Aleix Espargaro hits out at Raul Fernandez’s ‘joke’ comments after Jorge Martin crash

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Aleix Espargaro has criticised Raul Fernandez after he appeared to blame Jorge Martin for their crash at the Catalan Grand Prix.

Round six of the 2026 MotoGP season brought about chaos and huge controversy. Fabio Di Giannantonio won the Catalan GP after Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco’s horrible crashes brought out two red flags.

Fernandez had been battling Pedro Acosta and Marquez for the lead in the early stages, briefly taking control of the Catalan GP until he fell back to P3. At the third restart, the Trackhouse rider had the pace for a podium finish.

However, at turn five, that came crashing down as he collided with Martin’s factory Aprilia, taking both riders out of contention. Martin shoved his Aprilia team members as he brought his bike back to the pits, with the Spaniard not being classified.

Fernandez limped home in P17, and the Trackhouse rider was not too impressed with Martin over the accident, much to the displeasure of Espargaro, who hit out against his compatriot’s comments.

Aleix Espargaro labels Raul Fernandez’s comments on Jorge Martin a ‘joke’

Massimo Rivola confronted Davide Brivio after the collision between Fernandez and Martin, which was captured on the world feed in the pit lane. After the race, the Trackhouse rider expressed his dissatisfaction towards the Aprilia star.

He told DAZN: “The situation I’ve been in today feels a bit surreal. Firstly, because I feel bad for my team, who’ve done a really good job this weekend. I feel bad for Aprilia, but there was a moment when Jorge didn’t handle it well.

“He brakes too early, I decide to go for it, and there’s a point where he’s about to lean the bike over – you can see perfectly well that he lifts off because he sees someone coming. When he lifts off, he leans the bike over again and releases the brake.

“In the end, if there’s a racing incident where we both end up out of the race, I go in too late, I take the blame, he doesn’t see me, I go and apologise because I got confused, and that’s it.”

Fernandez was ‘dissatisfied’ with Martin, adding: “I don’t think it was entirely fair. I’ll say it again, he saw me perfectly because when he leans the bike over, he lifts it up and then leans it over again.

“Not much to say. Just to apologise to my team because I think they’ve had a good weekend. We had the pace to be fighting for the podium.”

After seeing the interview, former Aprilia rider and Honda test rider, Espargaro, had a blunt response on X (formerly Twitter). He said: “I take it these comments are meant as a joke, a bit of a parody, right?” clearly inferring that Fernandez was to blame for the crash.