Valencia Grand Prix

Pramac MotoGP rider Jorge Martin says he thought he would miss the Valencia Grand Prix as he spent all of Saturday night vomiting and hadn’t eaten since Saturday lunchtime. The rookie qualified on pole for Sunday’s final round of the 2021 MotoGP season and was one of the favourites to challenge for victory. Leading from lap two through to lap 14, Martin was holding eventual winner Francesco Bagnaia at bay before the Italian eventually found a way through on the 15th tour. Martin then had to fend off the sister factory team Ducati of Jack Miller to hold onto second, which sealed him the rookie of the year crown. But Martin revealed afterwards that he didn’t sleep on Saturday night into Sunday owing to an illness and was worried about the fact he hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day. “Yeah, well it was an unbelievable race,” Martin said in parc ferme directly after the race. “From 10pm yesterday till 5am today, I wasn’t sleeping, I was vomiting. “It was really difficult, I thought I couldn’t make the race. But thanks to the doctors, to Angel Charte, to all the Clinica Mobile, because they helped me a lot. “The thing I was scared about is I didn’t have any food since yesterday’s lunch. For sure a MotoGP race is very physical and I tried my best. “I was fully focused, no mistakes. Finally in the last laps Jack was pushing, so last lap I was giving my 100%.” Second capped of an incredible rookie year for Martin, which yielded three podiums and a victory at the Styrian Grand Prix – as well as four pole positions. “Second position is unbelievable, my first second position of the year,” he added. “I’m really happy for the team, to finish the season this way with a pole and a podium is amazing. Now we have the motivation for the future.” Martin missed the post-race press conference due to his illness. Despite missing four races through injury after a serious crash during practice for the Portuguese GP, Martin beat Avintia’s Enea Bastianini by nine points and ends the year ninth in the points.

Pramac’s Jorge Martin upstaged the works Ducatis – both of which crashed – to take the fourth pole of his MotoGP rookie season at the Valencia finale. Martin and Jack Miller had been equal first early in Q2 having both set 1m30.325s laps. But then Pecco Bagnaia blew the rest away with consecutive new benchmark laps of 1m30.118s and 1m30.000s as he chased his sixth straight pole. He kept pushing for a third flying lap only to crash and bring out yellow flags that stymied most others’ laps. Martin appears to have got through that sector before the yellows came out, and he produced a 1m29.936s to halt Bagnaia’s streak. Miller also crashed on his final lap while looking set to improve. But despite their falls, Bagnaia and Miller hold on to second and third on an all-Ducati front row. Suzuki had another strong qualifying session – 2020 champion Joan Mir fourth and team-mate Alex Rins coming through from Q1 to sixth, split by Martin’s team-mate Johann Zarco. Seventh-placed Brad Binder also progressed from Q1. He wasn’t just the only KTM rider in Q2, but the only one of its work pair anywhere near making it out of Q1. Miguel Oliveira was slowest of all in qualifying, six tenths of a second away from Binder in Q1. The Tech3 KTMs of Iker Lecuona and Danilo Petrucci start 15th and 16th for the pair’s MotoGP farewells. Newly-crowned champion Fabio Quartararo struggled again, down in eighth, three places ahead of Yamaha team-mate Franco Morbidelli. Valentino Rossi was straight into Q2 on practice pace for his final MotoGP start and went on to qualify 10th. Takaaki Nakagami was best of the reduced Honda contingent in ninth for LCR. After his superb Portimao performance last week, Nakagami’s team-mate Alex Marquez came back down to earth in miserable fashion as a Turn 2 crash in Q1 left him second-slowest. Andrea Dovizioso secured the best qualifying result of his MotoGP comeback so far, putting the Petronas SRT Yamaha 13th on the grid and missing Q2 by just half a tenth. There were no Repsol Hondas running in qualifying following Pol Espargaro’s vicious morning crash. It is not yet clear if he will be fit to race tomorrow. Honda has elected not to replace Marc Marquez – absent for a second straight race as vision problems have followed his recent concussion – for the finale so Espargaro was due to represent the works team alone. Despite Aleix Espargaro’s Friday rage, he did make it into Q2 for Aprilia via his Saturday morning pace but was slowest in the pole shootout. VALENCIA MOTOGP, CIRCUIT RICARDO TORMO – FULL QUALIFYING RESULTS POS RIDER NAT TEAM TIME/DIFF LAP MAX 1 Jorge Martin SPA Pramac Ducati (GP21)* 1’29.936s 8/9 329k 2 Francesco Bagnaia ITA Ducati Team (GP21) +0.064s 7/8 326k 3 Jack Miller AUS Ducati Team (GP21) +0.389s 3/8 329k 4 Joan Mir SPA Suzuki Ecstar (GSX-RR) +0.459s 7/9 326k 5 Johann Zarco FRA Pramac Ducati (GP21) +0.482s 7/9 329k 6 Alex Rins SPA Suzuki Ecstar (GSX-RR) +0.539s 3/7 323k 7 Brad Binder RSA Red Bull KTM (RC16) +0.573s 5/7 324k 8 Fabio Quartararo FRA Monster Yamaha (YZR-M1) +0.684s 3/8 321k 9 Takaaki Nakagami JPN LCR Honda (RC213V) +0.708s 7/9 323k 10 Valentino Rossi ITA Petronas Yamaha (YZR-M1) +0.810s 6/9 324k 11 Franco Morbidelli ITA Monster Yamaha (YZR-M1) +0.845s 3/8 320k 12 Aleix Espargaro SPA Aprilia Gresini (RS-GP) +1.088s 7/8 324k   Qualifying 1:           13 Andrea Dovizioso ITA Petronas Yamaha (YZR-M1) 1’30.859s 7/9 317k 14 Maverick Vinales SPA Aprilia Gresini (RS-GP) 1’30.991s 7/8 321k 15 Iker Lecuona SPA KTM Tech3 (RC16) 1’30.994s 7/9 326k 16 Danilo Petrucci ITA KTM Tech3 (RC16) 1’31.045s 7/9 317k 17 Luca Marini ITA Sky VR46 Avintia Ducati (GP19)* 1’31.073s 7/8 323k 18 Enea Bastianini ITA Avintia Ducati (GP19)* 1’31.185s 7/8 321k 19 Alex Marquez SPA LCR Honda (RC213V) 1’31.251s 4/7 327k 20 Miguel Oliveira POR Red Bull KTM (RC16) 1’31.319s 3/8 321k   Pol Espargaro SPA Repsol Honda (RC213V) No Time 0/0 0