{"id":343656,"date":"2025-12-12T18:14:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T18:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343656\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T18:14:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T18:14:06","slug":"motogp-documentary-reveals-jorge-martin-had-really-good-honda-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343656\/","title":{"rendered":"MotoGP documentary reveals Jorge Martin had \u201creally good\u201d Honda offer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola reveals he was told by Jorge Martin\u2019s manager that Honda made a \u201creally good\u201d offer for MotoGP 2026, which sparked the contract dispute.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/973236\/jorge-martin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jorge Martin<\/a> had competed in just one grand prix weekend in 2025 with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/aprilia-racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aprilia<\/a> due to injury when the bombshell dropped that he was looking to leave the brand in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 world champion tried to activate a performance clause in his contract, which Aprilia firmly stood against due to his lack of time on the RS-GP at that point.<\/p>\n<p>Rumours quickly surfaced that Martin was looking at a potential <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/repsol-honda-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Honda<\/a> switch for 2026, which was only heightened when his manager, Albert Valera, publicly confirmed that HRC was an option during the Dutch Grand Prix weekend.<\/p>\n<p>HRC repeatedly denied that any offer was made and that it would not table deals with riders under contract elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Rivola opens up on Jorge Martin contract fallout<\/p>\n<p>The matter was eventually resolved, with Aprilia\u2019s threats of legal action and an intervention from Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta ultimately leading to Martin committing to year two of his contract.<\/p>\n<p>When he faced the media for the first time at Brno on the matter, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/news\/1077177\/1\/jorge-martin-aprilia-contract-fallout-i-have-no-regrets-i-dont-need-apologise\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he said he had nothing to apologise for<\/a>, as he felt he was doing what was best for his career, and linked the dispute to doubts he had been having following a serious crash in Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>In a new documentary released by MotoGP, entitled From Heaven to Hell, Massimo Rivola reveals the initial conversation Valera had with him about Martin leaving Apriila, stating that there was a \u201creally good\u201d offer from Honda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlbert Valera, his manager, came to me and said, \u2018You know what, I think we could leave, and Honda is quite interested in him, the offer is really good\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I said, \u2018Are you joking?\u2019<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe day after, I went to Madrid, because I wanted to see him [Martin] to check if it was true what Albert had just said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd he said, \u2018I think it\u2019s better for me to leave\u2019, and I said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, but I\u2019m not going to let you go\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rivola added on the matter: \u201cI was also tough on him in saying \u2018you don\u2019t leave, because I think &#8211; more than you &#8211; what is better for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This story initially broke just after the French Grand Prix, with Aprilia going on to win the following British Grand Prix with Marco Bezzecchi.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola reveals he was told by Jorge Martin\u2019s manager that Honda made a \u201creally good\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[10669,64,63,9400,5744,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-343656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-aprilia-racing","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-honda-hrc","12":"tag-jorge-martin","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}