If there is a moment which revealed the true extent of the mental and physical torment and turmoil which Jorge Martin has been on over the past nine to twelve months, it was when he was asked if he had ever felt his mental strength had faltered in the period between his first injury at Sepang and his return to racing at Brno.
“I think that you are never prepared for being close to dying,” the reigning MotoGP champion responded, with a touching frankness. “In life you always have different situations, but sometimes there are situations that you don’t expect them, and then they arrive, and it’s really tough to accept, sometimes. And Qatar was one of them. I was in a really bad situation, I think only my dad and my girlfriend…”
Martin paused, temporarily overcome with emotion. Sat alone on a podium in the press conference room in Brno, facing a press that was not necessarily hostile, but eager for answers to a situation which, from the outside, made no sense, and subjecting him to a grilling he had expected, but still dreaded. It was the loneliest place in the world at that moment, as the terror and uncertainty he had lived through during four days in the intensive care unit in Qatar washed over him once again.
Martin regained his composure, and continued. “Only my Dad and my girlfriend really know what was going through my mind and through my body. And for me to be here today, it demonstrates to me the courage that I have and it gives me more motivation.” He discretely wiped his eyes, and looked up to face more hard questions from the media.
When Aprilia announced that Jorge Martin would attempt to make his return to MotoGP at Brno, Dorna organized an additional press conference with just the reigning world champion after the traditional pre-event presser. We would finally get a chance to ask all the questions which the long-running saga of his fractious and fragile relationship with Aprilia had raised over the past few months.
It started with signing with Aprilia in June last year, after Mugello. He had arrived at the Italian GP confident of taking the factory Ducati seat alongside Pecco Bagnaia for 2025 and 2026, but jumped ship to the factory Aprilia squad when Marc Márquez strong-armed Ducati into changing their mind. The first test at Barcelona went well, then Martin broke a bone in his right hand after just 13 laps of the Sepang test.
That injury forced him to miss the Sepang and Buriram tests, and he took to a supermoto track to test his fitness ahead of the 2025 season opener in Thailand. That test ended in disaster, Martin breaking bones in his ankle and his left scaphoid, a painful injury that takes a very long time to heal.
Martin came back at Qatar, having missed the first three rounds. During the Sunday GP, he fell directly in front of Fabio Di Giannantonio, being clipped by the front wheel of the Pertamina VR46 rider. He suffered 12 rib fractures and a punctured lung, and spent four days in intensive care. Four long days that made a lasting impression.
Facing his fears
That was when the doubts where at their darkest, Martin admitted. Perhaps the entire undertaking, the switch to Aprilia had been a terrible mistake.
“When I was in the hospital, I didn’t know if I was able to ride again,” the Spaniard told us. “This was the main issue. I was in the ICU for four days, and that was a really deep moment. And for sure I was speaking with my girlfriend, with my dad, with Aleix sometimes, and I was doubting if I was able to come back to a MotoGP bike. Starting from this to everything. If I will be able to be fast again, if I will be able to be strong again. I don’t know, a lot of things. On the professional side. On the personal side I was just trying to stay calm and to take my time.”
All these doubts pushed Martin to trigger the clause in his contract that he and his management claim would have allowed him to leave at the end of 2025, subject to not being inside the top five after the first six MotoGP rounds. (Aprilia, it is worth pointing out, disputes the validity of this clause and believes they would have won had the dispute gone to court.)
Having such a clause inserted into his contract was an insurance policy, Martin explained. “I think already when I signed the contract, I wanted to be safe in this aspect. So that’s why I put this clause. And for sure I couldn’t ride with the bike, so I wanted to test for myself, because I could see the result for other riders, but I want to understand by my own. I didn’t have the chance, so I asked for the chance. This was denied, but I had to take a decision and the decision was that one.”
Cursed?
All of this conspired to persuade Martin to trigger the clause to leave. But it was a decision taken in extremis, in a spiral of doubt and fear. Fear that signing for Aprilia had been an enormous mistake, and that another team, any other team, would be a better option.
“For sure I think being in the hospital didn’t help, because maybe if I start the season as a normal season, this would never happen. We will never know,” Martin admitted.
He had taken this decision against advice from Marc Márquez, he revealed. “The day after the crash, Marc texted me, also Pecco texted me, Fabio texted me. A lot of people texted me, but Marc was one of them and I really appreciate his message. But he told me don’t take any decision when you are injured. With the relationship that I have with Marc to receive this message was important.”
Looking back, Martin can see the wisdom of that advice. “So now, I can say maybe this was the best advice. I didn’t retire. That was also on my mind! But maybe in another situation I could change that.”
If his reasons for wanting to leave were the first question the fans and media wanted to ask Jorge Martin, why he changed his mind and decided to stay was the second. “For sure it’s a mix of things,” Martin said. “The first of all is that before going back to racing, I wanted everything closed. I didn’t want to come here and still be in a fight with Aprilia or with any person, let’s say. So that’s why I wanted to do it quickly, and to stop before coming back, because I couldn’t go on the track with a lot of stuff going out and running through my mind.”
In reality, Martin had two choices. Accept that Aprilia were not going to let him go without a fight, and spend a lot of mental energy trying to cope with the case dragging through the courts, including all of the media rigmarole that would entail, all while trying to focus on racing, in a team where suspicion and doubt lingered. Or to admit defeat, regardless of his belief that the clause allowing him to leave was valid, and commit to racing in Aprilia for 2025 and 2026.
From the answers he gave, and the answers he glossed over, two things are apparent. Firstly, that he knew he would face a long fight in the courts, and he knew that would be too much of a distraction. Secondly, that Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta’s intervention, to say that Dorna would not accept entries from riders who were still locked in a dispute with teams over contracts, made him realize there were no guarantees he would be on the grid in 2026 even if he did win his case against Aprilia.
“I respect Carmelo’s position, he’s the big boss, and that’s it,” Martin said. It was clearly a discussion he had no intention of getting drawn into.
Undeniable progress
Another factor which played an increasing role as his physical condition improved was a growing awareness that the Aprilia MotoGP project was making real progress. “I watched the improvement,” Martin said. “My first feeling from what I saw only in the Montmelo test, Malaysia test and Qatar, was always really bad, because I had crashes, I had injuries. So that’s why I doubted a lot. But now I can see, also in the test, also in the All Stars how Aprilia surrounded me, let’s say, and how they helped me to be in a safe place, and then I changed a bit my mind.”
Being able to spend a day on the Aprilia RS-GP MotoGP bike at Misano, profiting from Aprilia’s lobbying to allow a rule change for riders absent for long periods, also made a difference. “The Misano test was fantastic,” Martin told us. “We were working a lot on the position on the bike, because I couldn’t do it in Qatar. I think now here in Brno we still have a lot of work to do on that way, in that direction. But I feel good, I feel the potential of the bike compared to what I tried in Qatar was a big difference, so I have to say congratulations to Marco and to Aprilia for all the work and for the results.”
Seeing how well the fans had received him at the Aprilia All Stars event at the beginning of June had also had a huge impact. “For me it was impressive, because when we were in the All Stars, I think it was the worst moment in this dispute with Aprilia,” Martin admitted. “So I was nervous with everything. I was really scared. Like I need security because they will try to hit me or something! But it was the other way around. I was impressed. I think was really important for my decision to be here now, it was really important to feel what the All Stars is, and yeah, thanks to that, maybe some part, I am here today.”
Martin’s extended absence and prolonged recovery had been good for him physically and mentally, he said. “First of all, I feel prepared. In terms of physical condition I feel better than any time in my life. For sure I’m missing a lot of hours on the motorbike, I need a lot of hours on my RS-GP, but in terms of the physical side, mental side, I worked a lot. I took profit of this time off, let’s say to work on me, on my performance and I feel I am a better and more prepared rider now.”
Je ne regrette rien
Martin was also asked whether he had any regrets about the situation and how it had played out. He was adamant he did not. “I don’t regret anything,” the reigning world champion said. “I think everything I did during these few months was what I thought was the best for my future and for me.”
It was easy for fans and for media to judge from the outside, Martin said, but they hadn’t felt his pain, hadn’t felt his fear, his worry that it could all be over. Without that context, it was hard to make sense of his thought process. “I think nobody can understand when you are in the hospital with 12 broken ribs and you cannot sleep for a week, nobody can understand what is running through my mind,” Martin said. “So everything I did was because I thought it was the better thing for my future. And that’s the same that I do now, to decide to stay here.”
That was why Martin did not feel it was necessary to apologize to his team, he explained. “No, I didn’t apologize to them, because I feel I don’t need to apologize for anything. I did what I thought was best for my career.”
But he realized he had to start to rebuild the relationship again, though perhaps not exactly from zero. “Now we are together, so we will start together, we will speak together. And if they feel I have to do something to improve the relationship, I will do it. And for me it’s really important to have a family in the paddock. So, I will work hard to make this family so we are ready for what’s coming.”
Strictly business
Should Jorge Martin have apologized? One thing that gets lost in all of the media hype around MotoGP is that this is a professional sport, and in the end, these are all professional relationships and business decisions. As much as the sport builds a hype around the characters of the riders, and fans fall in love with or decide to despise a particular rider, these are independent contractors signed up to do a job for a team or a factory.
The dispute between Jorge Martin and Aprilia should be seen in that light. When two companies find themselves in disagreement over the terms of a contract, they do not apologize. They argue, they discuss, then they come to an arrangement or go to court. It is strictly business, nothing personal.
Except of course this is motorcycle racing, and lives are on the line. “I accept we are in MotoGP, we are risking our lives every time we go on track,” Jorge Martin said. The business of MotoGP is built on trust and interpersonal relationships. Riders have to trust their crews implicitly. Teams have to trust their riders to do the right thing. A mistake can be very costly indeed.
Life lessons
How does Jorge Martin emerge from this? Watching him, seeing how he faced a grilling, hearing the honesty of his answers, admitting his fears and failings, acknowledging the courage it took for him to come back, he seems like a much more mature young man than faced us in Barcelona as champion, or at the presentation of the Aprilia team back in January in Milan.
Humans learn and grow when they encounter adversity, when they meet their deepest, darkest fears. Jorge Martin looked into the abyss in Qatar, and that experience pushed him into making a series of rash decisions. But passing through everything that happened, from the euphoria of the 2024 championship through the despair of injuries in the preseason to the reality of his contract situation with Aprilia has left Jorge Martin a much wiser young man, both as a person and as a rider.
It is good to have the champion back. Let us hope we can turn to talking about how the champion is faring on track, rather than in the courts.
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