No rider in the history of MotoGP has had a worse season than Jorge Martin in 2025.
The reigning world champion at that time got injured on the very first day of the new season's tests and, after undergoing rehabilitation, was seriously injured again just a day before flying out for the first race of the championship during practice. The fight for the title ended before it even began. Due to various injuries sustained during pre-season tests and races, he missed 15 Grand Prix out of 22.
The official reasons for the accidents were underheating of the rear tire and a collision during a racing incident. However, experts in sports injury agree that in most cases, injury is caused by a complex of physical, psychological, and social factors and events that are not always recognized, and thus the cause of the injury is often attributed to just one thing, or the injury is perceived as something completely unexpected, random, and confusing.
Based on what we know from open sources about Jorge Martin, let's try to reconstruct his psychological state and the psychological risk factors that led to such serious consequences.
I do not work with Martin for obvious reasons and do not claim to know the truth, but if any risk factor seems particularly relevant to you, then perhaps it relates to you, and by minimizing it, you can reduce your chance of injury and thus increase your safety.
Personal predisposition.
Martin admitted in an interview that he is very emotional, that he finds it hard to control himself and focus. Experiencing emotions and coping with them consumes a lot of energy, so concentration inevitably decreases, leading to consequences such as injuries occurring seemingly out of nowhere, even for world champions.
Stress.
Positive life events often cause as much stress as negative ones. And here is a whole victory in the World Championship. The already emotional Martin was overwhelmed with euphoria from realizing an incredible childhood dream, for which the odds were, to put it mildly, not very high. The victory was preceded by the collapse of a nearly signed contract with factory Ducati, which Martin likely did not perceive philosophically. The month after his victory was accompanied by intense media hype around him. Stress and its consequences are a central risk factor, one of the most common psychological causes of injury in high-performance sports.
Motives.
It is highly likely that Martin felt the need to prove he was number one, which weighed heavily on him both externally and internally. At the beginning of the season, he expressed doubts about being able to retain the title on the new bike, but I believe this only slightly reduced the degree of social pressure and hardly diminished his own ambitions. Thus, under this pressure, a shift in motivation could have occurred, leading to a diversion of focus from the process (riding) to the result (winning), which almost always leads to mistakes, losses, and often injuries.
Unconscious decisions.
Sometimes our minds find paradoxical solutions to our problems. Unfortunately, withdrawal into illness, which includes injury, is one such solution (though it occurs much less frequently in sports than in everyday life). Injury is indeed a significant stress, but perhaps the mind perceived it as less stressful than remaining in the championship. It seems that Martin was unable to cope with his championship, and injury resolves a multitude of problems (in psychology, this is called secondary gains): it removes external pressure, makes the need to prove his championship irrelevant, lifts the responsibility for possible losses, and ultimately even softens the bitterness of future title loss, since he would lose not because he is not the best but due to injury. For a valid reason, it feels less distressing.
Superstitions.
Many sports journalists and commentators immediately recalled that no one has managed to hold the number 1 on their bike, while all multiple champions have always raced under their own numbers. Expectation creates reality. I don’t really believe in this version, but it must be acknowledged that it fits into the overall picture quite coherently.
Fear of re-injury.
Often, a quick return to sport after injury is accompanied by fear or anxiety, even if not always recognized. This increases muscle tension, attention to the injured area, and pain, thereby reducing concentration, self-confidence, and consequently increasing the actual risk of re-injury. Alternatively, in an effort to "protect" or "care for" the injured area, an athlete may start redistributing load onto healthy parts of the body, which in turn creates overload, leading to subsequent injury.
In concluding the discussion on risk factors, I would like to say a few words about the mechanisms of protection and injury prevention.
Psychological strategies and skills that reliably reduce the risk of injury include:
- self-control, self-regulation
- developing coping skills and resources for stress and anxiety
- developing awareness and concentration skills
- managing one's motivation
- focusing on what is within your control, that is, riding, not winning
Awareness of one's personal risk factors and proactive coping with each of them is essentially individual "hygiene" work that an athlete must engage in to prevent injury. A sports psychologist can assist in accomplishing this work.
Take care of yourself!