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Jorge Martin ended a perfect Saturday, after taking pole in qualifying and triumphing by a narrow margin in the Sprint race. The Spaniard with an excellent start immediately made his mark on the race dictating the pace and leaving a vacuum behind him. The mistake at the first corner by Marc Marquez allowed him to "breathe a sigh of relief" he later told reporters, while Bagnaia with some problems had to give way to Marc and Enea and wrapped up the trio of the fastest riders, thus handing Martin a 16-point lead over the Italian. The Phillip Island track, the first of the last four battlegrounds in the fight for the title, thus laid the groundwork for the start of the final clash, with the Spaniard at the moment in the lead but without ignoring key players such as Marquez and Bastianini to act as tiebreakers in this final rush of the championship.
"It was a great race, a perfect Saturday in terms of results, but not perfect in terms of sensations," began the Spaniard, "because perfection does not exist. There are some details of the balance of the bike that I would like to improve for tomorrow's race but overall it was a perfect start, I was able to slowly increase the gap and then manage until the end of the race. It wasn't easy to keep my concentration up in some moments but to win today was incredibly satisfying."
You only had one session in the dry to be able to prepare for tomorrow's race.
"It definitely won't be easy, we didn't try the medium. The soft in the middle of the race started to drop so it won't be easy to make a decision, but Ducati has very good engineers who will definitely give us a hand. In terms of feeling and riding style though, I already feel ready for tomorrow, the pace was fast. With the medium unfortunately I didn't even ride yesterday because of the crash, today Bezzecchi used it but he didn't seem very fast so we will have to decide also based on this information."
What lessons have you learned from this first taste of Phillip Island?
"I think we still have room for improvement on the electronics. Riding most of the time alone helped me refine the feeling on the bike, and that made me realize what I need to go even faster. I already know what direction to take ahead of tomorrow's race in terms of bike setup."
In the Sprint you pushed from the very first laps, could that be the best strategy for tomorrow as well?
"In the first two laps I pushed a lot it's true, then I don't know if there was less wind today, but even though I wasn't pushing I kept improving. Being in the 1'27''9, 1'27''8 was not an effort, and if someone like Marc had caught me I would have had something more to give. But the more I focused on those details the more I was in danger of losing focus, so the key is also in that balance on a mental level. If you push too hard you risk crashing, but even if you go too slow you can still make a mistake. Today I kept a steady pace and that's what gave me an advantage."
Who do you think can be your main rival tomorrow?
"It will be Marc without a doubt. I knew that before the Sprint. I don't know what happened to him at the beginning of the race, in the first laps I had Bezzecchi behind and that allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief, because with Marc behind it would have been a different story today. At the end he was able to keep my pace so we'll see what happens tomorrow. Even if he were to take the lead in the race it could be good, it would allow me to follow him and it's not with him that I'm fighting for the title, the important thing is to be fast."
Even in qualifying you took a risk by fitting the hard front.
"I wanted to give it a try because I thought that if I used the medium on the front first, I wouldn't have time to bring the hard to temperature. I think it was a good choice, we've had problems with this kind of decision in the past."
What makes you so competitive here in Australia?
"I know but I can't tell you! - he joked with the reporters - here we race in a similar style to Moto3, with lots of cornering speed and changes of direction. What makes the difference here besides the temperatures is also the wind, depending on how it comes the track changes, it can help you or be in your way."
Bagnaia, on the other hand, seems to be having problems.
"I worked like in Japan, I don't know what happened to him, the truth is that I only focus on myself, I already have my own problems to deal with without having to think about his as well."
