MotoGP champion Jorge Martin is expected to race for Aprilia in 2026 after all, following according to a report in the Spanish media.
Spanish outlet AS claims Martin has thrown in the towel on the ambition - as publicly expressed by his agent Albert Valera - to be a free agent for 2026 amid known interest from Honda and will instead continue to race under his two-year deal with Aprilia.
It is not clear yet whether Martin has encountered some difficulty in exercising the results-based clause in his Aprilia contract that would allow him to change teams in 2026 - but AS reports that Martin's camp ended up wary of a protracted dispute with Aprilia that could have not just legal but competitive implications for last year's champion, given MotoGP promoter Dorna's CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta made it clear that Martin wouldn't be allowed to race without a resolution being reached with Aprilia.
Martin, who has suffered three separate significant injuries this season and has only raced in Qatar, returned to the Aprilia MotoGP bike this week in a private test at Misano, arranged as a consequence of Aprilia's successful push earlier in the season for a rule allowing injured riders a test day to get back to fitness. He completed 64 laps and intends to try a racing return at next weekend's Czech Grand Prix.
Aprilia isn't expected to issue any statement confirming Martin's 2026 participation. Though its racing boss Massimo Rivola did recently acknowledge the possibility of a settlement or legal action, with Aprilia having consistently maintained it has a valid contract for next year with Martin it sees him remaining with the team as simply the status quo.
"Well, regarding the future, I have no news," he said when asked about the AS report by The Race.
"My position, our position, is still the same as day one. I think we didn't move by a finger on that. For us, there is no news, because we think that the future is already fixed.
"Obviously we are quite focused on that, we are looking forward, we can't wait to see him back. We will give him his time, we said already last time 'take your time' and it wasn't enough maybe, now we give him even more than he needs.
"I tell you that in Misano he was ready to have a very last run and I said 'I think it's OK like this', and he stopped. So I'm super positive."
Martin was thought to be a prime target for Honda, which now looks more likely than not to continue with its current line-ups across the factory team and LCR - though questions will remain over injured rookie Somkiat Chantra's future given his difficult start to life in MotoGP.
Honda has publicly maintained throughout the saga that it would not make an offer to Martin until it was certain he was a free agent.
Aprilia's statement from back when the news of his potential exit broke did specifically caution against rival teams' approaches - and when asked by The Race whether that wish was respected, Rivola said: "There's not much really to say. I mean, if the rider had this desire for a moment, I think he had his reason to do it, and obviously someone did it.
"There's not much to say and to add. I think you know more than anyone else about this story. That's it."
