When Jorge Martin went from a 39-point lead in the world championship to a 10-point deficit over the course of three weekends – a period that began, surely not coincidentally, with Ducati choosing Marc Marquez over him for the factory seat in 2025 and Martin quitting for Aprilia within hours – it looked like the 2024 MotoGP title race might be a foregone conclusion, even though the points remained close.
The concept of “momentum” may be vague, but in this case, it was heavy and concrete enough to be worthwhile.
As the Ducati team’s reserve rider against the current team champion, Martin was the underdog even as he extended his points lead early on.
He’s back to his old habit of making unprovoked one-on-one collisions from strong positions.
In addition, his and Pramac’s split from Ducati would almost certainly have seen them ostracised by the factory for the remainder of 2024 to ensure that the information and the No. 1 plate would not head outside Ducati for 2025. Title contender Becco Bagnaia has also returned to his seemingly effortless dominance, taking four consecutive Grand Prix wins plus a pair of sprint races as well.
But the glimmer of hope that Martin had given by winning the Sachsenring was followed by disaster when he fell from the lead in the Grand Prix with two laps to go the following day, handing victory and the championship lead to Bagnaia.
It was all going in one direction.
But that’s not the case now, anything can happen now.
The main weaknesses that Martin addressed (possibly) are:
June 2024 was a fog of rejection and gravel for Martin. He spent July on the beach and training like all the riders in the second summer break, but he was thinking seriously with his Pramac team about those incidents.
They found enough consistency between his falls not only at the Mugello sprint and the main race at the Sachsenring but also earlier in the season at the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez to suggest a riding style and/or set-up change (Martin declined to share details) could be tried in training and implemented in races to reduce the chance of recurring transfers.
Martin’s race results since Ducati chose Marquez
Mugello – He was in first place in the sprint race but had an accident and finished third in the race after losing second place at the last corner.
18 points ahead of Bagnaia, and was 39 points ahead after the previous race.
putrid – 2nd place in the sprint race, 2nd place in the grand prix
10 points ahead of Banaya
Sachsenring – He won the race, and had an accident in the race.
10 points behind Banya
Silverstone – Second in the race, second in the race
3 points ahead of Banaya
Martin noted that the change was “really hard to spot when I was riding” and added that he was careful not to “really care about it because the way I ride is what helped me get here today”.
But having ended the weekend at the Sachsenring baffled as to why he was so often crashing out of races in this way, it was important to start at Silverstone with an idea of what to do about it.
One race weekend is too small a sample to claim success, but the British Grand Prix conditions could have been classic for Martin: worn tyres late in the race, under pressure from the factory Ducati that was closing in fast with Enea Bastianini closing in. Yes, Martin went a little over the limit and let Bastianini through. But then he followed smoothly to take second place.
And how Martin described this race was indicative of something else changing.
“Either the Sachsenring race was not bad or a disaster, or this is the best day,” he said.
“We have to balance it throughout the season. I think we are doing a great job. The summer break wasn’t the best for me. I wasn’t happy for sure. But to get a good result is great.
“Second place was the maximum. I tried to do a really smart race, tried to manage a lot of different things.
“The pace was fast, I tried to win until the end but then Enea caught up with me and it was impossible, he was on another level today.
“I focus 100% on what I can control. I can’t control if someone beats me. If I do my best, I’ll do my best.
“today [Silverstone race] “This was second place, and we hope to have a better result in Austria.”
It was hard not to draw a connection between Ducati’s announcement of its 2025 decision and Martin’s chaotic June. His attitude to the long-awaited Ducati seat was “what more can I do?”
The answer: to be the most successful rider of the era, and that was the trump card that Marquez could play in this battle. It was something that Martin could not control. Just like Bastianini, whose tires were worn out, whose fuel ran out and whose magic late in the race, no one else on the current grid could match.
Martin gave it his all. It was a great best. It wasn’t enough to secure a Ducati factory seat for 2025 or to win the 2024 British Grand Prix. But it will be good enough to win a lot of races and maybe a title, and it was good enough to ensure he beats a lot of other riders to the top spot in the current second-best manufacturer.
When Martin’s 2024 championship lead was at its peak, he was trailing Bagnaia 3-2 in grand prix wins this year. He had become very good at the start of the season at accepting that his “best” was a podium and that that was fine in the long run. It was this part of his craft that slipped in the weeks following the Ducati/Marquez/2025 bombshell. And perhaps not coincidentally.
We don’t pretend for a moment that one smooth weekend means Martin won’t over-the-limit or have an unexpected solo crash in a race again. He’s a MotoGP rider. He’s Jorge Martin.
But at Silverstone, the combination of the subtle approach or change in set-up that he and Pramac had devised and a return to focusing on long-term play was very successful.
And if you add to that the race reminder that Bagnaia is still far from his penchant for dropping out of the races, the narrative of where the title fight is heading as everyone heads to Austria this week looks very different to what it was when they all left Germany at the end of June.
DUCATI can’t really influence the outcome.
Since news of the 2025 lineup broke, we’ve spent a lot of airtime on the Race MotoGP Podcast arguing over whether Martin and Pramac’s exits mean Ducati will prevent them from winning the 2024 title.
Ducati team boss Simon Patterson will do everything he can to avoid the marketing blow of Martin taking the riders’ title for Aprilia, and Yamaha-linked Pramac will not get any upgrades or information either.
Valentin Choronzi also insists that Ducati wants to be seen as winning ethically and will not risk the marketing blow of appearing to interfere with Martin’s title bid, pointing to Ducati’s acceptance of harassing then-Gresini rider Bastianini and even beating Bagnaia in key races in 2022 when Bagnaia was trying to chase Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo for the title.
This situation would have cost Ducati an entire championship. Martin winning the 2024 title would ultimately remain Ducati’s title even if it couldn’t use Martin in its 2025 marketing.
Personally I lean towards Simon’s camp and I’m sure Ducati’s preference is for their rider to stay put and be champion in 2024.
But how much can Ducati influence this result? Nobody expects explicit orders from the team, it is more about the flow of promotions and data.
In this case, there’s no certainty (or need) of a pile of shiny new development parts piling up for Bagnaia at the end-of-season races.
The Ducati GP24 is a high-end, completely dominant package that is sure to continue well into 2025.
Under the franchise system, Ducati has no wild cards to play with. For example, there is no chance for test rider Michele Pirro to try something for a short time and then switch to a Bagnaia bike when it proves successful, but not to a Martin bike.
In previous circumstances, the role of test rider might have gone to whoever was on the second Pramac bike, but while Franco Morbidelli remains in the Ducati ranks with the VR46 seat almost certain for 2025, does Ducati want to give Yamaha a preview of its next developments by putting it in the Pramac memory banks?
With the exception of the post-race test day at Misano, there are fewer opportunities than usual for Ducati to have significant new parts ready for the season, and the need for them is much less given the advantage the GP24 has over everything else.
So yeah, Martin’s bike might not change much between here and the end of the year because Ducati doesn’t want him or Pramac to get a new set-up. But Bagnaia’s bike might not get much either.
Then there is the psychological impact of Ducati’s top management turning away from Martin and Pramac – if that ever happens.
Deep down, Ducati probably doesn’t want Martin to be champion for 2024 just yet.
But even if it wanted to intervene actively on that front, its options are limited.
Ducati (GP24) control will help.
Making sure he stays on the podium on a ‘bad’ day is more important for Martin now than ever because a ‘bad day’ in pure performance terms could mean finishing second or third.
The 2024 Ducati team has clinched the podium in three of the last four races, and would have done so at the other (Sachsenring) too if Bastianini had qualified better and Martin had stayed upright.
Marquez will have to do his best to make it to Ducati 2023. Its relative shortcomings mean that the VR46 riders are not at the forefront in terms of speed either.
KTM’s form has declined. The Silverstone track, which is more suitable for Aprilia, may have given Aleix Espargaro a pole position, but in the main race he didn’t have enough time to drive the GP24 cars.
No one else has done so much at the moment. Morbidelli doesn’t ride his GP24 as fast as Bagnaia, Martin and Bastianini. In a head-to-head battle, all three now have a clear chance of finishing on the podium in every race.
This means limited opportunities for title contenders to put interlopers between each other, and therefore limited opportunities to create big points swings, unless Bagnaia or Martin (or their more unlikely pursuer Bastianini) make a mistake.
Although statistics suggest that Martin is the most likely person to do so in any given race, the gap between him and Bagnaia on the consistency front is not as clear as the stereotypes suggest.
If Martin maintains the balance he showed at Silverstone and everyone stays fit, there’s no reason why the rest of the 2024 season can’t be a constant back-and-forth between Martin and Bagnaia (and possibly Bastianini too) battling it out.
It would be difficult for anyone to generate this vague concept of “momentum.”
