Championship leader Martin had to stop his sprint race at Mugello on Saturday. He was in third place when he lost control of his GP24 bike and fell off in the first corner with four laps left.
Even before the crash, Martin was falling behind the leaders, Francesco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez, who were both riding Ducatis. This was despite Martin’s good performances in longer races earlier in 2024.
Martin said, “We need to work because it seems like I use too much the front. After three laps I feel like the tyres already has 20 laps, so this is not good for sure like the rear is pushing. We need to improve the set-up for tomorrow, because with this bike I cannot be competitive.”
He added, “Even yesterday evening I did a [1m]46.1s [lap] with really used tyres and at the end of the sprint I was in 46.4 at my 100%. So something went wrong for sure.”
Martin’s retirement from the sprint was the first time he didn’t get any points in a sprint race in 2024. It was also his second big mistake of the year, after crashing out of the Spanish GP while leading.
Martin couldn’t explain why he fell off his bike this time, saying, “I don’t like when I don’t understand I crashed. Even if I look into it the temperature was okay, the pressure was okay.”
During the sprint, Martin had a collision with Enea Bastianini. They touched each other while racing into the same corner where Martin later crashed. Bastianini’s bike went off the track, but Martin continued racing until his own crash.
Talking about the clash, Martin said, “I did a normal line, he ran wide. It would have been avoided if he didn’t come again to the line without looking. I was lucky that he crashed and I didn’t.”
Martin planned to discuss the incident with the race officials later.
