Jorge Martin – the champion who wanted “justice” and not luck

After Alex Criville (1999), Jorge Lorenzo (2010, 2012 and 2015), Marc Marquez (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019) and Joan Mir (2020), Jorge Martin is only the fifth rider from Spain to win a premier class title.

In addition, his success this year marked the first for a rider with a satellite team since Valentino Rossi won the last 500cc title in 2001 with the Nastro Azzurro Honda team.

Having failed at his first crack on the title in 2023, when he took the fight to factory Ducati rival Francesco Bagnaia to the final race but came short by 39 points, Martin finally got to lift the trophy this year with third place finish in Sunday’s Barcelona Grand Prix.

Martin arrived in Spain with a 24-point advantage in the riders’ championship and, although Bagnaia was in dominant form all weekend, he did enough to finish 10 points clear in the final reckoning.

Ahead of the weekend, Martin had said his championship advantage was down to “the work of an entire year”. He said: “There is no key to this last race, it has been the work of 19 grand prix that has brought us here. If we continue doing the same, the fair thing is to win the title.”

Martin had repeatedly used the terms ‘fair’ and ‘justice’ in the run-up to the Barcelona showdown. In Malaysia, after a weather-affected round from which he emerged with one hand already on the trophy, the journalists in the media centre wished the Spaniard good luck for the final race. “Justice, not luck – justice,” was his response.

Martin is aware that luck has not been the deciding factor in this year’s title fight, even though Bagnaia ended up on the ground in up to eight grands prix or sprint races this year – something he used to his advantage with surgical accuracy to build what turned out to be an insurmountable lead in the championship. Martin was particularly strong in the sprint races, which coincidentally were Bagnaia’s weak point for much of the year.

Born near Madrid to a family of passionate motorcycle racing fans, Martin used to visit races in Jerez as a child along with his parents. In fact, the flag he flies after his victories is the same one his parents carried when he went to enjoy Criville’s triumphs at the end of the 1990s, instilling a passion for two wheels in him as a young boy.

He didn’t have it easy in his early days and it wasn’t until 2012 that he managed to reach the Red Bull Rookies Cup,…