First and foremost, please accept my apologies. There has been a recent shortage of content on the blog, despite the fact that I am now working on many pieces that I want to upload in the week coming up to Christmas. Then I’ll take a vacation for Christmas and New Year’s, returning in early January. Meanwhile, here are some things worth your attention.
Jorge Martin on 2023 and the possibility of a factory ride
It is a tradition for the top Spanish riders in MotoGP to drop into the offices of AS, Spain’s biggest sports daily, for an interview. For Jorge Martin, that was something of a homecoming, as AS is located in Spanish capital Madrid, Martin’s birthplace. It also allowed him to drop in on a local tire seller, who had sponsored him as a youngster to say hello.
The interview, with AS.com’s MotoGP reporter Mela Chercoles, is honest and very revealing, and well worth using whatever online translation you prefer to read. Martin talks about the championship, when he started to believe it was possible, and where he thinks he lost out to Bagnaia. And he talks a little bit about the future, and where he sees himself.
It was at Mugello that Martin started to feel that he had a shot at the title. “Last year, I finished 30 seconds behind, and this time I was second and 1.5 behind,” Martin told AS.com. Winning both races at Misano had given him a boost, beating Bagnaia and the factory Ducati team at their home circuit.
He felt he lost the championship on the Sunday at Indonesia. Crashing out of the lead hadn’t been a mistake as such, Martin insisted. He had run wide on the exit of Turn 10 and got dirt on his front tire, which caused him to wash out the front and crash at Turn 11. That crash was key, he said. “I went from being +10 to -18” Martin said of the points difference that caused that crash.
Martin did point to his poor performance at Qatar, and once again blamed the rear tire he had during the race. It was new, but it felt like it already had 32 laps on it, he insisted, pointing to the fact it span up at the start, causing him to lose grip.
Martin also expressed his frustration at losing out at a chance of the factory Ducati Lenovo team. He revealed that he had brought two plain sets of leathers to the circuit, as he wasn’t sure which bike he would be riding at the test on Tuesday. “I wanted to move to the factory team, and I pushed my manager to make it possible. But I don’t think anything would have changed whether I won the championship or not,” Martin said.
He felt he was never going to have the chance, whatever happened, he said. “I resent the fact that it’s never enough. I don’t know what more I have to do to show them.” Martin understood that Enea Bastianini had had a bad year in 2023, but he didn’t feel that was an excuse. Bastianini had raced on 14 or 15 weekends, and only won one race, Martin said. And Bastianini had only won that race because he started the race with 1.2 bar in the front tire, Martin insisted. “I could have won if I’d done the same,” he said.
Martin insisted that his priority is to race with a factory team in 2025. Preferably with Ducati, but if they don’t want him, then he will look for another factory seat instead. When asked about the comparison with Luca Marini, Martin said he could be interested in the Honda if the bike looks like it has improved in 2024, and was capable of being a winning project in the future.
The arrival of Marc Marquez in Ducati has complicated Martin’s chances of arriving in the factory team, but he welcomed the challenge of trying to beat one of the greatest racers of all time. “If I can beat him, then I will have proved myself as one of the best riders as well,” he said.
Martin at Qatar: who is to blame?
The saga of Jorge Martin’s rear tire at Qatar, which caused him to finish 10th after winning the sprint race on Saturday, continues to rumble on. Michelin boss Piero Taramasso spoke to Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport’s Paolo Ianieri to review the season. Taramasso once again reiterated they had checked the tire and its history, and found no quality control issues in production or transportation.
The tire couldn’t have been defective, Taramasso said. “A tire which isn’t working doesn’t work right from the warm up lap, it’s a second a lap slower,” he told La Gazzetta. After his bad start, Martin was running times that were comparable to Bagnaia’s for the first six or seven laps, before his pace dropped off. That was more a result of things that happened during the race, Taramasso insisted.
Pramac Ducati team manager Gino Borsoi refuted that. “We analyzed the race, with Ducati and Pramac, and in terms of riding by Jorge and bike setup, there were no mistakes, and no problems,” Borsoi told AS.com’s Mela Chercoles. “Martin didn’t forget how to ride from one day to the next due to the pressure,” Borsoi insisted. The data shown to Michelin at a meeting on the Thursday before Valencia showed there was nothing wrong with the bike, or the tire temperature.
Make your own mind up as to who is to blame. But this is probably going to run for a while. Taramasso pointed out that Michelin have invested heavily in MotoGP and in ensuring consistent quality control of their tires. “We are not investing millions to be accused,” he said. Michelin’s aim is to create happy riders, he said.
Next year’s Honda
As I wrote earlier this week, the 2024 Honda RC213V has been met with a lot of optimism, and seems to be a much better bike than the one HRC put on the track this year. What made all the difference? Joan Mir had praised the better feeling with the bike, and said it was lighter than its predecessor. But geometry had also clearly changed.
Lucio Cecchinello revealed a few details to Sky Italia, which are reproduced by the Corsedimoto website. LCR had strongly advised Honda that the problem was the weight distribution between the front and rear of the bike, Cecchinello said.
They and Honda had analyzed all of the crashes of 2023, and it was clear they had all been caused by losing the front. “We asked for a different bike balance, and a centre of gravity more to the back of the bike,” Cecchinello said. Honda had done that, and made the bike longer as well, more in line with the European bikes, which are longer and lower.
The LCR boss was confident that these were the first steps on the road to returning to the top. HRC has been reorganized, he explained, and they have more personnel and more budget to tackle getting back to winning ways.
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