He from Madrid Jorge Martín, 25 years old, from San Sebastián de los Reyes, living in Andorra, from Ducati’s Prima Pramac ‘satellite’ teamhas already become the fashionable boy of the MotoGP World Championship. And, not only that, but he is beginning to look like a future top-flight world champion. Martinatorwhich was 62 points behind the leader and current champion, Italian ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia (Ducati)abandon Motegi (Japan) just 3 points behind his theoretical leader, who was the first to congratulate him after his spectacular victory today in a grand prix that had to be 24 laps and ended up becoming the second sprint race of the weekend, since the heavy rain and lack of light turned the GP into only 12 laps.
Full domain
In the dry and/or wet, Martín once again proved to be, by far, the best, the fastest, the one who best managed any situation on the track and his dominance was such that he managed to take a new step towards his golden dream, which is lead, in the next grand prix, the MotoGP table, where Bagnaia today finished second (“given the conditions and given the state of mind and riding that Jorge is in, it is a complete success”) and where Marc Marquez (Honda) He was prodigious in managing to get on the podium in third place, something he could not achieve since last year’s Australian GP.
The 24-lap race was declared dry despite the fact that rain already appeared when the drivers were settling on the starting grid. What everyone suspected happened, in fact, before the end of the first lap of the GP and that is that Race Direction had to raise the white flag, which meant that the rider who wanted could change his dry bike, with which he had started the race, for the wet one, which he already had warming up in his workshop. And, yes, all the favorites did it when completing the first lap and he started another different race with wet tires on a track that was starting to get really wet.
“Jorge keeps cutting me points, yes, he is at his best, but this second place is very, very, good for me”
‘Pecco’ Bagnaia
That race, that maneuver, changing motorcycles, quite a spectacle!, had in Marc Márquez, as usual, one of its smartest and fastest protagonists, which immediately placed him next to Martín and Bagnaia, leading the race, although for this the champion from Cervera (Lleida), an expert in extreme conditions and with a Honda that can defend itself better in water than in dry, had to fight very hard with Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati) to defend the bronze.
“Of course I’m happy!, especially for the team that, on days like today, must do a very perfect job for everything to go well for you,” said Márquez before taking the podium and being congratulated by the Repsol Honda team. “At first we had to be very careful, but as soon as we changed the bike and it started to rain steadily, I felt that I had a good chance of getting on the podium and, the truth is, I felt very good with the motorcycle. In the end, Race Direction did well to stop the GP because there was a lot of water on the track and visibility was beginning to be poor.”
“They did well to stop the second race, as it was beginning to be dangerous due to the accumulated water and, on top of that, there was little visibility”
Marc Márquez
And the final classification did not come from the race that resumed after a short 25-minute break, which was suspended as soon as the start was started because the rain turned into a deluge, but rather it came from the first 12 laps that were given. , after the race resumed to hold the last 12, the rain got worse and the race had to be suspended, with full points being awarded as 50% of the laps had been played, which caused an uproar in the Prima Pramac team workshop, which He saw how Martín became the winner again and cut another five points from Bagnaia.
The ‘Martinator’ bull
It is still impressive and very striking that Martín, in a moment of impressive form, was the rider who, last year and despite having, in fact, another spectacular season in the Pramac ‘team’, was discarded by Ducati to give the jump to the official team of the Borgo Panigale factory, finally choosing the Italian Enea Bastianini, who was also brilliant in 2022, as Bagnaia’s partner. Now, ‘Martinator’ can become the first driver of a private, ‘satellite’ team to win the title, since the last one to achieve such a conquest was, neither more nor less, than Valentino Rossi, in 2001.
Needless to say, Martín once again celebrated his victory by wrapping himself in the Spanish flag with the bull, which his parents carried and showed off on the circuits of Spain when they followed as fans the Catalan Àlex Crivillé, the first world champion of the highest category in in 1999, with Honda.