Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
Family (Mis)Fortunes
An intriguing recent court case in the UK featured brother versus sister, disputing the disposition of their late mother’s fortune. Shortly before her death, the old lady had written a new will. Previously, her estate was to have been shared equally between her two children. The new version reversed the equal split, instead giving it all to the sister.
She backed up her claim, rather extraordinarily, with a video of her semi-comatose mother signing the new will. The old lady was clearly very near death and able to respond to questions only with indeterminate grunts. The daughter is seen to be guiding her hand. She lost the case.
The relevance to MotoGP? Simply to show that families don’t necessarily treat one another fairly.
Dorna is ever anxious to drone on about “the MotoGP family.” As if each race was a happy picnic with rosy-cheeked cousins playing rounders with a tennis ball while their dad’s josh around at the barbie. Whereas, it is a hugely expensive and deadly serious commercial contest. No softballs here.
This is as it should be. It’s the World Championship.
Proof came in Argentina, when one uncle asked the other uncles to help one of the currently disadvantaged cousins. Only for the chief uncle to politely tell him to get knotted.
The disadvantaged one is luckless Jorge Martin, who had run just 13 timed laps on his new Aprilia in Malaysia when the second of a series of injurious accidents sent him home to the orthopedic ward. He had suffered fractures to his right hand.
The third and most serious crash was away from the track while testing the strength of his newly screwed-together bones on a supermotard bike. This time, he broke bones in his left wrist, including the scaphoid always troublesome, painful and slow to heal.
Really bad luck.
The defense of his World championship and his new adventure with Aprilia could hardly have started worse. He will definitely miss the first three races and possibly more. And when he does come back, he will be regaining physical strength at the same time as learning how to get the best from his new bike and new team. His rivals, on the other hand, will already be race-hardened and well up to speed.
Championship chances? Pfffffft.
Never give up, though. You never know. Rivals could also fall into the injury pit during the year.
Aprilia, naturally, sought to improve his position as much as possible. One element would be an exception to the rule that bans riders from testing MotoGP bikes outside of the very limited official tests. Aprilia suggested this be modified to make exceptions for riders who had missed, say, a certain number of races through injury. Let them (i.e., let Jorge) ride their real racing bikes. This is as much on safety grounds as well as the obviously helpful chance to gain familiarity.
As it stands, they are limited to testing on essentially fast street bikes. These might once have had more in common with grand prix prototypes, but developments of the last decade or so—electronics/aerodynamics/ride-height-variations and so on—have very much widened the gap. It’s all very well hammering around on a track-day bike with the headlight removed, but a long way short of the nuance and the fury of a MotoGP missile.
And nuance is of paramount importance, with tech regs keeping all the bikes (and their tires and ECUs) very similar.
There was a general air of agreement from the other teams. After all, they might easily find themselves in a similar situation. Easing this restriction would potentially benefit all.
Even Ducati dubbed it a good idea.
Just not now. And especially not for Jorge. After all, as team boss Davide Tardozzi pointed out, this was the rider who had beaten the factory team last year. And then (though he didn’t mention this) left Ducati. Given when he knew about Jorge’s ability, he didn’t believe he needed any extra help.
Interviewed for Dorna’s TV, Tardozzi averred that any rule change should wait until 2026 at the earliest. It was “a good idea … for future,” and that Jorge was good enough not to need it. For another thing—and here’s where the scars of family feuding show—when their own factory rider Enea Bastianini suffered an injury early in 2023, “nobody gave us the opportunity to let him test.”
Jorge Martin, looking very rueful, joined in the pre-race press conference in Argentina, giving his major rivals—the brothers Marquez and Bagnaia—the chance to express heartfelt wishes for a full recovery. Especially a point emphasized by Marc if he makes sure to give himself enough time to really regain strength. Rather than coming back to claim championship points, obviously.
Good wishes are one thing. Actual assistance is different. Even in the family. CN
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