Reigning MotoGP world champion Jorge Martin came away from the Hungarian GP with his best result yet on the factory Aprilia — a strong fourth place finish — but the numbers show his bold push for a podium was always destined to fall short.
Martin’s weekend at Balaton Park started badly with 17th in qualifying, forcing him into a recovery ride on Sunday. He carved through the pack with a string of aggressive overtakes on Quartararo, Espargaro, Binder, Marini, Morbidelli, and Bagnaia, eventually finishing just 3.581s behind team-mate Marco Bezzecchi in third.
In his post-race debrief, Martin highlighted the delay in clearing Franco Morbidelli, who held him up from laps 14 to 22. “If I had managed to overtake him quicker, maybe I could’ve been a bit closer to Marco, but probably not enough to catch him,” Martin admitted.
Data analysis backs that up:
- Over the full 26 laps, Bezzecchi’s and Martin’s average pace differed by just 0.002s per lap.
- After passing Morbidelli, Martin was actually slightly faster: 1m38.714s vs Bezzecchi’s 1m38.736s.
- However, even if he’d cleared Morbidelli earlier, Martin could only have reduced the gap by around 0.286s, far short of the deficit at the flag.
Bezzecchi’s late-race pace dipped after running the soft rear tyre, but with no pressure from behind once Acosta passed him for second, he had no reason to push harder. Martin, by contrast, had the medium tyre advantage, but the damage of poor qualifying was already done.
In the end, the Aprilia rider proved he had podium pace — but starting so far back left too much ground to make up.
