First, let’s look at the sad part of this feature. This isn’t exactly a title fight for the ages. The 2024 season sees two front-runners Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia stand out from the crowd, both adept at throwing big scores when they gain some momentum. Bagnaia had seven DNFs at the start of the Indonesian Grand Prix. Then he had a very poor weekend overall. Other than winning the sprint on Friday, there was no indication that he would play any part in the battle for victory and that was it.
But with Bagnaia rattled after suffering a DNF at the Emilia Romagna GP, Martin’s chance to inflict maximum damage was thwarted when he caused an unnecessary crash in the previous sprint. At this point Martin was four tenths down on the peloton and his prediction of a breakaway looked to be coming true. He still cannot explain the crash at Turn 16 as it caused problems with the track he crashed on. There were reports over the weekend that this corner has no grip. So maybe Martin’s guess is correct. He crashed in FP 2 but took pole without incident, setting a new lap record in qualifying.
However, Bagnaia behind him saw him cornering so aggressively that there is strong evidence that Martin was pushing the limit with a fuel load higher than his qualifying tires and cooler tyres. The 2024 rear tires also have high traction elements to help push the front and avoid crashes. Despite this, Martin went scoreless in the winning sprint, giving Bagnaia the win and cutting his championship lead to 12 points. This left him with “ghosts in his head” during the 2023 Grand Prix, where he crashed from start to finish, holding the lead, particularly at odds 16 and 11. But the Pramac pilot consciously demonstrated real mental toughness as he approached his final goal.
“After 13 laps I had a couple of ghosts in the head at Turn 11 and then at Turn 16 I had a ghost every lap,” he said. “I tried to be very careful. We had a strong wind from the left. It was hard for me to turn around and it felt like I was riding a scooter. I know I lost a lot to Acosta in that division, but I thought if I lose here, I’d push for another division. So I think I was very careful at the beginning of the race to try to understand the situation, then I tried to push a little bit every lap.”
The threat of Pedro Acosta was very real for Martin. Even on lap 17 of 27, Tech3 rookie GASGAS was 0.6 seconds behind him. In terms of average speed, Martin has done enough to ensure that the threat does not lead to serious consequences. Running an average of 1m31.058s compared to Acosta’s 1m31.168s made all the difference, and a 1m30.774s lap over 24 laps was indicative of real speed on the tyre. The final result showed Acosta 1.4 seconds behind Martin at the checkered flag, but in reality the gap was 2.4 seconds after 25 laps. The drop at the front was due to Martin slowing down in the closing laps as he took his first Grand Prix win in France.
Main rival Bangnaya didn’t actually run the same race as Martin and, as expected based on his form on Friday, struggled to get to the middle rear wheel. Although Bagnaia had a good pace, he had a bad start and had to ask Ducati to handle it, so he finished fourth and qualified. It took about six laps for his medium rear tire to warm up, but the damage he did here was significant. On the stage, Bagnaia was 0.550s slower than Martin, who was leading. With the tires up to temperature, Bagnaia set a best lap of 1m30.542s to Martin’s 1m30.729s and, like Martin, clocked a 1m30.7s with 24 laps remaining. But the first round changed everything, and Bagnaia has a theory why. “For me, it’s when I’m on the front row and there’s nobody in front of me. If you compensate for the lack of rear traction with the brakes, you can gain a lot,” he explained slowly after the race. First shift.“And when you are behind, you can’t brake hard, you can’t push as much as you want, and the rear tyre is maybe not ready. Maybe in the GP24 you are at the back. But after five or six laps I was back to my rhythm, I was pretty strong. But I missed the first five laps.The gap between the two is now 21 points. Which is not much overall because there are still five laps to go. But Bagnaia hasn’t been at the top of the standings since the Austrian GP, coincidentally the last time he won a Grand Prix. Al
though the gap between the two has narrowed by a few points since then, Bagnaia has never looked in control. Certainly seven retirements so far this year, compared to Martin’s four non-points, confirm that a bit.
Looking at the points from the last eight rounds, Martin is on 195 and Bagnaia on 192. It’s close, but Martin’s overall consistency is steadying the ship and Indonesia looked like a big step up for the Pramac rider – despite his needless crash in the sprint.
COULD BASTIANINI CHANGE THE RACE?
The only question mark hanging over the Indonesian GP revolves around Enea Bastianini. The Ducati rider was on the same pace as Martin after Friday practice, and both looked favourites to take the win. After finishing second in the sprint, Bastianini was clearly the better of the two factory Ducati riders in the Grand Prix. But he also had the same problems as Bagnaia in the early stages of the race. He made a much better start, moving from fifth to second before dropping back to fifth on lap six. His pace on the warm-up medium over the first six laps was better than Bagnaia’s, but Bastianini was still about 0.460 seconds off Martin’s average pace at this point. Once he really got going, Bastianini’s speed was astonishing.
Between laps 9 and 14, and again between laps 18 and 20, he completed a total of nine laps in 1:30 (Martin did eight). On lap 20, he set the fastest lap of the race in 1:30.539, while his average pace was around 1:31.182 – although he was more than a tenth of a second slower than Martin, who controlled the race from the front. With eight laps to go, the gap to Martin was 2.5 seconds, Acosta was 1.5 seconds ahead of Bastianini in second place. What hampered Bastianini’s comeback was his battle with Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli for third a few laps earlier. The attempt to execute the manoeuvre into Turn 2 on Lap 16 failed, but was successfully executed the next time. But on lap 16 Bastianini lost 0.7 seconds compared to the previous lap, while that loss was 0.440 seconds when he passed Morbidelli.
With a free lap on lap 18, he was immediately eight-tenths quicker. How much that contributed to pushing him harder into Turn 1 than he had previously done on lap 21 when he crashed is unclear, but the time loss in passing Morbidelli was extreme enough to put him further away from the leaders than he otherwise would have been at that stage of the race. In reality, Bastianini’s pace was enough to close in on Acosta – whose average was 1m31.168 – and probably pass the KTM rider too. When he crashed, Bastianini was 0.433s per lap quicker than Acosta with seven laps to go. But getting to Acosta quickly enough to pass him and then challenge Martin was a bit much to ask. But even a podium for Bastianini would have given Martin three more points than Bagnaia.
Bastianini, now 75 points behind Martin, admitted after the race that this was “one of the last chances” to seriously enter the title fight. Marc Marquez joined Bastianini, 78 points behind, and is now almost on the brink of the title fight. Marquez’s race ended on lap 12 due to an engine failure on his Gresini Ducati. A brilliant sprint from 12th to third brought him closer to Martin. But his two crashes in Q2 took their toll on him in the Grand Prix, so even without the defect he was aiming for fourth, and perhaps third if he could match Bagnaia’s speed at the end. Sure, mathematically speaking, Bastianini and Marquez remain in the game. But Martin and Bagnaia are, like last year, clearly the two protagonists. And maybe now it’s Martin who loses if the consistency he showed after the summer break can be matched by the control he had at the Indonesian GP last Sunday…
