Jorge Martin admits he had nothing left to try and chase down Marco Bezzecchi at the US MotoGP at COTA.
Martin spent most of Sunday’s grand prix in third place before a mistake from Pedro Acosta led the Aprilia rider through.
Martin, who nearly crashed at turn one a few laps before overtaking Acosta at the same corner, was unable to close down his team-mate despite getting the gap down to under a second in the closing stages.
While Martin had plenty of laps left to try and catch Bezzecchi, the 2024 world champion says he “misunderstood the situation” early on in the race.
Jorge Martin, Fabio Di Giannantonio, 2026 US MotoGP.
© Gold and Goose
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Martin said: “I tried to push Marco [Bezzecchi] to the limit. I think I misunderstood the situation in the race because I thought the best option was to be behind Pedro [Acosta] and Marco.
“Then, I realised that I overheated the front and couldn’t do anything else.
“I tried to push Marco until the end but he was unbelievably fast. He is at an amazing level.”
Had Martin’s strategy been different the outcome could have been different as well. However, Martin was not so convinced as he began to struggle with his left arm in the final three laps.
Martin added: “I was pushing with everything but in the last three laps I had to give up because my left arm was completely destroyed.
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“I couldn’t brake in corner 12. Even though Marco did an incredible job, I couldn’t do anything more.”
With Bezzecchi crashing out of the sprint on Saturday, Martin was able to take over the championship lead following his sprint win, which marks the first time that’s happened since 2024. But after finishing second to the Italian during Sunday’s grand prix, Martin has now dropped back behind Bezzecchi by just four points.
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