Jorge Martin admits ‘the realistic position was second’ had Marc Marquez not crashed

MotoGP series leader Jorge Martin took the lead on the opening lap after passing Brad Binder at turn nine, and despite opening a lead of over one second, the championship leader quickly found himself under pressure.

Martin came under attack from Marc Marquez when he made a mistake at turn seven.

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A three tenth lead evaporated before Marquez made his move two turns later to take back the lead he lost at the start.

“He pulled a gap as soon as he overtook me but then I was able to keep that gap,” said Martin. “I was trying to catch him again and was going to keep trying until the end.

“But today, maybe the realistic position was second. But I'm happy. I did a great start and pushed quite a lot at the beginning.

“Maybe I used too much the tyre. From that point I just tried to follow Marc until the crash and then to finish because Pedro [Acosta] was three or four seconds behind. At that point, going to finish line was enough to win today.

“I didn’t expect it this morning with the wet conditions. It was a special day and hopefully tomorrow we can improve and fight for the victory.”

Marquez was the only rider to crash as four big name riders in Alex Marquez, Brad Binder, Enea Bastianini and Maverick Vinales all went down at turn five in the space of two laps.

Asked about the falls and if he was aware, Martin stated: “I didn’t know of these crashes at the time. I saw that those guys were quite far behind so I took really low risk when I was in front.

“For sure, turn five was really difficult to see the damp patches. It was really easy to go on the ground; turn eight, turn nine, last corner.

“It was really complicated to finish today but we did it. I think we used a lot our experience to finish and get the most points possible.”

With Marquez showing more pace than anyone until his fall, Martin is aware that fighting for the win in the grand prix could be tricky.

But the championship leader is hoping to be as strong when fitting the medium rear tyre, even if some riders have more pace early on.

“There are some riders with more pace, at least in the early laps but then I feel confident that we can fight for the victory,” said Martin.

“Today, with the soft [tyre] maybe Marc was more competitive today.

“Let’s see tomorrow with the medium but we can achieve a good result and hopefully be on the podium.”