Jorge Martin revealed he was “scared” after running into severe vibrations under braking en-route to a new lap record and second straight pole at the Red Bull Ring.
Martin banged in a 1:22.643s to once again lower the MotoGP record at the Austrian venue, a time over three-tenths-of-a-second quicker than his then record-breaking tour last weekend for the Styrian Grand Prix, denying series leader Fabio Quartararo by a slender 0.034s.
The Pramac rider achieved this despite having to grab one of the final two pole shootout passages in Q1 after crashing out on his final flyer in Saturday morning’s FP3 session, the Spaniard also revealing that he had to contend with severe vibrations coming from his Desmosedici under braking.
Martin-who also claimed his first career MotoGP victory in the Styrian GP- says that he dealt with a similar problem while chasing pole in Moto3 at Le Mans back in 2018, an experience that allowed him to “keep pushing” to score the third pole of his impressive rookie premier class campaign.
“It was a really complicated day because we had some bad moments and then an impressive qualifying,” said Martin.
“I wasn’t riding comfortably from the start of the day, I felt like a rookie because everything I tried the bike was snaking a lot and I had no rear grip, though still could post competitive times because I was in the top five at one point in FP3 but then when it was time to push I was a bit nervous and lacking a bit of confidence and I crashed.
“This meant I didn’t have a lot of confidence for qualifying, but then we tried many different things for FP4 and we found the solution and as you could see in qualifying I was much more confident and had much better stability under braking.
“I was a bit scared because there were a lot of vibrations from the front, but only on braking, and I remember that I got pole in Moto3 at Le Mans with the same thing so I kept pushing and managed to get the pole.”
The ’18 Moto3 world champion insisted that he is “confident” that he should be in the battle for a second successive win in the Austrian GP, though outlined he was expecting stiff competition from his fellow Ducati riders, reigning MotoGP world champion Joan Mir as well as Quartararo.
“I’m confident for tomorrow, for sure we can see Fabio (Quartararo), Pecco (Bagnaia) and (Johann) Zarco and (Joan) Mir maybe these four riders look strong as do I so we’ll see if we can manage the tyre a bit for the end,” continued Martin.
“I’m living the dream to be in MotoGP and making pole positions and podiums, it’s incredible and I hope to learn a lot tomorrow and finish in the top five.
“I know that’s not very optimistic but as a rookie that’s enough and I don’t want to put a lot of pressure on myself, I think we can fight for the win but if we can’t that’s OK.”
