Jorge Martin Set for Pramac Ducati Departure at End of 2024
The runner-up in the 2023 MotoGP World Championship, Jorge Martin, is expected to leave his Pramac Ducati team at the end of this season
An interview with Pramac Ducati Team Manager Gino Borsoi has revealed that the Italian expects the team’s star rider, Jorge Martin, to leave at the end of this season.
In the interview, published by Motorsport.com, Borsoi - who joined Prima Pramac Racing for the 2023 MotoGP season after he guided the Aspar Team’s Izan Guevara to the 2022 Moto3 World Championship - explained that, because of the combination of Pramac’s position as a Ducati ‘junior’ team and Martin’s desire to be in a factory team, he believes that Martin’s time with the Pramac team has, “whether you like it or not, come to a bit of an end.”
Of course, Martin’s current Ducati contract sees him with Pramac through the end of 2024, but then his options are wide open, leaving one fundamental question to be asked: where will he go? (His replacement is already unofficially confirmed as Fermin Aldeguer.)
Where will Jorge Martin ride in MotoGP 2025?
There are two simple answers to this question. The first is “we can’t say for sure” and the second is “pretty much anywhere he wants”. The first is objectively true, but a pretty dull dead end, but while the second is more subjective, it is no less true, such is the command a level of speed like that possessed by Martin holds over a rider market.
It seems hard to argue that Martin is the current fastest rider in MotoGP, having won more than 50 per cent of the Sprints in 2023, and converting pole position to a Sprint win at the first race of the 2024 season: the Qatar Grand Prix.
Therefore, Martin’s options are wide open for 2025, with a spot on almost any of the factory teams a possibility for the #89.
The most obvious destination for Martin is the factory Ducati team. The Bolognese brought Martin into its ranks in 2021 when KTM (who had signed Martin to its Moto2 team after his Moto3 World Championship success in 2018) couldn’t offer him a MotoGP ride for the 2021 season. Martin therefore joined Pramac, where he won in his first season and where he has made every lap of his premier class career. While that means he is at home in the Pramac squad, for 2025 what is perhaps more important is his synergy with the Ducati Desmosedici, which after three years he knows, by now, inside-out - even with rear chatter issues in Qatar he was able to come away with a first and a third-place finish.
However, Martin’s relationship with Ducati management has been strained in the past two years by its decision, in both 2022 and 2023, to keep Martin in Pramac and promote Enea Bastianini to the factory team, and then keep him there. The frustration caused by these two Ducati decisions led Martin to say after last year’s Valencia Grand Prix that “if I didn’t yet show my potential to be in red, I will never be in red.”
Whether the friction that has evidently been present between Ducati and Martin will ultimately prove to be an un-clearable hurdle for a potential move to the Bologna brand’s factory squad remains to be seen, but it means the direction for Martin to move is not as simple as it might be.
A chance is open for all of the factories to sign Martin, if they want to. And, who wouldn’t? Probably KTM, which has Brad Binder signed up until the end of 2026, and the promising Pedro Acosta waiting in the wings.
But, apart from that, everywhere is open.
Primarily, Aprilia, which probably has all the tools it needs to win a title, apart from the rider. Aleix Espargaro has proven on three occasions that he is capable of winning Grands Prix for Aprilia, but he hasn’t managed to put together a title challenge over the course of a full season, while the level of Maverick Vinales’ performances seems to depend on the alignment various stars, some of which remain undiscovered by human science. Martin, therefore, could be the final piece of Noale’s world title jigsaw, and being teammates with Espargaro - the only rider Martin counts among his friends - would only sweeten the deal.
In the winter between 2022 and 2023, there were rumours that Martin could move to Yamaha for 2024. But, then Martin looked up, scanned the results sheet, and decided otherwise. If Fabio Quartararo were to beat Martin to a factory Aprilia seat and Yamaha shows decent enough progress, the timing could be right for Martin to move to Iwata - but it all depends on the performance of the YZR-M1, which is currently barely capable of a top 10, let alone a world title.
The same could be said of the Honda RC213V, but there is more positivity surrounding HRC, who have Luca Marini signed up until the end of 2025 but nothing keeping Joan Mir at Repsol Honda beyond 2024, a position that could be taken by Martin should the RC213V make timely performance gains.
Find all the latest MotoGP news on Visordown.
