Jorge Martin started Sunday looking destined to take the championship lead. Yet he ended it looking like he’d been forced to drink the contents of a thermometer.
Having won the sprint race in style on Saturday the Spaniard looked favourite to stand on the top step again in the main event and thus land another crucial boot in Bagnaia’s beard…but that never happened…
Instead Jorge was so off the pace on Sunday that Primark Ducati team manager Gino Borsoi was forced to ring Bradley Smith to ensure a comical ‘Netflix low budget film’ mix-up hadn’t occurred. It hadn’t. Instead Martin had, conveniently, been given another one of Michelin super-dud tyres.
The severity of his ‘duff one’ was evident from the very first seconds of the race. As the lights went green and all the other riders set off into the desert night Martin instead found himself slipping around like a freshly oiled haddock in a wet teacake factory. The Primark Ducati rider ended up finishing the race in a distant tenth whilst his rival, Pecco Bagnaia, finished second. This all but ended Martin’s hope of being champion.
Jorge, understandably, was so aggravated about the hoop of manure he was given that he went on a rant after the race not naming Michelin by name but as ‘that stupid French lot’ – so to avoid legal action. Martin blamed the tyre specifically for costing him the world championship.
But was it just a coincidence? Or, as some internet-experts have suggested, was it a stitch up? Had Michelin, on the orders of Ducati, done a ‘negative Rossi’ and supplied Jorge with a one-off terrible tyre?
Yes, that clearly happened.
It escaped nobody that the top brass in the factory Ducati team looked a bit miffed at the end of the sprint race as they all mopped around with faces like swollen bagpipes. Despite Ducati motorcycles claiming a podium lock-out their factory rider, Pecco Bagnaia, had had his lead whittled down to next-to-nothing.
Yet on Sunday, before the race had begun, the smug grins in the red team had all returned. There was talk that Ducati ‘had found something’ and were confident for the race. So when Martin’s tyre started playing up it all seemed a bit suspicious…but it doesn’t stop there.
Maybe it was bad luck you say? But two things point the finger elsewhere.
Firstly Jorge Martin also had a duff tyre on Friday which left him nowhere on the timesheets. The Spaniard spent all of FP1 & FP2 wondering what was going on and losing an entire day of set up.
Then there was the scale of how bad Martin’s rear tyre was in the race. Have we ever seen in recent MotoGP a tyre so terrible that it causes a rider to spin up as violently as that from the grid?
This looked more suspicious than an Australian in a higher education facility. Primark Ducati have control over every aspect of their bike…except the tyres which are fitted and balanced by Michelin. It’s not too much of a stretch to believe that factory Ducati, who are now officially the most evil team in MotoGP, could have used blackmail or croissant rationing to persuade the tyre manufacturer to make an ‘innocent’ yet costly mistake.
No, only halfwits would believe that.
The problem with Michelin is that they’re French. And if you’ve ever owned a French car then you’ll know the words ‘quality control’ are used even less often than ‘bath time’.
All MotoGP riders have, at one time or another, been randomly finding themselves suddenly on a crap tyre without explanation. But should we be surprised? Until 1956 French children were allowed to drink up to half a litre of wine at lunch. France is a country that really, really likes drinking wine so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Pierre and chums may be get a tad shaky towards the end of the day? And Martin simply got a ‘late afternoon’ special.
Or maybe something simpler like a poorly fitting beret falling into the tyre mix?
Whatever the reason Michelin seem really good at consistently delivering inconsistent tyres. Added to that their not-fit-for-purpose front tyre and we have a clear situation where the fat tyre man has entirely ruined this year’s MotoGP championship.