Jorge Martin “lost a lot of confidence” with Austria MotoGP practice crash

Reigning MotoGP world champion Jorge Martin says he “lost a lot of confidence” in his fast crash at the start of Practice on Friday at the Austrian Grand Prix.

The factory Aprilia rider was on an out-lap at the start of the hour-long Practice on Friday afternoon when he lost the front going through the penultimate corner.

While a fast off, Jorge Martin was able to walk away unscathed but had to complete the session with just one RS-GP.

He struggled for pace thereafter, ending the session down in 16th and out of the direct Q2 places.

It marked his first crash since returning from injury and is the first fall he has had this year on the Aprilia where he didn’t hurt himself.

“I need time to adapt, and the crash certainly didn’t help because, once back on the track, I had lost a lot of confidence and I struggled to brake hard,” he said.

“Lap by lap, the situation improved, but I still need time to have a good understanding of the bike.

“I feel like my potential and the bike’s potential are higher, but we still need to put all the pieces together.

“I hope that, along with the team, we’ll be able to find something that we can do on Saturday to take another step forward.”

Team-mate Marco Bezzecchi didn’t do any better on Friday, with the Italian down in 18th and also facing Q1 on Saturday morning.

“This morning, we started off extremely well, whereas in the afternoon, we struggled a bit more,” he said.

“I made a few small mistakes, and I also ran long a couple times too many, but that wasn’t the only problem.

“The feeling wasn’t the greatest. We simply need to analyse what happened carefully, study the data well, and try to rectify the situation on Saturday.

“We still have Q1, which we’ll try to use to our favour.”

Only one Aprilia made it into the top 10 direct Q2 places on Friday, with Trackhouse rider Raul Fernandez fifth fastest in Practice.

Though Aleix Espargaro did score a sprint podium at Red Bull Ring last year, it is a circuit that has typically not suited the Aprilia.