Jorge Martin says he didn’t realise he had scored a rostrum in the crazy Austrian Grand Prix due to passing “seven or eight riders in the last three corners.”
Styrian GP victor Martin was running a strong fourth prior to the rain that turned the encounter upside down across the final half-a-dozen tours, the Pramac rider electing the follow the majority of the front-runners into the pits with only a few laps left to switch to his wet-shod Ducati.
Martin chased factory Ducati man Francesco Bagnaia to pass many of the riders that decided to brave the increasingly heavy rain and stay out on slicks, the duo lapping around 15-seconds faster than the dry runners on the final tour to scream across the line in second and third behind Brad Binder-who managed to make the gamble of staying out work to perfection.
The 2018 Moto3 world champion passed a struggling Fabio Quartararo and a crashing Marc Marquez to make sure he was the second of the stoppers, though admitted he was “nervous” throughout the tricky final segment of the race but went “completely crazy” when he realised he had scored a second successive rostrum .
“I was quite happy in the conditions and felt like I had good grip even though the rain was heavier, but then when we got to the first sector and it was completely raining I decided to stop when Marquez came in,” explained Martin.
“With the flag-to-flag I was a bit nervous and I made a mistake by being too aggressive, maybe lost a bit of time and it was difficult but I’m happy to have taken the risk and got the podium, especially because on the last lap I had to pass seven or eight riders in three corners and was pushing to the maximum.
“I thought I was fifth or sixth and when I saw I was on the podium I went completely crazy-even more than last week-so now I need to rest and try to understand what happened over the past two weeks because three podiums in seven races and (three) poles is amazing.
“For sure (pitting) was based on Marquez because I’m a rookie and need the experience, at the start it began to rain and I let him past into second because I thought maybe if he stops I will try also but then it ended up dry for most of the rest of the race and for sure when he stopped I came in too.
“I saw the others stay out but I thought if I stayed out I could have crashed so preferred to take the gamble (to stop), so a podium is enough for me.”
Martin added that the late rain appearance gave him the opportunity to grab a rostrum after struggling to make an impression on the leading trio, the Spaniard pointing to a botched move on Bagnaia that “pretty much finished” his race due to overheating his front tyre.
“I saw all the frontrunners going with the hard front and I said ‘OK, its hot today and I’ll take the gamble,’” continued Martin.
“At the start I felt quite OK and competitive but a lot of riders were quite aggressive like (Fabio) Quartararo, my team-mate (Johann) Zarco and (Marc) Marquez but even then I could stay towards the front.
“Then I tried to overtake Pecco (Bagnaia) and went wide which pretty much finished my race from that moment because being behind I had quite a lot of overheating at the front and was losing the front ever corner.
“Then when they got the gap of around a second I felt better and started to recover time, I felt confident and then the rain drops started so I decided to risk as I knew if I wanted the podium I had to take risks.”
