Martin set for prolonged hospital stay to heal severe Qatar GP injury

Reigning MotoGP champion Jorge Martin is set to spend several days in hospital after suffering another bad injury while participating in his first grand prix of the 2025 season in Qatar.

A CT scan has revealed "an increase in the pneumothorax" injury he'd sustained, which will require intervention and means he cannot leave the Hamad General Hospital in Doha for the time being.

Martin, who was first effectively denied a pre-season by one bad crash and then ruled out of the first three rounds of the season by another, made his long-awaited return to MotoGP action at Lusail.

But while he'd had a fairly conventional weekend up to the race, he had an unlucky crash during it - which looked innocuous at first glance but was quickly understood to be serious as he was receiving medical attention at the side of the track before being taken to the medical centre.

While the fall itself looked ordinary, Martin appeared to have been briefly tagged in the back by Fabio Di Giannantonio's Ducati running right behind him.

His Aprilia team initially now revealed he has suffered a "chest trauma" but is "conscious without problems with his limbs".

The trauma was described as a "rib contusion on the right thorax with pneumothorax", meaning a punctured lung.

Examination at the hospital, where he went from the medical centre, subsequently conirmed the aforementioned "increase in the pneumothorax", which "will make it necessary to place a drainage in aspiration".

It strongly suggests Martin at the very least faces another spell on the sidelines in what has been a brutal first season as an Aprilia rider so far.