All but the most ardent Francesco Bagnaia fans must have felt something for Jorge Martin on Sunday night at the Qatar Grand Prix.
The title challenger had closed to within seven points with another typically impressive sprint performance 24 hours earlier. Stretching his raw speed over a grand prix distance is never a given, but alongside Bagnaia on the second row he had even odds of maintaining the tight points gap going into this weekend’s title finale.
But his race never really got going. A lurid spin of his rear tyre off the line almost decked him on the grid, and that set the tone for a horror-show 22 laps of Losail.
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Massively lacking traction, Martin was a sitting duck. Eighth at the end of the first lap, he slipped inexorably backwards to 10th, fortunate that Marc Márquez on his wayward Honda and his compliant Pramac teammate Johann Zarco were behind him and unable to deal him a final blow in the closing laps.
It was painful to watch, one of the sport’s stars neutered of performance.
With Bagnaia taking second behind sensational first-time winner Fabio di Giannantonio, Martin’s championship deficit blew out to an unlikely 21 points with one round remaining, his title hopes coming perilously closed to being finally extinguished.
The pace that had delivered him victory the day before had completely evaporated. And Martin thought he knew what was to blame.
“I think you could see at the start when the rear tyre started spinning,” he said, per Autosport. “It was like a stone.
“Normally this happens when the track is dirty — it wasn’t, because it was the grid — and when the tyre maybe has 30 laps [on it], and it didn’t, because it was new. So you can guess what happened.
“It’s a pity. A championship like this, after such a great season, working hard — I feel like they [Michelin] stole it from me, because I think I could do [win] before this race.
“Now it’s really difficult.”
LOSER: MICHELIN
Michelin responded, telling The Race that it saw no reason to expect its tyres to have played a role in Martin’s mystifying performance. An immediate post-race investigation showed no obvious problems with the rubber. Tyre pressures were within a normal window, and Martin’s tyres showed less graining that those on other bikes.
The manufacturer also said the batch of tyres used in Qatar were brand new and sent directly to the circuit, meaning any possible problem couldn’t have come about through extended or imperfect storage on its part, for example.
A more fulsome inquiry will take place back at Michelin headquarters.
Could there be any truth to the accusation?
Certainly there’s a general mood among riders that occasionally they cop a suspect tyre that performs less well than the others.
Bagnaia appeared to hint at something similar on Saturday night after the sprint, in which he had no answer for Martin’s pace despite looking like the quicker of the two over the weekend up to that point.
“It’s something that you can’t manage,” Bagnaia said without explicitly naming the problem on Sunday. “You start and preparing perfectly all the weekend and then you start the race and you start to feel different.
“It’s something we have to improve. We know perfectly that right now these kinds of problems are increasing because the pace and the limit is moving more at the front — we are going every time faster and faster and faster.
“A little thing on the tyres can make a big, big step. What I said yesterday was that the rear tyre for me was not as perfect as the one in the morning, and it made me lose 0.2 or 0.3 seconds a lap — it’s nothing considering the pace, but it can make a big, big difference. But we have to deal with it.
“Maybe [in the sprint] I had the luck that the race was just 11 laps.”
It was a diplomatic answer that gave you enough to get a sense of what’s going on.
LOSER: JORGE MARTIN
But there’s also enough circumstance to believe that Martin’s performance probably wasn’t completely down to the rubber.
MotoGP’s Qatar return has been challenging. The track’s new surface, completed for the Formula 1 grand prix held last month, has changed the game, effectively turning it into a new circuit.
There was plenty of uncertainty over set-up through the practice sessions. Martin seemed most affected by it, particularly in timed practice on Friday night, when he refused to join the track without fresh tyres. He seemed particularly worked up in the lead-up to the sprint, with track evolution unclear.
And while there have been few signs of the pressure eating away at the Spaniard in terms of his speed, can it be completely discounted when in the last month he’s made a handful of unforced errors that have left him incapable of dealing Bagnaia a knockout blow?
Whatever the percentage combination, Martin leaves Qatar 21 points down on the reigning champion and needing a remarkable turn of fortunate to get back onto terms by the end of the season finale in Valencia this weekend.
If the inevitable does indeed pass on Sunday night, it’ll be tempting to blame the events in Losail.
But the championship is long. Martin took until June to collect his first grand prix win, and in the later stages of the season he’s fumbled despite being in superlative form over a single lap and in the sprints.
Bagnaia, meanwhile, hasn’t finished off the podium in a grand prix since the second round of the year.
Riders will always be challenged by adversity beyond their control over a season this long. Championships are won by being in a position to absorb those blows.
Martin has one more race to prove he can, though it’s now largely out of his hands.
WINNER: PECCO BAGNAIA
Bagnaia wins from Martin’s problems, but it would be grossly unfair to say he’s defaulted his way there.
This was a tremendous ride from the reigning world champion.
Let’s not forget that Bagnaia had built up a mammoth 5.6-second lead over everyone bar Fabio di Giannantonio with four laps to go. Only that late mistake in the Gresini’s slipstream trying to take back the lead left his result short of completely emphatic.
It was a special ride that underlined Bagnaia’s status as a world champion.
Bagnaia’s approach makes him an ideal grand prix motorcycle rider. His methodical build-up to each weekend ensures he’s always in an excellent place to score heavily on Sunday — that podium consistency demonstrates as much.
The introduction of the sprint is what’s thrown a spanner in that finetuned machine.
Had this been a conventional pre-2023 season, in which points were available only on Sunday, Bagnaia would already be the world champion with an unassailable 42-point advantage over Martin.
It’s only because of Martin’s 21-point lead in the sprint standings that it’s still in dispute.
That’s no slight on Martin — it’s up to riders to race by the rules of the year — but it reframes any perceived weakness in Bagnaia’s title defence.
And given the biggest points are still paid out on Sunday, it’s not surprising to find him with one hand on the championship trophy with one round remaining.
“It’s put me in the best situation possible,” he said. “But it’s very easy to lose points in this kind of championship with 37 points and with he situation we have.
“Maybe for the forecast, maybe for many things, it will not be easy for sure.
“But we arrive in Valencia in the best situation.”
WINNER BUT STILL A LOSER: FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
Someone give this man a ride already.
Fabio di Giannantonio has turned himself into the year’s good news story with his late-season upturn in form.
His podium in the late melee at the Australian Grand Prix was heralded, but it was blown out of the water by his superb weekend performance in Qatar.
Second in the sprint was just a taste. Having realised he had an edge over practically everyone when it came to managing the tyres, he was the only rider capable of following Bagnaia more than five seconds up the road, and he pounced with four laps remaining.
The move was firm but fair. Bagnaia’s subsequent mistake trying to take the place back at the end of the front straight had nothing to do with Diggia’s riding.
It was a hard-fought, hard-earnt and richly deserved victory for the year’s most improved rider.
And yet he’s still unemployed for 2024.
There’s a certain irony that Di Giannantonio’s revival has coincided with the seismic shift in the rider market that’s left him without a seat, his Gresini bike snatched from under him by Marc Márquez.
True, Gresini appeared to be lining up a Moto2-origin replacement anyway, holding off only when it got a sniff that Márquez could be on the market.
But that somehow makes it crueller still. Despite the subsequent rider reshuffle that’s given him time to show his wares, he still has no firm offer on the table.
The 25-year-old Italian has been copping the situation on the chin, and his Qatar result proves that he’s been able to mentally compartmentalise his off-track struggles to perform at his best.
If nothing else, it’s delivered him a premier-class victory.
“Nobody can steal your results,” he said. “For the rest of my life, if I look at Qatar 2023 race in MotoGP, I will always be the winner. I’ll always be proud of my achievement of today.
“But also I’m not free at all. This is my dream. It’s the dream of our lives to race at this level in this championship with these bikes and to live with this job.
“I’m not free at all because I would love to continue my journey. I will be free once and if I could sign a contact for next year.”
With VR46 signalling it would prefer to take a rider from the lower classes to replace the soon to be Honda-bound Luca Marini, Di Giannantonio’s struggle looks set to stretch to 2025.
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