With several years at Prima Pramac in MotoGP, Fonsi Nieto is currently the sporting director. Jorge Martín is one of the talents he worked with, and after seeing him become the runner-up in 2023, Nieto believes he can do even better this year.
In an interview with Relevo, the head of the team admitted that last season’s result exceeded expectations: ‘There is always hope, but our goal at the beginning of last season was to finish among the top three, to fight to win races, between three and four. That was a bit of the logical goal. Even I gained confidence and believed in what could happen. We knew, so to speak, that Jorge’s strong point was the sprint races, especially the way he was in the classifications and how aggressive he is. There, we knew we had an advantage, which was our strong point’.
Martín has already decided that in 2025, he will either make the leap to the official Ducati team or look for options in another factory team. Nieto considers this a natural ambition: ‘Obviously, for Jorge, the logical thing is that he wants to go to an official team; everyone wants that. But he already said, «I’m great where I am». It didn’t cost him anything to say, «I’ll stay one more year at Pramac». People have to know that we are not an official team; we are fighting against the official Ducati, Honda, KTM, Aprilia, that is, teams with high budgets and that are factory teams in the true sense of the word. It is possible to fight for the title with a satellite team. Ducati behaved very well with us and gave us everything until the last minute. Regarding Gigi [Dall’Igna], I can only have words of thanks. He played a super transparent and clean game, and they treated us as if they were themselves; they didn’t hide anything from us’.
Regarding the challenges in 2023, the Pramac director commented: ‘The toughest moment was in Qatar; obviously, we knew we had nothing left, and we had lost a golden opportunity because we couldn’t lose points. It was a tough blow. In Portugal, that incident with Márquez, the mistake in Austin when he fell on the first lap. We learn from mistakes and will continue to grow. Pointing fingers at this moment doesn’t serve any purpose. What’s the point of finding blame now?’.
Francesco Bagnaia, Jack Miller, Danilo Petrucci, and Johann Zarco were some of the other riders who passed through Nieto’s hands. Nevertheless, he has no doubt that Martín has something more: ‘This guy has magic; he was one of those in MotoGP who was touched by a magic wand. I know what Jorge went through to get where he is now; he faced many injuries and many difficult moments, and he always knew how to overcome them. I’ve always been convinced that Jorge would reach this level, that he would fight for a championship, and that’s what he will continue to do. For many things, he is still very young; it’s only his third year in MotoGP’.