Martin: “I hope the MotoGP title won’t be decided in an office”

A repeat low-pressure offence by those on a warning in any of the four remaining races (two Sprints, two GPs) will result in a +3 second post-race time penalty, or +6s for Aleix Espargaro, who has already offended twice.

“I hope it won't be decided in an office and it will be decided on track,” admitted Martin, who starts this weekend’s penultimate Qatar round 14 points behind reigning champion Bagnaia.

Factory Ducati rider Bagnaia, who received his warning last time at Sepang, insisted he can cope with the altered handling of a higher tyre pressure.

“Honestly, I did many, many, many races this year with high pressure in the front and normally, I feel that it’s high, but it's not changing too much the performance of my lap time,” he said.

“So I'm already used to race with 0.2-0.3 [bar above] the normal. But it’s quite clear from the first time we spoke about this rule that I was not happy and I'm still not happy because I don’t think it’s helping anything.”

A more conservative starting pressure is the likely approach those on a warning will take.

But the other is to gamble on a lower starting pressure and either hope it rises above the minimum for the stipulated 33% (Sprint) or 50% (GP) of race laps, or that it’s possible to use the increased performance to break more than 3 seconds clear of the rider behind, negating the points loss from a penalty.

“I [don’t] think any one of our teams will take a gamble to risk to race close to the limit because 3 seconds can make a big difference in terms of results,” Bagnaia said. “You can try to push to have more than three seconds, but it's very difficult. So you can lose like four or five positions.”

Martin agreed: “I think as Pecco said, we won’t take a gamble. But for sure, you feel the difference [with higher pressure].”

Friday MotoGP practice starts in Qatar at 15:45 local time.