Prima Pramac’s Jorge Martin followed up his Phillip Island pole position with the same again at Sepang on Saturday afternoon. An impressive 1’57.790 lap secured the head of the Malaysian Grand Prix grid for the Spaniard and with it a new all-time lap record at the Sepang International Circuit.
His closest challenger, Enea Bastianini, half a second off. Despite having already topped the combined times by the close of FP3 and circulated third in the final session, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the Ducati rider.
A crash in FP4 saw the 24-year-old down at turn nine before he quickly regrouped on his second GP22. “It’s always difficult to go to ’57,” Martin admitted on his achievement. “Today was really, really hot so I didn’t expect to make this laptime.
Also after the FP4 crash, so I lost a bit the confidence.“The first run I did ‘58.0 and I did two mistakes so I said ‘Okay, maybe it’s possible’. “I thought the rest of the guys, some of them will improve on that ’58.0 so that’s why I tried harder and finally ’57.7 is an amazing lap.