‘I didn’t have the spark’ - Jorge Martin explains Q2 miss at Brno MotoGP

Aprilia’s Jorge Martin says he “didn’t have” the “spark” he needed to secure a place in Q2 on Friday at the MotoGP Czech Grand Prix due to “really low” front grip.

The second-placed rider in the championship comes to Brno carrying two long lap penalties after triggering a pile-up at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

This has already severely hindered Jorge Martin’s hopes of scoring a podium at the Czech Grand Prix, with that task made all the more complicated by his failure to secure a Q2 place in Practice on Friday.

Martin was just 0.011s outside of the top 10 at the end of the hour-long session and complained of a lack of front-end grip for his struggles in time attack.

“I had good fun on the bike, honestly,” he said.

“I was always on the limit. Physically, I feel much better than what I expected, so this is really good.

“I don’t feel any limitation at all while riding, so this is good. Off the track, I feel the pain, but on the track, everything is good.

“Overall, I felt a really low feeling with the front during all the practice.

“I think I had some issues with the front tyre, and then I lost all that confidence.

“When I went into time attack, I didn’t have it, that spark to push.

“I was improving every run, but I didn’t have it, and I wasn’t able to go to Q2.

“But I think tomorrow will be another story. Everything will come back to normal.

“For sure, we need to work. It’s not that it will come just like this, but I feel that the other Aprilias are going fast, so something was wrong with my motorbike.”

Martin complained of front grip issues in recent races, too, which he and his Aprilia team “don’t really understand”.

“Yeah, it’s been a few races,” he added.

“It’s been Mugello also, then Balaton, and now here a bit the same issue with the front.

“I don’t really understand why, but we need to analyse and check what is going on.

“I feel we improved a lot during the practice, but still I’m far from the other guys, so we need to understand for tomorrow.”

‘Some teams were arguing…’

Martin took several trips through the long lap penalty lane during Friday’s sessions to improve grip there and test how much he could push.

He says he was initially told he could use the green painted area, but was then told this was not the case as “some teams were arguing about it”.

“I tried different lines,” he explained.

“They told me I was allowed to go to the green, so I tried to go on the green.

“Then some teams were arguing about that, so then they told me I couldn’t.

“So overall, in terms of safety, I think it’s safer to go on the green, because if somebody comes, I just go there.

“But yeah, I don’t lose a lot. Honestly, I’m cleaning [the track] quite a lot, and I hope that I will be losing around 1.5s, so it’s not a disaster for each long lap. I think it’s one of the fastest on the calendar.”

In 2020, Johann Zarco successfully served a long lap penalty at Brno and went on to finish third in the grand prix.