MotoGP Rookie profile: Jorge Martin
Jorge Martin will ride for the Pramac Ducati squad in 2021 on a GP21, but who is he?
Jorge Martin from Madrid, Spain, will move to the MotoGP class for 2021 in what will be just his seventh season in World Championship racing, joining the Moto3 World Championship in 2015 and taking the necessary steps to make it to the top.
In 2012, Martin would join the Red Bull Rookies program, a program designed to bring riders into MotoGP, ironically, his 2021 teammate will be the first-ever Red Bull Rookies champion Johann Zarco. Martin was instantly fast in his rookie season, taking regular podiums and the fastest lap at the last race of the season, he would continue in the cup for 2013, winning 2 races and taking second place overall in the standings behind a hugely dominant Karel Hanika.
Martin on the rookies KTM
For 2014, Martin decided to do one better, winning the championship, he took 6 x wins on his way to the title, beating Joan Mir by 57 points, he was rewarded with 3 x CEV Moto3 wildcards for Mahindra during this season, taking 2 x DNF and a 15th place, this Rookies title was enough to grand him a full time with Aspar, gaining him some big sponsors also like Red Bull and Alpinestars, he would be riding the uncompetitive Mahindra.
He would spend 2 seasons on this Mahindra in 2015 and 2016, scoring a best result of P7 at Aragon on the machine in his rookie season with one other top 10 finish at Indianapolis. Martin would score in 12/18 races finishing in P17 overall in the standings. 2016 was a more successful season, taking his first podium in the class in Brno and 7 x top 10 finishes but would retire from many races, it was announced he would ride for the Gresini Moto3 team on a more competitive Honda for 2017.
Martin instantly jelled to the Gresini Honda, scoring a podium at Qatar in his first race on the bike, on his way to fourth overall in the championship. He would take a huge 9 x podiums across the season with his first win at the last round in Valencia, he would ride for the team again in 2018 which would be the best year of his career so far.
2018 was the year dreams came true, it had its ups and downs with a number of DNF’s but he would win the Moto3 world championship by 42 points over his teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio, racking up 7 x wins and 10 x podiums in 17 races, a huge tally given the competitiveness of the Moto3 class. He would move to the Moto2 class for 2019 with the Red Bull KTM Ajo squad.
2018 Moto3 World Champion
2019 was a tough year, he rode the tricky KTM which was incredibly uncompetitive for the first half of the season, ruining teammate Brad Binder’s title charge, however Brno seemed to be the turning point, Martin was able to take 2 podiums after this and 7 x top 10 finishes during the season, remaining with the team for 2020.
So far, 2020 has been a much better year, this was until he was diagnosed with COVID-19, forcing him to relinquish his championship charge, at the time he was just 8 points behind leader Luca Marini and looked to be putting on the pressure with 2 podiums in Austria, crossing the line in 1st place in both races before losing the win in the second race at Styria. He currently sits in 5th place in the Moto2 standings with 3 podiums to his name, a 3rd, 2nd and 1st place in his locker. He also looked competitive at Qatar until a mechanical problem caused him to drop positions from P2 down to P20.
It was confirmed by KTM that he had a Tech3 ride signed for 2021 before the season started with a clause to say that if Tech3 were not performing, he could leave the contract. This clause was activated after the time period stated in the contract, despite a MotoGP race not taking place with COVID-19, burning bridges at KTM who have more race wins this season than Ducati so far. Read more about that here.
In his career so far, Martin has racked up a total of 9 wins and 25 podiums across Moto2 and Moto3, undoubtedly there will be more this season before he leaves the KTM set up for a life in Ducati.
Featured images: www.motogp.com
Gresini Racing
