The craziest bill Jorge Martin ever paid: “I said to myself ‘you’re an a******’”
He burst onto the MotoGP scene in 2021, already as a former Moto3 champion, and swiftly won his first race in the premier class in Austria midway through his rookie year.
Martin overcelebrated, he now admits: “There was a moment when I said to myself, 'Dude, you're getting lost.’
“I won a race, I started to do well and go out a bit more and there was a moment. I remember paying a bill and saying, 'Dude, you're an asshole.'"
"It's better not to say what I ordered, it wasn't a dinner. I was here in Barcelona.
“Maybe I could have made more mistakes, but I said stop, we are young and we need entertainment. But you need to know when, with whom and how."
Martin’s bright rise with Pramac Racing suffered its first major blow earlier this year when he was overlooked for a step-up to Ducati’s factory team in 2023 alongside new champion Francesco Bagnaia.
Enea Bastianini was selected instead, meaning Martin enters the new season with a chip on his shoulder and a point to prove.
He explained about his earliest years trying to become a professional motorcycle racer: "Either I won or I went home. I endured the pressure, I won and I was able to take the next step.
“To make the jump you have to win. In the Red Bull Rookies Cup they choose only 12 riders from all over the world, if they had not chosen me there I would have left the bikes.
“We had no more money to continue, when they mentioned my name I collapsed to cry.”
He said about aspiring riders: "80% of the people who arrive pay a lot of money. 14 and 15-year-old boys, they pay 200,000 euros a year, I was lucky enough never to have to pay, also because it would have been unthinkable.”
Martin said about how he now copes with pressure: "I try to stay away from social media, like Twitter, because there is a lot of hate. This year I removed the app from my smartphone so as not to read anything. At the end of the day, your environment is the one that knows what you're doing."
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
