Between Borgo Panigale And Noal There are 152km of distance. A long journey an hour and a half, if you are lucky with the traffic. Jorge Martin he walked it on a rainy Tuesday at the beginning of June, remaining still, with his feet firmly planted there Mugello circuit where, just a few days before, the Red of his Pramac-colored suit all of a sudden seemed to have become darker, more crimson, more official.
Jorge Martin, wanting to believe what La Gazzetta dello Sport wrote on the eve of the Italian Grand Prix, Lenovo had truly believed in the call from the Ducati team. In Borgo Panigale they chose, the rosy one loudly claimed not even a week ago: alongside Pecco Bagnaia, starting from the 2025 MotoGP season, Jorge Martin will be there. Not anymore Enea Bastianini, which according to what his manager Carlo Pernat said would be by now one step away from signing for KTM; Not yet Marc Marquez, that at the end of a year of fruitful apprenticeship aboard the GP23 of the Gresini Racing team he could have married among the ranks of the Prima Pramac Racing team having said, as recently as the Le Mans weekend, that his primary objective for 2025 would be to have an official motorbike (and no longer a team).
However, the bank on which a game that seemed to have been decided was being played is skipped he Mugello weekend has already begun, when Marc Marquez has brutally closed the door to his move to the team where Jorge Martin currently plays. “It’s not an option for me,” in fact, #93 said while crouching the reproaches piqued so much Gino Borsoi how much of Paolo Campinoti and above all by sending probably in total tilt the Ducati gear. Unable to provide the Gresini team with what it would become the fifth official GP25 on the starting grid, the men from Borgo Panigale found themselves forced to make a choice that many feared, that few expected and that no one would have wanted to make: the one between Jorge Martin, reigning vice world champion and current leader of the MotoGP rider standings, and Marc Marquez, eight-time world champion who is slowly rising from the ashes of the Honda sporting fire. Two immense talents, two fabulous drivers, two crazy competitors.
In favor of #89 there was the registry office, in favor of #93 media coverage. Jorge Martin is born in 1998, he has ahead of him more years of career and fewer injuries behind him; Marc Marquez is the one who challenged the King, a rider who succeeded to reopen the debate on the greatest of all time reaching an Olympus accessible to very few. Faced with the obligatory nature of such a choice, it was inevitable for Ducati to stumble in hesitation, in uncertainty. Into something that #89 he was no longer willing to bear it at the hands of a brand that once again seemed ready to prefer another. Ducati he might actually have made Jorge Martin ragequit.
We now enter a field inevitably dominated by conspiracy, I’m aware of it. After all, no one really knows what are you buzzing about now in #89’s head, we don’t know how long the Spaniard from Pramac and the Noale brand were actually in contact, we don’t know in detail the terms, methods and timing of the negotiation. We are in the nebulous world pure hypotheses.
Having admitted and stated this, however, it gives rise to the suspicion that Jorge Martin may have enraged with Ducati to the point of deciding to join a direct competitor of the Borgo Panigale company were, first of all, the timing of the announcement. From the Thursday, the day in which the #89 seemed one step away from becoming Pecco Bagnaia’s teammate, has passed less than a week. From the Tuesday morning, since the name of Marc Marquez was suddenly associated with the Ducati Lenovo team, not even 10 hours. Massimo Rivola speaks of an agreement concluded with absolute speed in the night between Monday and Tuesday, probably just a few hours after the renewed hesitation of Borgo Panigale. On Monday afternoon Ducati may have communicated to Jorge Martin its willingness to reflect further, to the Spaniard it may have the vein closed and, even before Autosport confirmed Marquez’s arrival in the official team on Tuesday morning, he may have decided to accept Aprilia Racing’s quick courtship.
Let’s be clear: the choice made by Jorge Martin it must absolutely not be seen as a simple makeshift or banal spite. In times not suspicious we would have talked about a decision made to take up the legacy of his friend and mentor Aleix Espargaro, to be placed at the center of a project without having a two-time MotoGP world champion on the other side of the garage, to believe in a project (that of Aprilia) which is very valid, which he still has margins for growth and that is even more romantic compared to the perfectly planned and terrifyingly effective one of Audi and Ducati. The times however they are suspicious, and even keeping in mind the elements just considered it becomes difficult don’t consider anger as a crucial element in solving the equation.
That everything was decided and agreed in such a short time to the point of even seeming anomalous leads him to think too length of the press release And decoration of graphic contents provided. In the era of endless press releases, Aprilia Racing has given one of the most important news in the recent history of the rider market with an almost anachronistic statement just 12 lines long (title, title and statements by Massimo Rivola included) e without declarations of circumstances from the pilot involved. In the age of digital appearance, the short Reel who first took on the responsibility of the announcement was filmed without frills, abstruse editing and cinematic effects in the team truck. In the years of appearing social, they were only granted to the press two unedited photos, of which one is crooked and the other puts on display – and thus makes it readable – the first page of the two-year contract stipulated between Aprilia Racing and Jorge Martin. The differences compared to what was done by KTM to make it official the highly anticipated and long-awaited arrival of Pedro Acosta among the ranks of the official team, announced with a press release overflowing with data and declarations and accompanied by a set of scenic photos, they are very evident and make you think about speed, at the immediacy, perhaps even to rush to have to give some news now, immediately, first. The need to give shape to a growing anger before it fades away.
Massimo Rivola, to those who ask him if Jorge Martin’s was a decision taken in the throes of spite, he responds by saying he saw a pilot “very happy”. The CEO of Aprilia, in all likelihood, says the true: as mentioned above, the credibility of the project and the quality of the motorbike – net of all economic evaluations – they can’t help but make a driver as fast as #89 smile. That said, however, it cannot be ruled out that the happiness shown by Jorge Martin at the moment of signing something else is also hidden. A positive anger, a burning desire to show the world how Ducati decided to focus on the wrong thoroughbred. Massimo Rivola, which I am convinced he has immediately understood How much fury nestle in the folds of this joy, he shrugs and secretly gloats. “If he had anger, maybe it will be another tenth faster next year” he says in fact, aware as he is of the fact that, if this were the case, #89 would represent a huge danger for anyone. Including that Ducati that didn’t want it.
