Massimo Rivola quickly realised he was wrong about Jorge Martin after Hungarian Grand Prix crash

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Jorge Martin was on the receiving end of strong criticism from Massimo Rivola after he wiped out four riders at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but the Aprilia boss quickly changed his tone.

Martin locked the front as he headed into turn one at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix. He smashed into the pack, taking out himself, Marco Bezzecchi, Raul Fernandez and Fermin Aldeguer.

With Aprilia not scoring points, it opened the door for Marc Marquez to close the gap in the championship with his victory. After the race, Rivola scolded Martin for his mistake, saying no world champion should make that sort of error.

Massimo Rivola realised he was wrong to criticise Jorge Martin after Hungarian Grand Prix crash

Martin will have a double long-lap penalty for the Czech GP for his role in the crash. While he did make a mistake, some people came to his defence, with Pecco Bagnaia blaming the track surface at turn one for the accident.

Some even called out the Aprilia boss for his criticism. Ricard Jove accused Rivola of having a ‘vendetta’ against Martin, and he quickly realised that he was wrong to have such a public outburst.

After speaking to people in the paddock at Balaton Park, journalist Simon Patterson noted how Rivola changed his tone between his TV interview and his interview with the written press. He appeared to backtrack on his comments about Martin.

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“So my reading of it is actually a little bit different, from speaking to a lot of people in the paddock, even though I’m not on site, which is still quite an odd thing,” he said via The Race MotoGP Podcast.

“I think Rivola calmed down a little bit between saying stuff to TV, that was quite spur of the moment, and then kind of realising that Martin did something dumb, but I don’t think he did something…

“It wasn’t insanely reckless the way that I think some people are maybe framing it as. Yeah, he should have been more careful of that patch of asphalt that I think everyone spent all weekend complaining about.

“But these race starts, like really rapid-fire race starts, have been his superpower on the Aprilia this year. It’s been the thing that has allowed him to deliver and it’s not gone wrong this year.

“I kind of think he tried to do what he’s been doing and it just went a little bit wrong. And maybe Rivola has kind of realised that, upon kind of looking at the circumstances around it, and kind of calmed a little bit.

“Because the two interviews are two very different interviews. The TV interviews versus whenever he spoke to you guys, Val, were very different in terms of tone.”