To the limit – and beyond!

There was much ado about nothing at Buriram on Saturday. Jorge Martin won the sprint race with a monumental pass on title-rival Pecco Bagnaia, which took him wide exiting Turn 7 and into a green zone.

Martin laid the foundations for the move through the Turn 4 and 5 left-handers, where he got right on Bagnaia’s tail, then he took a wide exit from the next left to give him the inside line at 7.

Moments later he received a track limits warning from Race Direction, because this was his second trespass of the race. In sprints you’re allowed two green infringements – your third gets you a long-lap penalty. In full-length grand prix races it’s four and five.

“I used my cards – you can go on the green two times, I used it”

Two laps after Martin snatched the lead he ran fractionally wide once again exiting Turn 7.

Why wasn’t he hit with a long-lap penalty, which would’ve cost him a vital two championship points? Because he had done nothing wrong. He had merely used his MotoGP get-out-of-jail-free card – available to all riders – to perfection.

Green zones were introduced some years ago to stop riders taking advantage of the trackside asphalt that had been laid to replace grass verges, for safety reasons. Initially infractions were judged solely by the human eye. This became more than time consuming at some tracks, where there might be hundreds of violations a day. Next came image-recognition cameras, which automatically identified and recorded riders that ran wide, but MotoGP stewards continued to decide who got punished and who didn’t.

One of the most high-profile victims of that system was Martin, whose 2020 Styrian Moto2 victory was taken away from him after he only just touched the green on the final lap.

“Losing this way is painful,” said Martin, who was battling for that year’s Moto2 world title. Although he crossed the line a fraction ahead of Marco Bezzecchi he was dropped one position by the stewards. A last-lap incursion triggers an automatic position drop if the next rider is deemed to be within striking distance. If Martin had been five seconds ahead of Bezzecchi he would’ve been the winner.

In recent seasons the human element has been taken out of this decision-making process. The green zones feature pressure sensors – similar to those pressure cables laid across the forecourts of some petrol stations. If the pressure sensors are triggered, it’s an infraction. If they aren’t, it’s not. The machine decides.

When Martin ran wide at the Turn 7 right-hander on lap nine with the left edge of both tyres momentarily over the green, he didn’t trigger the sensors because the kerb is a few millimetres above the green. Another few millimetres wider and his tyres most likely would’ve gone over the kerb, down onto the green, the sensors would’ve alerted Race Direction and he would’ve been heading for the long-lap zone.

This was Martin taking it absolutely to the limit – using everything in his power and everything in the rules to gain an advantage. He knew exactly what he was doing when he hit the green twice – especially when he used a lot of green to make his pass, because he had used so much corner-entry speed which of course took him wide – and he made sure he didn’t hit it a third time, by millimetres.

“I’m a bit on the limit at Corner 7,” he said after the sprint, which he finished 1.3 seconds behind winner Enea Bastianini and one second ahead of Bagnaia. “If I want to make a fast corner entry there and get on the throttle soon I am really on the limit on the exit. I used my cards – you can go on the green two times, I used it.

“The rules are the rules, the blue is the blue and the green is the green. In tomorrow’s race it’s five times to get a penalty, so maybe I will go out four times.”

This is what happens when you have two riders fighting for the title with the same bikes, same tyres, same electronics, same everything. They have to eke out the tiniest of advantages, wherever they can find it, and so long as they only bend the rules, they’ve not broken any MotoGP laws.

All the riders do Thursday track walks, to chat with their technicians and examine the details – had Martin discovered that the Turn 7 kerb stood crucially proud of the green zone, allowing him to go a few millimetres wider if required? Because not all kerbs stand above the green. Details, details…