Motorcycle Racing

Dash message distraction led to Misano sprint-losing error

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing

Pramac MotoGP rider Jorge Martin says the error that cost him victory in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix sprint was caused by him being distracted by a message on his dashboard.

Championship leader Martin had shot to the lead at the start with a brilliant launch from second position, overtaking the factory Ducati of polesitter and title rival Francesco Bagnaia.

Despite Bagnaia breathing down om him in the middle part of the race, Martin was doing just enough to hold on to the position, as the two riders circulated within half a second of each other.

However, on lap 8 of 13, Martin ran wide into Turn 13, allowing Bagnaia to slip past him and take an important victory over him in a straight duel.

Speaking after the sprint, Martin revealed that he briefly lost concentration when he a received a warning message about exceeding track limits, which forced the mistake that decided the outcome of the sprint.

“I did a small mistake that I paid heavily because I lost a bit of concentration,” he summed it up.

“I just received a track limits warning in a bad place. I started looking at the dash in a bad place and I missed the line for two metres and then I let Pecco pass.

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“Till that moment I think I was really in a good position. Even if he was close I was having everything under control and I had a really good pace.”

MotoGP is planning to introduce Formula 1-style radio messages in a phased manner, with race direction set to be allowed a one-way line to riders from 2025 onwards.

Martin said it was important for MotoGP stakeholders to have a discussion with the race control to ensure messages, whether through means of radio or dash, are not transmitted to riders when they are focused on cornering.

“I didn’t try the radio messages but for sure if we have the radio you can with the team maybe understand where they can talk to you.

“Because I don’t know when race direction are sending these [text] messages but for sure if it’s in the middle of corner, sometimes there are a lot of colours [on the dash] and this isn’t yellow. so i just looked into it for a millisecond but I missed my line.

“So we need to speak with race direction to have some place on the track to send these messages because if not it can be a big problem.”

Bagnaia’s sprint win has brought him within four points of Martin in the standings, meaning the Italian will retake the…

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