Jorge Martín finished the second day of testing at Losail in seventh place and although he felt good overall, he revealed a problem that made him very uncomfortable, especially during and after his last stint on the track, which he wants to see resolved as soon as possible, otherwise his performance at the opening round of the World Championship will be severely limited.
The rider, one of the favorites and most serious contenders for victory in the world championship, was asked by the press on site if he had everything sorted outfor the start of the season, and he replied: ‘Well, I don’t know. I felt quite confident until the last stint, very confident with the pace, doing 1m52s with a very used medium tyre, 20 laps, and I think we improved almost a second of the race and then on the last exit I tried to do a long exit to do a Sprint simulation but right away I felt a lot of vibration in the rear and this is a problem I had the whole test. Compared to the other Ducati bikes they don’t have it so I’m hoping we can find a solution and I hope it’s something in the bike that’s not working properly. We have two weeks to analyze it because, if I have these vibrations during the race weekend, I’m going to have a lot of trouble being ready for victory’.
On the problem, the Spaniard clarified: ‘It only happened to me… Well, it used to happen when we had 20 or 22 laps and we were very close to the limit and today I felt this problem from the very second lap. I don’t know if it’s something with the swingarm, the frame or whatever. We’re going to put everything new on for the race weekend and I hope the problem goes away because, at the moment, I can’t accelerate the way I want to because of this vibration’.
The problem apparently didn’t just happen with one bike: ‘Yes, I had this problem with both bikes. I rode one more because we didn’t have many fairings, and yesterday it was more about the tyre and today more about the bike, which isn’t working. I’m happy, because I feel that when everything is right I’m very fast, but on the other hand I feel a bit disappointed with the situation and I hope that I can be more relieved in FP1 in two weeks’ time’.