[E.B]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Can't find Martin's post race itw in proper forum language ATM, but he says that his rear tyre was rock-hard. Assuming this is true, which I tend to think, he could do nothing with his right hand and electronics were probably jammed. If tyre allocation is randomly done, he's not been targetted by the official supplier. Bad luck then.

Mat Oxley in Motorspor Mag explains what happened quite well. Bagnaia got a random dud rear tyre on Saturday and Martin got one on Sunday. Link follows:

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/a...in-the-desert/


This is how the riders explained it.

After the sprint Bagnaia told us he’d had a dud tyre without telling us he’d had a dud tyre.

“As soon as I opened the throttle I was sliding a lot, spinning a lot – it was different to the rest of the weekend,” he said. “It can happen, we were unlucky it happened in a race.”

Martin was much less diplomatic after the grand prix. And understandably, because while Bagnaia lost a potential extra seven points in the sprint, Martin lost a potential extra 17 in the GP.

“You saw at the start I had a big spin, so you can understand what happened – the rear tyre wasn’t working OK,” said the former Moto3 world champion, who got so sideways when he dumped the clutch that he nearly lost control. “I’m really disappointed the championship is being decided by a bad tyre. I struggled a lot: I couldn’t stop the bike, I couldn’t turn, I couldn’t open the throttle, it was like riding in wet conditions.”