From hospital beds to the MotoGP lead: Jorge Martin on his resurrection

Jorge Martin’s hardened shoulders currently bear the load of championship expectation. They also carry many marks of war from a 12-year grand prix career and, perhaps, chips of a different kind. The Spaniard owned MotoGP in 2024, won the Moto3 crown in 2018, has victories in all three classes and has been a prolific MotoGP sprint winner since the Saturday concept was introduced in 2023. But there has also been adversity, doubt, criticism and repeated visits to the operating theatre in a short spell.

After last weekend’s Indonesian Grand Prix, round 17 of 22, Martin leads the 2026 championship by two points from Marc Márquez in what appears to be another tense duel for the crown, following similar battles in 2023 and 2024. His position at the top of the standings seems remarkable after the travails of 2025 and a disastrous title defence, and could lead to another episode of Martin taking the #1 plate from one team to another: the Aprilia rider is already confirmed as a factory Yamaha rider for 2027 and 2028.

Martin has arguably been overshadowed, in terms of profile and fandom, by his countrymen despite his speed, competitiveness and spectacular shoulder-scraping riding style. It may have something to do with a capricious caricature and a showy lifestyle, and — despite evidence to the contrary — a feeling that he is a very good motorcycle racer but not quite good enough for some. He was rejected by Ducati while leading its 2024 title challenge from an independent team, in favour of a still-recovering Márquez. He was also spooked by his disastrous Aprilia debut in 2025 to the point of seeking an early exit from his two-year contract just as the Noale factory was blossoming into its current position as MotoGP’s powerhouse.

Then there were the injuries. A violent crash at Portimao in round three of his debut MotoGP season in 2021 left him with multiple fractures to his right hand and leg. At the start of 2025, his first season as world champion, he crashed at the Sepang pre-season test and broke his right hand and left foot. He then fractured his left scaphoid and radius while training on a supermoto bike as he tried to regain fitness for his Aprilia debut. He would need further surgery on the wrist almost a year later.

That protracted Aprilia bow finally came in Qatar at round four, where another crash — this time in the race — caused a haemopneumothorax and multiple rib fractures. It forced a week in hospital in Doha and a two-month recovery. Martin made five appearances in Aprilia colours later that season before a braking misjudgement at Turn 1 at Motegi during the Japanese Grand Prix in October cracked his right collarbone; the injury required another operation, a bone graft from his pelvis and more time away from racing.

Moving, somehow, to 2026, Martin endured six crashes across the Catalan Grand Prix weekend and the subsequent one-day test, smashing his left arm and right leg and foot. He narrowly avoided further fractures when he collided with team-mate Marco Bezzecchi at the first turn of the Hungarian Grand Prix three weeks later. His fifth place at San Marino in September was disrupted by arm-pump trouble that nearly had surgeons preparing for another operation.

Amid all the pain and dejection came disappointment with Ducati and disillusionment with Aprilia. It has been quite a journey. Some of Martin’s decisions may have been hasty or impulsive, but the aftermath — and the time spent in hospital rooms — has given him the space to develop a solid personal philosophy that is serving him well, both generally and ahead of the forthcoming battle with Márquez. From the darkest days of being bedridden in Doha, Martin has reversed his sporting and personal fortunes, returning to the MotoGP podium eight times in 2026 and climbing back up the tree.

“I really didn’t think I would be back leading. It wasn’t in my mind,” he tells Motor Sport when asked about his mindset after the collapsed lung and perilous period in Qatar in April 2025. “But I didn’t think about retirement. The first thing was to breathe for another day! I saw improvement every day, but I never had very bad thoughts. There were other injuries, like Portimao, where I thought about stopping, but in Qatar I never had that. I wanted to make a step forwards.

“For sure you think: ‘I completed my circle, I was world champion in MotoGP, it was my dream and I achieved it.’ But then there is still a big hole there, and you have to go deep into it to try and understand why you keep doing this [MotoGP],” he adds. “This is the hard part. It’s not about the crashes or the injuries; it is more mental, and the way to keep working each day to keep trying to improve. I realised, at the end of the day, that what I really like is to compete. More than winning; it’s competing, and feeling like you have a purpose.”

Martin was pushed to the limit by then-champion — and friend and former Moto3 team-mate — Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia in 2024, in a dispute that went to the final race in Barcelona. Many questioned Martin’s mental resolve after errors in tyre selection and race strategy in Indonesia in 2023, Qatar in 2023, Germany in 2024 and San Marino in 2024. But he responded with seven consecutive podiums under intense pressure to win the 2024 title. He evolved into an expert at rebounding from an indifferent result or incident to return to the front of MotoGP — a formula still evident today, as he has equalled or bettered his Saturday Sprint result on Grand Prix Sunday seven times this season, while mastering an RS-GP at 12 circuits where he did not race in 2025.

“I am able to ‘change the page’ quite fast, but I also know that from each chapter there is something to learn,” he explains. “I want to take the learning with me; from things like the crashes [and the reasons for them] and my bad period with Aprilia. It’s the process of taking the positives and trying not to make the same mistakes. It’s what has brought me forward and to a position where I can be leading the championship. I think I need to be proud of that.”

Martin now lives for another side of MotoGP, one that no longer depends on acclaim but on inner desire. “I think I was born to ride motorbikes, and I don’t think I can do something as good as that. I think, in the past, when you try to demonstrate [your ability] or compare yourself to other people, ego is involved. But, during the years — maybe because of the injuries or through maturity — I tried to look inwards and not to others. I try to prove things to myself. I try to be better. Even if sometimes I feel that people don’t really speak well of me, it doesn’t really affect me. If you’d asked me about this even two years ago, I would have been mad and screamed: ‘They are not right!’ I know everybody has an opinion and it can be tough…but the most important thing is to have your own opinion of yourself and be happy with it.”

It is almost as if he thrives on hardship, using it as fuel for a higher elevation. “I think the bad moments make you a better person, absolutely,” he says, light eyes widening over a milky coffee in the Aprilia hospitality unit. “I won the title in 2024 and I will have that all my life, but, I didn’t have any positives afterwards. I didn’t have any learning from that point. I learned much more in 2023 when I lost. I got the motivation to give more. Sometimes winning does not give you as much as, say, crashing or having bad results.

“I cannot promise ‘winning’, but, like I say to the team, what I can promise is all the work to try and do it,” he says. “This is the good part of the thing that I love. In the end, if you can do that preparation and close the circle, then perfect. If I finish fifth but I feel like I left everything on the track and did all I could, then I am happy at the same level as if I win; honestly. I might go home without champagne or a trophy, but I go happy. I look for the learning for the next race. Sometimes you win and, for sure, it is not an ‘empty’ feeling: you enjoy it with the team and it feels really nice. But then you don’t do this analysis, because you have that ‘I’m on top’ feeling. You need that balance.”

Martin counted on the devotion of his father, Angel, and girlfriend María through the recovery process. “My only thought during that time was to wake up the next day and feel a bit better. Their work allowed me to focus,” he says. He also navigated the depression of injury-induced immobility. “Most of the time I would improve, but then there are days when you feel a downgrade. It is like a rollercoaster. It’s mostly going up…but there are some downs. You have to keep some perspective.”

He threw himself into cycling with good friend and former rival Aleix Espargaro, embracing an outdoors lifestyle in Andorra. “I think, more than meditation, it is like medicine,” he says. “Sport is the medicine to create happiness. My life without sport would be very sad. I feel plentiful. It is addictive and also helps me to be prepared for my job. It’s a big part of my lifestyle.

“For sure you think a lot, and when you are pushing yourself to the limit it’s for self-dialogue, and to keep pushing because your head will be telling you: ‘You’re tired, you’re doing too much, stop…’ But, on the other side, you need to keep going to that limit,” he says of the pedalling. “I have that on the bicycle, and I put it into practice in the races. We have long races and a lot of time alone, and I speak to myself to not go ‘down’ in terms of the mental side.”

At 28, Martin has a refreshed appreciation of his skills, his job, his achievements and his influence. He may say: “Almost everything is so nice about our lives. It’s a privilege to earn a living riding motorbikes. We are fortunate to do things like fly private, because this is something I would never do if it was not for racing.” But he also savours the knock-on effects of his achievements. “One thing that is really nice is to make people happy. Before, I didn’t really enjoy being with the fans, but after the injuries I knew people are waiting hours or weeks to come to the circuit to see you. It might be a once-in-a-lifetime moment, so to stop for them is something I really enjoy now.”