Pramac Ducati rider Jorge Martin leads the overall MotoGP standings (again) at the halfway point of the 2024 season – No match for Enea Bastianini at Silverstone
After his bitter crash while leading in the closing stages of the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring, Jorge Martin came to this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone ten points behind Francesco Bagnaia.
With P2 in the sprint behind Enea Bastianini and P2 again in the Grand Prix behind Bastianini, Martin managed to turn his ten-point deficit into a three-point lead.
Because “Pecco” Bagnaia had a crash on Saturday and finished third on Sunday. This means that the defending champion, but Martin, is the one who will tackle the second half of the 2024 MotoGP calendar season as the championship leader. Martin has thus reclaimed the lead in the standings, which he already held after seven other race weekends this season.
At Silverstone, it looked as if Martin could win the race, especially on Sunday. However, with a mistake in turn 3 on the penultimate lap, he involuntarily gave Bastianini the lead and thus his second victory of the weekend
@88jorgemartin goes wide at the same corner again!
He gifts the lead to @Bestia23 with less than two to go! BritishGP pic.twitter.com/SXUbfC6HIc
– MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) August 4, 2024
“I wanted to drive an intelligent race,” says Martin. “When Enea came close in the final phase, I wanted to keep up, but that wasn’t possible. The pace was extremely high. He was on a different level today.”
Martin has regained the world championship lead. However, he did not win on the track on Saturday or Sunday. And so, looking ahead to the first race of the second half of the season, the Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg in two weeks’ time, he says: “Hopefully we can strike back in Austria.”
Unlike on the Sachsenring Sunday, Martin stayed in the saddle on the Silverstone Sunday. “I did my best and the best thing today was second place. If someone beats me because he’s stronger, then I can’t control that,” he said, paying tribute to Enea Bastianini.
