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"Shocked" to be champion: Jorge Martín’s incredible path to MotoGP™ glory
Crowned MotoGP™ champion in 2024, Jorge Martín’s rise is a tale of daring comebacks, career-defining crashes, and a relentless drive to the top.
There’s a new name etched onto the MotoGP™ ‘Tower of Champions’. Jorge Martín took the 2024 crown after an epic showdown at the season finale in Barcelona with arch-rival and former room-mate Francesco Bagnaia.
It’s every motorcycle racer’s dream to be a MotoGP™ champion, to be officially the best rider on the planet that year. For Martín, taking the title now proves that he has put behind him the demons from previous years, mistakes made at the worst possible moments as well as completing one of the all-time great comeback stories from the crash that almost ended his career at just 23 years old.
Since MotoGP™ introduced additional half-distance 'Sprint' races last year, riders now compete against each other a minimum of 40 times a year. Consistency has never been more important to winning the championship. As such, with Martín’s triumph, he may have 'only' claimed three Sunday race wins and seven sprint wins, but he crucially has finished on the podium 32 times overall. Compare that to Bagnaia with an incredible 11 Sunday victories, it’s clear the game has changed in this sport and Martín has mastered it.
Martín, who finished 10 points clear of Bagnaia overall, said: "It sounds amazing (to be called world champion). I am completely shocked. This is for my people and my family. The last laps I started crying a bit. It was an emotional race. It has been a long journey, lots of crashes and big injuries. Thanks to all the fans. Live in the present and enjoy the moment."
The last laps I started crying a bit. It was an emotional race.
Jorge Martín is the new 2024 MotoGP™ world champion
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Martín soaks up the adulation of the fans as he celebrates his win
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Simply making it to the pinnacle of any sport is a herculean task, to be one of the 22 riders each year who races the best bikes in the best teams on the best circuits is something to be proud of. But to be at the next level, a winner, those athletes are different gravy.
His story on two wheels started like many others who followed this path, on a pocket bike in empty car parks. Racing was a natural calling:
“And I always liked motorbikes and it was a game. Slowly, I was fast, I was winning, I was being promoted to the next championship, then the next championship...” He recalls.
As a fan growing up, he brushed shoulders with the greats of that late '00s, early '10s era in Rossi, Stoner, Lorenzo and later Marc Márquez when he was but a pint-sized 125cc rider himself.
Inspired, the goal of making it to the top was clear with how the Martín family went all in on racing: “My family was making a really big effort for this – I am from Madrid, so going from there to the tracks that were on the Mediterranean coast, Valencia and Barcelona, we were travelling every weekend. Both my parents were working Monday to Friday, so it was really difficult, even though for me I was just playing around.”
It was seemingly plain sailing until the global financial crash. His father lost his job and the money to go racing dried up. Their final option to continue a potential career was applying for the Red Bull MotoGP™ Rookies Cup selection event.
Jorge recalls: “I tried to be my best at that selection event and I think I was the fastest. They selected me, and from that point, everything went in a really good way.”
Martín made the Red Bull Rookies Cup cut in 2012 to get his foot in door
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Martín won the Red Bull Rookies Cup in 2014, kick-starting his career
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He won the Rookies Cup in his third and final year, paving the way for a World Championship ride in Moto3 2015. His MotoGP™ title makes him the first Rookies Cup Champion to go on to claim the ultimate prize in motorcycling.
He went on to win the Moto3 Championship three years later in 2018 before two years in the Moto2 category (the MotoGP™ feeder series) with wins aplenty but a second world title ultimately evading him.
Martín grabbed his first world title in 2018 in the Moto3™ class
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His results and potential were enough to earn him a seat in the premier category with Pramac Ducati for 2021. To say it was a turbulent start to life in the top class would be an understatement.
While he was fast from the first moment he threw his leg over the Ducati Desmosedici, there are still chunks missing from the asphalt on the exit of turn three at Qatar thanks to a huge crash Martín suffered in his very first test. Nothing bites like a MotoGP™ bike when it goes wrong. That particular bike ended up almost entirely in the skip.
Did it slow him down? No chance. In fact, his adaptation to the top class is probably underrated in an era of meteoric rises like those we’ve seen from Marc Márquez and Pedro Acosta. Martín took third place in only his second MotoGP™ weekend at the very same circuit he totalled a bike at less than a month before.
It was a very different story at the next round in Portugal, however. Jorge explains:
“It was a crash exiting from boxes, because normally these new tyres are shiny, so you have to ‘clean’ them. And I didn’t know at that point because I was a rookie with two races in MotoGP™. Nowadays when I go out of the truck, I always try to be really smooth and clean when they are shiny like this, to then attack. But if you push with that shiny layer on them, then shit happens!”
That wasn’t just any crash. His list of resulting injuries were extensive: broken tib and fib, and a substantial number of broken bones in his hands, which were the main issues with getting back on the bike. He continues: “The most difficult thing to overcome was all the pain in my body. I had some issues even when I won [his first race] in Austria [later that year].”
His career nearly ended that day, his injuries were that extensive. Motorcycle racing summed up in a nutshell: from the highs of a debut podium one weekend to the hospital bed a fortnight later. Brutal.
Martín bounced back from a huge injury to win his first MotoGP™ in Austria
© Joerg Mitter/Red Bull Content Pool
The most difficult thing to overcome was the pain. I had some issues even when I won in Austria
Martín’s approach has always been all or nothing on the track from the moment the green flag waves at the end of pit lane, every single session.
He’s easy to spot on track, always has been since moving up to the premier class. Will Smith was even awe-struck by his shoulder-down style through the corners that he shared a clip of him on his Instagram! But it’s not about style at this level, it’s all function. Jorge explains: “As I'm a really small rider – I'm 1.67m, it's not a lot – and I have to go really low on the ground to turn the bike”.
He’s the fastest in the World over one lap. A qualifying specialist and ‘Sprint King’.
No one can sling a MotoGP™ bike lower in a corner than Martín
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He once described his approach as ‘living corner to corner’, throwing the bike into a turn as fast as possible, not knowing if he’ll come out the other end ‘rubber side down’.
Best example of this? Germany 2023, braking as late as physically possible into turn one, rear wheel about a foot in the air, right leg flailing around in the 150kph breeze.
But being fast outright isn’t what wins championships.
Riding in such a way can lead to mistakes, sometimes when it matters the most. That’s the story of Jorge’s 2023 title challenge.
He was haunted throughout the winter by errors, like crashing out of a seemingly guaranteed victory in Indonesia, just 24 hours after taking the lead in the championship from a Sprint win:
“Sometimes I have to be colder and relax and try to analyse better the situations. For example, last season in Lombok, I was leading by three seconds (and crashed). It made no sense to do that… It’s more important to finish fourth than not at all.”
Martín learned a huge amount from his title near miss in 2023
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Sometimes I have to be colder, relax and try to analyse situations better
For 2024, he had to turn the page: “Emotions, impulse control and managing critical moments are some of the aspects in which I have improved the most”, he says.
When the difference between winning and losing can be as small as pulling a brake lever that extra millimetre closer to the handlebar or half a degree more of a turn on the throttle, keeping your cool is paramount.
If there’s one thing you can tell from speaking to Jorge, his number one opponent is himself. He jokes: “I don’t have problems at night thinking about other riders!”
Even with a full off-season to fine-tune things mentally, putting it into practice on the track with 21 other riders is a different kettle of fish. Both Martín and Bagnaia had their fair share of mistakes in 2024, only this time, Martín was the one to keep the cooler head in those crucial moments.
Jerez and Germany early in the season saw big errors from the eventual champion, crashing out from the lead a la Lombok both times. But he finally put those issues behind him in the summer break. The only major error thereafter came in Misano where a light spattering of rain during the Sprint gave riders the option to switch to rain tyres. He pitted when his rivals didn’t.
There’s a fine line between hero and zero in those situations. A minute more of rain and the track could have been wet enough for that decision to be heroic. But it wasn’t his day.
There were other occasions when Jorge showed everyone how much of a step up he’d made. A Sunday win in Portimão put to bed the demons from 2021. He even had a new tattoo to mark the end of that chapter: “I have a big phoenix on my back because from Portimão in 2021, to get back from that situation and to win, I felt like I was a phoenix [rising from the ashes].”
Martin has been right at the front from the get-go in 2024
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Martín's stood on top of the podium three times during the 2024 season
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In May came Le Mans, beating both Bagnaia and Márquez in a fair fight on Sunday wounded his rivals’ confidence. They now knew that the Sprint King would be a consistent threat on any given Sunday, too.
Some pundits will call this the championship of who made the least mistakes. And while Bagnaia made some key errors that helped the momentum swing in Martín’s favour – crashing out of second in Misano, or the Sprint in Sepang – Jorge’s triumph is more about knowing when it’s best to push for a win, and when to settle for the best possible result, like second place.
The wet Sunday race in Thailand, he chased Márquez and Bagnaia for P1. Márquez’s crash ahead of him was enough to help him take second rather than fall into the same trap.
The penultimate round in Sepang was probably the best weekend performance of his whole campaign, maybe even career. Bagnaia set a devastating new lap record in qualifying, where Martín is seen as the ‘inevitable’ pole-sitter. Could he come back to take it to Pecco in the Sprint? Not only did he go all out for the win, his pace forced Bagnaia into another mistake, crashing out while chasing the #89. Advantage Jorge.
On Sunday came a battle for the ages. Both riders engaged in a dog-fight for the opening five laps we’ve not seen the likes of for years - motorcycle racing at it’s very, very best. But even then, in amongst the chaos of brash (but clean) passes thrown every other corner, Martín had the calmest of mindsets to call it when enough was enough. Bagnaia broke away, taking the win, Martín with second and taking a sizeable 24 point lead heading into the finale of Barcelona. The rest is history.
Martín and his Pramac team have forged a world-beating partnership
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Knowing when it’s possible to win and when to simply take as many points as you can. That’s how the 2024 MotoGP™ title was won.
So what now? The name Jorge Martín is etched into MotoGP™ immortality.
A new adventure awaits as he becomes a factory rider for Aprilia in 2025. Is that it, dream, believe, achieved? Now time to bag the cash for a pension or his next sports car? Settle down, family time?
Absolutely not!
This is where he locks back in and remembers his personal mantra: “I look back and see what I have achieved and who I have become. I look around me and see the team of people I have, both personally and professionally. And then I say, ‘you have to take this forward’.”
It’ll be back to the bicycle and gym, as well as working with the mental coach that turned out key to his 2024 title victory. The goal? MotoGP™ title number two. But this time, as a full factory rider.
“I want to enjoy the process, to enjoy training, and at the end of the day winning is a consequence of doing that. If you do all the work in a good way, you are focused, then the consequences of that mean you win. So, I’m not obsessed with victory. I’m more obsessed with the process.”
Reset. Game on.
