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Jorge Martin has confirmed that a front tyre pressure issue forced him to let Marc Marquez past shortly before the finish of the Indonesian Sprint earlier today.
Under MotoGP regulations, front tyre pressure must remain above the Michelin-mandated minimum threshold for at least 30% of the sprint race distance. Martin received a dashboard alert indicating his pressure was dangerously low, leaving him no choice but to let his title rival through to ride in his slipstream and build the pressure back up.
"I didn't get the best start, but four riders tried to squeeze into Turn 1 together ahead of me, which made it easy for me to take the lead. After that, I pushed to pull a gap on Marc and then focused on managing the distance, "However, I soon realized I was running below the minimum tyre pressure. I tried to push a bit harder to bring it up, but it wasn't enough. I had to let Marc through, and from that point on, everything changed and became much tougher. "I tried to stay close to launch an attack on the final lap, but I made a mistake at the end of the penultimate lap. After that, everything was lost. We never take risks with tyre pressures, so I don't know why it happened today," the 'Martinator' explained.
In the end, Martin crossed the line in fourth place after his late error allowed Ai Ogura and Fabio Di Giannantonio through to claim second and third behind Marquez. With the sprint victory, the world champion took over the top of the standings, leapfrogging Martin.
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