Jorge Martin ‘felt like a fool’ after Ducati denied him 2025 factory MotoGP seat

Jorge Martin ‘felt like a fool’ after Ducati made a U-turn on its decision to promote him to its factory MotoGP team for 2025 in favour of Marc Marquez.

Having finished runner-up in the championship last season and led the points in the early phase of the 2024 campaign, Pramac rider Martin looked favourite to join Francesco Bagnaia at Ducati’s works squad in 2025.

Indeed, on the run-up to the Italian Grand Prix at the end of May, Ducati informed Martin that he was getting the nod.

But when Marquez publicly shunned a factory bike at Pramac and made it clear he had options with other manufacturers, it caused panic with Ducati’s CEO Claudio Domenicalli.

This ultimately led Ducati to reversing its decision to promote Martin and give Marquez the factory seat instead, which forced the current championship leader to sign a works deal with Aprilia.

“It was more frustration that I wasn't going, not that they took Marquez, [might have] renewed Enea [Bastianini],” Martin said in an interview with DAZN.

“It was more frustration, that after fighting it so hard, trying to prove myself to someone and they didn't care what I proved, that I felt more frustrated, like, ‘I am a fool,' like being behind that so much and it didn't really matter.

“In the end it was just that, I was the one who handled it the best out of my environment, it wasn't as hard as it seemed.

“It was happy at the same time that moment because I felt like I could go somewhere else that they loved me a lot.”

Martin says the point in which Ducati decided to go back on its decision and instead give Marquez the seat happened so quickly that there was no time to dwell on it.

“Nothing, it was so fast that it was so easy, that same afternoon I was already in a different mindset, so it was fast,” he added.

Marquez’s powerplay in getting the factory Ducati seat ultimately had wider ramifications for the Italian manufacturer.

It has lost Pramac as a satellite partner for 2025, after the team signed a deal with Yamaha.

It has also lost Enea Bastianini to KTM for next year, while Marco Bezzecchi - whose hopes of a factory Ducati seat looked remote from the off in 2024 as he struggled to adapt to the GP23 - joins Martin at Aprilia.