Rewind 10 months, and Jorge Martin left Barcelona after the most intense moment of his career, one that surely couldn’t be replicated, let alone surpassed.
How wrong he – and we – were.
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As MotoGP’s reigning world champion returns to the Circuit de Catalunya for this weekend’s 15th round of the 2025 season, Martin has, since last November when he secured the title in the final round of the year, switched teams and manufacturers, suffered three major injuries, missed three-quarters of the season, unsuccessfully tried to wriggle out of a contract with his new employers, seen his title defence never get off the ground and – finally – provide a headline that was positive last time out in Hungary a fortnight ago.
It’s not the 2025 he envisaged when he left the site of last year’s hastily-reorganised season finale, but it’s one that Martin can – now – smile about. While, as always with the 27-year-old Spaniard, with his eyes fixed firmly on what’s next.
Calling the Spaniard impulsive and constantly riding an emotional rollercoaster doesn’t begin to describe him appropriately. If you’re searching for metronomic stability to go with speed, then look elsewhere. But there’s an authenticity to Martin’s optimism and approach that might just make him the biggest impediment to Marc Marquez steamrolling the rest of 2025 as he has for the past seven rounds.
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Coming from a race in Hungary where he went from 16th on the grid to fourth on an Aprilia he’s not yet familiar or comfortable with shows what Martin might achieve between now and the season’s final round in Valencia, which had to relinquish the title decider last year after heavy flooding in the region in the weeks leading into the race weekend.
“For sure it was a nice moment last year here in Barcelona when I won the championship, but memories are memories,” Martin said on Thursday.
“Now I want to focus on the present. I have a new project, I have a lot of work to do. I need to keep building my confidence … for sure I’m doing great steps but I don’t want to have a lot of expectations, think about results. I want to go step by step and see where we can arrive.”
Aprilia’s recent record at the Catalan Grand Prix – it won the sprint and main race with Aleix Espargaro in 2023, then won the sprint again with Espargaro last year – means that if there’s any combination of bike and track that could upend the Marquez juggernaut, it could be this weekend, with Martin and in-form teammate Marco Bezzecchi sure to feature.
The sweet-handling RS-GP has regularly excelled in Barcelona and is more of an all-round package on most tracks this year than it has been in the past, while the track surface of the 14-turn circuit is one of the oldest on the MotoGP calendar, a slippery sliver of asphalt where finding grip and preserving tyre life in the September sun can be a handful, and often produces slow-burn races with a late twist in the tale.
Martin will be spectacular – it’s a given that social media will be all over his gravity-defying cornering style at the left-handed Turn 5
over the course of the weekend – while Bezzecchi has scored more points than any rider besides Marquez in the past seven rounds.
It’s a potent mix that could see Aprilia – who won the round before Marquez’s recent blitz at Silverstone in May – steal the world champion-elect’s thunder, temporarily at least.
Here’s your Insider’s Guide to round 15 of the MotoGP season, with the 24-lap Catalan Grand Prix set for 10pm AEST on Sunday after the 12-lap sprint race at 11pm Saturday AEST.
Martin sealed his 2024 world title on his most recent race weekend in Barcelona last November. (Photo by Manaure Quintero / AFP)Source: AFP
MILLER RELIEVED TO END UNCERTAINTY OVER FUTURE
Jack Miller was the centre of attention on Thursday’s media day, after news emerged late morning Spanish time that he’d be staying with Pramac Yamaha for 2026 to partner incoming World Superbikes star Toprak Razgatlioglu in place of Miguel Oliveira, Miller’s 2025 teammate who was let go by Yamaha despite having a year remaining on his contract.
Miller, who was the 22nd and final rider signed for this year’s grid after Pramac ended a two-decade relationship to switch to Yamaha, was the second-last rider confirmed for next year’s line-up after Honda (Johann Zarco and Luca Marini) and Ducati (Franco Morbidelli) inked 2026 deals with their incumbent riders earlier this week.
Only Zarco’s 2026 teammate at LCR Honda – almost certain to be Brazilian Moto2 front-runner Diogo Moreira – is now unknown, and Miller admitted to relief that a months-long wait over his future was finally settled.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Marquez looks to extend his best run in 11 years at Montmelo, but can Aprilia play spoiler at one of their strongest tracks? Listen to Pit Talk below.
“I can’t even explain how happy I am to stay a part of this project,” Miller, who sits 17th in the world championship standings, said.
“It’s a weight off my shoulders because I want to remain here and I want to be competitive here, and I haven’t been able to be as competitive as I would like this year on a consistent basis.
“We have speed on random occasions, whether it be certain tracks or whatever, but we knew all along with this package that we’re going to have race tracks where we’re closer to the front than others.”
The 30-year-old – who was linked to vacancies with Honda and Ducati in the World Superbikes championship had he not been able to extend his premier-class career into a 12th season next year – said he could have earned more money in the production-bike series, but did everything he could to stay on the MotoGP grid.
“[I had offers for] very competitive machinery in other championships, but I enjoy riding a MotoGP bike, enjoy riding the best bikes against the best guys,” he said.
“I love Superbikes, I thoroughly enjoy watching Superbikes, but it’s not a MotoGP bike. It doesn’t go as fast, stop as good, you can’t even begin to list the things a MotoGP bike does because you’ll be here all day. But there’s something about riding these monsters against these lunatics that I enjoy.”
Oliveira, who signed with Pramac before Miller last year, paid the price for a contract clause that Yamaha could annul the second year of his deal if he was the lowest-scoring of the Japanese brand’s quartet of riders by a certain, unspecified, part of the calendar.
The 30-year-old missed three rounds after injuring his left shoulder when he was taken out by Ducati rookie Fermin Aldeguer in the sprint race in Argentina in round two, and never got back on track when he returned, Miller out-qualifying (10-1) and out-scoring (52-10) the Portuguese rider in their brief time as teammates.
Oliveira, who has been linked with a test rider role with Aprilia, his most recent former team, wasn’t surprised to be on the outer, but didn’t feel he was given the chance to stake a claim to retain his ride.
“I am sure it was conditioned by two key moments, the first moment was the injury where I came back too late into the season [and] where the decision on the second rider was already made for Pramac [with Razgatlioglu],” Oliveira said.
“I felt like the weakest link because I was coming from an injury and every race was kind of a ‘prove yourself, show us what you’re worth’. It’s OK to have pressure but that kind of pressure is a bit … I don’t want to say ‘unfair’, it’s not up to me to judge that.
“The decision actually taking so long was creating more anxiety maybe … coming into the weekends having to deal with that, plus with your stomach really twisting sometimes because you don’t know anything.”
Miller has a front-row start and podium on his Catalunya CV, both coming in 2021 for Ducati. (Yamaha Motor Racing Srl)Source: Supplied
MARQUEZ MATHS FOR MATCH POINT
Marc Marquez’s best run of form for over a decade – combined with a slump for nearest title rival and younger brother Alex Marquez – could see the world championship leader set up a match point for the title next weekend at Misano should their results trend in that same direction in Barcelona.
Marc Marquez, winner of both the sprint and Grand Prix at the past seven rounds from Aragon to Hungary, has a 175-point lead in the standings after 14 rounds; to seal his seventh MotoGP title in Misano next weekend, the 32-year-old would need a 222-point advantage to take an insurmountable lead before the series leaves Europe for the ‘flyaways’ part of its season through Asia and Australia.
Alex Marquez has just one Grand Prix podium (second in Germany) and two sprint podiums (second in the Netherlands and Austria) in the past five rounds and has dropped 37 points (Czech Republic), 22 points (Austria) and 33 points (Hungary) to his older sibling in the past three rounds; if he cedes 47 points combined over the next two weekends, the 2025 title race is run.
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On Thursday in Barcelona, Marc Marquez – who is aiming for eight Grands Prix wins in succession for the first time since 2014 and can set up his first match point if he outscores his brother by 10 points this weekend – said he’d prefer not set up a chance to win the title next weekend, if only because what that would mean for his sibling’s performance at their home GP.
“I wish to have the ‘title ball’ as soon as possible, but I wish to have it in Japan or Indonesia because if I have it in Misano, it means my brother had a disaster weekend here in Catalunya,” he said.
“If I keep focused, it’s a matter of time …. but I prefer a good weekend for my brother than the ‘match ball’ in Misano.”
Marquez’s winning record in Catalunya, a circuit with more right-handed corners (eight) than lefts (six) that tests his surgically-repaired right shoulder more than most, has been relatively modest by Marquez standards; he’s won there just twice in MotoGP, in 2014 when he won the first 10 races of the season, and in 2019, where he finished either first or second in all but one of that year’s 19 Grands Prix.
“Of course as every year here in Montmelo, I know that I will need to work a bit more than on other circuits to try to reach the top level – that will be the target,” Marquez said.
“We arrive in a good shape [but] it’s true it’s one of my worst circuits in the calendar.
“Maybe it’s time to stop these victories in a row, [but] we don’t know.”
In Thursday’s pre-event press conference, KTM rider and fellow Spaniard Pedro Acosta said Marquez’s likely seventh title, six years and four arm surgeries after his most recent for Honda in 2019, would be comparable to the comeback of another sporting legend.
“I said already a few weeks ago that it’s clear that Marc will win the championship … it will be the biggest comeback of our sport, maybe the history of [all] sports,” Acosta said.
“We can compare this with Michael Jordan, when he went to play baseball and then came back to basketball [and won three more championships]. I think it will be one of the greatest comebacks of sport.”
Marquez hasn’t lost a race since the British Grand Prix in late May, and can set up a championship match point this weekend. (Photo by Lluis GENE / AFP)Source: AFP
BIGGEST GRID OF THE SEASON IN BARCELONA
The MotoGP grid will swell to a season-high 24 starters this weekend in Barcelona, with Aprilia and Honda entering a fifth bike for round 15, and KTM and Honda welcoming back riders from extended injury absences.
Aprilia test rider Lorenzo Savadori, who deputised for the injured Martin in 10 rounds this season, will make his first wildcard start of 2025, while Honda tester Aleix Espargaro, who has started three Grands Prix this season, will compete as a wildcard for HRC.
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Espargaro was scheduled to stand in for injured rookie Somkiat Chantra at the most recent round in Hungary, but the Spanish veteran had to sit out after suffering a back injury in a cycling accident. Chantra, who has missed the past four rounds with a right knee injury after the Dutch Grand Prix, resumes at LCR Honda alongside Johann Zarco.
At KTM, Maverick Vinales is back after missing Hungary, the Spaniard returning for his home race after aborting a comeback in Austria in mid-August as he was still suffering the effects of his heavy crash in qualifying at the German Grand Prix in July that dislocated and fractured his left shoulder.
In Moto2, Australia’s Senna Agius returns after missing the Hungary round with head and neck trauma after a heavy crash on the opening lap of the previous event in Austria.