When Jorge Martin launched off his 2025 Aprilia MotoGP bike just minutes into his first proper taste of it - and then when his subsequent training crash took his recovery 20 steps back when it had already only got about five steps forward - it was clearly terrible news for Martin and Aprilia.
But MotoGP 2025 would go on fine without him, we thought. The reigning champion's first year at Aprilia was going to be a subplot at best, given how far off Ducati that bike had been for much of 2024 and how ominous Ducati looked with Marc Marquez joining Pecco Bagnaia. They were going to be the year's headline act. Martin was already even before his injury going to have to settle for a line as the sideshow.
Now think about how good the 2025 Aprilia looked with Ai Ogura and Trackhouse at the Buriram opener.
Imagine that bike not in the hands of a rookie and a satellite team, but run by its factory creators and with a proven world champion on it.
And now think about the gap between Marquez and Bagnaia for most of that Buriram weekend. And how close Ogura was to Bagnaia for parts of it.
Extrapolate that Ogura/Trackhouse performance to what you might've expected from Martin and a works Aprilia.
Surely Martin is denying Bagnaia his podiums. Maybe Martin is close enough to the Marquez brothers that when Marc has his tyre pressure worries, he doesn't have the safety net of brother Alex on a satellite Ducati to drop behind till he's back in a legal range, but it's Martin's Aprilia next in the queue. Alex didn't exactly roll over for Marc in their lead battle. Martin would still surely have been much, much tougher.
Maybe we'd now be heading to traditional Aprilia stronghold Termas de Rio Hondo with Martin and Marquez level on 32 points (from Marquez winning the Buriram sprint but having to settle for second in the grand prix, and Martin taking third in the sprint then winning the main event).
We're stretching a hypothetical a long way now. There's no guarantee Martin would've produced a 'Ogura+' Buriram performance. He might've been as underwhelming as his team-mate Marco Bezzecchi.
But on the basis of all the ways he's surprised over the last two incredible years, you'd lean towards Martin doing something special rather than something anonymous.
And then suddenly so many scenarios are wide open. If the Marquez/Bagnaia gap in Thailand was indicative of the season-long Ducati power balance, then it's Martin taking a shock fight to Marquez that would be keeping 2025 alive. If Bagnaia pulls it together and starts matching or beating Marquez, then there's Martin reeling off 2024-style relentless consistency as his rivals in red take points off each other and suddenly he's sneaking a title from under their noses.
In any of those scenarios, what Martin achieves in his first Aprilia is surely as impressive and unexpected as Valentino Rossi taking the title with Yamaha at his first attempt in 2005 after walking out on dominant Honda for an upstart rival.
That's not going to happen now. In the very best case scenario, Martin's season starts at round three. It may be round five or later. And he may not be in peak fitness at that point, and he certainly won't be at peak bike knowledge as he's barely even ridden the 2025 Aprilia yet and will now have to be learning it in-weekend against fully up to speed rivals.
If Marquez runs away with the 2025 season from here, many fans might be ruing Martin's injuries almost as much as Aprilia is.
Again, maybe this train of thought is going way too far. Maybe I'm wilfully ignoring Aprilia's historic inability to maintain its form to the end of a season because it doesn't suit my fantasy season storyline.
But when you saw Ogura pressuring Bagnaia for third in Thailand with that Aprilia, don't pretend it didn't make you wonder.
