Back from injury, Martin eyes modest goals on Qatar return

DOHA: It’s been a frustrating two months for Jorge Martin. The reigning MotoGP world champion has been forced to watch from the sidelines as his rivals battle for early supremacy in the first three rounds of the new season.

The Spaniard, who won last year’s title with Pramac Ducati, barely had a feel for his new Aprilia bike when he crashed and sustained hand and foot fractures during pre-season testing in Sepang, Malaysia, in February.

Since then, the Marquez brothers have dominated. Gresini Racing’s Alex Marquez leads the championship with 87 points, followed by his brother Marc on the factory Ducati with 86. Marc’s teammate and two-time champion Francesco Bagnaia is third with 75 points.

While Martin has a lot of catching up to do, he’s not yet thinking about the title race after passing a medical check on Thursday to make his Aprilia race debut at the Qatar Grand Prix. In fact, the 27-year-old admitted to having “a few nerves” and said that simply finishing the weekend would be a huge success.

He had completed only 13 laps on Aprilia’s bike before the crash. “It’s been a difficult two months. I’ve been working a lot to be here today. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t feel 100% yet. I have good strength but still feel pain. So let’s see what the weekend brings and try to adapt a little more to the Aprilia,” he said at the Lusail International Circuit on Thursday.

“I will take it session by session, day by day. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to finish the weekend. For me, just to do that will be a big success. I just need time to recover, get used to the bike, and then let’s see — in two or three months, everything will be on point again, and maybe I can fight with these three riders,” he added, referring to Alex and Marc Marquez and Bagnaia, who sat alongside him at the press conference.

Meanwhile, fellow Spaniard Marc Marquez will be looking to get back on track after a crash at the USA MotoGP in Austin scuppered his perfect start to the season. Forced to retire from the main race, the Ducati rider lost his top spot in the world championship standings in the process.

Starting from pole position, Marc had won the sprint race and looked on course for his sixth victory in as many races this season before suffering his first setback of the year. “Ending a near-perfect weekend with this crash inevitably leaves a bitter taste,” the 32-year-old said on Thursday.

“This is racing. The good thing is that we crashed while leading the race by two and a half seconds, and I was riding really well,” he added. “Yeah, I made a mistake — but I know why: I slowed down too much at Turn 3 and then entered too early at Turn 4. But okay, it happened. The good thing is that despite that big mistake, we are still second in the championship, just one point behind the leader. So here, it feels like everything restarts, and let’s see what we can do during the weekend.”

Marc hasn’t won the Qatar GP since 2014, which remains his only victory at Lusail in the premier class, and he hasn’t been on the podium there since 2019. He admitted the Qatar GP is “theoretically” the first race of 2025 where Alex and Bagnaia “are better than me.”

“It’s the first circuit that, theoretically, Alex and Pecco are better than me, based on historic results. But let’s see what I can do. If I’m competitive, it will be a very good sign for me. If not, I’ll try to work to improve,” he said.

Two-time world champion Bagnaia, who took advantage of Marc’s crash to win his first race of the season in Austin, is braced for another showdown with the Marquez brothers. The Italian, who was expected at the start of the year to be Marc’s leading rival on the grid’s most powerful bike, has so far struggled to challenge the Spaniard’s dominance. He’ll now be hoping to build on his Austin win at the Lusail Circuit, where he won last year.

Bagnaia is aiming to build momentum at a Lusail track better suited to his riding style. “It was great to have that kind of performance at a tough track for me,” Bagnaia said of his win in Austin. “This is a better circuit, more suitable for my riding style. I like the track; I like the layout.

“We know that I won in Austin because of Marc’s crash. He was gaining tenths every lap. My potential was to finish second. Then he crashed, and the only objective was to win,” Bagnaia added.

The Qatar GP, which traditionally opens the MotoGP season in March, was postponed to April due to Ramadan.