Jorge Martin “always late to Sunday” as Germany MotoGP race work “useless”

Aprilia’s Jorge Martin says his race preparation prior to the MotoGP German Grand Prix sprint “was useless”, and he is “always late” in finding what he needs for Sundays.

The championship leader was off the pace on Friday, complaining of having “no strong points” on the factory Aprilia.

Qualifying ninth, Jorge Martin was able to recover to sixth in the sprint and put pressure on Trackhouse Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez in the closing stages of the 15-lap race.

Lacking confidence in the front-end, Martin says Aprilia made a lot of changes to his bike ahead of the sprint, which effectively rendered Saturday’s race as “my FP2”.

“About the sprint, I can say that I improved a lot from yesterday,” he said.

“From the morning also, I think we were losing a bit the direction in terms of set-up, and we saw the other Aprilia were in another direction.

“I came back to that way and I feel a bit better.”

Asked what was changed on the bike, he replied: “A bit of electronics. I'm working on my normal style, let's say, because I don't really want to go out of the line there, but set-up, we changed a lot of things for the sprint.

“So that's why I did two sighting laps to try to understand if the bike was better or not.

“But, honestly, in the morning I was losing three, four tenths to the Aprilias, and in the race I was able to be close to Raul [Fernandez] and also to [Ai] Ogura.

“So with that step, now we have to make another step, and let's see if tomorrow we have something else.”

Ducati has been a step ahead of Aprilia all weekend at the Sachsenring, with Martin admitting that it will be “difficult” to take the fight to the Italian brand on Sunday.

“For sure, here it's difficult,” he added.

“Also, starting from the back is tough. I think we were all weekend, I mean yesterday, today, all the work we did till the race was useless.

“So now it seems like it’s [the sprint] like my FP2, today was like my FP2, so I need to continue improving.

“I struggle a lot on Fridays to put everything together, and I'm always late to Sunday, and I need to understand this to fight the second half of the season.”

“The only nice thing from today…”

Martin made a rapid start, overtaking Pecco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo on the opening lap to get into the top six.

He says it was “the only nice thing” from his sprint.

“Yeah, it's not the first time I am able to do that,” he said.

“I remember in 2023 I already did the same overtake - I think to Jack [Miller] and Pecco -  and also, on Sunday, I remember I did the same.

“Today I saw the opportunity because they were fighting, so they were slower, and I overtook both of them.

“For sure, nice overtake, but I think it was the only nice thing from today.”