- Jorge Martin said on Oct 31 that his 2026 MotoGP title is “already lost”, and on Wednesday Aprilia confirmed he will travel to Qatar anyway, per Motorsport.com.
- Martin withdrew from the Malaysian Grand Prix with a fractured right wrist after he managed about one lap with almost no pain, and the fracture has still not healed.
- Whether he can start at Lusail depends on one thing: how much force his right hand can put on the brake lever.
A Rider Who Cannot Brush His Teeth Wants to Race a MotoGP Bike
“I still cannot brush my teeth. I do it with my left hand, so I cannot do almost anything, but maybe I can ride.” Martin said that on the Thursday before the Malaysian Grand Prix, after arriving at the track with a brace around his right wrist. Two days later he withdrew and flew home to Spain. On the day he left, he told reporters his championship hopes were over, and a week of treatment aimed at one more attempt began.
That attempt comes now. Aprilia and Martin confirmed on Wednesday that he will go to Qatar and try to race, with the fracture of the radius in his right arm not yet recovered. He starts work with the team on Thursday, and the trip depends on how the wrist has progressed and whether he can apply enough force at Lusail to stop the bike under braking.
The contradiction is the story. On Oct 31 Martin said: “For sure, the championship is there. I think now I don’t have to think about the championship. Maybe I can win it, but for me it’s already lost.” Four days later Aprilia confirmed he was heading to a race weekend where his rival can take the crown. He gave his own answer to that on the same day he conceded: “For sure, I will fight till the end.”
What the Fracture Took From Him at Sepang
The injury dates to the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island. Martin was trading the lead with Marc Marquez in the sprint when he crashed on lap 8, fracturing his right wrist. The injury ruled him out of the main race the next day, which rain and fog ended up cancelling anyway. He left Australia trailing Marquez by 10 points.
Martin then followed an intensive recovery program with his physiotherapist, a push that led to his decision to race Sepang with a fractured wrist. At Sepang on Thursday, MotoGP’s doctor, Angel Charte, declared him fit to ride in the first practice session, and Martin laid out the odds plainly. “I’m not really optimistic, not too pessimistic,” he said, adding that being able to ride at all after five days was “already crazy”. “Otherwise I will be in my house with a cast for one month,” he said of his reason for trying. He also named the problem: “Let’s see how much of a limitation it is for the riding style,” he said. The right hand holds both the brake and the throttle, he noted, and he called Sepang a right-corner circuit.
On Friday he finished almost two seconds off the fastest time in the first session and barely rode in the second. On Saturday, just before the start of the first qualifying session, he withdrew and went home.
His explanation was specific. “I tried, I tried my best, I tried to ride, but the process of healing is still early,” Martin said. “I felt that I could ride with almost no pain, but for maybe one lap.” After that lap the pain returned, and he said he could not hold a consistent pace. He also said that as soon as the pain arrived he had to let go of the handlebars, and he did not want a repeat. The non-displaced radius fracture usually takes several weeks to heal, and Martin said the bone was healing quickly, just not quickly enough.
His assessment of the weekend held satisfaction and frustration. He called it crazy that he had ridden a MotoGP bike with a broken wrist and was proud to have lapped under two minutes. He also called the outcome a pity and said he was disappointed.
The Lesson He Carried From Qatar in 2025
Martin gave a second reason for stopping, and it came from his own history. He said he did not want to repeat what happened in 2025, when he rushed back to race in Qatar after a double injury suffered in pre-season. He did not want to crash or make the injury worse by forcing a ride he could not finish.
The Qatar weekend that year ran badly. It was his first weekend on the factory Aprilia, he qualified 14th, and he faded to 16th in the sprint after running near the top 10. In the race he crashed on lap 14 while outside the points, and Aprilia later confirmed six rib fractures on his right side.
So the plan changed to a week of rest and therapy at home. Martin said he wanted to give the bone one more week, and he made a prediction about it: if the recovery in the coming days matches the progress he made in the days before Sepang, he expects to feel about 80 percent. His target has a number attached too. “If I am able to do 20 laps, for sure I can be in the points,” he said.
Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola summed up the Sepang attempt in plain terms. “Jorge tried to work a miracle, but the hard truth is that racing with a fracture of the radius six days earlier was always going to be a tall order,” Rivola said. “That won’t change anyone’s approach at Aprilia Racing. We’ll keep fighting to the end.”
A Title Chase That Needs Only 30 Points
The arithmetic explains why Martin keeps pushing. After the Malaysian Grand Prix on Nov 1, Marquez leads Martin by 44 points, and Bezzecchi sits 23 points behind his teammate. Marquez wins the 2026 title in Qatar if he extends his lead to 74 points by the end of the weekend. That means outscoring Martin by 30 points and Bezzecchi by seven or eight, depending on whether he wins the Grand Prix.
Martin led the standings in early October, 12 points clear of Marquez at Motegi. Marquez then took the lead. Aprilia is fighting for its first MotoGP titles. Martin said on Oct 31 that he is fighting for himself, his team and his people, and he reminded reporters he is already a champion, having won in 2024.
Marquez built this lead after trailing Bezzecchi by 102 points five months earlier. Martin, 28, is trying to keep a second title alive on a wrist that has not healed. If he scores points at Lusail, he stays in the fight a little longer. If Marquez outscores him by 30 and Bezzecchi by the required margin, the championship goes to Marquez in Qatar.
A Strange Weekend to Return
Nothing about the Qatar Grand Prix looks normal this year. The race goes ahead amid conflict in the Middle East, and Yamaha pulled both of its teams after declining to lift a clause in its employees’ contracts that restricts travel to areas with an armed conflict. Several riders have opposed the event. The Thursday press conference at Lusail moved from 16:00 to 20:00 local time as riders arrive later than planned.
Martin is one of three riders who were doubtful for the weekend and are heading there to try to ride. Raul Fernandez and Fermin Aldeguer are the others. Martin is unsure how his body will respond, and Bezzecchi, his teammate, is keen to go. “I’m happy to be heading to Qatar,” Bezzecchi said. “It’s a track I really like.” Martin said in the Aprilia statement: “Now we’ll see how the body responds, and we’ll start working with the team on Thursday and see how far I can go.”
The Qatar chapter has a harder test attached than the first. Sepang asked whether Martin could ride. Lusail asks whether he can brake.
The first answer arrives when practice opens on Friday. If the wrist holds, Martin has a path to the 20 laps he wants and a place in the points. If it does not, he will have another week of treatment and a title he has already called lost.
