If you sign a contract, you should respect it

Ducati racer Francesco Bagnaia waded into the Aprilia team’s contract dispute with Jorge Martin, by telling the MotoGP world champion he should “respect” his contract with the team.

Autosport exclusively revealed that Martin wanted to invoke a break clause in his contract to be released from the second year of his deal, which would mean that he could leave the Aprilia outfit at the end of this season.

However, Aprilia released a statement saying it expects Martin to remain at the team at least until the end of 2026, and Bagnaia says that, in his eyes, the Spaniard should honour the terms of the deal that he signed.

“I was expecting Aprilia to say they signed a contract, because when you sign a contract, you need to follow it, you cannot cancel it,” Bagnaia said ahead of the British MotoGP round.

“If you sign something you must respect it, and it could be a problem if someone starts to make this kind of chaos, which it has become.

“We are living in a moment, in a period, where a lot of speculation is done on social media and this is a big problem. It is difficult to understand the true things or the false things.

“But I think if you sign a contract, you should respect it. It is not correct to exit it from it.”

When asked if he had ever tried to break a contract, Bagnaia added: “I always decided for my future and I always wanted to respect it.

“It is true that in the past there have been times when maybe I wanted to change, but it is not correct.

“You have to do the maximum to solve the problem. It is like a marriage, if you decide to go forward, you must be at your maximum to make yourself happy.”

Meanwhile, Fabio Quartararo reckons Martin’s decision to force though a move from Aprilia could have consequences as he battles to regain his fitness. Quartararo says that during any spell on the sidelines, riders think about “crazy things” as they contemplate their futures.

“I don’t really want to put myself in a position against Jorge, or against Aprilia, or against any brand,” the French rider said.

“But what I know is that mentally, when you suffer so much mentally from injuries, things can happen in your head, many things.

“But Jorge is a world champion, and he has been able to go to almost all the teams he wanted, and he has chosen Aprilia. Now it’s his decision, together with Aprilia, what to do.

“He has signed a contract. I see him, without doing a race, I see him just following. But as I said, mentally, I think he is going through the most difficult moment of his career. And you can understand that sometimes you can think about crazy things.”