By Adam Wheeler

As I write this the music of MotoGP’s first official ‘Fan Fest’ will be building up in Plaça Catalunya; the touristic and commercial hub of Barcelona. For two days before round six of the 2026 world championship, the five hectare square will contain all sorts of ‘festival-esque’ activities in promotion of the Grand Prix and is the first gathering of its kind, aping the F1 ‘Village’ set-up that has accompanied the cars in recent editions and since the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, located 15 miles north of the centre of the metropolis, became the Spanish host of the championship from 2013.

The 35th Catalan MotoGP (not counting the ‘Solidarity GP’ at the end of 2024) comes less than three weeks after the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez and follows hard upon the French Grand Prix at Le Mans (scheduling that could hit the attendance figures this weekend, as Barcelona lies just 100 miles from the border and tends to attract a large quota of French fans and motorcyclists). It is three-and-a-half months before the trip to Aragon and then Valencia is likely to wrap MotoGP for the last time come the end of November.

Last week Carmelo Ezpeleta was joined by political delegates from the Generalitat [the Catalan government], Montmelo (town of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya), district and circuit representatives to commemorate the 35^th year in a row that the venue welcomes MotoGP. Fittingly, the press conference took place in the astonishing Gaudi-influenced Hospital Sant Pau Recinte Modernista; a 125-year-old institution, refurbished and restored, updated and unavoidable for any passerby or tourist. The 80-year-old spoke at length (in Catalan) about the significance and relevance of the country in the modern era of MotoGP. “In F1 they speak English [as the main language], in MotoGP it’s Catalan,” he said.

Ezpeleta explained how, as a five-year old, he was fascinated by watching cars barrel up Diagonal and the old Pedrables circuit (site of the 1951 F1 Grand Prix) and realised that Catalunya was a place where his motorsport predilection could be fostered and encouraged. Ezpeleta, of course, went on to become arguably the most influential figure in MotoGP history once Dorna Sports took over the commercial rights to Grand Prix racing in 1992. He was the head of the CdBC – which had been built as part of the same mammoth regeneration project to coincide with the 1992 Olympic Games and signed-off the first GP there that same year (tagged the European Grand Prix until 1996 when it gained its Catalan moniker).

Catalunya’s influence and legacy is unescapable. From MotoGP Group’s roots and operational base in Sant Just (a neighbourhood southwest of the city), to the bygone brands that used to compete (the Derbi factory was a short distance from the circuit), to the history of the Montjuic circuit and endurance motorcycle races that lapped the city’s principal hillside park, to Alex Criville; Spain and Catalunya first premier class world champion, to the bases for teams like HRC, Ajo, Honda Asia, to the residence and training focus for countless riders, the proximity to Andorra and where half of the current MotoGP grid call ‘home’ to Monlau and other motorsport ‘schools’ for mechanics, technicians like the late Antonio Cobas, Crew Chiefs like Santi Hernandez. In 2026 four of the current 22 riders on the grid are Catalan: the Marquez brother, Alex Rins and Maverick Viñales.

The Catalan Grand Prix is exactly the model of event that ticks boxes for the future shape of the series under Liberty Media’s watch: proximity to a major city, glamourous and modern (CdBC have been upgrading their facilities for the last three years, have aimed for better security and have invested more than a million euros in improvements to the medical centre for 2026). Monster Energy have seen fit to sponsor the event, choosing Barcelona’s appeal over Le Mans and Silverstone where they had previous agreements and presence. Crowd figures have fluctuated; from more than 97,000 on race day in 2015 dropping to 60 in 2022 and the first GP after the pandemic. The Marquez influence helped to a surge back to 76k in 2024 and twelve months ago the official figure was 83,320 for an unusual September slot on the agenda.

Last year the Grand Prix was the third best attended from the four on the slate. Jerez drew over 101k, Valencia (benefiting from its position as the championship climax) generating over 93k while Aragon could only pull in 50. Valencia is due to shift in 2027 as Australia and Adelaide are expected to assume the finale role, so it will be curious to see if the event continues to sell-out. Crucially, Catalunya has a 5-year contract in place, running from 2027 to 2031 as does Jerez and Valencia, so Aragon – which is up this year – is sweating under the axe. As a side note: Balaton Park and Silverstone were the lesser attended European rounds in 2025.

“In the future it will be difficult…but well, like I said before, Catalunya is a ‘birthplace’,” Ezpeleta commented when asked about the wavering Iberian prevalence on the calendar. “I think from the beginning in 1949 and then our stage from 1991 we cannot dispute that is has grown exponentially. I hope the growth from now will be almost the same again. We cannot do more than 22 races due to safety and due to the contracts with the teams and the federation, and therefore four GPs in one nation will be tricky.”

22 Grands Prix place huge demands on MotoGP Group for costs, staff and logistics but Ezpeleta intimated that the championship could – but won’t - accommodate even more. “The prospects are really good. There is a huge interest for MotoGP, above all, from investors and people who want to be part of the teams and, for sure, from the 22 rounds we have, if we could rise to something like 27 then we’d have them. People have accepted the change really well and everyone involved is committed to making thing better.”

“Liberty is a world leader and knows a lot about the entertainment business. They are going to fill the well, and should be very good for us,” Carmelo added. The Spaniard said that MotoGP Group has “changed a lot” but initiatives like the Fan Fest in Barcelona was the sort of idea the company wanted to chase. Now, with Liberty’s approval, the quest to take MotoGP away from the race circuits and into the faces of a bigger audience had been empowering. “There are a lot of things that we already wanted to do…but [needed] to have shareholders that agreed with these activities. Liberty’s experience of having done it with Formula One - and their knowledge - is really important, in comparison to the previous shareholders and for that we’re really happy and proud.”

The Fan Fest is largely a circuit and city initiative with MotoGP Group’s full involvement. It’s a dummy-run for more schemes and follows the priority in 2025 and 2026 for big activations like the season Launch. It’s also an example of the fresh demands that MotoGP Group are making of the 11 teams (more time, more marketing staff, more commitment, more promo motorcycles) in the protracted negotiations towards the new 5-year deal between promoters and players. Ezpeleta was also asked about this. He didn’t seem worried about the delay or stated that there was a deadline. “The agreement is different than it was…and changes need time for negotiation,” he admitted. “I don’t like people that don’t barter…because that tends to mean they won’t fulfil [the contract]! So, it’s normal that we discuss…but we’ll reach an agreement for sure.”

Also at the press conference was Miquel Sàmper, Minister of Business and Labour of the Generalitat, who stressed that the business spread of MotoGP covers “more than just 3 days” and the accumulative effort of the bikes and F1 contributes an “annual lever” of more than 500m euros for revenue and commercial interest in the region, city and country. Perhaps it’s an important stat considering the public funding required for the Circuit to exist and to bring the Grands Prix to town. He also commented that for 2026 “the circuit leaves its current area and comes more into Barcelona” with reference to the promotion efforts.

MotoGP gained even more traction in the eyes of the authorities when Madrid swooped to acquire the Spanish GP rights to F1. The five-year tie for the Catalan GP ensures that Barcelona won’t have to sweat its Grand Prix status as it barrels up to the four-decade marker…and can instead dream of other ways to get an already mainstream sport into wider consciousness.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Polarity Photo/MotoGP.com

‘April is the cruellest month…’ so opens T.S. Eliot’s seminal modernist poem ‘The Wasteland’ and Marc Marquez could well relate. The world champion’s love-hate relationship with Jerez persists and was partly encapsulated in a 36-hour period. The 2026 Spanish Grand Prix could even be said to represent a snapshot of the Catalan’s career: acclaim, adoration, speed, skill in the hardest of track conditions, improvisation, victory, controversy and then a disturber of gravel traps. For the second time in two years, his younger sibling jumbled Marc’s emotions of annoyance, frustration but also pride and affection.

All this came after a heavy crash in a former fortress – the Circuit of the Americas – and a somewhat fortunate three week reprieve to recover after the rescheduling of the Qatar Grand Prix. April was testing for Marc. ‘One must be so careful these days’.

There is plenty of poetic substance to the Spanish Grand Prix, and since the world championship found a spiritual home at Jerez. The frequent sun-kissed zeal for racing is immediately transparent through the repeatedly large attendance, the volume of the fans’ reactions, the abundancy of apparel, the now-traditional pre-dawn light show of the congregation at Peluqui and hammered home by the banks of shimmery motorcycle metal in the stodged parking zones.

Marquez, 33 years old, was aware of the great stage on Saturday when he turned his last corner Sprint crash into a first win of 2026. “I say many times; sometimes the people remember more, or talk more, about the riders that create show than the riders that win a lot. So yeah, the most important [thing] is that the fans enjoy.”

Alex, 30 over the weekend, and now a veteran of 250 Grand Prix starts as well as one of only three riders on the grid with world championships in the other two classes, also felt the indelibility of his mark. “This is something magical,” he said of his second win in a row and being the first Spaniard to do so since his brother in 2018/2019 (before that it was Jorge Lorenzo in 2010/2011).

Jerez. Where the Don Pepe tower flanks the sounds of dance music, the echo of the tannoy, the pungent smell of ‘lomo con queso’ occasionally mixes with sunscreen and the crowd are still pouring through the gates less than an hour before the main race (perhaps jaded after a busy night on the Andaluce tiles). All the vibe, but, perhaps less of the verve…in 2026. The 25 laps on Sunday was a long watch compared to the freneticism of the weather-hit Saturday Sprint where Marquez senior reigned but sparked debate once again with his detour into the pitlane after falling in the Flag-to-Flag wet at Turn 13. Cue yet another revision of the MotoGP rulebook due to the exploits of MM93.

Sunday was instead a showcase for Alex’s self-confessed “flow” and where he did not have to worry about the elements interrupting his pace in the lead, as it had done to the detriment of his spare parts catalogue on Saturday. The day was also, a window for the recovery trend and ‘acumen’ of Marco Bezzecchi after another iffy Saturday, and further consolidation that Fabio Di Giannantonio knows what he is doing with the finickity Ducati GP26 and when the Italian doesn’t have to lose energy and focus on rehabbing from injury, as he did in 2025.

There were only three position changes in the top eight from lap 5 of 25 and two of those coming when a resilient Johann Zarco lost all performance from his Michelin rear tyre with five circulations remaining, and the smooth Ai Ogura took aim with his Aprilia against the French sitting duck. “Especially the last four or five laps, everybody struggled in [corner] entry,” the understated Japanese said. “And in turn 8, I have so much grip compared to others, so that’s where I catch them. But, until lap 4-5, everybody was okay.”

Jerez was described as a ‘kart circuit’ by more than one rider for its short 4.4km layout, and is one of the few courses on the calendar where riders vocally complain of arm-pump. It’s also diverse, justifying its use as a testing source. “Jerez is a complicated track because it’s super-complete with fast corners, slow corners, hard braking,” offered Bezzecchi.

MotoGP is shackled by tyre pressures, aerodynamics and ride height devices and even though Jerez provides at least three delicious overtaking opportunities, the machinery appears too unwieldy. “We have many tracks where you can only focus on the rear tire, basically, because it drops the most. Here is a bit different,” Diggia explained. “I always suffer with the front here. I think it’s a track that if you are really precise you can make up time on the rider in front, but if the track is smaller it’s more difficult because you have to be super-precise. You have here a bigger track, longer track. You can gain and lose time here and there.”

The static extended away from the race distance. The MotoGP paddock is neither a wasteland nor a no man’s land; nothing near the gravitas or seriousness associated with those words…but, currently, there is a sense of stalemate, and the stench of impasse. Serious faces, endless meetings and the drip-feed of rumour and suggestion. The manufacturers, the teams, the MSMA organisation that represents them, MotoGP Sport Entertainment Group [namely Carmelo and Carlos Ezpeleta] and any semblance of a brief from championship owners Liberty Media are still not aligned. There is a vow of quiet among the MSMA members and they are not using the media to air any grievances or explicit details of how they’d like the next half-decade agreement with MotoGP’s rights-holders to play out.

Some information has emerged however as the parties barter on remuneration (and therefore the amount of future investment, with at least two of the brands involved almost entirely reliant on motorcycle sales to fund or justify their MotoGP involvement), profit share, and other stipulations such as the buy/lease process of equipment and mandatory requirements for marketing and promotion. Meetings have been going on for months and not just with senior racing management figures but also CEOs of the respective motorcycle companies (most recently at the USGP).

Allegedly, the latest proposal from MotoGP Group was deemed unsuitable for the MSMA members in Jerez. Three companies did not send representation to the promoter’s annual dinner for influential paddock personnel in the centre of Jerez on Friday evening, although the reasons for their absence could also be coincidental.

MotoGP, therefore, is still in a holding pattern before the hype can begin towards the new era for the championship in 2027 and all the speculative changes the transition entails.

There is some self-serving and forthrightness through the murk. Alex Rins is jobless for 2027 and had few qualms in informing the media on Thursday that Yamaha had decided against renewing his contract after two-and-a-half fruitless seasons (and a best result of 7th). His statement was as much an advertisement and alert as a direct response to an enquiry. Trackhouse Racing’s Team Manager, Davide Brivio, decided to tell MotoGP TV reporter Jack Appleyard during Friday’s sessions that Ai Ogura had informed the Aprilia satellite crew he would not be staying on the American RS-GP for a third term; essentially confirming his shuffle to Rins’ saddle. Apart from contracts for Johann Zarco, Diogo Moreira and Toprak Razgatlıoğlu there have been little else in the way of confirmation until the teams cement their status with MSEG.

Jerez was far from peaceful on Monday morning. The rustle of litter was the only audio from beyond the fences but MotoGP bikes were still howling underneath brilliant blue skies and with the abundance of post-race grip ready for sticky testing laps. KTM, Honda and Ducati were particularly eager to grab track time to fix their turning and grip issues respectively while Yamaha maintain their development course in a separate MotoGP sub-category. Oh! What a turnaround 2027 MotoGP could be if the Japanese are secretly fashioning the most potent 850.

2027 is likely to see a large pivot in the sport and Jerez, with its status as the European ‘opener’, will again be a barometer for MotoGP’s conditioning. Fragmentation and isolation in the pack and among the tinted windowed hospitalities are only temporary themes in this championship. Eventual harmony carries great promise.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Ray Archer and JP Acevedo.

In the initial stages of the 2025 Grand Prix season, Spanish hopeful Oriol Oliver was stranded. He had a ride with a privateer MX2 team but when they lost their main sponsor he was asked to cough up cash to keep his saddle. The 23-year-old couldn’t pay and was briefly unemployed. He was rescued by the private Gabriel SS24 KTM squad with partial support from the Austrian factory as part of their talent development scheme. Oliver turned heads with a 4th position overall in MX2 at the French Grand Prix and he gelled with the modest British set-up until illness derailed the later stages of the campaign.

Team Owner, Simon Gabriel, and Team Manager Shaun Simpson had seen enough. Their remit with KTM saw them providing Dutch teenager Gyan Doensen with a berth in 2026 EMX250 but they pushed for a stock KTM 450 SX-F for Oliver in his forced age-related move to MXGP and their first dabble in the premier class.

Oliver has subsequently turned heads. His rapid starts, attractive riding style and fearlessness has given him opportunities to run at the front of the field in two of the five rounds to-date. In Arco di Trento and the last outing for the world championship he posted his first top ten results with a P8 and P10 for 9th overall.

So far, so rookie. What’s the big deal; you might think…? Well, the narrative falls squarely into that classic underdog role. Oliver finished ahead of nine former Grand Prix winners, a world champion and three championship runner-ups as well seven factory bikes In the first moto at Trentino.

The #83 says “I’m learning new things on a bike I’d never ridden before – such as the changes we’re making to the suspension and the feeling I have - but the thing I like the most is that every race I feel the margin for improvement”, but for all his open-mindedness to the task there is a natural blend with the bigger motorcycle, compared to what he had in MX2.

“I always thought the 450 would be a good fit for me because from the 125 days and even the 250s I liked to ride long gears,” he told us. “On the 250 I could click into third and use that for a whole lap, especially for tricky places like Arco di Trento. I don’t get on the gas too aggressively. I ride gently and with low revs. So, I suspected I could be fast but I also don’t yet know how to push it fully, and I’m learning. For example, in Arco the track was different to anything I really ride or train on, so it was a good experience to use the motor and also make changes to the WP suspension to get more out of the bike. I think I’m a ‘light’ rider. I’m not a factory guy but I think I’m smart with what I do. I have a good base; which is important.”

“I know that when some riders move to the 450s they ask their team to lower the power, in my case I feel the more the better!” he admits. “I haven’t ridden a factory bike…but I like having the full possibilities of the engine because I can be fine with the throttle.”

“In MX2 I was more preoccupied [about the bike],” he adds. “Going to the gate knowing that it was not at the level of the factory ones next to you did not give extra confidence. It didn’t phase me…but it was on my mind. Now, I don’t have that feeling. I have a competitive bike and that means I only have to worry about one thing: me. It helps a lot to know that I can start well and be right at the front and with the team we have trained and practice a lot for this. We’ve tried different things, and in Sardinia we figured out the way to start consistently good. My confidence is up.”

Defending and seizing track positions from rivals with far more experience and silverware is not a daunting prospect. “It gives me even more motivation to work,” he reveals. “I love motocross and I love being in this category.”

The loss of his friend and fellow racer Enzo Badenas towards the end of 2025 after a training crash seems to have hardened a mental resolve. He took a podium finish at the Internazionali D’Italia on his 450 debut in Sardinia less than two months after the tragedy. He wrote on Instagram that he was ‘happy but not satisfied’ with 9^th in Italy last week and for all his humility (and the dwarfing might and resources of his opposition) Oliver is aiming for bigger prizes, much in the same way that Simpson himself subverted the MXGP establishment and, to this day, is still the last winner from a privateer set-up with his effort at the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix (at Assen later that year he was steering a works KTM 450 SX-F).

Simpson says that Oliver is as fit as a fiddle, focused and (crucially) modest with his set-up and entourage. Ironically, for what was meant to be a team dedicated to the progressive steps of youngsters, Gabriel SS24 KTM is now moulding a flowering talent at the elite peak of the series, as well as vying for a British Championship. Oliver’s story is one to watch. He dropped back into the clutches of the field during the Sardinian Grand Prix and the difficult sand of Riola Sardo for round four but was stubbornly resistant seven days later in Arco.

“Things had gone well at Riola but that’s a hard track and I’m still in the ‘process’ with the 450,” Oriol explained. “It was positive…but the results not so much because I got tired, honestly. It’s one of the toughest tracks, together with Lommel. Starting at the front was a big lesson for me and I stayed there as long as I could by giving the maximum and not saving much energy. I sunk! But I concentrated on recovery after Sardinia. I hardly touched the bike and got ready for Arco, where my lap-times barely changed through the moto and I was happy about that. We’re almost there and we can use these weeks without a GP now to work really hard and reach the next level.”

MXGP might obsess with the title fight between Jeffrey Herlings, Lucas Coenen and Romain Febvre, or dwell on the rookie efforts of ex-world champs Tom Vialle, Kay de Wolf and Andrea Adamo, or chart the course of Ducati’s second year…but there are also other stories of merit in the premier class and Oriol Oliver and Gabriel SS24 are doing all they can to grab glory as well as the cameras.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Ray Archer.

During a gripping first MXGP moto at El Ciclamino there was a full-volume cry from the endlessly animated circuit commentary team: “la furia!” It was belted out in reaction to Jeffrey Herlings’ race-winning charge from 5th and past teammate Tom Vialle and dumbstruck world champion Romain Febvre. Herlings somehow found a brace of laps four seconds faster than the Frenchman, and the moto was done. “I just got into a flow, and it got better and better,” the five-times world champion said of his most emphatic performance yet on the works CRF, and only his ninth GP start on Japanese machinery. “I was in traffic all the time; I picked up lines and saw some good spots. I had to be creative but at one point I just had a really good flow.”

Herlings’ enduring ability to surprise MXGP fans and followers has been one of the characteristics of the series since the Dutchman’s shock emergence as a Grand Prix-winning 15-year-old in 2010. Through an elongated, untimely sequence of comebacks, comeback charges, spats, crashes, injuries, debuts, wildcards…MXGP is rarely staid when the #84 is moving; except for 2018, where he won practically everything and filled Grand Prix with a withering sense of inevitability with every gate drop.

“It’s so stacked right now and it’s so good for the sport, for the GPs and for everyone,” he said after his second overall victory from five rounds, elevating him to four points of a curiously ‘off’ Lucas Coenen (“I didn’t have expectations because this track does not suit me,” the 19-year-old offered after finishing 7th). “It will bring a lot of people. Back in the day when I was winning by over a minute with Tony [Cairoli] it was quite boring to watch. People always want to see some rivalry; maybe Haiden Deegan way is too much for the European side…but it’s what people want to see and why they come to the races.”

Or because they can witness a master in motion. On Saturday Jeffrey had dropped the Honda in the Qualification Heat but some rainfall on Sunday had helped slow and roughen the rocky Italian soil (optimistically mixed with sand and softer dirt by the circuit organisers) and he looked less ‘lost’ against the formidable speed of Coenen, who had soundly defeated Herlings and co seven days earlier in the Sardinian sand.

Coenen’s error on the first lap caused a groan in the Red Bull KTM camp and continued the ‘one-on, one-off’ podium streak for the Belgian who somehow had to plot a route from outside the top 25 to 12th. Febvre himself was fortunate to be anywhere near the front after a technical issue on Saturday left him with the 39th gate choice, but a lucky open slot eight/nine places from the inside opened for the Kawasaki man, like the softest, fastest and most inviting rut. He was bumped back to reality and the outside for the second moto, and had to claw back to 12th.

People might speculate that Ciclamino is not a definitive Herlings circuit but the 31-year-old actually dominated the very first Grand Prix at the site in 2013 with a 1-1 in MX2 (Cairoli delivering the same results on the KTM 350 SX-F that day in MXGP). He logged another four visits to the top step since and his 1-2 on last Sunday meant six career triumphs at a course that Tim Gajser claimed is: “not easy at all on a 450”. HRC teammate Vialle, who was 3rd overall described it as “a slow track. I think I rode the whole thing mainly in 2nd gear. I shifted to 3rd a couple of times. It’s slow, very technical and small bumps. Pretty fun.”

Herlings revelled in the billing that came with his furious charge (career win #114 and 13 above previous record holder Stefan Everts) and hinted that the pliability of the Honda helped. “It’s hard to make big margins on this track; in practice there were four riders in 0.1 [of each other]. It’s really close. I felt that the bike helped me a lot. On the KTM it was not the easiest track for me, so I feel like I gained on that. I’m super-motivated, I still love it. If I get a win I just get so hyped-up and it makes me train even harder the next week. If I get beat…it depends on how. In Sardinia I was not the fastest guy. I was beat and I was fine with it.”

Ciclamino pulsed with vigour (any airhorns, flares and chainsaws left in the rest of Italy?) as Herlings chased and passed. The packed attendance cheered his every move and the display of efficient overtaking. This, in itself, was quite a role reversal. From 2017 to 2021 Herlings was the semi-perennial scourge of local hero Tony Cairoli. Last weekend he was the darling of the crowd; Tomac-esque.

Pietramurata is flanked by majestic grey 1000m mountainous peaks and it was fitting that the two monoliths of the series pressed their weight. Herlings and Gajser have claimed six of the last ten MXGP titles between them. They now also have six wins each at the venue. Ciclamino split the moto honours as the Slovenian profited from another Coenen slip to glide that fetching Alpinestars Valentino Rossi dedicatory gear into the lead during moto two and then defied Herlings’ best attempts to pressurise. “I was pushing but he did not make a mistake,” Jeffrey admitted. “He did a good job.’

Gajser’s first success in Yamaha colours comes after an erratic start to the campaign in which he has totalled three podiums but also crashed and has yet to find holeshot potential. It’s hard to know whether Tim is now set to challenge for 25 points regularly. His steady but unspectacular first moto run to 3rd was followed by some unspecified set-up changes for the second moto. “I was pushing way-more. I felt way-better,” he said. That the 29-year-old found his way is already impressive as he dealt with the legacy of his fall in Sardinia. “I didn’t expect a lot. I had that crash…and broke some ribs,” he revealed. “I felt like the fans were giving me something to keep pushing,” he added, in refence to the large, smoke-toting Slovenian contingent that make the short annual pilgrimage to the Dolomites.

Pietramurata feels so contradictory. For all the excellent attendance and dynamism of the fans it was also overly congested in the paddock (where the throughfares become hazardous lanes of bikes, pitbikes, cars, lorries and bicycles, even dogs), access tunnels and passages were rammed and the parking for public and campers outside of the single-road entry was an inventive exercise in logistical opportunism. Mobile phone coverage was a guess.

Also, for the tinted windows of the teams’ goldfish bowl trailers (and factory bikes mounted on F1-style 360 dollies) and HRC’s assembly of five truck trailers housing workstations, storage, and two for hospitality – the most impressive and comprehensive MXGP set-up I’ve ever seen in 25 years covering the sport - the rest of the paddock was disparate, with scant amenities for food, sanitation or promotion.

For the wholesome full start gates there were also 18-lap motos and gripes of backmarkers. If MXGP grows further, then what can be done about places like Pietramurata and all its stunning beauty? Do tickets become limited and priced higher? Can this GP become ‘boutique’ or does it give the impression of spilling over the edge, and dilutes the fan experience? If the crowds are filling the venue then there is clearly a vibe of ‘not broken, so no fixing required’…but there is undoubtedly scope for more at this Grand Prix and Pietramurata is still a draw, even in the post-Cairoli era.

“It’s not my favourite track but definitely my favourite race,” Gajser said, unsurprisingly.

“There are some others like it; five-six other rounds that are also quite hyped up but Arco is usually the first big one,” claimed Herlings.

This year MX2 is underwhelming compared to MXGP but Ciclamino was a fitting home for the ‘Sacha Coenen Experience’ and the irresistible start combination of Red Bull KTM 250 SX-F power and his diminutive frame.

Coenen’s dedication and wilful abandon is admirable and his style is unusual: he commits to ruts and corners sometimes with blind faith, leaning off the front part of the bike to such a degree that the motorcycle won’t be saved if it goes. Holeshots, speed and mistakes are part of the Sacha Coenen ‘ride’. Precision is not yet part of his arsenal, neither is sustained focus, but once (if?) these rough edges are smoothened then he’ll be unshakable. If he increases the percentages in the rest of the 2026 then MXGP could be in the unlikely position of two brothers, two twins, not only fronting their respective categories but also running towards the titles. His first victory of the season was a rout and puts him just four points behind a curiously lacklustre Simon Längenfelder.

MXGP is a long weekend. After Sunday press conferences the clock is nearing 7pm and this scheduling is partly because of the championship’s willingness to pack European Championship support classes into the program. The relevance and role of EMX250, the last tier before MX2, seems more prevalent than ever, as the speed and ability of the riders narrows and European competition is more attractive and popular option compared to the world championship. It’s a subject for a deeper dive - coming soon - and I spoke at length with the FIM and team reps at the weekend about it.

At the moment, the MXGP class is a powerful distraction. Yes, there are Triumphs and Ducatis on track but the big hitters are still making the big plays; that’s four different moto winners now from the ten held so far, seven different podium finishers. “It will be a difficult year because it is not just Lucas; it is Tim, Romain, so many guys who can also be in between,” Herlings assessed. “If you have a bad day…there are still many guys with GP wins or championships.”

Less than 30 minutes and 20km south of Pietramurata lies Lake Garda; the largest stretch of water (52km in length) in Italy. The region is apparently one of the most seismic in the country. Depth and rumblings: perhaps MXGP is very much at home here.

By Adam Wheeler. SardiniaGP photos by JP Acevedo.

Jeffrey Herlings made the dream start to his HRC career at the 2026 MXGP opener in Argentina but Lucas Coenen has since upped the ante, and with two conclusive sandy victories to boot. The 19-year-old Belgian is the Dutchman’s heir apparent on the motorcycle that Herlings helped shape from the Red Bull KTM confines that he called ‘home’ from the end of 2009 up to 1st January this year. It’s an elite duel that could shape the championship arc of 2026.

Coenen is in the ascendancy, but Herlings is hardly dragging his feet after his high-profile team and manufacturer switch and is the only athlete to have appeared on three podiums from the first four Grands Prix. He sits just 14 points behind Coenen, who is the third rider to have held the red plate already. This total equals the same amount from 2025 and is the most since the fabled 2021 title dispute…which Herlings conquered.

Lucas triumphed in the sand of Andalucia and Sardinia, and Jeffrey had to play runner-up on both occasions. Coenen’s combined race-winning time in Spain was a hefty 30+ seconds. In Riola last Sunday it was just over 20, after he’d tripped up and crashed, resulting in a grandstand finale that was decided by just 1.2 at the flag. Put simply, Coenen has been largely without peer and has dealt with one of the best sand racers of all-time quite comprehensively.

In Spain Herlings graciously gave Coenen his dues during the post-race interview. In Sardinia he was equally as effusive as the strong winds rattled through the media centre and (figuratively?) through the Grand Prix paddock “He’s on a level now…[and] even though I’m maybe Jett Lawrence’s biggest fan; I don’t think even Jett Lawrence would have stayed with the boy next to me,” he said in the press conference Sunday afternoon. “I think currently he is one of the fastest in the world.”

Coenen has looked stronger and more assured in 2026 so far compared to his record-breaking rookie term last year and his speed across the mind-bobbling bumps of Almonte and Riola (and also the ruts of Frauenfeld in Switzerland when he wasn’t being limited by racing incidents) show that the youngster is hitting a stride. He is still prone to mistakes though, and while not as frequent or dramatic as his twin’s in MX2, these lapses could be countered by the mental resilience that has long been formed in the heat of premier class competition by the likes of Jeffrey, Romain Febvre and Tim Gajser. Being simplistic for a moment, we could talk about the aged racing trade-off: youth, vigour and abandon against steel, consistency and weathered experience. Jeffrey Herlings, for so long MXGP’s exponent of the former category, is now firmly into the latter but this is not to diminish his powers, nor to undercut the reenergising effect of trying to take Honda back to the top of the pile.

There was something invincible about Coenen in the Sardinian powder, however. Even Herlings’ trademark final laps attack could not dislodge his peer in the second moto climax. “You have to be perfect everywhere,” Coenen said of the sun-kissed sand.

To see Jeffrey outpaced in ‘his’ terrain in this way raises questions…but then we must remember that this is not the young man who once lapped up to 2nd place in the Lierop sand in MX2 or the animal that raced to victory in the Arnhem sand with a fractured shoulder. Even a superpower like Jeffrey Herlings has to bow to time, age, mileage, stiffness and pain, and his comments in recent years – in the wake of the momentary paralysis, broken necks, concussions, plates upon collarbone plates, shattered ankles and knee reconstructions – have recognised his powerlessness to fate and destiny while on track. The Herlings risk-minimalization strategy has still been enough to rack the GP wins.

Mitigations. There might be work ahead with the CRF (and this most certainly seems the case with Gajser and the factory YZ450F Yamaha) and Herlings’ caution is well founded, considering he has completed only two interrupted seasons since his masterpiece in 2018. Sizeable injury setbacks coming into 2024 and 2025 mean he must be given some leeway for a steady build into 2026. Encouragingly, his feeling with the Honda was good enough to lead MXGP from the off, despite just two months of riding time his first non-Austrian steed. His starts have occasionally been a past vulnerability, but these have also improved in regularity with Honda trickery. Such is Herlings’ might, his thirst, his experience and his pain-staked longevity that he simply cannot be ruled out of podium contention, and this means he will nudge Coenen and co all the way unless a doctor intervenes.

The bad news for Jeffrey (and the establishment) is that Coenen is at the front of a queue. #84 will know more about teammate Tom Vialle’s rookie potential and will also have some insight into countryman Kay De Wolf’s formation, even some of former teammate Andrea Adamo’s slightly slower development, considering both the Dutchman and the Italian are steering the 450 SX-F basis that Herlings up until recently regarded as an extension of his anatomy. There have already been seven different riders on the four MXGP podiums of 2026 and two of those are debutants to the class. Herlings was not playing lip service in Sardinia when he said: “I don’t feel ashamed. I feel that the competition is very strong here in MXGP. The top ten are all top, top riders in top teams with great bikes and great facilities so it is not a shame to be second but…second is the first loser.”

“I was the best of the rest again,” he added.

De Wolf was particularly rampant, even with two injured thumbs, to make the podium for the first time with the Nestaan Husqvarna (and the team’s first premier class trophy). “I was almost off 10 times but held on for dear life,” he said endearingly in the press conference. “I don’t have much to say. I just pinned it. This class is no joke, even P15 can be really fast. It’s fun and a nice experience but I still need to work a lot to catch up to these two.”

Tony Cairoli, Jorge Prado, Tim Gajser, Romain Febvre: Herlings has defeated some of the best and most successful Grand Prix riders in the modern era and Lucas Coenen is his latest challenge as he extends that all-time GP win haul up to 113 and counting. If anything, Lucas should be rubbing his hands in glee. 2026 is his chance to collect a distinguished set of scalps before the AMA beckons and they don’t get much more decorated than a resistant Bullet’s.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Ray Archer (podium shot by SuperMotocross) Thanks to Lewis Phillips and his bashful stats.

I woke up Sunday morning in Austin, race day for the USGP, to catch the highlights of Detroit Supercross, round 11 of 17 in 2026 AMA Supercross, and found myself captivated - once again - by Ken Roczen. For sixteen years the German has raced his own way, made his own decisions, paid for his own misjudgements to maintain a unique strain of excellence.

From his startling emergence as a bony 15-year-old at the 2009 Portuguese Grand Prix (round five of the season because he was too young to begin the year in MX2) the hype that had been emerging from Suzuki (a major force between Japanese factory and German-based European racing divisions at that time) and from the then-distant European Championship was immediately justified.

Ken was a European kid with American looks. A German with near faultless English. A teenager but with a cliched ‘old school’ awakening in terms of determination and realisation of the commitment his sport required. He was also feisty and fearless, modern and refreshing. He respected the greats and the sport but then had zero qualms in surging ahead. He swiftly refined a natural flamboyance into a riding style that was more brutally economic and efficient. Even his name was cool. Roczen was a factory rider but then individualistic with his heavy rock tastes, Fox-branded imagery and his assured views. For instance, he barely disguised his frustration at the lack of development of the Suzuki RM-Z250, then after 2009 and 2010 in yellow he vaulted into Red Bull KTM in 2011 to realise his world championship ambitions despite a close history with the Japanese brand (that would later, of course, be resurrected). He pulled away from the training and testing KTM regime and the routines of the factory set-up in California to initially follow his own agenda with father Heiko, joined Aldon Baker’s champion-making programme but then left and departed a flowering KTM set-up just as the SX-F machinery was hitting a highpoint of competitiveness for a satellite Suzuki effort at RCH.

Broken arms, viruses, illness, a lucrative HRC episode, A1 suits, Motocross of Nations triumph but also despair, World Supercross, Stark bikes, kickstart levers, expectations of fans’ decorum: Roczen has been a charismatic (and hugely marketable) component of the American and international supercross scene since 2012 and 2026 might be the best chance of landing the big prize, the 450SX crown. Ken has won 450SX main events in 11 of his 13 years in the category but the scorecard has also been littered with ‘DNS’ and ‘DNF’ entries. This term, indoors, has been his strongest and most resistant in half a decade.

Throughout the ‘near misses’ for the championship Roczen has always displayed the same unorthodox and skilled modus operandi that he employed from his first days in MX2. He does things a little differently on the bike. He looks for alternative places to pass or make time (no easy feat on a supercross track). Watching him you can observe a nuanced athlete with elevated tactility, almost breathing with the terrain whether it’s a complex rhythm section or a deep sandy sequence.

Roczen was only 15 years and 54 days old when he won his fifth Grand Prix start, his home round at Teutschenthal no less with a 2-2 score (after moto winners Marvin Musquin and Steven Frossard could rise no higher than 5th in their other outings that day). In 2009 and 2010 he would sit in press conferences alongside rivals and older riders like Musquin, Gautier Paulin and Rui Gonçalves, Steve Ramon, Max Nagl, Ken De Dycker and undercut their (rightful) complaints about woeful track preparation and the difficulties of overtaking by quipping “you can always find places to pass”. 17 years later and Roczen’s open-mindedness and ability means he was still able to exploit opportunities around that rough Detroit soil and then bewilder supercross once more a week later in St Louis. If the history of the sport and Ken’s own trajectory teach us anything then the situation could pivot drastically this weekend in Nashville but that’s no reason not to celebrate this wonderfully enduring talent.

It was in Nashville where I last sat down for a long interview with KR, just over two years since he had crumpled his left forearm in that horrible Anaheim 2 crash at the beginning of 2017, leading to a grizzly Instagram chronicle of the multiple operations to get him back on two wheels and with a degree of regular use of the limb. “I don’t know if a lot of people write-me-off – if that is the right way to say it – but they might be wondering ‘what’s going on with him?’ and dude, I’m trying just as hard to get a sense of normalcy back…” he told me, also in the wake of further health problems while trying to lead Honda’s supercross charge in the pre-Lawrence days. “I want the races to seem normal to me because at one point it wasn’t.”

Ken’s definition of normal is another way in which he varies from the pack. His attitude to racing has always been underpinned by a juvenile thirst for fun and self-entertainment. Being a factory rider, a Red Bull and Fox athlete and having snared a world title, Motocross of Nations spoils and a 250SX crown all before his 20th birthday means that certain areas of a Pro career had been ticked: money, fame, acclaim and identity. His durability beyond his last championship - 450MX in 2016 – has been based on that quest for kicks. “As a fifteen-year-old all I did was ride my bike, train and have fun,” he told me in Tennessee. “There was nothing else, and I guess that was quite normal because I was just a kid but also it wasn’t normal because most people don’t do GPs at that age and most are still in school…”

It came from an organic approach to the sport. “I did not say I wanted to be ‘world champion’, I said I wanted to be the best rider in the world. With my family, when I was younger, we never talked about taking up motocross as a profession, we just kept on racing and travelling and seeing where we could go,” he told me in another interview in 2012 and the fringe of his first U.S. campaign. “A lot of guys have the talent to ride a bike…but they don’t have the support behind them, usually from parents. Mine were fully behind me. I was fast and they could see that and took the decision to help me get better.”

Roczen also had backing from key people in Suzuki during his rapid-fire formation. At the 2009 German Grand Prix, in a report for RacerX, I wrote that he was ‘perhaps the most emergent figure to hit the GP scene this century’ and it did not feel like an exaggeration, even in the wake of Ben Townley, Tony Cairoli, Christophe Pourcel and Tommy Searle. Ken had been submerged by fans and expectation that weekend: the fuss was overwhelming and he looked pale and exhausted for the post-GP celebration photo. “I don’t know what to say; this is amazing for me,” he had commented to us on Sunday in Germany. “After my first two GPs I saw that the podium was possible. I always do my best and I hoped for a podium here, with a bit of luck, but didn’t expect the win. All the attention has come quickly…and it isn’t always easy to give people what they want but I try to do what I can!”

As a journalist Roczen was the epitome of what I then labelled as the new ‘video generation’; where riders were dashing off quips and soundbites rather than the usual lengthy and skilful explanations of racing expounded by older competitors to hook the last remnants of print media space. He was constantly in demand but was mostly courteous, if brief, with his time. The clamour surged to new peaks once his supercross chapter begun and it was not unusual to spot writers and reporters patiently waiting outside his motorhome for a slight opening of the door that might never come. With age and maturity Ken has become a fine exponent of the art of his craft and the underlining playfulness of his riding does not disservice how much he works and analyses and strives for the highest level.

This was true of how he became quickly versatile in Grands Prix and adept at sand riding and then again when he honed an acumen for supercross, having previously only ridden a rudimentary layout at his family’s home in Mattstedt. “I feel what I did in Europe was kinda thrown out the window in terms of how we raced,” he said of the transition to the U.S. from Grands Prix and where he initially embraced time in California to later relocate to Florida. “Everything was a lot more fast-paced here and the set-ups are so different. I think, back in the day, the KTM bikes I had for Supercross were not the best and we pretty much started from absolute scratch. The team was very new, I had to do all the testing, there was not much help with that…and everything was thrown at once and it felt like what I’d done in Europe didn’t really help.”

One of Kens better throwaway lines to me came in 2012 and the description of his first season-opener: “When I got to Anaheim 1, my eyes were everywhere apart from the track. I was nervous….” Perhaps because of constant repetition, he was also able to articulate how he had grasped the intricacies of supercross. “You have to be quick and have tight lines because there is a lot going on and the track is so compact,” he reflected. “Outdoors you can try something and if it doesn’t work then that’s fine but in supercross if you are not committed to the jumps and the lines then you are not fast enough.”

Trying to nail the specifics of Roczen’s talents has never been too easy. He has prime aptitude for improvisation as well as superior dexterity and motor skills, as well as the confidence and conviction in the momentary choices he makes. The seeming effortlessness of his riding is classic ‘going slow to go fast’ and he rarely gets it wrong. “Watching Kenny as a Lites [250SX] guy he was a very smooth rider,” Ryan Villopoto told me in 2014. “If you are smooth on a Lites bike then it will transition very well to the 450. He’s got that ‘Euro’ style with rolling speed and can ride the KTM very well. He uses those things to his advantage, and it works for him.”

This observation was repeated by Kelly Lumgair, his mechanic at the time of his U.S. KTM tenure between 2012 and 2014. “The majority of Ken’s power preference is at the bottom of the band; he doesn’t rev the bike. He wants everything down low and with a very smooth delivery,” the South African said. “He doesn’t get on the gas super-hard all the time. I don’t think he even knows what the top-end of this bike is even like because he doesn’t use it up there.”

Roczen’s cleverness, his personality and longevity, his refusal to be limited by injury and his deserving ‘generational’ tag strike parallels with Marc Marquez. I think it also says something about Kenny’s persistent youthfulness that Pedro Acosta carries the same verve and motorcycling X Factor in MotoGP both on and off the bike.

Roczen’s injuries and setbacks have pegged him as the ‘nearly man’ of supercross and when he simply could not match the relentlessness of Ryan Dungey or Eli Tomac or Cooper Webb. However, a ratio of 117 top five finishes in 172 Main Event starts with four different teams and three different brands points to a rider that has always stayed the course. The forced absences in 2017, 2018, 2022 and three races at the end of 2024 may have also helped to extend his zeal to be on track and in the gate. “When I got hurt I was at the top of my game and I felt like it was hard for anyone to touch me,” he reflected on the 2017 smash in Nashville. “In the beginning my arm was a total mess and I didn’t know if I would ever ride again. At that point I took a breath. I thought ‘this is what it’s like…’ [not to be a racer anymore]. Before the big injury, I’d never really missed a race. In the beginning, for the first months, all I did was therapy morning and night. I was busy but I did not have to be anywhere…”

Ken still has places to be.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Ray Archer/TLD

OK, it’s subjective; I know. My idea of ‘cool’ could vary greatly to yours. However, from the nine rounds of 2026 SMX and opening event of MXGP to-date can we agree that Alpinestars seem to be edging ahead in the style-stakes? Their Supertech, Techstar and Racer gear lines (all with varying levels of features, functions and tech within the fibres or construction of the jersey and pants) just seem to pop or gel aesthetically with their racers and their motorcycles. Eli Tomac, Chase Sexton, Hunter Lawrence, Simon Längenfelder and Maxime Renaux/Tim Gajser have been unmissable (and easy to spot) on track and the Limited Edition offerings have sprinkled extra fairy dust. For a gathering of the product then check out the link HERE.

Through 13 years with ‘On-Track Off-road’ magazine, I was lucky to speak to a number of people in the industry about the creative process of motocross apparel. There were clearly two sides to the development: the graphics and colours, and then the R&D with materials and fabrics as brands rushed to make lighter, tougher, stretchier, better performing (moisture-wicking) and better fitting garments. Each side complemented the other. Nobody would buy the latest textile engineering if it looked dated or boring and the same could be said for appealing designs on cheap items that would soon fall to bits.

I wasn’t surprised that some of the leading design figures of the last decade, like Dave Durham at Fox, Marc Blanchard at 100% or Maki Ushiroyama, a long-term Troy Lee Designs pioneer, were taking their cues and stimuli from diverse sources. “Many visual places like Instagram, Pinterest but also just going out and watching people, shopping malls, museums and art: daily stuff,” Ushiroyama told me in a fantastically open and personal interview at the TLD office, pre-pandemic. “I’ll even go somewhere like the opticians and think ‘oh, those graphics are quite cool’. It’s easy to get inspired.”

What was eye-opening was the lead times; the guessing game of predicting consumer’s tastes in the future, and the gamble to set trends in terms of blocks, shapes, presence, lettering and more, a year sometimes two or three in advance. As entities like Alpinestars market and sell their 2026 range, the 2027 line-up will be ready to go and design teams will already be thinking about 2028. When Fox launched their innovative Flexair a decade ago it years in the making and was an example of how the aesthetic had to sync with the performance aspects: the emergence of four-way stretch and athletic fit.

“I think it was around four years of development to make that happen,” Durham told me. Dave is an industrial designer who was head of Fox’s creative team of 20 people at the company’s hub in California. He was at the firm for two decades until setting up his own shop ‘The Followed’. “It was a challenge to buck the system and go from a highly durable feel-and-effect 900D fabric to a stretch material and to still have it durable enough, and perceived to be strong enough. It was a challenge internally - and also externally - but I feel like we found the right fabric and it ended up being a great product for us.”

“Deadlines come fast so you have to make informed decisions very quickly,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t have the breath to explore more…and in design you can often explore endlessly! It is hard to say ‘right, I need to draw a line and take a direction with this’ because you often feel you can push it a bit more.”

Troy Lee Designs, renowned for their helmet art but also their impact in other products, counted on Ushiroyama’s leanings and vision for thirty years. The Japanese then launched the Groove Machine Inc but TLD still seems to be the principal client. Maki was insightful, and willing to share his methodology as well as outline the compromises of the job.

“It’s where the ‘good designer’ or ‘bad designer’ kicks in because a good one will know there is a limit to what a certain fabric can do aesthetically,” he described. “Sometimes it can be as simple as a colour block or even just a colour to get the ‘wow’ factor and bring in the newness. Troy Lee Designs is a graphic-driven product company, that’s what we are known for, and I want to push a lot of graphic into the product but at the same time I am also the one that is eliminating graphics. A lot of the time the mentality can be ‘more is more’ but I have a ‘less is more’ mentality too: stripping back graphics to get to the core design. I think Troy started getting it; an empty space to him is scary. He has to fill it in some way. To me it can also be beautiful and can complement something else. It is all about the balance. To me, a single colour can still be a graphic! When it is super-simple it can blend in. It kinda becomes like a wall.”

“I’m a product designer with a graphic designer mind,” he added. “It’s like I design the form of an F1 car, but I am also responsible for the livery as well. Both are equally important. Functionality without style means that people will think something is ugly. A terrible graphic will ruin the first part of the product. So, you have to marry both together.

Focusing more on the artistic side, where does it all stem from? “Coming up with designs is never an issue,” Maki said. “I have almost way-too many ideas. I have ten+ years of sketchbooks full of stuff. There has to be a bit of heart and soul in the stuff that comes out. That’s why sketching works. I cannot go straight to a computer or a screen. It is small things, small doddles: many ideas where you just connect the dots. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t, and sometimes you can get too far ahead: it might be an idea that is already ten years old but it’s still not ready for the market. I can be late too! I might have a great idea but someone has already done it. I might have made something look a bit different…but it was not exciting enough.”

“I love creative energy,” Durham explained. “I love architecture, but when it comes down to inspiring our line and what we do every day then what really affects it most is very creative people. Usually, it surrounds some kind of underground culture and the expression; it could be custom bikes to what people wear to separate themselves at a music festival. It is about how people are really passionate about something. Usually there is something that drives these people to be individual and make some inspiring stuff.”

“Every couple of months I have to download the contents of my phone and organise it,” Maki said. “Half of the stuff I’d had similar ideas…but the other half is very new and I don’t know what to do with it! If I think something is cool then it is already brewing, and in my heart, I am ready to use it. The new stuff is also exciting…and I think ‘how can I link the ideas?’ or ‘how will one link or bounce to the other?’

It seems that the fear of the ‘blank page’ doesn’t really exist for these designers. But then they are constrained by the ticking clock of product timelines (Maki: “we are all driven by the deadline right?! Those ‘oh s**t’ moments can also bring up some ideas…”), the ingenuity of the competition and then the worry of repetition.

“I like to hire competitive designers…and I am also like that,” Durham said. “If I look at the track over a weekend and I see something [good] that someone else has done then it kinda irks me.”

“Priorities. The first is: did I come up with an idea that nobody has? If we have a second year of gear and it has the same feel or vibe as the one before then I reject it,” Maki says. “The sales guys want something comfortable so they can sell it all day long - so we have something that looks like TLD but also the regular stuff - but I try not to go there. My job is to try and bring something original. Doing something timeless is always my design ‘street’.”

While Fox can call on classis designs like the zebra or cobweb schemes, for TLD the Polka dot livery raised some eyebrows. “It definitely shocked a few people and turned some heads,” Maki recounted. “And a lot of people hated it! The industry wasn’t ready and – although I don’t want to pat my own shoulder – I did something to wake everybody up. It was time to change. When I showed Troy for the first time he ‘got’ it; he knew that everybody would hate us. I said ‘are you ready? Because I believe in it’ so we went with it: TLD style. It kinda sold OK. It’s not like we sold millions of sets…but it was another to cover the costs.”

TLD also caused a stir in a brief alliance with sportswear giants Adidas, initially for shoes but then for the premium Ultra LE riding gear. Ushiroyama’s story about the union shows how the curiosity and creative might of two prominent teams can come together.

“A representative from Adidas came up to us and said ‘Hi, I work in the Future Department’…and we said: ‘What does that mean?!’ He was part of the advance team that is working on projects five-ten years ahead. They were keen to have some of Troy’s artistry on some of their products and we thought ‘that’s cool!’ First of they gave us a small range of shoes and asked us for the TLD ‘touch’ as we’d done with helmets. We did a bunch and they loved it and that triggered all the next steps. They did a study for us. I remember them saying: ’this is a new fabric, by the way its hundred dollars a yard!’ It was a bit advanced for the market but they made a prototype mock-up and a video to show all the stretch. If Adidas were going to make a motocross pant…then that’s how it would be. We were shown a presentation and we were blown away.”

The Ultra LE was quite reserved by TLD’s standards. “They give us a little more freedom…but the true story is that we couldn’t put much of a graphic because of the nature of the fabric. There is a lot of multi-functional stretch. It is very calculated and if that is the main marketing story then maybe we don’t need a graphic.”

Back in 2019 Ushiroyama may have had more creative licence than others thanks to Troy Lee Designs’ slight independent and alternative status but that didn’t mean he could freestyle wildly. “If our gear and graphic is presented without the logo can people still identify our look?” he poised, rhetorically. “Sometimes it is graphics, sometimes colours, sometimes shape. Of course, we are living in a ‘make the logo bigger’ world! Somehow people still love the big logos. I’m the first person to want to remove logos and just let the graphic speak – which I have started to do here and there – but every time I do that then I have to be aware that people are also buying as a branding/bonding loyalty thing. I understand that. So, it’s a balance again.”

Some gear can be applied to specific partnerships: Fox with HRC (and they are currently in a very high-vis situation with Jeffrey Herlings, Tom Vialle and Ruben Fernandez in MXGP) and Alpinestars with Red Bull KTM and Monster Energy Yamaha (the blue/yellow Techstar Knif line suits the Renaux/Gajser pairing nicely). Fly Racing with KTM as well.

But spare a moment for the teams and the forces behind the items that racers are using and testing. Elite product design is rife in so many areas of motorsport, but motocross and supercross permits an extra artistic edge; a place where a flash, a spark and an idea can influence more than just the stopwatch. This brings its own satisfaction but also extra angst.

“When I design and finish the concept then I am the ‘king of the world’!” Maki grinned at me. “I’ll think ‘this is the best design I could come up with’ but then I’ll look at it again in the next days and think ‘oh man, that’s s**t!’ It’s like writing a love letter in the night and you read it the next morning and you’re like ‘what was I thinking?!’ Same thing! But I will go back and make sure it will be the best design I can do at that time and be confident in it enough to present it, whether it’s to a customer, the sales department or Troy. At least I will have put 100% into it. If it doesn’t sell…then tough s*t! I’ll do it again and keep trying, keep trying.”

Perspiration is a given, but the weight of inspiration and science that flow into the ‘best looking’ kit is gloriously uneven; hemmed by deadlines and then judged by the public and consume. Or…it could be as simple as Maki states: “A good rider makes everything look good.”

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Polarity Photo.

There was a cheeky glint in Pedro Acosta’s light eyes. The Spaniard had plumped into the chair opposite us for his post Thai Sprint debrief, leathers open, beaded in sweat and understandably eager to despatch questions about his gripping and controversial duel for victory with Marc Marquez: the spat had lashed back the curtains on 2026 MotoGP in the most emphatic way. Acosta deflected and flippantly tackled most of the enquiries with a hint of impatience. The session was coming to a natural close so before he could escape, I asked: “Was that as much fun for you as it was for us to watch?” He momentarily paused and his demeanour flashed. “Super-fun,” he grinned. “My best battle so far in the championship.”

There were a few ‘layers’ to Acosta’s 13-lap dispute with Marquez, that was eventually decided by a ‘Drop one position’ penalty by Race Direction for the world champion’s line into the final corner of the penultimate lap, Turn 12, that ran Acosta wide. Despite the marginal time loss, Pedro gobbled up a few tenths on the last circulation. Marquez then conceded the lead, and slow-clapped the Race Tower on the slowdown.

21-year-old upstart versus 33-year-old multi world champion. Two Spaniards, one from the northeast, one from the south, similar in their personality DNA for their pursuit of victory, and their spectacular and adventurous methods to obtain glory. They are two of only three riders on the grid to have won both championships in the supporting classes. Pedro is a challenger for Marquez outside of his own family. Record breakers for youthful achievement (Marc is the youngest ever GP winner, Pedro the youngest Sprint) and, allegedly, future factory Ducati teammates for 2027 and 2028.

Saturday was a tantalizing hors d’oeuvre for not only 2026 but potentially for the coming two years of Grand Prix.

That Marquez would be strong with the 2026 Desmosedici, that his right shoulder would resist and he was back to fiery and manipulative form was not a surprise in Thailand. Instead, it was Acosta who has displayed headline-worthy forward steps, and for all the tempered excitement about Aprilia’s chances this year and Marco Bezzecchi’s persistent race-winning speed, it is the KTM man’s head-turning style, his fearlessness and his defiant attitude that is proving to be magnetic.

There are three pillars behind this development for #37.

Maturity

In 2024 Acosta was billed as the fast-tracked, generational MotoGP star of the future; the ‘next Marquez’ who even had the chance to rob #93 of his milestone as the youngest premier class victor. He was given time and margin to learn but then loaded a shovel of pressure onto his Red Bull Energy Station plate by leading the charge for KTM/GASGAS. In 2025, expectation and consternation with KTM’s commitment to MotoGP in the face of existential crisis turned to frustration and surliness as Ducati proved to be largely unbeatable once more. Acosta ended two seasons without a win but 10 trophies and 6th and 4th in the championship standings. Pedro had blended with Crew Chief Paul Trevathan to tremendous effect, and the Kiwi followed his charge from Tech3 to Red Bull KTM, along with several other key technicians. Trevathan’s homely vibe that worked so prosperously with Pol Espargaro was a bedrock of strength for Acosta but he had to calm and cajole his racer in line with the limitations of the RC16 and the possibilities of the technical package.

There was a short phase when Pedro stared at all of his toys on the floor and watched Maverick Viñales extract fresh potential out of the KTM (by adaptation and by sheer will), but he then reset, and waded into a second half of the year where he only dropped out of the top five twice from round twelve onwards.

Thailand is only a one-event sample size to deduce performance for the 21 fixtures to come, but it was a visual and literal post of progress. In 2025 Acosta crashed and circulated at the back of the pack to classify 19th after a limp 6th on Saturday. Twelve months later and he went 1-2 for the weekend to become KTM’s first ever world championship leader.

“I’m making less mistakes than two years ago and even last year,” Pedro said when I asked him in the official post-race press conference how he has improved as a MotoGP athlete. “Last year - even more [at the] beginning of the year I was getting quite, not nervous, but when the situation was not under control, I was always making mistakes or crashing or going wide or whatever.”

“It was not maybe the way to build confidence,” he added. “Now maybe I’m in a more chill mode, let’s say. Even when the bad moments come, I use more the brain. Maybe this is the biggest difference.”

The advancement coincides with more consolidation and activity from KTM during the winter. Acosta’s tendency to be more in ‘chill mode’ stems from fixes to the last iteration of the 1000cc RC16, and to the rider’s high-lean, corner speed emphasis. “It also looks like the bike is a bit stable and surviving a bit more,” he explained. “Before, I remember, we made three laps and the tyre was already gone. Now it looks like we are arriving to the first fifteen in proper good pace. Good, for this.”

“I am following my way with the bike,” he said. The orange is not completely ripe. Acosta griped about difficulties in the first two sectors of the Chang International Circuit and the KTM was the fourth fastest brand for top speed. “It looks like we’re stay the same speed as last year…our rivals are faster, that’s it,” he shrugged.

But the technical side of his job has had a definitive uptick. “It’s true that they [KTM] are 100% pushing to give me slight improvement during whole winter to try to survive a bit more in the races,” he observed. “It looks like we found something that is still a way to go. Not every GP will be that nice like that one, but we are working quite okay in the box.”

Round two at the unseen Ayrton Senna International Circuit in Brazil will be impossible to predict and maybe also difficult to gauge a trend but the USGP at COTA, where Acosta was 7th in the Sprint and DNF-ed on Sunday will be the next best chance to evaluate whether #37 is really in this.

Security

Acosta has been allayed by both KTM’s resurgence for 2026 and by the assurance of his future with, supposedly, a multi-year agreement with Ducati confirmed to replace Pecco Bagnaia. He will greet Marquez on equal terms (being the latest candidate for this unfathomable challenge) and, potentially, enter red as Gigi Dall’Igna’s future pet. Pedro has stonewalled every question about his plans and employment in MotoGP with impressive robustness and seemingly does not think beyond tomorrow. A typical exchange happened on Thursday and the eve of the GP at Buriram.

“Do you have an update on the future?

Of what?

Your future…

Ah, no. In the end I need to have good results and try to start the championship in a consistent way which is what I was missing last year to try and be a bit more in the top three. We need results.”

A worthy dodge. Year three with KTM, the same crew, the same teammate (who he accredited as being in resurgence but clearly feels he still trumps for results) and the knowledge that if the RC16 does again prove to be 0.3-0.4 of a second adrift of the track potential that he craves then he’ll soon be on a different motorcycle. These elements all combining to fashion a secure nest for Acosta to go about his business.

Returning confidence

This is perhaps less tangible but watching Acosta repeatedly out-braking Marquez into Turn 12 during the sprint while looking like one of the better riders ‘on the anchors’ was a stark sign of his belief in the bike. It also demonstrated how KTM’s data analysis and gains for sustaining the life of the Michelins was one of the biggest technical narratives of the Grand Prix. OK, the Tech3 pairing of Enea Bastianini and Viñales had their own issues as the KTM quartet were the most bi-polar of all the brands, but Brad Binder’s improved results backed-up the work done by the Austrian crew.

Acosta had not left ‘Back to the Future’ style fire trails behind him at the Sepang and Buriram tests in terms of lap-times…but the competitiveness was evident, even during the longer, more strategic 26-laps on Sunday where he rattled the Aprilias. “I’m in a really good moment, enjoying every time,” he beamed at one point in Thailand.

Pedro dismissed the significance of his current championship ranking. He also seemed a little sheepish about the Sprint win and the penalty given to Marquez. “I entered in the finish line like, ‘what is going on?’” he admitted when asked if he expected to be given the race lead again. But the sheer reverse of his dark 2025 Thai Grand Prix was the juice that made the KTM pitbox bounce.

Actions are louder than Spanglish and if Acosta sustains his front-foot approach and Marquez-esque attacking instinct then we’re in for an unexpectedly gripping campaign. #37 will rake-in fans and the series might have another face-off worth talking about.

“This is what makes MotoGP that exciting,” Pedro said of the back-and-forth with his countryman. “At the end you remember those kind of battles and these kind of moments…you know?”

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Ray Archer.

As ever the launch of MXGP brings international motocross up to speed and, as ever, the reminder of Grand Prix pace and physicality comes strongly to the fore after a long winter break. The hike to the southern hemisphere for the first round of the championship feels like a long haul but the sun-kissed new site of Bariloche (home of the principal airport for the teams travelling to previous host Neuquen) offered a timely reminder of the climate relevance, especially with several pre-season motocross events in Europe being heavily affected or cancelled due to grim weather.

The ‘Bariloche MX Race Track’ was a soft topsoil build within the confines of a sparse industrial park and with an epic Patagonia mountain range and the gentle shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi for a backdrop. So far, so pretty. But Bariloche bit. Full credit to the Infront Moto Racing track crew for their prep work leading into the Grand Prix and then the modifications during the weekend. New tracks are typically and notoriously hard to read in terms of how the bumps and ruts develop: the layout of off-cambers, tight 180 turns and waves are part of the MXGP fabric but how the location-specific dirt evolves is anybody’s guess.

On Saturday the course was fast and rippled and offered little in the way of differential in lap-times (the kind of technical demands we’ve seen recently in SMX, where riders have more room for interpretation as well as mistakes). After extensive watering – made to contain the dust and resist the strong breeze that affected the second MXGP moto on Sunday – the ground was softer and more varied but also incredibly rough and slick. It was a draining first Grand Prix, and a thorough introduction to the physicality of the 450s at full pelt for the rookies like Tom Vialle and Andrea Adamo.

Aesthetically, Bariloche had that rough-around-the-edges look of a temporary construction. In one aspect the ambition and support of the local government to make the facility and the Grand Prix happen must be applauded. In another, it’s not the shiniest presentation for a series where the latest trend for sports ‘absorption’ or engagement is about image, brand and bite-sized ‘wow’ factors. The big win was the attendance and the enthusiasm of the fans. Apparently, pre-event, expectations from the local organisers were modest for the turnout, but the excellent TV drone work by MXGP showed a bounteous and eager crowd. The official figure was 43,325 for the weekend.

Could the Argentine Grand Prix have a new home? After the one-hit visit in Cordoba in 2025 and the allegedly defunct status of the Neuquen venue near Villa la Angostura there is some promise for Bariloche (especially with all the convenience and catchment of the 150,000 nearby populus) but the issue of funding and mid-long term commitment has always been shaky in this particular area of the world, irrespective of the motorsport.

1. Jeffrey Herlings banishes the mystery

The five-times world champion was not the most obvious bet for a 1-1 at the opening round. The odds were against the 31-year-old posting these kinds of results: new to the CRF450R, new to the Petronas HRC team, a first GP away from a KTM SX-F and WP Suspension and with relatively little riding and testing (and racing) time compared to rivals like Romain Febvre, Lucas Coenen, Maxime Renaux and even teammate Tom Vialle who had two extra months of prep . The great ‘unknown’ of the Herlings-Honda formula played out on Saturday in Argentina where he was fastest in Timed Practice but then crashed in the Qualification Heat and had to limp home in 12^th with a bike issue. “Shame on me,” he admitted.

There was none of this uncertainty on Sunday, however. The starts were typically Herlings: no holeshots but not too bad. He then rode like an experienced master in the second race to pursue and overtake the world champion. “I managed to close up to Romain before putting the hammer down with five-six laps to go,” he reflected afterwards.

Win #113 (now 12 more than the previous record held by Stefan Everts) means Herlings is just 9 MXGP victories away from equalling the total he amassed through seven seasons in MX2. The milestone achievement in Bariloche saw the Dutchman rolling out the expected platitudes about HRC, the team, the work and even a nod towards his amicable departure from KTM, and the manner of Jeffrey’s success was also par for the course: measured, unmatchable and intense. That he has such comfort and control over the Honda in just nine weeks is testament to his brilliance but also the methodology and organisation of the Giacomo Gariboldi-led set-up. Pre-GP the Italian took delight in showing off their stunning race workshop in the Netherlands: next level stuff.

So, a goal in the first minute of the Final. It’s impossible to predict how this will run for Herlings. We’re talking about a rider that can fashion one of the most comprehensive Grand Prix campaigns in the history of the FIM series (2018) but then one who can miss an entire campaign due to injury (2019/2022) or lob a promising championship tilt to the waste basket in a matter of seconds.

Jeffrey is not a man for trends or patterns. He has won the opening round in MXGP just twice in what is now his tenth (ninth if we discount the lost 2022) premier class attempt. His two MXGP titles came from P1 (2018) and P2 finishes (2021) at the opener however so Argentina 2026 was an encouraging marker. Ominously for the opposition, Herlings is only going to get better and quicker once he knows the full possibilities for set-up in different soil and start gate prowess. He then must face the biggest obstacle of all: avoiding the medical centre.

Oh, and also change the Fox gear. I know it’s a ‘eye of the beholder’ subject but the light orange was jarring. Alpinestars meanwhile are clearly winning in the 2026 design stakes.

2. A deep field pressurises start-gate performance

A small almost-insignificant change to the rulebook for 2026 emphasises how critical race starts have become in MXGP, and how essential they are when most of the field is present and the track invites a heavy throttle-hand while testing the fitness of these ultra-fit athletes. Pre-moto there is usually a lot of personnel and activity in the gate between team members, officials, media, and guests. It can be packed. Now, according to the regulations, nobody can touch the metal start mesh. Prior to 2026 it was politely discouraged, and teams were picky about the cleanliness and traction of their slot, with mechanics routinely carrying the rear end of the bike from the waiting area to the gate to avoid tyre ‘fouling’, but it not always enforced.

Starts have become a meticulous area of study for riders and teams. Devices, mapping, timing, ride-height and more. Tom Vialle, a Prado-esque holeshotter in his MX2 pomp, was all too aware of this for his MXGP bow and the Frenchman used his smarts from the line positively. “I didn’t know what to expect. Because there is a lot of good guys…so I’ve been working a lot on my start,” he said. Vialle went one better than his MX2 Grand Prix debut in 2018 where he appeared on a world championship podium in his second appearance. Here he assumed P3 despite a second moto bike stall that cost him precious seconds and ground.

At this fruitful stage of the season and before attrition inevitably hits MXGP (even though Argentina was round one it missed the feistiness of Isak Gifting with a shoulder issue and former MX2 world champ Kay De Wolf, who needed surgery on his thumb) we have to look hard at the flyers. One protagonist seeking rapid improvement will be Monster Energy Yamaha’s Tim Gajser who caught the eye in the second moto as he motored up to P3 but still almost ten seconds adrift of Herlings. The fact that teammate Maxime Renaux earned the holeshot indicates that the YZ450FM might be more capable in 2026. Lucas Coenen might also be seeking gains for more holeshot credence, but the young Belgian was hampered by a vision problem in his right eye and described his second moto as “racing blind.”

3. Febvre in for the long game

The world champion completed a calculating season in 2025 against the youthful verve of Lucas Coenen, and his runner-up result overall in Argentina was a continuance of the flavour: high level performance without outright rule of the category. The Frenchman looked to have the second moto under lock, with a comfortable margin over Herlings. “I looked back and thought it was Tom. I thought I had a huge gap,” he recounted. “With five-six laps to go I looked back again and saw it was Jeffrey. I then broke my roll-off with a lapper and I knew when he [Herlings] was on my wheels then it was going to be a little difficult…”

Febvre’s learning from 2025 meant he didn’t offer much resistance to his Honda-mounted rival but also said that the 2026 settings with the KX450F are work in progress: “I had better flow in the second moto. It was a bit easier to ride…but I didn’t feel myself. I need to work a bit more with the bike.” Romain still went P2 in Argentina for the third year in a row.

4.MX2 stirs the pot

1-1 for Simon Längenfelder who, with the help of Romain Febvre, meant we had the very rare sight of two #1 plates in the world championship. The German had a ragged Saturday with a first turn clash putting him 22^nd and adrift in the start gate but he showed his mettle with some purposeful speed at Bariloche.

On paper, the MX2 class looks bereft of the same competitiveness we’ve seen in previous seasons and compelling duels between the likes of Geerts/Vialle, De Wolf/Coenen, De Wolf/Längenfelder but the potential shown by Yamaha’s Latvian Reisulis brothers, the fitness and maturation of Triumph’s Guillem Farres and Camden McLellan and possibilities for Kawasaki’s Mathis Valin and Honda’s Valerio Lata means that some new names and faces will be coming to prominence. The next wave.

Längenfelder’s toughest threat should come from his brandmate. Sacha Coenen won the Qualification Heat but, curiously, didn’t show his customary holeshot readiness on Sunday and was the same energetic mix of pure speed and heightened risk. His second moto DNF after a collision through traffic was bad luck but the diminutive twin needs to show more race smarts to be considered a title candidate through the rest of the 54 starts to come.

5.MXGP: As you were

Lots of box-ticking for MXGP. A busy pre-event for fans and public in Bariloche (but should this be done weeks in advance to generate even more local interest and media buzz for the GP?), the track lap, the pre-moto gate interviews but a lack of trackside insight. There was the dynamic drone camera work but some undercooked social media content, odd graphics and the same feeling of a long, drawn-out TV spectacle.

By no means do I want to compare MXGP to other motorsports like F1 and MotoGP but there is currently a lot of work and budgets in those series being allocated to who, where and how people are finding and enjoying the racing. So, how is MXGP trying to modernise, and explore how it can also grow and offer more to potential sponsors and more value to teams investing to compete?

Perhaps the series would benefit from ‘rebadging’ parts of the racing? How about a top satellite team rider getting a post-race interview and prize? How about a ‘Best Ride’ award for most positions gained? How about prioritising and rebranding the second motos? Maybe consider shuffling all European Championship races to Saturday at EU rounds and creating a platform and pinnacle for the MXGP class? Perhaps MXGP could get inventive with their YouTube presence and have an analytical show that could build its own audience and roam the stories in between the results? Paul Malin is one of the jewels of the championship and MXGP would be much poorer without his passion and intelligence but Paul is commentating on all races alone and also doing the Live TV Studio Show with Lisa Leyland and the track guide and then popping up in any ‘Behind the Gate’-type features: is there anyone else in the MXGP paddock that could help out and get people invested? If we take SMX as a near reference, then the amount of experience and expertise the Americans can call-on for punditry and further insight is leagues ahead.

MXGP still has an online PDF magazine, which I know from personal experience, is a dated medium. Instead MXGP could have an active, multimedia Blog to post stories, interviews, ‘Best photos of the weekend’, podcasts, competitions and more.

Infront Moto Racing spend a vast amount of their revenue on live TV production and their attempts to develop this with the timing, visuals and the drones is commendable but is MXGP’s young demographic really discovering the sport through a 45-minute moto broadcast with limited real-time information? It just feels that the series could reflect and then say, “MXGP could and should be different to other sports in another way…” rather than following a standard transmission format that is now decades old.

By Adam Wheeler. Photo by MotoGP.com

Marc Marquez’s busted wheel rim and grip frustrations for the likes of Pecco Bagnaia, Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio produced a rare ‘off-race-day’ for the reigning world champions in the Chang International Circuit cooker.

Coming into 2026 and the last splutter of the 1000cc ride-height-aero-defined era, there was only one major angle: Ducati’s enduring relentlessness in MotoGP and how their combination with arguably the greatest Grand Prix racer of all-time had reinforced that status.

It was a subject that attracted the passing interest of the open-minded folk on the Daily Telegraph sportsdesk, at a time when squeezing any MotoGP coverage into UK mainstream outlets is harder than ever. Why? Britain has not had any presence in the premier class for half a decade and currently only has two riders in the two others categories, and despite Silverstone being a brilliant, fast and challenging circuit for motorcycle racing – the longest on the calendar – the crowds have not flocked to Northamptonshire even with two variations on the date.

During their annual presentation at the Italian ski resort of Madonna di Campiglio in January, Ducati unveiled the statistical weight of their MotoGP white-out, including the proud record of 88 consecutive podium appearances and a trek that goes back to the summer of 2021. Interviews for the Telegraph story with Dall’Igna and Ducati Motor Holdings CEO Claudio Domenicali helped unearth some of the causes, reactions and measures that brought the company to this position, and should also see them primed for 2027-2031 and the lunge into the 850cc-Pirelli phase of Grand Prix.

Thailand was deflating but Buriram was also an elevated battle ground for countrymen Aprilia. The TV image of Dall’Igna looking aghast at Marc Marquez’s wheel drama on Turn 4 as he tried to chase two RS-GPs and Pedro Acosta’s KTM RC16 summed up the temporary horror but the engineer was probably far more sanguine later in the day: Marquez’s resilience in his first race appearance since October 2025 indicated his right shoulder was in fine fettle, Bagnaia’s malaise was a freaky contrast to his happiness after the two pre-season tests, and incoming recruit for 2027, Acosta, underlined his generational talent once more and complimented his skill with even more maturity to rest as P1 in the world come Sunday afternoon.

For neutral MotoGP fans, Thailand raised the small possibility (and the heartrate) that Ducati might be toppled in 2026 but factors such as Michelin’s harder carcass tyres for the higher temperatures (reaching the high 50s at the CIC) and the extra rubber poured onto the asphalt like a rich syrup by the other classes, as well as two days of MotoGP tests. Even torrential showers on Thursday afternoon did not have a major effect. It was not a Ducati day. There won’t be many more.

Make no mistake, MotoGP will stay red for the next nine months (even if lashes of orange and black will invade the picture, like the first licks of a Jackson Pollock collage). The Telegraph article ended up being trimmed and simplified from the original text…but still shows how and why the Bologna boys should remain as the main targets.

“A £39,000 Panigale V4 R sportsbike stands guard outside the Dolomite ski station chalet restaurant, unwillingly coated with ice and frozen to the spot. The machine bares resemblance to the Ducati’s multi-million-pound prototype Grand Prix steed; a motorcycle that has won the last four MotoGP world championships in the hands of three different riders and has been present on a record 88 consecutive Grand Prix podiums to-date, a streak stretching all the way back to the summer of 2021. Ducati have ruled the Constructors standings for the last six years. The Italians, who will celebrate a centennial this July, sit quite contentedly at the peak of the MotoGP mountain.

For the second night of the factory’s Ducati Lenovo Team’s 2026 presentation in Madonna di Campiglio, management, riders (world champion Marc Marquez and 2022 and 2023 winner Pecco Bagnaia) plus guests of various sponsors and entities like the Audi Group (Ducati Motor Holdings’ owner since 2012 and major investors in the opulent resort), are toasting the past and present and are optimistic of the future. The three-day shindig is the longest and most affluent of the 11 squads in the series. For the last four years Ducati have had something to celebrate. CEO, Claudio Domenicali, tells us that they like to “work hard, play hard”.

Ducati are the smallest manufacturer from the five in MotoGP, but they are Grand Prix overlords thanks to their Ducati Corse racing division, led by the ‘Adrian Newey of motorcycling’ Gigi Dall’Igna, and the company’s commitment to competition. That devotion is manifested by Ducati’s unmatched pursuit for technical innovation: winglets, tyre ‘scoops’, mass dampers, rider-activated front and rear ‘holeshot’ catches and the semi-automatic self-regulating ride height device all mean they have been trendsetters for the last decade – even above the Japanese who introduced genius concepts like the seamless gearbox to the championship - and have been copied by their peers.

From 2021 to 2024 four teams fielded Desmosedicis. Ducati leased current and one year old models, and had eight of the 22 bikes in MotoGP in play. This large catchment of data helped fast-track development, and surge Ducati to the front of the grid despite being throttled by the MotoGP ‘Concessions’ format limiting their scope for further testing. In 2024 the factory owned all but three of the 20 rounds. In 2025 it was 17 of the 22 Grands Prix and 19 of the Saturday Sprints….”

Head HERE (where you only have to enter your email address for access) to read the rest of the article.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Yamaha Racing

Yamaha last ruled MotoGP back in June 2022. They once owned seven titles in 10 years from 2004. The Yamaha M1 inline 4 was not renowned for top speed but its pliant handling allowed even antiquated iterations of the technology to win Grands Prix and rise to the position of championship runner-up at the start of the decade.

The last two seasons have been miserly with just one podium appearance by lead ace Fabio Quartararo. The Frenchman combed the limit of physics to obtain five Pole Positions in 2025 but was largely toothless in the charge for silverware against European machinery and the failure of his rear ride height device while leading the ’25 British Grand Prix overshadowed the rapid one-lap prowess. Yamaha are now last in the Constructors table and are the only firm with full MotoGP Concessions, allowing them time and resources to catch back up.

Their three-year mire is perhaps the definition of a ‘transition phase’. The Japanese were arguably late in their development, as well as their strategy when they lost their satellite team to Aprilia in 2023 and 2024 and shrunk to a two-bike presence on the grid. Previous Yamaha Motor Racing Director, Lin Jarvis, made way for former Yamaha Motor Europe Marketing boss Paolo Pavesio and even though Cal Crutchlow was shrewdly employed to lead testing duties, the Brit was injured and the programme stuttered as Andrea Dovizioso (and then Augusto Fernandez) was also given more prominence in the R&D.

Yamaha rallied against the malaise by securing the talents of Quartararo on a bumper deal for 2024 and 2025 and brought in Alex Rins, to mind-pick his Suzuki and Honda knowledge. Also hiring the likes of ex-Ducati and Ferrari specialist Max Bartolini and combed their centre of excellences in both Japan and Italy. They then took the head-scratching decision to forge ahead with a 1000cc V4 M1 that would see competitive laps for a single season while concurrently pursuing an 850 version that would vanguard their MotoGP future. The time tight frames meant that Yamaha were also squeezing every single piece of juice from the inline M1 while trying to placate Quartararo’s growing impatience. The Grand Prix riders themselves were able to test away from the races (as per the concessions) but, even from distance, it seems that Yamaha still needed more high-level resources in this area.

Yamaha were caught in a stop-or-go situation. By sitting solely on the inline M1 for 2025 and 2026 (if Quartararo could not take the motorcycle into the top three then there is little hope for others) they would be largely doomed in terms of results but going V4-only for 2026 represented a major leap of faith. For all of its temporality, 2026 is still a championship of 22 Grands Prix to win and plenty of track mileage for Yamaha to filter whatever knowledge they can to the 850.

They went public with the scale of their effort at the San Marino Grand Prix last September, when Fernandez raced the V4 for the first time. It was also a first serious outing for the likes of Quartararo and co on the bike during the following one-day test at Misano. Enthusiasm was muted by the rudimentary state of the V4, and the potential – judging by comments (even if Pramac’s Jack Miller was a constant source of rational positivity) – had not surged upwards by the time of the Valencia test, and then into the many days and laps completed by the Yamaha contingent during both the Shakedown days and the IRTA test in Sepang several weeks ago.

Yamaha were not explicit about their reasoning for rushing a 1000c V4 during a presentation at Misano. But their quest seems as much about overhauling Yamaha’s racing operation as finding a way back into the spray of Prosecco. President Takahiro Sumi said Yamaha were altering their “mindset” as well as the processes between Asia and Europe. “It is not an easy way,” he admitted.

The Japanese also commented that Yamaha wanted to “explore possibilities of V4 engine and as a pathway. Our main challenge is how to make it and how to accomplish it, as a project.” He remarked as well that the parallel project is “unprecedented” in MotoGP, meaning Yamaha had to “change completely and upgrade ourselves”.

Yamaha’s hunt is therefore bigger than sourcing a route back to MotoGP acclaim. Or maybe the largesse of their scheme demonstrates seriousness and dedication to racing, while papering-over the failures and pitfalls that are inevitable for technical evolution at this (very public) level. The middling ground of engineering and performance as well as the complicated web of promises and assurances for future potential is likely to have cost them their star rider, but then Yamaha have moved to obtain talented leftfield knowledge in the form of Toprak Razgatlıoğlu for 2027. They will likely replace Quartararo with another sizeable name, either through sizeable remuneration or the same guarantees that could not entice Fabio for ninth and tenths seasons with the factory. And, there is also the possibility that Yamaha come out swinging with their M1 850 as MotoGP resets in less than twelve months.

On the eve of the second 2026 test in Thailand, Yamaha are barely keeping their chin above water in the deep end of MotoGP. The dismaying engine failure that cost them the second day of the Sepang test was not the buoyancy the teams and company needed.

In short, Yamaha are already in full rehearsal for 2027…but with a motorcycle that will soon enter the Communications Plaza museum complex in Iwata. Test mode is activated and with high revs…while their four competitors go about making refinements to partially frozen and, in some cases, already proven packages.

“We’re given the best of each part, really run them and tried to understand good, bad, ugly from each one,” Miller explained of the work in Malaysia. “You throw a chassis [in] and you don’t just say that’s shit and throw it out. You try and understand what’s different, try to give the most clear and precise feedback as I possibly can to the manufacturer. And we’ve done that over these last couple of days.”

Razgatlıoğlu had his own trajectory in trying to understand Yamaha, the V4, news circuits and more “It’s really hard for me,” he confessed.

For his one foot-in, one foot-out positioning, Quartararo is still the point-man for 2026, even if the 26-year-old should deservingly have some scrutiny over his capabilities to lead a revolving and costly development force. “I know the strong point of our bike last year was the turning and with this year’s bike it is still not there,” he assessed at Sepang and before the fall that led to a broken right finger and technical issue that warmed the kill switches.

“I think our V4 is not [as] complete as the others,” he added. “There is still work to do, especially on the turning, on the traction, on the electronics, on the grip, on the power. So, there are many things to adjust. We know we have margin to improve. How? This is more for the engineers…but the way I’m riding is again different to last year.”

“We see that our lap times are not very good. But the only thing I can do is do my best, try to be riding at my maximum and whatever the position is, try to make the best I can.”

Miller, as ever, was articulate and detailed about the differences of Yamaha’s big, bold offering for the next ten months. “Where pieces of your body make contact with the bike it still feels foreign,” he described as Yamaha dealt with ergonomics at the shakedown. “You’re just learning. [It] becomes muscle memory after a minute. But you’ve got to wrap your head around it.”

The Australian, who boasts V4 sensibility from Ducati and KTM, said that Yamaha’s characteristics were still inherent. “It hasn’t lost that M1 turning. Front -end feel or performance is pretty bloody good for this stage. It can always get better…but the way you can pick the line at Turn 12, down the hill is pretty nice. One place we’re lacking a bit compared to the old one is the change of direction.”

Alex Rins was wary of the timescale, especially with the absence of critical laps at Sepang. “You cannot lose time, especially now,” the Catalan warned.

Bartolini spoke with the media at the test. “We don’t have experience or history [with the V4] and riders need to get used to the bike so they need bike time,” the Italian understated, while also reminding people that 2026 is about the journey rather than the destination. “Compared to our competitors we are still weak…but it’s in the plan: it’s a new bike. I would be more surprised if the bike is already to the limit of the others.”

Expect more parts and more engines for the Yamaha quartet at Buriram this week as the factory continue to roll several dice at their most lucrative and speculative racing outlay. In one sense, the overall approach is hard to understand but it is a total ‘180’ compared to their MotoGP endeavours as little as four years ago. MotoGP should also be encouraged that Yamaha are wading through the hard yards and the minor embarrassments at this stage, as opposed to the fickle attitude of a company like Suzuki. It is also credit to the Japanese hierarchy that there is an evolution taking place, the same can be said of HRC’s mentality with their diversification in recruitment, and the series will only be richer for a notable cast member committing more to the show.

Yamaha’s ambitions will probably shudder to a halt at time this year, or evaporate in smoke at some point and the chase for the final points of a Grand Prix will be humbling but all that background push has to stand for something?

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by HRC/Shotbybavo

In 2019, shortly before society would be ravaged by the fallout of the pandemic and long before KTM Sport Motorcycles lunged into a financial crisis, the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team entered the MXGP series with the might of Tony Cairoli, defending champion (but absent through injury) Jeffrey Herlings and reigning MX2 #1 Jorge Prado. 14 titles and some of the most impactful dirtbike racers of their generation. And also…Tom Vialle.

The 18-year-old earned his slot on the most decorated Grand Prix squad this century through a late winter ‘try-out’, overseen by then-Motocross Director Joel Smets. The Belgian felt that this son-of-a-former-racer had the technique and the character to make the step from an inexperienced and middling European Championship runner to a potential MX2 star. It was a brilliant call. Vialle scored a top-three moto result and his first podium finish in only his second Grand Prix with the orange 250 SX-F, after classifying a respectable 7th overall in Argentina – the furthest afield the teenager had ever raced from his base in southern France.

For the rest of 2019 the rookie blended quiet determination and maturity with his natural balance and ability to rank 4th in the world; it was the best performance by a debutant in the class and since the formation of ‘MX2’ in 2004 (Ken Roczen was 5th in 2009 but had missed the first four rounds until he reached his 15th birthday). Vialle had the runaway stats of Prado as a target, but also as a crutch to remove any elevated pressure or expectation. His union with Smets as a trainer and advisor also brought considerable benefits and the pair would collaborate further for two world titles in 2020 and 2022. Smets would continue to lend counsel as Vialle then scooped two AMA 250SX East titles in the U.S. Four crowns in seven seasons is impressive.

During his four-year blast of MX2, Tom baffled us with his surge of learning. He was a lightning starter on that KTM, and his skinny and diminutive frame helped in this aspect. Sacha Coenen is following the same template. Unlike Coenen (so far), Vialle showed racecraft and race-smarts. He won from the front but also with urgency and ruthlessness when required. He endured and prevailed in two tense neck-and-neck title disputes with Yamaha’s Jago Geerts, and continually gave the impression of a young athlete in progression. Even his English language skills and media awareness soared at a rapid rate.

For a racer that moved quickly and achieved quickly, it was ironic that Tom’ first career success came in Sweden with a ‘solid’ 2-2 scorecard. But the attitude and capacity to assess and capitalise would unpin a lot of what he would attain in the United States, where he was often not the fastest but proved to be the wiliest against far more experienced competition, and while throttling up the side of a steep learning curve.

The seven-year association with KTM ended (and supercross ‘itch’ was scratched) with the lure of factory HRC support for a crack at MXGP for 2026. Before Honda knew they had a chance of acquiring Herlings last summer, the bet on Vialle was hardly a risk and represented something of a coup. His formation in MX2 and his progress stateside provided plenty of evidence that the-now 25-year-old had the intelligence to wade through his third major career adaptation. On paper there are few more ‘solid bets’ for MXGP transition than Tom Vialle.

True, he can no longer have KTM Team Manager Smets on speed-dial, but he always had his family in back-up mode (they even emigrated with him to the U.S.) and he won’t lack resources with Giacomo Gariboldi’s Honda set-up. To-date he has had a Jeremy Seewer-esque talent for avoiding major injury setbacks.

As we know, Vialle made his first laps as a Honda rider at the 2025 Paris SX. He then classified 2nd overall to Yamaha-shod Tim Gajser at last week’s Internazionali d’Italia at a cold and rainy Mantova, four positions ahead of an underwhelming (but with nine more years of KTM institution to shed) Herlings.

Tom and Jeffrey know each other well having shared an awning for four years and there will be little mutual underestimation. To everyone else, Herlings, 32 in September, is undoubtedly the one with headline billing for 2026 and has been signed to win, rather than develop. Again, this gives Vialle a little wiggle room to make mistakes and to glean HRC’s culture, as well as evolve in terms of being a factory employee expected to deliver a modicum of technical feedback for product R&D. If you think this is a moot point then consider the plight of second teammate Ruben Fernandez in 2025, who had to compete in the latter half of the season with the new CRF prototype (“it was still a little bit early for the bike to jump on [in] GPs maybe…but, in the end, it was a lot of good information,” the Spaniard admitted.)

Last week HRC fabricated an offline press conference ‘event’ with journalists invited to submit questions. Tom’s reposts were largely lip service, with the usual cliches and platitudes about education, step-by-step and acknowledgements of the difficulty of the class. (Don’t forget his 2026 MXGP rookie peers will be former MX2 foes in the shape of Andrea Adamo and Kay de Wolf, two title winners in his absence). His ambition has been emboldened perhaps by the fact that his CV already carries major distinction: no other Grand Prix rider has bagged two MX2/250 world titles and two supercross titles (Marvin Musquin managed three as did Christophe Pourcel so did Roczen). “The goal is to be obviously - in the next year - try to be as successful as I did in the 250 class, so yeah I’m trying to work as hard as I can to get there,” he said as part of the HRC transcript, and with understandable conviction.

Tom’s status is not without some anticipation, and that is driven by the past exploits of his predecessor Tim Gajser, Romain Febvre, Herlings and Lucas Coenen: all of whom either bagged the premier class championship or ranked runner-up at their first attempts.

Context counts though. Fans should expect some inconsistency and weirdness as an icon like Herlings wades through his transition and Vialle is in the same predicament. He also must readjust to the demands of Grand Prix, which will be far easier for him compared to anybody else from the trenches of SMX but might still need some acclimatisation, as he confessed: “We all know the tracks in the US and in Europe are a little bit different,” he said. “The good thing is I know the tracks…but I have to get a little bit back in the rhythm, and get to know again the type of tracks. It’s a long weekend in MXGP, we have two days of racing so [it’s] a couple things that I have to adapt again.”

Herlings is an MXGP monster and HRC have signed attention and profile as much as an athlete born to chase victory, but it is Jeffrey who is the rookie when it comes to significant change. It’s quite possible that the lead Honda - at some point this season - could be the #16 compared to the #84. Another stat to support? After his 2019 debut campaign, Vialle won a GP within the first three fixtures each year until, he disembarked to the U.S.

Slow starts and stasis is not his thing.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Aprilia Racing.

Wooden legs, marriages to motorcycles, VR46 affinity, and a laconic and often flippant approach to the non-racing component of being a MotoGP winner: Marco Bezzecchi is certainly one of a kind on the grid and has been so for the majority of his four-season tenure in the premier class. The fresh unignorable truth is that the 27-year-old must be considered as a viable championship threat in 2026.

Aside from a brief flurry of results at the beginning (two wins and three podium appearances in the first five rounds) and then the middle (one win and four podiums from six outings) of his second MotoGP season in 2023, the Italian sizzled through his hottest streak to-date in the second half of 2025. His first campaign on the works Aprilia RS-GP ended with a second career bronze medal in the standings. He only missed the rostrum four times from R10 onwards and tallied three wins in total; two coming at the final dates in Portugal and Valencia.

Yes, those successes came after he’d punted Marc Marquez off the track and into surgery at the Indonesian Grand Prix for round 18 of 22. He also profited from Aprilia’s unflinching attention for the majority of 2025 due to the misfortunes and travails of teammate Jorge Martin. But there is little doubt that Bezzecchi was able to mobilize the environment he found in Noale (200km north of his home on the Rimini coast) and could harness the strengths of the Aprilia once the team had worked through issues of stability, qualifying speed and rear grip. The factory subsequently rose to second place in the Constructors Standings for the first time.

Late 2025, Bezzecchi was formidable. How much of that potential can run in 2026? “The target is to try to start in a good way,” he admitted at the Aprilia Racing team launch in Milan during mid-January. “That is what we missed last year. it could be fantastic to try to start in a competitive way, fighting for top fives, top three. Then after a couple of races, we can set a clear[er] target.”

The opening laps of 2026 have been logged already, and the mood has remained chipper as Bezz headed the third and final day of testing at the Sepang International Circuit and was 2nd on overall fastest times. The Sepang test comes with a big asterisk. It is usually a trial period for new ideas and solutions and the track conditions are normally very favourable for grip.

“You really need to be super-focused, and you really need to try to feel everything from the bike and try to be precise on the comments because the track is very good,” he told the media in Malaysia. “The pace is very strong compared to the race. It’s much, much faster.” Bezzecchi could only rank 11th at the Malaysian Grand Prix in October as the Aprilia struggled to utilise effective rear traction at the 20th race of the year. It was his worst score since the wet French Grand Prix at Le Mans back in May. “It’s not super-easy…” he added on the nature of the work at the Sepang test, “but it’s also super-nice to ride in the track like this.”

Bezzecchi has 1 brand, 1 countryman and 1 family to worry about in 2026: small numbers but big obstacles. He also must crack the conundrum of extending his form throughout a nine month, 22-GP and 44 race weekend haul. Here’s why he might scale the pole and become the first MotoGP #1 not to have won a championship in other categories since Fabio Quartararo in 2021.

1. Aprilia is ready?

It has taken half a decade since their first premier class podium in the MotoGP era in 2021 but Aprilia have moulded the RS-GP to be a bona fide championship foil for what will be the bike’s last roll of the dice. Aprilia is the only constructor aside from Ducati to have won at least one Grand Prix every season since 2022 (the year of their first triumph) and under Massimo Rivola’s stewardship and with the influence of former Ducati and KTM Technical Director Fabiano Sterlacchini (who replaced HRC-bound Romano Albesiano) for 2025 the Piaggio Group-owned brand has been creeping closer and closer.

2025 was a disaster for their project with Jorge Martin, but the fact that the firm tempted the 2024 champion away from Ducati stock in the first place was already testament to how they have been progressing in the last 24 months.

Aprilia won four Grands Prix with two different riders in 2025 despite the setback with Martin and all the disruptive speculation of the-then champion’s future and status with the factory team. The Spaniard’s absence thrust Bezzecchi into the fore and for a campaign where he had to prove his capability, not only as a racer but also a rider who could develop a prototype and lead a factory: roles he never had to face from the comfy confines of the Ducati-shod VR46 set-up from 2022-2024 (and where his credentials had diminished after a poor ‘24 with just one 3rd place finish to his credit and sliding from 3rd to 12th in the points table).

Bezz found a tight, family-esque nest that had worked effectively for Maverick Viñales. It was an extension of what he had/has at Valentino Rossi’s squad and setup. “I have to be honest, it’s cool because I have nice people around me in the team. But also at home, with the staff from the academy, my friends. And for the moment, I feel good,” he said in Milan. The bonhomie means that he was the first rider in 2026 to confirm his future for the next two-year cycle of MotoGP. “In my mind, when I signed for Aprilia, I wanted to create a relationship. To try to be a rider for them for many years; this was my idea,” he said after the ‘wedding’ on the eve of the Sepang test.

“It takes pressure off Marco, and that was the priority,” Rivola commented on the contract extension in Malaysia. “It was our priority to continue with Marco, because we saw his commitment: there was something special. And also in his way of working. We get along quite good together.”

Positive vibes in 2025 and then into 2026 led to conviction for another two years. Which, for all the camaraderie (that can be so temporal if results do not flow), means Bezzecchi is also assured by Aprilia’s technical nuance. Sterlacchini’s last crack with the current RS-GP means the race department have prioritised electronics and aerodynamics this year. The Italian described his thought process at the official launch. “What we want in terms of aerodynamics is to ‘stretch the cover’,” he said. “So, to obtain better efficiency, so you can generate better aerodynamic forces that are productive for performance. But you don’t have the drawback that you have to ‘pay’ to have this benefit.” This refinement could well be on-point thanks to the fruits of what both he and Rivola explained as the maturation of the technical crew. “You have to create a group of people that are working together to try to create in the fastest way possible solutions. Solution to the problem or solution to improve performance,” he stated.

Since 2022 Aprilia have been fast, but also a little ragged in terms of consistency and durability. The overseas GPs in particular have been grim, with just one podium finish by Viñales coming in 2023 before the Phillip Island breakthrough five months ago. If both factory and rider can elevate for 2026 then they will undoubtedly be a sharper foe for the Ducati hoards. “Expectation normally is the one that kills us,” Rivola said with a smile in Milan. “I’m very curious to see Marco…we need to manage that. Obviously, the expectation is high for the championship.”

2. Marco is ready?

The ability was without question but there were rational doubts about Bezzecchi’s attitude and aptitude to front an expensive and high-profile works effort early last year. 2024 had been horrific: only four top five results was not an impressive return for a rider of his ilk as he struggled to find the narrow window on the Ducati GP23. Marco earned props for breaking away from VR46 and seeking personal and external re-evaluation in black: new bike, new team, new culture. “It was a possibility for me to try to use this opportunity as a first-time factory rider,” he reflected last month.

Martin-less, things look acceptable (two 6th positions in the first three rounds) but he kicked on from the Jerez test after round five; both as an Aprilia employee and a MotoGP protagonist. “I didn’t become a leader, I just tried to be myself and I just tried to push everyone to reach what was not only my target, but also the target of the team,” he said, before adding with typical nonchalance: “then, the rest came, how do you say, naturally.”

Bezzecchi went from ‘B rider’ to ‘A’ by default but then ‘earned the part’. “I learned a lot in how I feel the modification on the bike every time,” he admitted. “Basically, in MotoGP, I think that you always have to make steps day-by-day. You can never stop, and this is what the factory is trying to do, and also what I’m trying to do in all the areas that I can. So physically and in terms of skills during the riding and in terms of also mentality.”

The steps and improvements were transparent. The results came. But he was also smoothing the rough edges. Take qualifying as an example. He needed the first nine Grands Prix to reach the second row of the grid, and was then 1st or 2nd in Q2 five times from the final seven events.

Bezzecchi looked more comfortable as a Grand Prix winner. There was an aura of dependability about his presence. Although his capacity to effectively cope with the extra attention, all the requests and the scrutiny was harder to gauge. “In our sport, the pressure is always there, because when you are slow, you have the pressure to go home. And when you are fast, you have the pressure to try to win,” he mused at the 2026 team presentation. “At the moment, I’m facing everything with positivity and try to use this as an advantage. I know it will not be easy. There will be some moments where maybe we will struggle a bit, but it’s part of the process, it’s part of the game.”

Personally, I am fascinated to see how Bezzecchi deals with the possible status as a championship leader. He adopts the jokey and sometimes dismissive demeanour of his mentor at VR46 but the time could swiftly arrive when Marco has to step-up from being a character actor to a movie lead. Does he have the personality and ‘tools’ at his disposal to engage and inspire? To make an impact? Or will he be a champion ‘blip’ in the annals of the series?

3. Are the others ready?

Ducati. Marc Marquez. Alex Marquez. And a simmering Pecco Bagnaia (who might potentially be Bezzecchi’s teammate for 2027). Four principal hurdles to the objective. Marc, six years older than Marco, sets the bar and is a year entrenched with the best team and on the best bike. The only nagging slither of doubt is his fitness and the chance of another injury during the season that could cost the Catalan points or appearances. Bezzecchi’s closest face-off with a prime Marquez came at the 2025 San Marino Grand Prix where only a mistake into Quercia halfway through the 27 laps cost him the lead and a chance of the win…but he ended-up only half a second behind the champion-elect at Misano.

Bezzecchi might feel he has the match of Alex and despatched the younger Marquez without issue at the season-closing Valencian Grand Prix, but a resurgent Bagnaia could be a harder test as the Aprilia man will be all too aware of his friend’s possibilities. Bezz can also turn into the VR46 enclave for insight when it’s needed; Valentino also rallied against some fiery rivals with aplomb.

In truth – for the next few months at least – MotoGP needs a defiant and geared-up Marco Bezzecchi. A disruptor to ‘MarquezGP’ and the Ducati dominion. He’ll gain extra fans and support purely by being ‘the most likely one’. Overall, it is a warm, shiny stage of opportunity. “We can only work on our bikes, on ourselves, not on the others,” Rivola summarised in Malaysia. “Honestly, I think it’s going to be quite an interesting championship. Again, with someone leading - that is still the same - but we will stay in the slipstream.”

MotoGP certainly nailed its second annual official championship launch in two aspects and chuckled at the best attempts of the Malaysian tropical weather to drown proceedings.

Firstly, it looked stunning. The downtown Kuala Lumpur location, in the beaming light of the PETRONAS Twin Towers, gave power and prominence. The vast proscenium setup and neon branding also transmitted the impression of a major show. Watching the stream, it radiated through a screen and clearly wowed the public on the ground, despite the awkward rainy conditions. MotoGP gained a sense of elevated significance; you only had to look at the expressions and reactions of the riders themselves when they took their turn to come on stage. There were mixes of elation, bemusement, a little surprise and perhaps some appreciation. The ‘thank yous’ flowed freely from almost everyone who had a microphone shoved into their face.

It was also an ‘in-your-face’ reminder of the emotion and the fandom towards their endeavours. The Grand Prix paddock had just completed a week of draining testing activity 37 miles south at the Sepang International Circuit and in front of empty grandstands, and the launch was a splendid way of breaking that intense bubble. Of momentarily throwing away the blinkers.

The second distinction was the appearance of the Grand Prix bikes, as each team took their turn to motor up a small ‘urban circuit’. “What better noise is there?” new Red Bull KTM Tech3 Team Principal Gunther Steiner admitted to the presenters while Maverick Viñales and Enea Bastianini gingerly revved the RC16s along the street. The rainfall had put a dampener on things and nullified the chance of any burnouts or stoppies but the thunder of MotoGP bikes bounced off the skyscrapers to such an effect that it could be felt through the livestream. Placing two of the most charismatic riders on the grid – Jack Miller and Toprak Razgatlıoğlu – into the run first was a shrewd choice as the Australia and Turk decided to slide side-saddle. The soaking street did deprive us of another one-handed Marc Marquez sliding burnout however.

In 2025 the riders steered road models of their respective brands in central Bangkok which was a commercial and convenient workaround, but the multi-million-pound prototype race bikes are as much a character of the series as the riders and it was a smart move to have them included. This has to be an essential ingredient for the future.

The 2026 launch was shown through the MotoGP App, YouTube (where it logged over 200k views) and through respective TV broadcast partners like DAZN so it was easy to find. It happened before lunch CET and early morning EST (middle of the night PST) and the aped the weather in terms of flooding social media channels. The teaser of the MotoGP grid group photo in front of the PETRONAS towers on Friday whet the appetite and underlined that the series has ambition to scale.

Kuala Lumpur was ‘safe’ territory. MotoGP is popular in the country, and the Malaysian Grand Prix is a reliable hotbed of attendance with a record 191,000 spectators in 2025, building on another record-buster of 184,900 in 2024. The fans were there in their thousands, even with the troublesome skies.

For 2026 KL was also practical. The logistics and the costs for the teams were relatively low. Bikes and staff were already in the country, and the launch required only a few extra nights in a central hotel. By using Malaysia, Dorna have now tapped into two of their prime Asian fanbases in two years and perhaps only Jakarta remains on the shelf in terms of the full canon of guaranteed public, willing hosts and partners and cost-effective solutions (all potential barriers to a European-based equivalent, outside the power-foundations of Spain and Italy).

Shows of this ilk can tend to drag but the production pace was swift, questions to riders were brief and humorous and the transitions from stage to bikes were seamless. Yes, the continuous hype of the native presenters can grate (my personal favourite was the query to the laconic 12-season veteran Franco Morbidelli if he was familiar with the Sepang International Circuit. “Yeah, I’m familiar with the track,” the Italian smirked) but their job is to sensationalise…and it was all in English. Perhaps a more sensitive blend between whipping up the crowd and sustaining the interest of the larger streaming audience should be a goal for 2027?

Noises from the teams and paddock staff were very complimentary, even if behind-the-scenes there was more chaos than anticipated when it came to communication and planning. But, apparently, Dorna hustled admirably as a unified crew to cope with the ruinous appearance of the rain. Spectacles of this size should be treated accordingly – Dorna should invest further in a specialised organisational team and experienced event staff - to minimise any ‘seat-of-the-pants’ risk, and to foster collaboration with all the parties involved.

Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali and Head of MotoGP Communication, Artur Vilalta, told me in Italy in January that the Ducati Lenovo Team launch needs six months of planning between the respective groups and people like Madonna di Campiglio, Audi, Ducati Corse, sponsors and other stakeholders. The Italians have been running the three-day ‘Campioni in Pista’ gathering for four years in a row now. Kuala Lumpur was Dorna’s second attempt and undoubtedly there will an internal debrief. What could have been better? More national or regional emphasis might have been engaged with more warning. As an example, how can someone like Honda Malaysia allocate budget and resources within their annual event schedule for large activation, and piggyback MotoGP without the earliest possible warning?

Why does this matter? Perhaps it doesn’t but more hands to the pump might lead to a better pump.

Emails for the ‘MotoGP 2027’ fixture should be drafted now.

The MotoGP launch also lacked a commercial presence through the stream. Yes, promotional slots for the series’ main partners may have overinflated a near two-hour ceremony but there are surely other creative ways to give some exposure to key groups?

One of the salient questions in the wake of social media footage still dripping into people’s feeds is: who is the launch for? All that expense and effort for an already partisan market? Is it a TV bonanza? If so, what can be done to harness that further? To hammer home MotoGP’s messaging, brand and potential?

Conjuring a ceremony that wows fans in a city centre but that also hold the attention of those watching internationally is a tricky elixir to perfect. After Kuala Lumpur 2026 it’s clear that bringing MotoGP (and those motorcycles) outside of a circuit and into an ‘alien’ setting is a great conduit to make the series more accessible. In my opinion, the TV side is important – of course – but the launch should now be seen as Dorna’s premium ticket for the uninitiated to hear and see what the technology and the people are about. These touchpoints sometimes happen throughout the season with proactive companies using their tie-in to MotoGP for regional marketing purposes (getting riders and bikes to signings in non-motorcycling settings) but nothing matches the now established size of the official ‘opener’.

The launch needs assets like more renowned musical acts (how can MotoGP work more with the likes of Monster Energy and Red Bull?) and then strong local promotion (pop-ups, flash-mobs, media deals etc) months before it happens. Why not aim for a Grand Prix-esque attendance on the streets?

2025 and Bangkok was a lunge in the right direction. 2026 in Kuala Lumpur showed that MotoGP can create sufficient ‘wow’ away from race asphalt and has further solidified the championship launch as a crucial date in the calendar. It created genuine buzz ahead of a season that many ingrained fans already know could be quite formulaic as the 1000cc era dwindles.

Where (and how) will Dorna and MotoGP take this flagship next?

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Yamaha Racing/shotbybavo

“If he is healthy then he is one of the candidates.” Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing Team Principal Hans Corvers offers an apt summary of 25-year-old rider Maxime Renaux over a WhatsApp call. The amiable and straight-talking Belgian has already told us how Yamaha have made organisational changes to arrest a decline of results and a spell that has delivered just one MXGP win in two seasons, earned by Renaux (three in total since he moved into the premier class as MX2 world champ in 2022). He is now extoling the potential impact once more of his long-term athlete – the 2022 MXGP rookie of the year – as the Argentine Grand Prix draws closer.

The reorganisation for 2026 by Yamaha and team led to the initiative to employ former Honda stalwart Tim Gajser to sit alongside Renaux. The Slovenian is the most prolific MXGP world champion from the last ten years. His signature represents the first time Yamaha have signed a premier class title winner since Stefan Everts in 2000.

Gajser has coveted plenty of attention since his switch from red to blue (he rode for Honda since 2014) but Corvers, smartly dressed in his team sweatshirt ahead of the crew’s first race appearance of 2026 in Sardinia, needs no prompting to talk about Renaux.

The #959 came into the Kemea team to win the MX2 2021 title and has been their lynchpin in MXGP after spending his entire Pro career on YZ machibery. There was a phase last summer where Renaux’s frustration with his spate of injury problems and the waning competitive state of the YZ450F (neither Calvin Vlaanderen nor Jago Geerts were able to consistently fight for podium trophies; the South African making three 3rd positions throughout the course of the 20-round campaign) caused rife speculation that he wanted to end his Yamaha contract a year early. Allegedly discussions were held with Ducati and options were explored for Renaux to extradite himself from his deal but Yamaha held firm. The off-season brought a turnover and placated Renaux’s concerns.

If Gajser and Renaux are fit and satisfied with the state of the 2026 YZ450FM then Yamaha have the best combination of experience and results, narrowly shading the titles and wins tallied by Kawasaki’s Romain Febvre and Pauls Jonass. HRC and KTM will both draft rookies into the fray this season.

Corvers believes the recruitment of Gajser will give his French charge a ‘poke’ due to the equal billing. Renaux was eclipsed for wins and podiums by former teammate Jeremy Seewer in 2022 and 2023, but Gajser’s slot in joint-P4 for the all-time list of titles (and 5th for career victories) is another level.

“He’s strong now and he has a ‘gun’ next to him,” the Belgian says. “People have said to me ‘there will be an internal fight’ but, and I’ve said this before: I like this! I’ve known Maxime for many years and it was the same in 2020 and 2021 when Jago [Geerts] should have been the main guy for the [MX2] title, no discussion, and Max was the underdog. We know what happened. Max is our gun, beyond doubt, and Tim is not coming in above him or below but by the side and we believe strongly in him. The eyes are now on Gajser…and that will make Maxime dangerous. I think he needs it and it’s the right moment. He will make a really strong season.”

Yamaha have won just 12 Grands Prix in the six seasons since 2020 and one in the last two years. The MXGP team will focus on just two riders for the first time this decade but the potency of Gajser and Renaux – even if the former is new to Iwata technology – means they are well placed to boost the figures. Corvers acknowledges the high level of the competition. “Romain [Febvre], Gajser, [Jeffrey] Herlings, Maxime and [Lucas] Coenen for me are the top five guys that are a little bit higher,” he opines. “Then you have [Ruben] Fernandez, [Pauls] Jonass and the new guys like [Tom] Vialle, [Kay] De Wolf and [Andrea] Adamo. [Kevin] Hormgo, at the beginning of last year was good as well, and [Thibault] Benistant is coming in. It’s amazing; hard to know which way it will go…and I’m a long time in motocross!”

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Ducati Corse/Falex

Gigi Dall’Igna wanders to an unoccupied high table and a couple of stools with a replenished glass of wine in hand. He graciously waits while I grab a quick refill at the adjacent bar. The location for our chat is in the furthest corner of the Chalet Spinale restaurant, atop one of the snowy Dolomite peaks in the resort of Madonna di Campiglio for the 2026 MotoGP Ducati Lenovo Team launch. We have escaped to this enclave to try and avoid the hubbub of Ducati/Audi/Madonna di Campiglio’s many guests and the live music that is pre-facing the evening dinner.

The angle for our talk revolves around Ducati’s use of technology in Grand Prix for a story for The Telegraph. We were supposed to sit down at the public presentation of the 2026 livery and, of course, Marc Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia, in the icy village centre of Madonna di Campiglio a few hours earlier but the 59-year-old hadn’t been feeling too well after a full day of interviews and media duties.

He is in better form now and still prepared to tackle a few questions.

To call Dall’Igna the ‘Adrian Newey’ of MotoGP is not too much of an exaggeration. Since he was fished from Aprilia in 2013, he has helped shape Ducati Corse to become the proactive and innovative powerhouse at the top of MotoGP and WorldSBK.

At the team unveiling inside the Pala di Campiglio conference hall earlier in the day he commented about his department’s prolificacy, and told host Gavin Emmett about the pride in the eight-year-old ride height device that helped revolutionise MotoGP perceptions of downforce and electronics for corner-exit grip. Along with mass damper technology, ‘scoops’, holeshot devices and experimentation with aerodynamics (that was swiftly adopted and employed to further extremes by other brands like Aprilia and KTM), Ducati can claim to be the most influential manufacturer at the peak of motorcycle sport and since HRC refined their seamless gearbox in the early ‘10s.

There are several topics that I would have loved to dissect with Dall’Igna, such as his fascination with Marc Marquez, his real thoughts on the causes of Pecco Bagnaia’s torrid 2025 season, and his opinions on the next MotoGP regulations window that has been designed to reel back many of the loophole solutions that Ducati Corse forged. But we have a tight time frame, and I’m also well aware from previous interviews with Gigi that I’m unlikely to pluck the ripest fruit, so the discourse heads in a particular direction.

Before jumping in the dark ski lift to ascend to Chalet Spinale, I had spoken with Ducati Motor Holdings CEO Claudio Domenicali. “Luckily with Gigi, since we met, we had a fantastic alignment because he really likes to innovate…” the Italian told me. For a man accustomed to secretive projects, it’s little surprise that Dall’Igna - tall, wiry and busy-faced - can squint, smile and get away with some non-committal comments. Still, his words carry stock. He is an authority. A record 88 consecutive Grand Prix podium finishes for Ducati machinery, a streak stretching back to the summer of 2021, is quite the haul. And, based on the recently closed 2026 Sepang International Circuit pre-season test in Malaysia, where his unofficially monikered GP25 and GP26s filled five of the top seven fastest positions, 2026 is going to be another season of glimmering trophies.

You talked about the ride height device in the presentation. Seeing as 2026 is the last year for the technology, has there been much investment in it?

Yes, still. We started back with the ride height in, probably, 2018 some time, and every single year we improved it. Either the system, the stroke or the system for how it works. Now it is really quite complex. It’s [improvement for 2026] not about reliability but performance.

The Desmosedici GP24 won all but one Grand Prix in 2024 and is regarded as one of the best motorcycles in the modern era of MotoGP. Will you be sad to see the current edition of the bike and its 2025 and 2026 derivatives moved to the museum in a matter of months?

Absolutely…but the rules have been the same for I-don’t-remember-how-long, so, now it is time to change. Above all because of the speed of the bikes. 360kmph? It’s quite high, and I think it is important to reduce it because the tracks now cannot really permit this. We have to remember now that these rules will stay until 2032, so, from tomorrow, there is plenty of time to improve and increase the speed [of the 850] again.

Do you see possibilities with the new technical rules for 2027 onwards? Or restrictions?

Hmmm, previously there did not seem to be opportunities either but then we came up with new ideas, new concepts and new solutions. I think it will be the same [for 2027]. For sure, in the beginning, the possibilities will be a bit less than today but anyway people’s brains rise to the challenge.

The Ducati Corse group has a mixture of engineering talent. Some of which have flowed to other brands in recent years…

I think we are the only ones that don’t try to catch from other manufacturers. We build the people internally. We bring the young ones from university and grow them in the system and, honestly speaking, I am really happy about this philosophy. We have a lot of really clever young people that can become a good platform for the future.

How do you find working with the current generation of young technicians? How do you see the differences in attitude?

This [pointing to the iPhone on the table] is the new reality. You have to move with the tools now. I am surprised about young people. I’m really happy to work with them because their attitude is fresh. It helps us to stay younger! More or less like Valentino [Rossi]; he build the academy with young riders and also took profit himself. It is the same for us.

In your view what has been one of the biggest changes for R&D in racing and MotoGP? Is it the influx of AI?

One of the keys is to understand better the tyres. Ten years ago, you didn’t really fully understand what the tyre needs to then understand the performance of the system. I think in the last years the goal was to know how you can get the best from them. For sure using AI…but this is normal, it’s a tool of the job. Still, AI needs the idea. It needs you to tell it what you want or to look for. The human side has to steer the system in the proper direction.

88 MotoGP podiums in a row: that’s quite some feat…

88 podiums is really a lot. For sure sooner or later the day will come when it doesn’t happen. Sport moves like this. But I hope it will be far away.

How will you and the Ducati Corse team manage the 2026 championship and developing the new 850 at same time?

Everything depends on the result of the Sepang test. If it goes quite well then you can have time to spend on the 2027 project. Otherwise, you have to keep concentration and focus on the ’26. For a small manufacturer like us it is necessary to understand what is going on and steer things accordingly. No quiet life for us yet!

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Yamaha Racing/shotbybavo

Jeffrey Herlings might have made more impact but Tim Gajser has been the first to post race mileage this winter, and the 29-year-old’s runner-up finish to Lucas Coenen in the opening round of the brief Internazionali d’Italia in Sardinia last weekend was evidence of the four-times MXGP world champion’s swift acclimatisation to Yamaha blue.

Herlings and Gajser occupied most of the scant off-season MXGP chatter with the first unveiling of their new colours last month. The Dutchman and Slovenian – ten world titles between them – had been with their previous brands for 16 and 11 years respectively and had taken all their accolades with those teams and manufacturers. Herlings’ first appearance in HRC guise and Gajser’s initial airing with the blue Yamaha YZ450F represented two of the biggest shifts in the premier class landscape this century.

Herlings is hardly a publicity hound although his video interviews and photoshoots meant that HRC won the PR ‘duel’ compared to Yamaha’s somewhat understated communication with Gajser’s unveiling. Tim was the first to compete however, and the decent outing in the chilly Sardinian sand at Alghero was encouraging, a week before Herlings makes his Honda bow at Mantova for round two of the Italian campaign on February 8th.

Both champions are still in the ‘honeymoon’ phase of their fresh career chapters (everything is going ‘well’, ‘positive’ and ‘motivating’), but the pre-season international events before the Argentine Grand Prix in one month will provide more critical data in race conditions. By all accounts Gajser has been able to make some shortcuts with the new factory YZ450FM.

“We know that every good guy who gets on a [new] bike says ‘wow’…but what stood out [for Tim] was his happiness with the power and he felt immediately comfortable with the chassis,” team owner Hans Corvers told us. “He said he felt more stable than with his previous brand. He’s almost a month with the bike now and he gets faster and faster with the suspension work: something that is normal. We are now only onto [small] details, and the two he wanted improvement for were the footpegs and the front brake. They were too sharp, and he really likes a really strong front brake so we just changed the calliper and then it was OK! The pace is fine. It’s nice.”

Corvers also says that “Yamaha have worked hard on the bike and on many things.” The 61-year-old Belgian has presided over Yamaha’s MXGP effort since 2024 after earning MX2 GP wins with five different riders, the rider’s crown with Maxime Renaux in 2021 and four manufacturer’s titles with the YZ250F. The former Kemea team’s transition from 250s to 450s also came during an unstable period for Yamaha Motor Europe’s motocross racing programme in terms of their structure, teams, riders and resources. “In the last few years they tried to do their best but it was difficult,” Corvers admits reluctantly but with typical honesty. “Moving up from MX2 was not my goal at that moment [at the end of 2023],” he adds. “But we did it, and there were things that could have been better and needed changing for organisation and R&D. Also, my team’s organisation…”

2024 and 2025 delivered slim pickings for results. Calvin Vlaanderen posted two 3rd positions in ’24 while Renaux missed the campaign through a foot injury, and although the Frenchman won the 2025 Argentine Grand Prix he was again hit by physical problems. Vlaanderen brought another three trophies as Geerts toiled on the bigger bike without success. Both Vlaanderen and Geerts moved on for 2026. “2025 was a disaster,” Covers admits. “My worst season in 30 years with Kemea and with Yamaha. We’ve been in the world championship since 2012, so I think I have some experience. So, the internal organisation changed. Andrea Dosoli came on top for the technical side, Paolo [Pavesio] moved to MotoGP and the R&D team changed a bit. In the team we also changed the Crew Chiefs and other things. If it will work? I will tell you in a year!”

Yamaha’s re-evaluation, together with Corvers and the YRRD development group (the technical wing of Michele Rinaldi’s old racing division) and YME’s reorientation meant new perspective. The plan to emulate KTM’s profitable flow for talent through European championship achievement all the way to MXGP (Herlings, Jordi Tixier, Pauls Jonass, Jorge Prado, Rene Hofer, Tom Vialle, Simon Laengenfelder, Liam Everts and the Coenen brothers all emerged from different levels of KTM backing in EMX) was put on hold, and led to dialogue with a ‘big hitter’ like Gajser.

Corvers describes the process. “We talked a lot and had many meetings and many discussions and we changed our approach. Normally it should have been [former MX2 charge] Thibault Benistant that should have grown and been the next MXGP guy next to Maxime but things went differently. We were heading in that ‘line’ but when you are as multi-national as Yamaha and in the top five of the world and you want to compete for the title then sometimes you have to look at it differently. Sometimes in football or cycling they also take the good guys to win.”

“It was time for all of us to make a move like this because our riders in the line-up were not ready to give us what we needed and expected,” he adds. “Nothing against the youngsters…but we also had a lot of bad luck because Maxime started the season so nicely in Argentina and while he’s in shape and healthy now it meant three years with the same story [of injury] and we could not take the risk to have a fourth year like that.”

Yamaha now have arguably the most formidable MXGP roster with Gajser and Renaux both multiple winners and bringing fourteen accumulative seasons of experience in the category. Corvers insists that Renaux is “happy’ with the alterations. Post-2025 Motocross of Nations there was a sustained period during the off-season where the 25-year-old was allegedly looking to break his contract early and join the factory Ducati effort.

It seems Yamaha have responded to the malaise of the past two years and are scrambling to crest the series they last ruled in 2015. “What’s nice is that there was a loud bell ringing: not just from the riders, but inside the team, from Monster and everywhere, and Yamaha reacted in a proper way and I’m thankful that they did,” Corvers says. “It was hard in the beginning but now there is calm and everybody knows what to do and there is a nice structure.”

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by KTM.

We’ve had two Aprilia teams, two Yamaha teams and three Ducati teams declaring that 2026 is a go up until this week but KTM’s 1 minute unveiling video, followed by several hours of post-presentation online media sessions with all four riders – Pedro Acosta, Enea Bastianini, Brad Binder and Maverick Viñales – as well as three main management figures was the definition of new season ‘box-ticking’ for this last twilight rays of MotoGP as we know it.

Acosta’s fate, and the plans of the Austrians (and their mainly-British-owned French associate team Tech3) for what should be their third five-year contract chapter for MotoGP were the more prominent themes from the activation. Sure, Binder - looking even more trim for his seventh MotoGP term, all on the RC16, and twelfth as a Red Bull KTM athlete – was being asked about his new Crew Chief Phil Marron and Viñales was probed repeatedly on his unusual union with Jorge Lorenzo but it was the words and demeanour of both Pedro and KTM Motorsports Director Pit Beirer that gathered the most attention.

With gossip already swirling about Fabio Quartararo jumping from one Japanese camp to another and Jorge Martin continuing his tour of MotoGP motorcycles by allegedly considering a Japanese bike for the first time (and for the first time in any class since 2018), Acosta’s re-up with KTM or leap into new waters has increased in urgency, especially with Marc Marquez pausing on his commitment to MotoGP in the wake of his shoulder injury but unlikely to deviate from factory Ducati status.

Acosta showed expert ability in deflecting enquiries about his future while holding a video call with the press. “I think today is not the day to talk about that, I mean, we are in the KTM presentation…” he said when asked about his time frame for 2027 and beyond.

DARK ORANGE

The general feeling is that Acosta sees his path away from the factory that brought him to prominence since he first entered the Red Bull Rookies series in 2019 (he finished runner-up in his first two races). The impression comes from the cloud surrounding Pedro in the early phases of the 2025 season where speculation was rife that he would escape his KTM contract prematurely and steer a Ducati for 2026. That breakaway did not happen, but it stemmed from the-then 20-year-old’s grump with the competitiveness of the RC16 and the wavering period of uncertainty for KTM; not only for their continuance in MotoGP but their existence as a brand and position as Europe’s largest motorcycle manufacturer.

Acosta crashed in the first Grand Prix in Thailand. Then finished 8th, 7th and then 8th in Qatar; where he was upstaged as the company’s leading rider by new recruit Viñales (and at the Lusail Circuit where Acosta had debuted with the fastest lap and even performed an audacious overtaking move on Marquez twelve months previously). During that spell he struggled with grip and vibration and swapped between bikes with the mass damper and without, until he eventually claimed to be using his GASGAS settings from 2024. “I mean, it’s already a topic every time that I entered into the box,” he said of the vibration issue that affected his Americas Grand Prix and round three DNF. “For this we need to find a solution because we already one year like this…”

“We have to be better. Need to be closer,” he had urged on Thursday at Austin. Acosta then stirred the pot by gifting his manager, Albert Valera, a signed helmet that featured the phrase ‘turning point’. “When you have a bad situation, you need to make a turning point, let’s say. You know what I mean?” he said, somewhat vaguely, at the following Grand Prix in Qatar. “It’s about everything: the bike, learning how to push, how the brand is understanding what is going on. Everybody has to go in the same direction. It is not only the rider pushing for one and the factory pushing for another, let’s say. In the end I understand that every manufacturer wants something new but sometimes it is clever to go back and understand what is going on.”

Further comments, and a general air of being fed-up, only increased the sensation that Acosta’s impatience for competitiveness was darkening his tenure in orange. “It’s frustration,” he said in Jerez. “It’s not easy to ride like this, to compete like this or achieve a target like this. I hope we can make the flip.”

The story of 2025 showed that Acosta, Crew Chief Paul Trevathan and KTM managed to zero-in for set-up and become a regular rostrum threat. The second half of the campaign delivered 5 podiums and 7 Sprint medals. But Pedro remains one of only five riders on the current grid to have not sampled MotoGP success (the others are Luca Marini and Ai Ogura as well as the two rookies for 2026). Watching countryman and former rival Fermin Aldeguer coast to victory in Indonesia by almost seven seconds must have been nibbled at his anxiety.

From the cool and pressure-less climes of 2026 pre-season, Acosta was reflective. “At the beginning of last year, maybe my expectation was too high, and it was not easy to accept the bad moments,” he admitted to us. “Thailand, Argentina, Austin, even Jerez was not easy at all….”

“Maybe the key this year will be to be much more calm, maybe also try to be much more cold, let’s say, in the way that doesn’t make things [crazy] just for my feelings,” he added.

TIPPING POINTS

Pit Beirer later said that KTM were “busy talking to our current four riders to keep them on board”, and Acosta seemed to indicate that the door was not closed on another KTM agreement. The company and the MotoGP team seem to be in far more settled phase compared to the beginning of 2025; even if all the brands are juggling various pistons, for 2026 formidability and 2027 optimisation with the 850s, Pirellis, less aero and ride-height-free grand prix. Acosta might have the race-winning package he craves after all and the first rounds will be revealing.

“At the end of last year, we go to Malaysia [pre-season test] with some updates of my 2024 bike, but [there] was not really anything new, until mid-season,” Acosta revealed this week. “And this year I see a big step, you know? And this makes you super-confident. Also, it’s true that the general situation of the factory is not the same than one year ago. You can feel it in the faces of the people, everyone is more calm and more confident. This makes you breathe.”

In Trevathan and his team (with several hand-picked members) top-billing at KTM and Red Bull favour, Acosta has almost all of the ingredients an elite-level athlete requires. The subject of the motorcycle remains loose in the equation. This means KTM could have a few weeks, laps and a couple of races to secure their generational talent. “I have to say that I’m impressed,” Pedro also claimed in the wake of his visit to the factory for the official photoshoot and the traditional start-of-year bike-build for the race team “but we never know how much the other brands was working, knowing that in one year a new regulation will come.”

Acosta’s youth and his family’s roots (we cannot underestimate the allure of a paycheck from another brand that doubles the salary) as well as his competitive thirst do not cloud his intelligent awareness that timing and strategy are critical to career progress. “It’s quite difficult to know who will be the manufacturer to beat,” he understated. “But it’s true that I’m quite optimistic, after seeing how much KTM was working.”

He is linked to Ducati, and that means a sensible bet in joining the current powerhouse of the series and a manufacturer with sharp experience of Pirelli tyres in WorldSBK. But it means ditching Red Bull and sliding into the pitbox next to Marquez; who has successfully vanquished every single teammate in his MotoGP stint, ending the careers of two. And, as a result of 2025, edging a Ducati legend like Pecco Bagnaia out of the factory team frame. Yes, Acosta is billed as Marquez’s successor, but good luck as his main rival for the next 24 months while also developing a fledgling technical platform.

KTM POISED TO RETURN

Beirer did not carry the air of a man resigned to losing the rider that finished P4 in the world in 2025. The German has plenty of meetings in the agenda for the coming weeks as KTM need to agree terms with Dorna to continue in MotoGP (as do the other brands and satellite teams), rubber stamp the plan for the 850’s development and investment and also bank Gunther Steiner’s Tech3 squad association for the same term. Somewhere at the top of that pile has to come Acosta but also the other three racers… and all in-and-around a hectic phase of tests in Malaysia and Thailand, a championship launch in Kuala Lumpur and the first Grand Prix in the final week of February. The activities in Sepang will be crucial for all 11 teams in the series…but extra significant to how KTM can balance their assets.

“He made no secret that he expects still another step on the bike [before] we’re in the situation to give him a contract for the future,” Pit told us. “We made a very clear plan how we’re going to phase the beginning of the season and how we’re going to phase the Sepang test. I’m pretty sure that also the Sepang test will be important to show not just Pedro but all our riders what we’ve delivered over the winter.”

“Now it’s also time to make the framework on the contract side,” Beirer continued. “I feel in the next four weeks everybody really needs to be sure that ‘this is my partner who produces material which costs a lot of money and the resources…’. In the next 4 weeks I feel really important things need to be decided.”

The fact that KTM were one of the first to display their 850 engine for MotoGP 2027, and shared video images of the bike’s early rolling chassis testing during December 2025 is a positive sign that they will indeed be part of the grid until the end of 2031. “Even in all the difficulties for the company, don’t expect that we could’ve built an 850 just because I wanted to build one,’ he stressed. “I had to get permission from the board of directors and supervisory board to do so. That commitment was there a long time ago otherwise there’d have been no bike on track in December.”

“Thanks to Bajaj we’re still here,” he admitted. “With their strong commitment, they saved the company. They gave us the chance to work, to repair and we are on a really good way to repair this company. Now we have all their backing to go into the future of MotoGP.”

If Acosta does join the flurry of social media silly season chatter in the coming weeks, even before he’d raced the 2026 RC16, then KTM can still look to Binder’s resilience and Viñales rejuvenation and perhaps even Enea Bastianini’s unpredictable speedbursts. And then there is the matter of the KTM ‘pipeline’ and a certain 19-year-old by the name of David Alonso who could easily gobble some of Pedro’s hype in the coming years of MotoGP.

Thanks to Neil Morrison and David Emmett.

By Adam Wheeler. Photos by Falex/Ducati Corse.

Well-fed and watered, we were among the first to leave the mountaintop Spinale chalet on the second night of the ‘Campioni in Pista’ Ducati Lenovo Team launch, held in the snowy peaks of the Dolomites in northeastern Italy. Outside the restaurant that was populated by Ducati senior management and associated guests from sponsors and significant groups like Audi as well as a healthy media attendance, was a frozen 44,000-euro Panigale V4 R. Wallets were aching. Two of us entered the first ski lift capsule for the dark descent and return to the resort town of Madonna di Campiglio. Surprisingly, the second batch of people to exit the station at the bottom was 2022 and 2023 world champion Pecco Bagnaia, accompanied by his sister and PA Carola and his manager from the VR46 set-up.

It’s possible that the recently turned 29-year-old was tired after long day of promotion duties showing off the new Ducati Corse factory colours for what will be his sixth campaign in that distinctive ‘red’. But the fact that he left his teammate, Marc Marquez, shuffling on the small restaurant dancefloor under the illumination of content creators’ mobile phones and with the bonhomie of figures like Ducati Corse General Manager Gigi Dall’Igna and Ducati Motor Holding CEO Claudio Domenicali for company was a stark contrast of circumstances. Speculation about Bagnaia’s fate with the team and brand wafted invisibly over the first official day of ‘Campioni in Pista’, especially with recent rumours of Pedro Acosta’s imminent deal with the Italians popping up online in the preceding days. Marquez, who has not raced a Grand Prix bike since October 5th, meanwhile revelled in the attention befitting of the company’s third different world champion in four years and with the assurance of a man that is clearly feted and wanted by the Bologna-based firm.

It was hard not to draw a parallel with the glistening, icy Panigale outside the restaurant doors and Bagnaia’s apparent future with the Ducati Corse flagship effort. Bewilderment of the Italian’s erratic competitiveness in 2025 after three glorious seasons has still not thawed either. From the entire MotoGP grid, only Fabio Quartararo and Brad Binder have been with their respective teams (seven years) longer than Bagnaia with Ducati Corse’s flagship. Once again Marquez has dwarfed a teammate, even one as entrenched and celebrated as Pecco with his native brand.

2026 is a bridge year for MotoGP technology, the end of a contract window for the five manufacturers on the grid with Dorna Sports as well as satellite teams and brands. Of course, it will also be the final Grand Prix term for riders, either in the championship itself or with their current employees. As the series sorts itself out for the next five and two-year phases, the transfer stories and narratives arcs will be as fascinating and fervent as any of the -on-track action in the coming months. “2026 will be tricky, not on track, outside the track,” Marc said to us in the post-presentation press conference. The clamour for confirmation of plans and the changes to the fabric of MotoGP means that a raft of announcements could surface earlier than expected, so teams and riders can dispel with endless questions and conjecture while they get on with the business of succeeding in the last volley of the current 1000s and then also charting progress of the development of the 850s.

Marquez, the second oldest rider in MotoGP, sits in the familiar position of being ‘first’ in this mire of mixture. The Catalan’s eventual decision will arrange the subsequent spaces, the budgets, the priorities and the possibilities for his peers.

In Madonna di Campiglio Marc’s replies to enquires about what he will do were not the first and will not be the last. A seasoned veteran of the game, he was giving little away but the team launch press conference was the opening salvo of questions for his timeline and considerations for possible fifteenth and sixteenth seasons in MotoGP and that Valentino Rossi-eclipsing tenth title bid.

Why go again? Marc is clearly nestling comfortably in a plump Ducati bosom; voluptuous with potential for 2027 thanks to Ducati Corse’s extensive experience with Pirelli tyres through their achievements in WorldSBK. Domenicali allegedly said to Sky Sports Italia that re-upping with their star was the priority. His seventh MotoGP championship and the glut of 11 GP victories in 2025 has not quenched the thirst. “I have a big passion about riding a bike,” he had said on stage for the presentation. “But not [just] riding a bike, about competition. It’s the best fuel I have in my body. And a season like 2025 just creates more motivation.”

In the press conference he was more revealing. “I’m happy with my life, I’m happy with my work, if you can say ‘work’,” he added. “The most difficult challenge of my career I have already done, that was to come back [from his broken right arm]. Now if something [more success] arrives, it’s welcome.”

A final one-year sortie with the GP26 is unlikely, even if Marquez answered “nothing” to TNT commentator Gavin Emmett’s question about what would be at the top of a wishlist for the forthcoming Sepang test. He might be content with his race bike based on the GP25 and with electronics and aero upgrades and final revision to Ducati’s masterful rear ride height device to come for 2026, but if Marc continues as a Grand Prix rider then it will be for both 2027 and 2028. “If we decide to go forward, it will be a two-year contract…” he said. “The project of manufacturers are by two years. If not, it will not be a big benefit for the team and the manufacturer.”

Why call it a day? As much as Marc blurs the separation between work and passion, 2026 will be a busy year for him. His profile means a loaded calendar of promotion requirements for his employer as well as MotoGP itself. The requests will be dizzying. You have to wonder why he isn’t already tired with the periphery of the circus before then contending with the pressures of the paddock and the demands of the travel. Then, there is the physical wear and tear of 107 crashes in the last five years and the nagging doubt that his right shoulder is still not quite ready. “If you asked me two weeks ago, I would say, ‘hmm, so so’,” he said, earnestly, about the current state of the joint. “But as [with] every rehabilitation or recovery, we have some ups and downs, and now I start to feel better and better. I don’t know which percentage I am, because I don’t know what will be my 100%. I think it will be the same as before, but I need to analyse this and try to discover.”

Marc also hinted at the drain of yet another circle of recovery. Something he’s already frustratingly familiar with after the four operations it took to get him race ready between 2020 and 2024. “Yeah, another year we did a long winter, tough winter, about the mental side because a lot of physiotherapy sessions,” he half-sighed “and a lot of gym sessions with low weights.”

Ducati deservingly flaunted their MotoGP feats in numbers through the presentation: 1-2 in the championship, a third Triple Crown (Rider, Constructor, Team titles), 17 GP wins from 22 in 2025 (and 44 podiums) and 6 of the first 8 riders in the standings. Although its unlikely, there is the slim possibility that they don’t hit the mark with the 850 for 2027. Ducati Corse could get it wrong. 2027 will scramble the paint palette of MotoGP and the dominant hue of scarlet could well turn another shade. Marc might re-enter the basin of frustration that he found in his last two years with HRC. “Nobody can promise the best bike,” he warned. “You have to feel and follow your instinct what is the best project for yourself.”

Realistically, where could he go? A reunion with a resurgent HRC seems the most imaginable factory move. Aprilia would not sit right, KTM would struggle for budget and Yamaha is a different type of project. Marquez speaks in glowing terms of his one-year experience alongside brother Alex at Gresini, so that would be the next most logical choice if he wants to copy Rossi’s graceful ease into retirement outside of ‘works’ status, but it would also make little sense for arguably the series’ all-time greatest rider.

Marc’s sensitivity to Bagnaia’s situation led him to lament the speediness with how 2027 and 2028 will undoubtedly be cemented. He said of the pecking order: “It’s not fair, but it’s like this.”

“I would like to go more forward and wait a bit more and decide our future mid-season,” he added. “[But] I think some riders will close already before the first race. It’s true that I’m one of them, we are in conversations, but I need to analyse everything, what is the best for my professional and personal life.”

Bagnaia could already be out of Ducati Lenovo. If not, then he might only have a handful of races to prove that 2025 was a brief mind-bend. Thanks to 31 GP wins to-date and those two titles he is already a Ducati ‘legend’ but six years could be the point where both rider and team need to refresh. Pecco’s career prospects with Ducati will endure if he takes the easy option of steering a Desmosedici from the VR46 squad because if MM93 sticks around for another brace of seasons then it’s quite clear who will be bringing the heat.