Before reaching the World Championships, Jorge Martín competed in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup from 2012 to 2014, a keyperiod in his career.
The Spaniard, now crowned MotoGP World Champion, acknowledged that without the Rookies Cup, his future in motorcycling would have been jeopardized:
– Without the Red Bull Rookies Cup I wouldn’t be here. This, I can assure you. Because we were a normal family – not that we were poor, but normal. We didn’t have the money. When I went to the Rookies Cup [selection] for the first time, I was quite young, I had never tried a 125cc, but I was fast. But they said: «You are too young, come next year».
Martín admitted that without the opportunity he was given, he might have been forced to abandon motorcycling: ‘I came, and I was the fastest. Thanks to that advice, I improved, and when they took me was so emotional because if they didn’t pick me at that time, I think I would have left the motorbikes’.
The #89 added: ‘I’m so, so happy. I remember at that time Raúl Jara was the coach, I’m so proud of them – they gave me the opportunity. Then, I was three years in the Rookies Cup and finally I won it. It was a really important moment in my career’.