Jorge Martin Reflects on “Haunting” Sprint Race Mistakes
The Redemption of Martin in Indonesia
Jorge Martin, the MotoGP points leader, fought back from a challenging sprint race on Sunday to win the Indonesian Grand Prix. With five races remaining in the season, the Pramac Ducati rider turned things around from a fall out in Saturday’s sprint to guarantee a vital win and increase his title lead over Francesco Bagnaia to 21 points.
Martin acknowledges the faults from the sprint race weighed heavily on him mid-race, even though he excelled on Sunday. He laughed, “I got a bit of revenge today!” and admitted how the mental part of racing tried him. “Winning after crashed is better than winning both races!”
He said he experienced the “ghosts” of his sprint race blunders at lap 13: “The mental aspect of things was incredibly complicated, and around lap 13, I started to have some ghosts from last year. But everything was good once I passed that section of the course.
Martin concentrated on controlling corner 16, where he crashed on Saturday, attributing his fast learning from mistakes. “I’m glad to learn from my mistakes; in the sprint race, I was trying to manage corner 16 really well and not make the same mistake as yesterday.”
Looking Forward to Japan
Martin muses over the need of balance and care in the championship fight as the season moves to Japan. “I’m aiming to keep the momentum; every race weekend is different; this weekend maybe I was overconfident,” Martin said. “I felt really strong; everything felt so good that I was overconfident; then I made a mistake and I have to be more careful.”
With the points difference currently at 21, Martin’s trip in Indonesia will be a major teaching tool as he negotiates the MotoGP championship’s concluding phases.