MotoGP points leader Jorge Martin admits he is relieved to have put the “ghosts” of his Mandalika mistakes to rest after completing a lights-to-flag victory in the Indonesian Grand Prix.
The Pramac Ducati rider came into Sunday’s full-length encounter feeling the pressure after failing to score in Saturday’s sprint race. Martin finished down in tenth after a fall from the lead on lap one dropped him to the back of the field.
Having also crashed while leading in Indonesia last season, Martin redeemed himself by controlling the grand prix from the first turn and remaining error-free all the way to the flag.
Representing his first full-length grand prix win since the French Grand Prix in May, the maximum haul of 25 points goes a long way to restoring Martin’s lead over Francesco Bagnaia in the overall standings.
After Bagnaia halved the deficit to 12 points in the wake of his sprint victory, Martin’s Sunday win swelled that margin to 21 points with five rounds of the season remaining.
Admitting to being haunted by the “ghosts” of his previous errors mid-way through the race, Martin was happy to exact some “revenge” this time.
“I got some revenge today,” he joked. “I stopped and kissed the floor, because I think it is even better when you crash and then win, than if you win both races!
“It was a difficult race, not only for yesterday’s crash but the crash last season too.
“The mental side of it was really complicated and around lap 13 I started to have some ghosts [come up] about last year, but after getting through that part of the race everything was OK.
“At Turn 16 [where he crashed in the sprint race], I was really trying to manage it well and not make the same mistake as yesterday, so I am happy I learned from my mistakes.”
Though pushed all the way by Pedro Acosta, who closed to within 0.6s of the lead at one stage, Martin says he was determined to avoid taking risks to keep the GasGas Tech3 rider at arm’s length.
“I was really confident with a 1.4s gap and then he started catching,” he continued. “I was quite calm and I tried to keep the same pace, but he started catching me to [close to] 0.6s.
“At some point I found some more speed in the first part of the track so I started to build a bit of a gap. Sometimes I risked to increase the gap but I was in control.”
Looking ahead to the next round in Japan, Martin says his sprint race error will teach him to not get “too confident” as the title fight reaches a critical point.
“Let’s keep the momentum, every race weekend is different and this weekend I was maybe too confident,” he added.
“I felt really strong and everything came so good that I was too confident, then I made a mistake, so I need to be more alert.”
