Reigning MotoGP champion Jorge Martin is staying with Aprilia in 2026, and believes the episode is "closed" - even if he's aware there is damage to repair.
Martin confirmed his 2026 plans, reported earlier this month by Spanish media, in a specially-arranged Thursday press conference - in which he had the stage all to himself - ahead of his return to MotoGP action at the Czech Grand Prix at Brno.
He answered questions for over 20 minutes and his answers were extensive as he preached unity with his current MotoGP employer, while defending the decisions he had made earlier.
This was followed up by a handful more minutes speaking to the media in the Aprilia hospitality.
Here is what we learned from Martin's instantly-memorable 'tell-all' appearances.
We knew initially that Martin had suffered serious injuries when he was struck by Fabio Di Giannantonio during the Qatar Grand Prix, with a collapsed lung and almost all the ribs on his left side fractured in the collision between the pair of them.
However, it's fair to say even this was perhaps downplayed or not fully realised - given that Martin emphasised that he had spent four days in an intensive care unit in Doha before even starting to think about flying home on a special low-altitude medical repatriation flight.
Admitting that he feared for his life - "you are never prepared to be close to dying" - after the crash and worried that he might never be able to ride again, never mind return to racing this season, it shouldn't be a surprise that it influenced his wider thinking.
"I was really in a really bad situation," he explained, choking up. "Only my dad and my girlfriend really know what was going through my mind and through my body."
Even outside of the time spent in ICU, Martin was forced to lie on the sofa for months on end by not one but three major injuries and watch his rivals continue to race - while having a clause in his contract that he could act upon in a limited timeframe.
"I want to explain everything that happened," he had opened with, "because I think if I do this, from the first moment, everything will be easier.
"After the first, then second, then third injury, I started to have a lot of doubts on not only my future, but also on myself, on a lot of different things. At that moment, I had to make a decision on my future and that decision was either to try the Aprilia a few more races or activate this clause that we all know about it.
"From that point I had to fight for what I thought was the best for me, trying to move on to another project. We started this fight, and I think I could have continued farther with this fight, but sometimes in life we have to take some decisions and now the decision is to stay here in Aprilia for one more season."
This was not something that Martin outright spoke on too much in the press conference but he nonetheless alluded to it multiple times.
There was clearly an impact that the recent increase in performance of team-mate Marco Bezzecchi has had on Martin's decision to remain with Aprilia.
The Aprilia RS-GP has been the only bike to really close the gap to Ducati in-season in the hands of Bezzecchi, including becoming the only manufacturer so far this year to beat its fellow Italian marque and win a race in dry conditions.
"We could see that Marco, that Aprilia, are doing a fantastic job," Martin admitted of the team's performances in his absence. "I am not an idiot. I see that we together have a lot of potential."
Though keen to close the chapter and move on, Martin readily admitted that this wasn't a scenario where both parties could just forget what happened and easily start anew.
"I think a relationship is like a rollercoaster," he said when asked whether the two sides could really 'fall in love' again. "You have some fights, but finally if you like the other person, at the end of the day you will work hard to stay together and to fight for your targets.
"This is the point we are at now. I can't say that nothing happened - for sure we had a big fight with Aprilia. But now is the time to start to build together.
"We both want to be, at the moment, together and we both want to win in the future. I think it's possible to get back in love."
He admitted you "can feel the tension a bit" returning to the paddock after a situation like that, and that it's not like suddenly "everything is made of flowers".
He insisted his target was establishing "a real family in the paddock" with Aprilia.
"If the fight was much louder, let's say, or much more aggressive, then it would be really difficult to go back to work, like everything was OK. I feel we are both - Aprilia and I - really honest to each other since the first day we were speaking. We know it happened, we know we worked hard to get back together. And that's it."
Yet Martin was quite clear in expressing his stance that he didn't treat Aprilia wrongly or do anything but pursue what he felt were his best interests.
"I don't regret anything," he insisted. "I think everything that I did in these few months was what I thought was the best for my future and for me."
He also didn't feel he had something to apologise for.
"I didn't apologise, because I feel I don't need to apologise for anything. I did what I thought was the best for my career. And now we are together. So we will stick together, we will speak together. If they feel I have to do something to improve the relationship, I will do it."
Martin took a similar stance when discussing the fans' reaction over his attempt to defect - which by and large appeared to be very, very negative.
"For sure fans are super important. Fans are the engine of our sport, our lives. Without them it'd be impossible to keep running these bikes.
"I can understand their opinion - but the only thing I can say is that I did what I thought was better for my life, for my future. And that's it. I hope that some of them come back to my side - but actually I don't really look at the criticism, I stay focused on my people and my family to be strong."
Martin also gave a lot of credit for his decision to the way he was received by the crowd during the Aprilia All Stars Misano event - which he attended while right in the thick of the dispute.
"For me it was impressive. I think [at that time] it was the worst moment in that dispute with Aprilia. I was, you know, with [press officer Antonio] Boselli and everything, I was really scared, like 'I need security, because you will try to hit me or something!'" he laughed.
"But it was the other way around. I was impressed. I think it was really important for my decision to be here now. It was really important to feel what the All Stars is. Thanks to that, maybe some part, I am in Aprilia today."
It has been easy to wonder in the aftermath of Martin's decision whether Aprilia's efforts to keep him have simply postponed an anyway-inevitable divorce to 2027 rather than 2026.
Indeed, Martin didn't look thrilled during the press conference - but this can also very easily be attributed to the stress of being grilled in public, as the lone man on the stage, over an initial decision that had not been well-received.
"I'm super enthusiastic," he protested when told he didn't look elated. "For sure I don't really enjoy being here today, actually! I enjoy being in the paddock, but it's strange to be here [on the press conference stage] on my own."
But it was another answer - to a question over whether he had anything to thank Aprilia for - that felt most informative for the future outlook.
"For sure I can say thanks for all the job that they are doing. Maybe in the future if we win together, I will stay thanks to Massimo for all they did to keep me here.
"The chance we gave to each other last year was great - I feel now we had to give each other another chance, and we did."
After briefly deliberating the "very difficult" question of who gave him the best advice during his time off, Martin name-checked six-time champion Marc Marquez in a telling answer.
"A lot of people texted me, Marc was one of them. I really appreciated his message. He told me 'don't take any decision when you're injured'. Now looking back, I can say maybe this was the best advice," he said.
"With the relationship I have with Marc, to receive this message was important."
Honda was widely and universally recognised as the main alternative suitor for Martin's services for 2026 - and it has been on-record as having a major interest in Martin, even if it always insisted he has to sort out his situation with Aprilia first.
But Martin insisted in the press conference: "Honda was an option but it was not the only option, this I have to say."
He didn't elaborate further, but the list of teams that had official vacancies for 2026 is not extensive - besides factory Honda, this was Pramac Yamaha (which would've made very little sense) and LCR Honda (which would've somehow made infinitely less sense).
If Martin's assessment is accurate, and assuming he wasn't talking of a 2026 sabbatical, it implies that someone pursued him at the expense of a currently-contracted rider - but it will presumably be a long while until we find out who that might be.
