The Spaniard holds a lead of 18 factors within the championship after the opening two rounds of the season, marking the primary time he has ever headed the standings for greater than 24 hours.
Previous to Portugal, he led the championship on two events: as soon as after the dash race in Indonesia final yr, earlier than crashing whereas dominantly main within the grand prix, and once more after the Qatar GP dash in 2024 earlier than Francesco Bagnaia received on Sunday.
He branded his Portugal GP win as “actually mature”, with that maturity borne out in the best way he managed the race and being a key lesson he had realized from final yr in motion.
He mirrored on his Indonesia defeat in 2023 when altering his strategy to the Portuguese GP three weeks in the past, two races that in some ways had been equivalent.
In each, Martin was totally dominant because the chief, controlling the tempo and conserving sufficient in hand to stave off any assault the riders behind might have threatened.
In Indonesia, this gained him a lead of over three seconds earlier than he crashed out within the latter levels – handing a vital 25 factors to title rival Bagnaia on the time.
There was no repeat of this in Portugal on the finish of March this yr, with Martin managing issues higher to inflict most injury on reigning champion Bagnaia after his controversial tangle with Marc Marquez.
Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Pictures
“For certain, once they had been three, two tenths [behind], it wasn’t straightforward,” he stated when talking about Portuguese GP rivals Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini.
“However after I acquired that hole to seven tenths, then I stated ‘Okay, now it’s time to maintain this hole [stable]’. I keep in mind Indonesia, and I assumed it’s the identical profitable with eight tenths as with three seconds.
“Right this moment it was sufficient. In the event that they caught me one tenth, I might push one tenth. I had that margin to push a bit of bit extra. I’m tremendous completely happy as a result of I feel it’s an excellent mature one.”
Already after two rounds of the 2024 season, Martin is on 60 factors and is at a 30-point-per-weekend tempo following a GP win and a 3rd within the dash, in addition to a dash win in Qatar and third within the GP.
After two rounds final yr, Martin had solely scored 22 factors – although his incident with Marc Marquez within the Portuguese GP has a hand on this tally. Regardless, there was no bounce again in Argentina, the place he was solely eighth within the dash and fifth within the GP having been second within the Portugal dash.
The king of the dash format in 2023, profitable 9 of them, Martin feels the GP24 is working higher within the longer-distance races than within the quick Saturday contests.
But when the injury limitation is podiums each time, the consistency that in the end stopped him wanting the title final yr appears to be eradicated.
Whereas all eyes will likely be on Marc Marquez on this weekend’s Americas Grand Prix, at a circuit he’s sometimes assured to win at, it’s Martin who appears like essentially the most harmful risk coming into the third spherical of the yr.
