After hinting that his race may have been sabotaged in a way, Jorge Martin once again touched on the subject and left some questions hanging in the air, but with his frustration clear as to how it could be that his battle for the championship was almost ended by… a tyre.
On the warm-up lap, just before the start of the race, there were apparently no problems: ‘No, on the Warm Up lap there was nothing, only on the start’ he began, before continuing:
– I was the only rider on the whole grid in all categories to who this happened, so there was certainly something wrong with the tyre. Then, after about three laps, I understood that it was impossible to do the same as yesterday.
Asked if he had tried to speak to anyone at Michelin about the anomaly, Martin clarified that for the moment he had only spoken to members of Pramac: ‘No. I’ve only spoken to my team and it’s a shame that this has happened to us. They certainly need to improve, it’s unacceptable for a MotoGP world championship to be decided by a tyre… Maybe sometimes it happens to Pecco, he’s spoken about it before, and it’s never happened to me, but today it was difficult to finish the race. I’m happy and proud of myself because I finished the race, it was super complicated’.
He continued: ‘I think the bike was ok, but when the tyre doesn’t work then nothing works. Yesterday I was riding in second 53 relatively easily, I mean, not easy but on the pace, and today I was 1.2 off the race pace. I’m a bit faster than that and it’s difficult to understand at the moment and we certainly need to ask the tyre supplier some questions’.