He Was Supposed to Be Done. He Just Won Le Mans.

For more than 500 days, Jorge Martin had not won a Grand Prix. Not for lack of talent. For lack of a body that would cooperate.

The 2024 MotoGP world champion spent most of 2025 in hospital, in operating rooms, in rehabilitation. He competed in just seven rounds of the entire season, plagued by injuries that kept stacking on top of each other. A complex collarbone fracture at Motegi: three fragments, fixed with screws and a support plate. Recovery times uncertain. Then more problems. Two revision surgeries in December on his left scaphoid and right clavicle, injuries that hadn't healed the way they were supposed to. He kept it quiet through Aprilia's season launch, said nothing publicly, then finally admitted the truth: some of the bones were not healed. He had to go back under the knife.

He arrived at the start of the 2026 season not fully fit, with just two days of running on the new Aprilia. He called the championship "wishful thinking."

This weekend at Le Mans, he won the Sprint from eighth on the grid. Then he won the Grand Prix. Aprilia finished first, second and third: the first time in MotoGP premier class history the manufacturer from Noale swept an entire podium. Martin is now one point behind the championship lead.

Martin taking the win in Le Mans

What happened to Marquez?

The reigning world champion suffered a fifth metatarsal fracture in his right foot during a violent Sprint crash at Turn 13 on Saturday.

a massive highside for Marc, brought his weekend to an end

He then underwent a second surgery on his right shoulder: a pre-planned procedure to remove two screws and a bone fragment from old surgery that had shifted and was compressing his radial nerve, a problem that had been affecting his riding all season. He is now 51 points down in the championship and missed the Le Mans GP and will miss the Catalan GP in Barcelona. His title defence looks effectively over.

The irony is hard to miss. Martin spent a year on the sidelines watching others race. He came back carrying screws in his bones and uncertainty in his body. Now the man who was supposed to dominate this season is the one on the operating table.

Why this championship is genuinely worth watching

This is not a one man show. Bezzecchi leads by one point from Martin, with an Aprilia filling both top spots in the standings. Ducati still have Bagnaia, who has been quick all season without the results to match. Aprilia versus Ducati is getting more intense by the round, with both manufacturers bringing updates that they first tried at the post-Jerez test.

L-R: Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi

And underneath all of it: the Martinator (Jorge Martin), winning races on a bike he had two days to learn before the season started, on bones that were still being held together by screws when the lights went out in Thailand in March took a perfect double at Le Mans: the same circuit where just one year ago he had tried to leave Aprilia.

Sport doesn't write storylines like this. It just occasionally allows them to happen.

Next round: Catalan GP, Barcelona. Marquez is out. Martin is coming.