Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin put on a record-breaking show at Spielberg this afternoon, securing the second pole position of his MotoGP career for the StyrianGP.

Having spent the summer break honing his strength and getting over an upper arm injury, the rookie is confident of his abilities in tomorrow’s 28-lap race after being forced to retire from the Dutch TT six weeks ago.

“It’s been a really good day for me in general,” Martin said from the Red Bull paddock.

“Normally here, I am quite competitive. In the past I used to be fast but arriving here with the MotoGP everything is different and I wasn’t expecting to be that competitive.

“Today, from the morning I felt quite competitive with the medium tyre and then when we put in the soft I was close to the top. Also in FP4 I felt confident so I said ‘Maybe I am one of the candidates to make the pole position’.

“The first stint I pushed quite a lot but I did a lot of mistakes, and even if I went to the green, I did ’23.1, so that wasn’t so bad. Then in the second try, I did my best, I pushed to the limit and even if I had one moment and I almost crashed, I could manage to stop the bike. Finishing in pole position is amazing. I never expected this before coming to this track but I’m happy and ready for tomorrow.”

A difficult end to the first half of the season had seen Martin retire from the Assen race with 12 laps still to run, after pain and a lack of strength in his arm - resulting from his earlier crash during testing at Portimao - meant that continuing was no longer possible or safe for either him or his fellow riders.

“As you can see the summer break was really good for me, because in the last race in Assen I had to retire because of my physical condition and I was super angry with myself for this situation.

“I transformed this situation for motivation and I worked a lot during the summer break. So now I feel much better - still maybe not 100%, for sure, maybe the last laps I will struggle a bit, but I feel really good. I feel confident. After the podium in Qatar, my mind was really, more free, but I’m not focused only on the podium, just to work and to improve.

“In Qatar it was [only] my second race, and I didn’t feel confident enough to battle for the race, not even for the podium, and at the end I did a really great race. This weekend I feel more confident. For sure, I see it’s really difficult to battle for the win but I see a possible battle for the podium. I will try to be with a really good pace, try to lead if I can and if not try to follow these two guys that are fast enough. Let’s see at the end what we can do.

“After the Assen race I had a massive injury in my biceps. I went to the doctors and they recommend me to stop a little bit my training for one and a half weeks. I stopped and afterwards just worked really specifically on some parts of the body where I was struggling the most, like the hand or maybe my shoulders. Gaining some strength was so important for me and now I can see the results. So everything was good and that’s why it was so important.

“Normally I’ve been fast in a whole lap. I don’t know exactly why, but you can see in Moto3 - Moto2 I just did one pole so I wasn’t that fast - but I think I can put all my energies just for one lap. When I finish this lap I am even more tired than in a race. I don’t know how, but I can put all my strength and all my focus on that lap and that’s why I am fast.”

When discussing the possibility of a Monday race, if heavy rain impact’s Sunday’s schedule, the pole-sitter admitted he was open to a slight delay but preferred the option of Sunday afternoon as he was set to travel home on Monday.

“If there’s a lot, a lot, a lot of rain and maybe in corner two, there’s like a mini river, for sure maybe it’s better to wait. Not for Monday because I’m going back home but maybe a bit later - because normally when it rains, it rains a lot, and then it stops but if it’s normal rain for me, it’s okay to race,” he concluded.