Why 2026 MotoGP title tilt is only part of Jorge Martin’s Aprilia journey

Jorge Martin’s MotoGP career has been almost binary, all-or-nothing, winning or crashing, rostrum or hospital. At the moment he’s at a high point, but he’s there now with a wider perspective than perhaps at any point before.

When Martin won his 2024 title, he’d almost let it slip before the summer break when he crashed out of first place at the Sachsenring and allowed Francesco Bagnaia to take victory, and with it the championship lead by 12 points.

At this year’s German Grand Prix, Martin was underwhelming, finishing only sixth in the Sprint and fifth in the Sunday race. But those points allowed him to go into the summer leading the riders’ championship.

The four-week break was a hot one for anyone staying in Europe, and Martin added in a 1,000km cycling event, the TransPyrenees, to his ‘holiday’.

“A big challenge,” Jorge Martin said in an interview with Crash.net ahead of the British Grand Prix.

“We organised with my friends, going from Roses to San Sebastian. 

“It was a nice challenge. Mentally it was tough, difficult, but we pushed our limits – hot conditions, raining, cold also, a bit of everything, but it was really good fun and it’s always nice to have these type of challenges.”

Despite the intense challenge over the summer, Martin maintains that, for him, cycling is merely a hobby, one that happens to help his conditioning for racing in MotoGP, but not one to be positioned above motorcycle racing, a balance that has been much finer for Aleix Espargaro, for example.

“I think he’s [Espargaro] a bit more obsessed with cycling,” said Martin. “Maybe 30 per cent of his life is cycling! Then he has his family and then his friends. He’s really obsessed. 

“For me, I understand it’s part of my training, I really enjoy it, I really enjoy watching it also, but not as [much] as him. He was even professional, so it’s crazy. 

“For me, it’s just my hobby and I enjoy doing it with friends: you can eat more and have fun, and it’s really nice.”

As such, Martin’s heroes are still from the motorcycle racing world, rather than legendary cyclists like Tadej Pogacar, who won his fifth Tour de France – and third in succession – in July.

“I for sure admire other sports, I admire other athletes,” he said. 

“For sure he [Tadej Pogacar] is the greatest [cyclist], I think, in history, and it’s nice that we are living in this moment. 

“But my idols for sure are Valentino [Rossi] and riders that I saw as a child. 

“My passion is still much more on motorcycles than on cycling, but it’s a part of my journey, part of my sport, it helps me to get fitter for the bike, so good things that I take from this sport also.”

A pleasant surprise

Martin arrived at Silverstone leading the riders’ standings by 14 points over Ai Ogura. By the end of the weekend his advantage had increased to 31 points as Marco Bezzecchi took over second position.

For Martin, though, the position in the championship came as a surprise after another tough start to the season with injury.

“I didn’t expect it [leading the championship] when we started the season, for sure,” he said. “Then we started the season in a really good mood, doing some podiums, and podiums in a row. 

“Then we won our first race, so everything was on the best line possible. 

“But then we lost a bit of confidence. 

“If we are leading it’s because we did better than the rest – this is absolutely clear. But I feel that we need to improve much more if we want to fight until the end for this championship. 

“If you see my condition six months ago, when I was at the team presentation I couldn’t put my leathers on, so that’s why I say it’s crazy that we’re leading, but it’s not that we don’t deserve it. 

“I feel we deserve it, but we need to improve. We did better than the rest, but still it was like a crazy first part. 

“I think the other ones, they weren’t at 100 per cent, and now they are all almost there.”

Compared to the last rounds before the summer, Martin was much better at Silverstone, something he felt beforehand he had the potential to achieve.

“I feel I have the potential of doing it, but I need help from my team; also I will try to understand how to be better with Aprilia,” he said.

“But I have full confidence in myself that I can do it, I did it already in the past, it’s not new. I don’t have to demonstrate anything to anyone. 

“It’s just I do it for myself and I really want to do it. If I was able to do it in Le Mans, in Austin, in Brazil – to be fighting for the victories – it means that I can do it again.”

One of many comebacks

To arrive at the top of the standings after half of the 2026 season is an important marker of how Martin’s fortunes have changed this compared to last, when he rode at only seven events and finished only four grands prix in what was a title defence season hit hard by numerous injuries.

A ‘comeback’ has felt like an increasingly common occurrence in sports recently. MotoGP has had Francesco Bagnaia’s 2022 title victory from 91 points behind, and Marc Marquez’s return to the pinnacle of the championship after several years battling injury.

Outside of motorcycle racing, McLaren won its first F1 title since 2008 with the 2024 constructor crown; and Sebastien Ogier won his ninth WRC title on a part-season three years after he’d stepped back from full-time competition.

In winter sports, Francesca Lollobrigida won a speed skating world championship and two Winter Olympic gold medals after taking time out to give birth; Federica Brigone won two Winter Olympic alpine skiing gold medals after sustaining injuries last April that kept her out of most of the 2025-26 season; and Lisa Vittozzi won gold in the women’s biathlon pursuit having missed a year of competition with a back injury.

Martin’s journey from the start of last year when his injury crisis began to now, leading the MotoGP riders’ standings by 31 points after 12 rounds, certainly feels like it could be categorised as a ‘comeback’, although perhaps one that would only be completed by sealing this year’s riders’ title.

While winning another title would be a major achievement for Martin, though, his perspective is wider than that.

“For sure I proved to myself that I can do it,” Martin said of his return to the front of MotoGP.

“I don’t really care what people think or not, I don’t really mind. But for myself, it’s not like I thought ‘I don’t want to race anymore’, or not, or whatever.

“It’s more like I was thinking [about] if I was able to ride again a motorbike, and then to be able to ride again. Step-by-step, doing some laps, then finishing races, then winning again – it was incredible! 

“For sure, the final target to close everything could be a championship. But for me, honestly, the real target is already to be on a MotoGP bike, to be a professional still, and to be alive is already a nice target.”

Although difficult, the last seasons have been ones of growth for Martin, and he feels he is “more calm” now than before he won the 2024 title.

“I grew up pretty fast in the last two or three years, I think so,” he said. “I have much more knowledge about this sport. 

“For sure at that point, I had more explosivity. It’s difficult to keep the same hunger, let’s say, before winning than after winning, but that’s my target: to keep still with that hunger of winning, of improving myself every day. 

“For sure I learnt a lot because of the crashes; it’s not how I wanted to learn, but life brings you to different places, you just need to adapt to different circumstances. For me it was like this. 

“Now I feel much more calm on the track, much more calm here maybe speaking to you.

“That’s life and I hope that I continue improving and continue maturing, but without losing my essence: that explosivity, trying to have fun always. This is my style.”

Like many athletes, the balance between explosivity and calmness is one that Martin is still working on perfecting.

“I think sometimes I go even to the other side and I lose the motivation,” Martin said. “With 26-years-old I achieved everything I was reaching for in my life, so then there’s like a hole that you go into and it’s really hard to find the motivation to keep racing. 

“It’s not easy because sometimes maybe you don’t want to risk or you don’t want to crash again, you go through these parts. 

“But I think you need to find the balance. 

“I still want to still race, I want to still improve myself. 

“It’s not just about results. Maybe in the past it was more like ‘I want to win, I cannot live without winning the championship’.

“Now it’s more like ‘I want to improve myself every day, every race, every year’ so I can continue competing to my maximum level.”

2026 is motivation enough

Martin will leave Aprilia at the end of the 2026 season for Yamaha. 2027 will see a major regulation change that could see the competitive order of MotoGP change, but the current picture of the championship is that Aprilia is at the top and Yamaha is at the bottom.

Given his own current position, perhaps it’s no surprise that Martin’s focus and attention is on the motivation brought by the present season.

“I want to be really focused on [the present],” he said. “It’s something that I learnt during last season, that I have to be focused on the present. 

“For sure we all have to sign because the market is moving, so you have to move, but I feel that we have to live in the present because I don’t know if tomorrow I’m going to die. 

“So, I want to be focused on the present, be motivated by the challenge that I have this season and the opportunity.

“For sure when this year finishes with Aprilia I will start thinking to next year, but for the moment I want to be focused on Aprilia in 2026.”

The time with Aprilia could be ending with a second riders’ title for Martin, but it has been a rough path to this point: the injuries already discussed, but also the fall-out of that period that affected his relationship with Aprilia, which he tried to leave a year early.

There are pages of this particular chapter of Martin’s career left to be written, but is it one he feels he could be proud of?

“That’s a great question,” he said. “I think you learn more from the bad moments than from the good ones. I remember winning the championship, and during the winter, like no lessons: I started favourite, everything went through, and it’s like everything is gone. 

“But for sure when you’re in a bad moment then you start to think, you have much more time to think about yourself, the people that surround you. 

“For sure, last season was crazy – not just on the track but out of the track with all Aprilia, with Massimo [Rivola, Aprilia Racing CEO], with everybody. 

“So for sure I learnt that sometimes I have to doubt less about myself, but for sure I take a lot of positive things from Aprilia. 

“I came from finishing 15th and maybe crashing a lot and without speed to be winning again races. 

“So, for sure I take a lot of positives and I will take it for the future also.”