Jorge Martin: 'I won't lead the championship for long at this rate'

The MotoGP points leader admits his advantage is down to circumstance as much as speed

Jorge Martin may have the honour of leading the MotoGP world championship into the summer break - but the Spaniard is far from optimistic after another middling weekend in Germany.

Martin finished a distant fifth at the Sachsenring, over 11 seconds behind winner Marc Marquez. And the factory Aprilia rider did well even to hang onto that position given the intense pressure he faced from Francesco Bagnaia late in the race.

With the independent Trackhouse riders finishing second and third, this was just another example of Martin being near the back of the Aprilia brigade - a rot that set in after his perfect weekend at Le Mans in May.

Despite this latest unsatisfactory performance, Martin managed to extend his championship lead in Germany, from seven points over Marco Bezzecchi to 14 points over Ai Ogura. But the 2024 world champion is aware that this is largely down to his competitors tripping up over the first half of the season.

Early championship leader Bezzecchi is enduring a terrible run, and was ruled out of the Sachsenring weekend by a qualifying crash. Ogura is only just getting into his stride in terms of big points hauls, while Marquez is still catching up from injury problems and missed races earlier in the season. Even the consistent Fabio Di Giannantonio shipped a golden opportunity to claim the points lead in Germany, thanks to a crash on Sunday.

Jorge Martin, Aprilia Racing

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

"I [might] be leading now, but if I continue making races like this one, I won't be in the lead for long," said Martin after the race.

"For sure, we did a great first part of the season. I'm happy to be leading, obviously, because it's always a nice feeling, but... now we need to find the speed.

"I know that the potential is high. I was super confident in the first part of the season, then in the last few races I've been struggling with the speed. So we need to analyse well what happened and maybe go back to that bike [set-up] because I was feeling much better.

"But overall, I'm happy. If you told me in January [that I would be leading now, I would take it] 100%.

"And for sure, it will be an interesting second part [of the season]. The challenge is good, everything is super open.

"Maybe I'm leading more [because of] the mistakes of the rest than from my results, but I'm leading! So we have to continue like this."