by Bezzecchi, who maintained a superior pace to his rivals throughout the 21 laps, pulling away comfortably to the chequered flag.
For the first half of the race, Bagnaia was involved in a great battle for second with Martin, with the Spaniard never able to gain much of an advantage. On lap 13 Pecco outbraked him to move into second place but a few corners later in the next lap he lost grip under braking and slid out of the race. Bagnaia’s points lead has now been cut to 13 over Martin and 44 over Bezzecchi with seven rounds remaining.
Bagnaia: “We accepted the risk to race with the harder compound because with the medium front tyre, we don’t know honestly why, but I was not feeling like all the other Ducatis. I was struggling a lot. I was having a lot of front locking and it was a problem for the race because we wanted to fight, to be in the front and with the medium I was not having that possibility. So we accepted the risk to race with other [hard] one. And until that moment, I was feeling great. My bike was shaking like all the weekend. We never found a solution for that, but we were more competitive and I was fighting against Jorge. That was very important. But when I overtook him, I got to corner 5 and as soon as the rear tyre came back from the slide, it pushed a bit the front tyre and I lost it.
“But [the hard front] was the only possibility to fight against them. And like I said, we accepted the risk. My mistake. I already said sorry to the team. It was important absolutely to finish the race. Also, considering what happened after my crash. But it’s something that can happen when you are too on the limit. We already know something is happening on our bike because my strongest point was always the braking and it’s not my strongest point anymore. I’m struggling a lot there. My bike is shaking too much and something strange is happening. I’m not worried because I know that my team will find a solution. We already spoke yesterday night and it was impossible to find it for today. But we know where to concentrate to understand the problem. So for Japan we will work, we will understand it and we will solve it.”
Here’s how MotoGP Indian GP panned out
[Note: The story is as per press release]