If Jorge Martin wins the title at the MotoGP season finale, he will do so as a satellite rider – the last person to achieve this in the premier class was Valentino Rossi.
Jorge Martin is on the verge of achieving his big goal. After a season in which he has led the MotoGP standings almost throughout, the Spaniard has the opportunity to secure his first world championship title in the premier class at the season finale in Barcelona at the weekend.
Due to a mistake by his rival Francesco Bagnaia in the sprint race on Saturday at the Malaysian Grand Prix and after an intense battle in the first laps of the main race on Sunday, Martin will start the race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with a 24-point lead over the Italian.
This means that he could become world champion as early as Saturday in the last sprint race of the season if he increases his lead by two points to 26, which would end the title fight even before the main race on Sunday.
This means that Martin is about to make history in the premier class. After narrowly missing out on the title in 2023 against the official Ducati rider, he could become the first world champion of the modern MotoGP era since 2002 to win the riders’ title with a satellite team in 2024.
It is interesting to note that Pramac Racing already won the team title last season, making them the first satellite team ever to lead the overall standings in the history of the championship. In the drivers’ championship, on the other hand, Valentino Rossi was the last champion not to compete for a factory team.
That was 23 years ago, in the 2001 season. Rossi achieved this feat in his second year in the premier class, after narrowly losing the crown to Kenny Roberts Jr. in 2000. However, the following year he dominated on his NSR500 in the Nastro Azzurro team, which was a semi-official Honda team.
Rossi won 11 of 16 races to take the premier class title for the first time, with Alex Criville and Tohru Ukawa in the Repsol Honda works seats.
It is noteworthy that Nastro-Azzurro was not an official factory team, but still had privileged access to Honda material and Rossi received support from former employees of former champion Mick Doohan.
They too became “satellite world champions”
Before Rossi, there were a few other champions who were also able to win the world championship title in the 500cc class with satellite teams. Kenny Roberts Sr., for example, caused a stir in 1978 when he challenged Barry Sheene for the title in his rookie year, triumphing on a satellite Yamaha.
In the early 1980s, Italians Marco Lucchinelli and Franco Uncini followed suit with satellite Suzukis from the Nava-Gallina team, run by former racer Roberto Gallina. They won the titles in 1981 and 1982, showing that satellite teams could be competitive.
The last time Eddie Lawson won the world championship with a satellite team was in 1989. The Californian, who had previously won the title three times with the factory Yamaha team, joined Honda. However, the official factory seats were already occupied by Wayne Gardner and Mick Doohan.
When Gardner was seriously injured, Honda began to support Lawson more, which earned him his fourth title before the era of Wayne Rainey began.
Several riders have since tried in vain to win the title with satellite teams. Sete Gibernau lost out to Rossi in 2003 and 2004 with the Telefonica-Movistar-Honda team, and Marco Melandri also failed with the same team in 2005.
Franco Morbidelli was runner-up in 2020 in the Petronas-Yamaha team, behind Suzuki driver Joan Mir, in a season heavily influenced by COVID-19.