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Jorge Martin said he will do whatever it takes to beat Francesco Bagnaia to the MotoGP world championship after his tailgating tactics paid dividends in Friday’s second practice session in Valencia.
Bagnaia is the strong favourite to retain his title thanks to a 21-point lead over Martin going into the final weekend of the season, which is live on TNT Sports.
However, the Italian was only 15th quickest on Friday, meaning he has to start in qualifying one on Saturday, after being put off his stride as Martin followed him around the Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Martin’s antics drew criticism from his own Ducati boss Davide Tardozzi and the Spaniard admitted it was not the best image for the sport, but said he had to try and force mistakes from Bagnaia to stand any chance of an unlikely comeback in the battle for the championship.
“I’m not going to lie the image you give is not nice, but it’s what I need to do because we are far away,” said Martin.
“The only way to beat him is to try to put him some pressure, try to force his errors or mistakes. For me I try to be fast and win, so it’s not easy but we are trying.”
Martin was second fastest behind Maverick Vinales in Friday’s second practice to comfortably cruise into qualifying two on Saturday.
Yet, Bagnaia hit back by saying his title rival would be better off focusing on his own performance as he tries to land a first MotoGP world title.
Martin has two opportunities to close the gap with a maximum of 12 points on offer in Saturday’s Sprint race and 25 more in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Bagnaia could seal the championship as early as Saturday should he build up at least a 25-point lead thanks to his six race wins this season to the Prima Pramac rider’s four.
“I think he needs to be more focused on his job because he needs to win both races and right now he is not the fastest,” said Bagnaia.
However, the defending champion recognised his need for a much-improved performance on Saturday to avoid blowing the lead.
“We already check more things on the data and I’m losing live five tenths on three corners so it’s a huge amount of time,” he added.
“But honestly it is better to have this kind of things, this kind of situations so we can solve it better and faster, so it is easier to understand where and why I’m losing time. Tomorrow it will be important to understand better the situation and try to push, but I’m quite confident we can do a big step tomorrow.”
Martin admitted even he was surprised that Bagnaia failed to make it into second qualifying as a yellow flag for Pol Espargaro denied him a final lap to try and move into the top 10.
“I did a difficult strategy,” said Martin. “I was confident I was in the top 10 and then you know try to follow ‘Pecco’ to go into Q2. (I’m) happy, hopefully tomorrow we can battle for that pole position and victory.”
Qualifying kicks off at 09.50 UK time, with the 13-lap Sprint starting at 14.00 live on TNT Sports 2.
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