Martin piles the pressure on Bagnaia in Valencia MotoGP

Jorge Martin piled the pressure on title rival Francesco Bagnaia in yesterday’s practice for the season-ending Valencia MotoGP with the world championship leader failing to make the top ten and needing to take part in qualifying.Italian Bagnaia goes into the final weekend of a thrilling MotoGP season in Spain with the defence of his crown still in the balance against sole rival Martin. Yesterday, the contest between the two Ducati riders began to heat up when Martin followed Bagnaia out of the pits for his final run in bright sunshine.Ducati-Pramac’s Martin, who is 21 points behind the reigning world champion while there are 37 points left this weekend on the Ricardo-Tormo circuit, took second place in the session dominated by his compatriot Maverick Vinales of Aprilia.Martin, who saw a large part of his chances of winning a first world title evaporate last Sunday by finishing tenth in the Qatar GP, tailed his opponent very closely. And his mind games, combined with several yellow flags following falls at the end of the session, worked since Bagnaia was trapped and unable to improve his time in the final minutes as he is accustomed to doing."There was tension. Following someone’s wheel is not something I like, but I had to try to pressure him in one way or another to complicate his life and I managed to do it because I made him nervous and he will have to go through Q1,” Martín explained.Bagnaia placed 15th on his Ducati-Lenovo and will need to finish in one of the first two places in Q1 today morning to have the right to fight straight away for pole position. "It was not an easy day, I was in difficulty. We will study the data collected today to improve tomorrow (Saturday),” the Italian said."Jorge (Martin) had to try to do something today but he should rather concentrate on his work and try to improve because he knows he has to win both races.”The championship leader will have as his main opponents Spaniard Alex Marquez (Ducati-Gresini), France’s Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) and Italians Luca Marini (Ducati-VR46) and Enea Bastianini (Ducati). However, it seems unlikely that his teammate and compatriot will take the risk of depriving him of a qualification in Q2.Vinales, who smashed a lap record in Valencia which has stood for seven years, said he could yet improve upon the 1m29.142s which topped the timesheets. Jorge Lorenzo’s effort from 2016 was beaten in practice by Aprilia rider."The lap was fantastic, I enjoyed it a lot. Still, I think I can do better. We always know that, on Fridays, we have a better balance on the bike. However, we identified it really well. We can improve tomorrow. I feel good, calm, flowing with the bike which I really like. Tomorrow we can do a good job. We need to focus. Every time I have free space in front, I ride much better, Vinales said.Vinales insists that Tuesday’s postseason test will be used to fine-tune some aspects of Aprilia’s bike, rather than for wholesale changes to it. "Of course, there are still some areas,” he said. "We are very focused on the test. We have items to improve the feeling.”