Jorge Martin secured the 25th pole position of his Grand Prix career, and his fourth as a Pramac MotoGP rider at Valencia on Saturday.

The 23-year-old beat both factory Ducati riders to head the grid for 2021’s final race with the only sub 1’30 lap of the weekend - a 1’29.936. With the rookie obviously delighted to have helped lock out the front row for the Borgo Panigale manufacturer.

“It was a great lap,” Martin said simply. “From this morning in FP3 I felt quite confident. Even if I did some mistakes I was close to the first position, so I was quite happy.

“FP4 was a bit strange because we tried the hard and we’re not sure what to use tomorrow. In qualifying, as always, we risk a lot. It’s not an easy track because the layout is strange, is not normal and also the grip is not perfect here. It’s a bit different to other tracks so I was risking every lap, every corner but finally I could finish this lap, and really happy.

“My performance is good, the bike is working well also and you can see all the Ducatis are strong. Tomorrow will be a great battle but I think we have the pace to the fight for the podium.

“These two guys I have here close to me are for sure the strongest,” he continued, referring to Pecco Bagnaia and Jack Miller, who completed the front row celebrations.

“But for sure, tomorrow is important to win the Rookie of the Year. We need to finish, this is important. We need to finish in front of Enea [Bastianini] that’s for sure. I think that if we just finished, we will be in front, because we are strong,” he said confidently.

“We are strong for a podium. For sure, Ducati factory riders will be so strong, I think also Rins and Mir will be close and maybe Zarco but I feel like we have a good pace and we are ready for the battle.”