Marco Bezzecchi
Jorge Martin’s San Marino Grand Prix was ruined before it had even started after his bike died on the way to the grid.
The Aprilia rider was forced to scramble back to the pit lane immediately and get on his spare bike, which had the same setup as the bike he had just disembarked from. Not long after the situation had been saved, it was made worse by the notification of a penalty.
Martin was forced to serve a double long-lap penalty as a result of changing bikes after the pit lane had closed, which ruined his San Marino Grand Prix. Just as he was starting to build some positive momentum following his MotoGP comeback, another blow was dealt to his efforts.
MotoGP fans said the same thing about Martin’s penalty and felt that it was overly extreme, considering there was nothing he could have done about it. After struggling on Saturday, Martin fears he ‘must’ lose a ‘super-strong’ trait to extract more pace from the RS-GP25.
READ MORE: Jorge Martin reveals whether he thought about retiring from MotoGP during Aprilia injury nightmare
Jorge Martin thinks he could have achieved Aprilia top-five without Misano penalty
Martin doesn’t think he could have beaten Marc Marquez even if he had been fully fit and avoided injuries this season. Defending his championship after leaving a Ducati satellite team was always going to be a very tall order.
After riding their bike for a few weekends, Martin has realised an Aprilia ‘truth’ and is discovering more things about his machine at every race. There are six more before the end of the campaign for him to build some momentum before he’ll be expected to compete again in 2026.
Speaking after the Misano race, the 27-year-old told SPEEDWEEK what he might have been able to achieve without his penalties.
“The bike simply died,” he said. “I was riding with low throttle in Eco mode to save fuel. Before turn 12, I realised the bike had died. I tried to restart it, but that wasn’t possible. I handed the bike over to the marshals and ran like crazy to the pits.”
“I had riders ahead of me and couldn’t set a good lap time. But my race pace today was between 1:31.6 and 1:31.8 – that would have made a top-5 finish possible, which would have been a great result. However, I felt a bit worse in the race. The rear tyre wasn’t working so well. I almost crashed in Turn 2.”
READ MORE: Marco Bezzecchi in awe of the ‘amazing’ thing he’s seen Jorge Martin do behind the scenes at Aprilia
Jorge Martin broke 10-race streak at Misano with 13th-place finish
Just a few weeks ago, Martin left Balaton Park ‘delighted’ with his efforts, after he secured the best result of his season with fourth.
However, his Misano result marks the first time since last year’s race at the same track that he has finished a race outside the top 10.
He has participated in 12 races since then, but retired from two of them and therefore wasn’t classified within the results.
With teammate Marco Bezzecchi performing so well at the moment, Martin has a free opportunity to experiment and rediscover his best form. He’s not expected to match the top riders currently.
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