Jorge Martin penalized at Jerez: penalty imposed for impeding Alex Marquez

Bad news for Martin, penalized after MotoGP Practice at Jerez: here’s what happened this afternoon.

Jorge Martin is very keen to do well in the Spanish Grand Prix, but his Sunday race has gotten more complicated after the official announcement that was released a short while ago. For riding too slowly through turns 3–4 and impeding Alex Marquez, the FIM MotoGP Stewards Panel has handed him a 3-place grid penalty to be served on Sunday. Based on his result in Saturday morning’s Qualifying, he will be demoted on the grid. A handicap he would have gladly done without, but that’s how it went and he has to accept the sanction. The incident occurred during this afternoon’s pre-qualifying.

Penalty aside for the long race, today Martin achieved the goal of finishing in the top 10 in Practice and thus earning direct access to Q2 in Qualifying. He set the ninth fastest time, the “worst” among the Aprilia riders, as all the others finished ahead of him. But it’s when points are awarded that it matters to be in front. Notably, he had a crash during the session and another after the end of FP1; fortunately, there were no physical consequences for him.

Jerez isn’t one of his favorite tracks, but he’s trying to do his best. He’s not as dialed in as in Austin, and together with the team he will try to work hard to improve for the rest of the MotoGP weekend. Even though he has repeated several times that he’s not thinking about the world title at this point in the season, the goal remains to score valuable points for himself and for Aprilia.

Ducati seems stronger compared to recent Grands Prix, so there could be a very interesting battle between the riders of the two Italian manufacturers. Meanwhile, the other brands are struggling more and don’t appear capable of fighting for the top positions.