Jorge Martín Almoguera (San Sebastián de los Reyes, 25 years old) sees his life’s dream closer than ever. With a new record pole position and an undeniable victory in the sprint race at the Japanese GP, this Sunday he aims to take the lead in the MotoGP World Championship with an unofficial Ducati. He focuses on the “race by race” that has seen him overtake 54 points in four Grands Prix from the current champion and leader of the competition, Italian Pecco Bagnaia. The number one and benchmark of the Bologna brand, which starts second this Sunday (from 8 a.m., DAZN), is only eight points ahead and knows how its big rival spends them.
“I can’t believe Jorge isn’t thinking about the title, it’s very difficult to achieve it. “When you see something so far away and then you see that it is within your reach…” Susana Almoguera, the boy’s mother, tells EL PAÍS. Martín’s dream is the dream of an entire working class family. “We all sacrificed a lot for this. Everything we earned went into the motorcycles. We forgot about vacation so we could pay for the tires,” he remembers. His eldest son inherited his passion for motorcycles from his father Ángel, who accompanied him to all corners of the world since he was a child. His father, an amateur pilot, had several copies of Motorcycling magazine stacked at home, which the little boy devoured every night before bed.
The soundtrack of the weekends was the motorbikes rolling around Jarama. The family home bordered the Madrid race track, although the little boy’s sporting career began in his birthplaces of Valencia and Catalonia. “But is it good, Ángel?” Susana asked her husband. “It is very good, the best,” he replied. There were often moments when little Jorge, despite his talent, was more outside than inside. Back when they were asked to pay 200,000 euros to continue competing, or when their parents were unemployed and only victory could finance their son’s career. Jorge learned to live on the edge, immune to the pressure of winning, in order to continue his life’s project. “I think it is felt most clearly in the most difficult moments. “Keep fighting, never give up, that’s how it was all my life,” he recalled in an interview with this newspaper.
The title in the 2014 Rookies Cup, the main starting point for the world championship, was not enough to convince KTM to make the jump to Moto3. A miracle, another series of favors, ensured that Albert Valera, representative of Jorge Lorenzo and Aleix Espargaró, noticed him and gave him a place in Jorge Martínez Aspar’s team. With a technically inferior motorcycle, Martín learned to overcome the technical deficiencies of his machine in his first steps in the World Championship. In this team he was exactly the same as Bagnaia for two seasons. Both won their first title on the same day, at the 2018 Malaysian GP. Jorge did it with Gresini in Moto3, Pecco with Valentino Rossi’s Sky in Moto2. From their days as bunkmates hanging out on the video game console to today, they have always maintained a good relationship. “Jorge is at his best, but we have to stay calm,” admits the Turin native.
Last year, Martín didn’t have the same weapons to fight with. “Come on, this bike really turns!” These were his first words after testing the 2023 Ducati, which allowed him to exploit its full potential. The bike, although not wearing the official colors, carries the same performance as the contracted number one. “He has always been a talented driver, but this year he has improved, he has refined all the potential he always had,” says Gino Borsoi, team manager of Prima Pramac Racing. The Madrid native had the ambition to become Bagnaia’s teammate in the official squad, which eventually decided to promote Enea Bastianini to the honorary position. The initial frustration soon turned into an iron resolve to make history with the satellite motorcycle, a situation that could ultimately benefit him.
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“Of course, a team that you know perfectly and believes in you is a better environment. You also have to say that the pressure is lower here,” says the former Italian driver. The pressure is definitely on Martín himself: “If I didn’t want the championship, I wouldn’t be here, and if I don’t think about it, no one else will either.” Since the San Marino GP, the Spaniard has 81 out of 86 possible points and thus reduced the gap to the league leaders to 66 points. His team never ceases to amaze and Ducati wonders if they were wrong in their decision. This year, in his third season in the premier class, he won five sprint races, two endurance races and was on the podium four more times on Sundays.
Martinator inside the circuit – a nickname given to him by his father due to the countless irons, nails and plates that his son accumulates in his body due to injuries and his ability to set a mechanical rhythm – outside of it Jorge is a “normal Type”. and “very familiar.” This is how his mother and his team manager define him. When he went to school and started to stand out, he didn’t want praise and dedicated himself to removing the posters that were made to congratulate him on the umpteenth victory in the birthplace of the World Cup. “Mom, don’t say anything because then they’ll hang things up and won’t stop asking!” I wanted to be another one.
Jorge Martín, ahead of Binder in the sprint race of the Japanese GP. ISSEI KATO (Portal)
Martín has been a restless ass since he was a child and doesn’t know how to stop it. “We would have to find out where the battery is because it is inexhaustible, a bug,” admits Borsoi. As a child, he left the motorcycle and got on the skateboard, and when he got tired, he picked up the bike. “Jorge is something different than the person you see on TV every weekend. He is a restless person, very funny and kind. Sometimes it seems like he’s distracted, but that’s more due to the nervousness of the weekend and the special moment he’s experiencing. At the moment he is a person very focused on his work, he tries to live in a bubble to give his best every weekend,” analyzes the head of Pramac.
Amid the demanding World Cup schedule and with the title on everyone’s lips, Martín will take a break next week and travel to Bali (Indonesia) to unwind and surf. When you turn Race Mode back on, you’ll have six Grands Prix ahead of you to make history and become the first rider to take the crown on a satellite motorcycle in the MotoGP era.
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