Make Mistakes, Learn Faster: The Battle For The 2024 MotoGP World Championship

In regards to the 2023 season, there's no doubt that Martin was unfortunately known as a mistake-maker, most notably crashing out of 1st place during the Indonesian GP. 4 retirements in Sunday races for 2023 saw his points trickle down the championship leaderboard even if the newly introduced sprints proved his results otherwise by winning 9 out of 19 of these races. The small 9 point gains pulled his chances to the last round but it was never meant to be, and his reaction to all of it crashing down in the Pramac Ducati garage was a difficult sight as he was comforted by engineers and team members.

Many people blamed this on his immaturity throughout the season, putting him at risk of losing his head during races which took its toll as an end result compared to the cool-headed Italian. But that final handshake to Bagnaia at the podium celebration declared a change in the Spaniard's outlook of the situation and like most people that would finish runner-up in these tense scenario: "Next year, it's my turn".

The 2024 season brought a clean slate to the motorbike racing as it does every year however after being denied a factory seat for this time around, Jorge was fully set on showing his worth to the red garage in order to get something out for them for 2025. With Marco Bezzecchi seemingly out of the championship quite early on after struggling on the GP23 which prevailed throughout the entirety of the season; it was almost impossible for Martin to experience anything less than the 2023 decider. Although this didn't come as easy as it seemed after Marc Marquez finally made his debut on a contending bike as well as Enea Bastianini who was still trying to persuade his factory Ducati team to keep him for the future. This meant that not only did Martin have to contend with 1 or 2 riders, but 3 in total with all of them desperate to catch that red seat by November.

Although rumours floated around as to who would gain this seat, the final confirmation was ultimately set in stone on the 3rd of June, where Jorge Martin was surprisingly announced to sign for the Aprilia Factory team in a multi-year deal. It only took one month for the next headlines to appear as "Marc Marquez signs for Ducati Lenovo Team until 2026" was flashed across the paddock. Even at the end of testing in Barcelona this week, it's a case of 'time will tell' as to who got the better deal in this scenario, but some suggest that the 2024 results speak for themselves.

At this point in the season where Martin had gain 4 race wins with the former world champion only coming close in 2nd on 2 occasions, it begs to see why Ducati made this decision in the first place: sponsors, recognition, raw talent? Arguably, this just made Jorge Martin fight harder until the final laps and with the switch-up of manufacturers for the 2025 season, it seemed that this championship win was either now or never.

By comparing the 2023 and 2024 season, not only did Jorge Martin only retire from just one single Sunday race for the German GP round in 2024, but he only took his place off of the podium for 3 Sunday races. Oppositely, Pecco Bagnaia had retired from 3 Sunday races and stepped off of the Sunday podium 4 times. Seemingly the roles had revered from a year prior as most of the Italian's moments of glory were cut short due to the realisation of slipping championship hopes where the Spaniard held 1st place in the championship since the Aragon GP.

Those small gains since the grand prix just wasn't enough for the Ducati champion whilst the Martinator's guard stood strong and took all the points that he needed with him until it was all finally over. Even with a win in the Sprint race and Sunday race, these 37 points wasn't enough to close the gap in the championship as Martin stood on probably what felt like the most amazing P3 step at the iconic Barcelona-Catalunya podium in his life. A mega achievement for the team too as they become the first independent team winners in the modern MotoGP era; the last time this ever occurred was with Valentino Rossi in 2001. Huge congratulations are deserved for him as he finally achieves the most pivotal award in his career, and a good luck in honour to try and keep it that way for as long as possible.

Where is 2025 taking us?

Speaking of a new era of MotoGP, it is inevitable that change would always be on the table, more specifically in the new rebranding scheme that has taken ahold of the motorsport category and something that was kept well under wraps until the final week of the 2024 season. Some could argue the reveal in the awards ceremony was slightly over the top with Emilia Clarke's flamboyant speech but this change, like most in the modern world, hasn't been as well-received as organisers would have hoped. These comments mostly range about how the motorbike series is being 'F1-nised' by ditching the iconic checkered flag logo and replacing it with a blander, more-aesthetic looking font.

Many reasons could be included as to why this change has had to be made but if there's one thing for certain, it's that you only need to simply look at the increasing number of Formula One fans in the past 10 years since Liberty Media took over and a redesign of the sport was made (sound fairly familiar?) There are many positive and negatives to every category of motorsport and the worry that MotoGP fans think the sport will no longer become affordable is completely valid. Although if you'd paid attention throughout this large presentation, you would have picked up on the reinforcement of keeping the sport purely "for the fans". Do Liberty Media understand where they've made their mistake with the highly-popularised 4 wheel racing category? Will we finally see a break in the media ripple that will vow to keep its fans the priority? Let's see for the 2025 season and beyond.