Reigning MotoGP world champion Jorge Martin’s manager has spoken openly for the first time about his rider’s ongoing contract dispute with Aprilia, revealing that they believe that he is now a free agent for the 2026 season even while conceding that they might be forced to ‘defend his freedom’ before being able to sign a new deal.
Martin signed a two-year deal with the factory Aprilia squad 12 months ago and joined it at the end of 2024, fresh from winning the world championship for satellite Ducati squad Pramac Racing.
However, things have been punishing for him since then, with three separate injuries sustained at testing in Malaysia, another while training in preparation for a return, and again on his race debut in Qatar meaning, all of which mean he's seen just a single chequered flag on the RS-GP from the opening 10 rounds of 2025.
That in turn seems to have triggered something of a crisis in confidence for the Spaniard, who unexpectedly pulled the pin on an exit clause in his Aprilia contract that gave him an escape should he not have achieved specific results by the time of the French Grand Prix in May - despite at that point having started only a single race weekend of the season.
“We can say that Jorge is free of contract for next year, for 2026” his manager, Albert Valera explained to MotoGP’s TV cameras at the Dutch TT.
“It’s pretty clear for us that we secured the clause, and we are just following the contract. He is completely open, available, and we will see what will happen in the future. But again, he had a clause, he had the right to execute the clause, and he did so.”
However, while he sounds confident that they’re now free to explore other options - most specifically a three-year offer from Honda to join Joan Mir - Valera also conceded that they may yet be forced to "defend his freedom," a turn of phrase that perhaps suggests that there may yet be legal disputes coming from Aprilia, who insist that Martin remains contracted to them for 2026.
“For the moment,” Valera added, “we cannot talk about any third-party offers because it’s still not the right moment to talk and to understand other offers. The first thing we need to do is to make sure that Jorge wanted to execute the clause, he did it and he explained that in his statement.
“We deeply believe that he is free, and from the moment that we defend his freedom we are able to talk to other manufacturers. Honda is an option for next year as well.”
Valera didn't rule out the possibility of Martin riding for Aprilia next year - but his pointed answer to that exact question strongly suggested he didn't see this as the likeliest outcome.
“Already back when we were talking about the contract and again now,” he added, “we always said that it would be great to give Jorge more time, a second chance, to try himself on the bike. If we cannot do that, and obviously we didn’t achieve that outcome, then he had to execute the clause within the time stated by the contract.
“Now, the situation we are in, I would say it would be lovely if he could understand his situation as soon as possible so that he can focus on the rest of the year. I think that he can do a good job with Aprilia, but they both need to be focused and just prioritise what is still to come this year.
“We always wanted to extend the clause in good faith, and we thought that Jorge deserved a good chance. No one can tell Jorge that he can be fast with Aprilia, he needs to feel it first-hand.
“That’s always what we defended, because that is the spirit of what we negotiated. I know that Marco [Bezzecchi] is doing a good job, and we all believe that Jorge can do a good job, but Jorge has a right in the contract to try by himself the bike.
“We need to give him that confidence, because if we don’t then we are giving him the wrong message, and if we don’t, then he will probably think about other destinations.”
It seems that Martin will at least not have too much longer to wait before he can start trying to understand the RS-GP, with a likely return to MotoGP action coming before the summer break in two races’ time.
Not aiming for a return from his chest and lung injuries at the Sachsenring in two weeks’ time thanks to the likely stress that the tight left-hand circuit would place on his recovering body, it seems that he will instead target a return one week later at Brno, likely (thanks to Aprilia’s efforts to change MotoGP’s rules) with a one-day private test at Misano beforehand.
