Martin: ‘No way I could win, no more tyre gambles’

Bolting from pole, Martin had pulled a 3.5s advantage over the field with ten laps to go, only for his victory hopes to spectacularly collapse in the closing stages.

After leading for 26 laps and 3 corners of the 27-lap distance, team-mate Johann Zarco and title rival Francesco Bagnaia steamed past Martin under braking for the Miller Hairpin.

Fabio di Giannantonio and Brad Binder then demoted Martin to the back of the chasing pack, in fifth.

But the young Spaniard still crossed the finish line just 1.008s from victory, underlining how close to glory the tyre gamble had been.

All other riders used the medium rear tyre on Saturday, except Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro. Marquez, who fought for victory with the soft rear last year, faded from 5th to 15th and Espargaro from 9th to 18th.

It was not as costly as Martin’s fall from the lead at Mandalika last weekend but the 25-year-old was once again left to ponder a victory that had suddenly slipped away.

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“Now, it's very easy to understand that the soft wasn't the right choice and it was the medium. But it is what it is.,” Martin told MotoGP.com

“I felt good. I was managing the distance [over the others] in the middle of the race. But then six laps to go was the moment when I started to struggle a lot. I saw that I had no rear tyre.

“I saw they were coming. Maybe there were two laps where I maintained a little bit the distance, but in the last lap they recovered half a second in two corners. So there was no way I could win.”

Starting the grand prix 18 points from Bagnaia, Martin looked set to close to within 6 points of the reigning champion for most of the grand prix.

Instead, he suffered his first on-track defeat at the hands of Bagnaia since the Catalunya Sprint and now sits 27 points behind the factory Ducati star heading into Sunday’s Sprint.

Martin pledged that from now on, he will go with the same tyre choice as his main rivals.

“The important thing is to not make any more mistakes on the tyre choice. Just try to go with the same as my opponents and I think this will be the key to try to win,” he said.

"For sure the medium rear was the best choice," said Michelin's Piero Tarramasso. "Jorge did a very good job to be quite fast until two laps from the end. He made the [soft] choice because he was sure he could manage until the end, that's racing."

All riders are expected to race the soft rear for the short 13-lap Sprint, should it proceed. The Sprint has swapped places with the main grand prix due to the extreme weather forecast for Phillip Island on Sunday.

Four more rounds then remain, starting in Thailand next weekend.