In some relationships, there are break-ups, and in others there are break-ups … sometimes in block capitals, underlined and in bold, and with a hasty deletion of social media posts you belatedly regret.
MotoGP in 2026 is no different.
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Ahead of the most chaotic off-season imaginable – one where just five of this year’s 22 full-time riders will turn up at Valencia for the first pre-season test of the brand-new 850cc machinery set to compete for the 2027 championship with the same teams as they raced for this year – the final nine rounds of 2026 will be the end of a long era for some team and rider combinations, the final laps of marriages of convenience that didn’t quite work out, or nine rounds of being in limbo where one or both parties can’t stand the sight of one another, but have to make it work as best they can.
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Marc Marquez (factory Ducati), Marco Bezzecchi (factory Aprilia), Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia), Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pramac Yamaha) will all rock up to Valencia on December 1st and roll into familiar garages, that quintet all staying with their current teams for 2027.
Diogo Moreira will be either riding for his current LCR Honda team or the Honda factory in ’27, so the machinery the Brazilian rookie throws his leg over won’t change. Ducati’s Fermin Aldeguer will swap the blue of Gresini Ducati for the fluoro yellow of Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Ducati team, so things will be the same, but different.
Other than that?
There’s no fewer than 10 riders – Ai Ogura (switching from Aprilia to Yamaha), Fabio Di Giannantonio and Alex Marquez (both moving from Ducati to KTM), Luca Marini (Honda to KTM), Pedro Acosta (KTM to Ducati), Enea Bastianini (KTM to Aprilia), plus world champion quartet Jorge Martin (Aprilia to Yamaha), Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati to Aprilia), Joan Mir (Honda to Ducati) and Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha to Honda) – set to step into different pit boxes on the first day of the northern hemisphere winter.
Another five – KTM’s Brad Binder, Ducati’s Franco Morbidelli and KTM’s Maverick Vinales, plus Yamaha pair Alex Rins and Aussie Jack Miller – will be off to pastures new, their MotoGP time in the rear-view.
It’s a crazy amount of change, but not every parting will be amicable, December possibly coming as blessed relief for some rider/team alliances that have been fraying at the seams the longer 2026 has gone, and with the genesis of their divorces forged long before.
Sure, separations can be amicable – Acosta continues to give his all for KTM, Miller diligently works at Yamaha’s fledgling (but largely floundering) V4 engine project, and both Di Giannantonio and Alex Marquez are sunny personalities seeing out time at satellite teams with reputations for immaculate vibes.
But some break-ups will be – or have high potential to be – messy.
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Of all the separations set to finally take place come December in Valencia, Quartararo and Yamaha always had the potential to be the ugliest.
The most recent race in Aragon only brought that into sharper focus.
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Quartararo has started all 146 of his premier-class Grands Prix with Yamaha, firstly with its satellite Petronas-backed team in 2019, then with the factory squad from 2021 onwards. Success was immediate, and sustainable – he took six poles as a rookie in 2019, won his first trio of races a year later, then five more in 2021, when he won the world championship.
Since? Pickings have been slim.
Quartararo built a 91-point championship lead over Ducati’s Bagnaia by winning the 2022 German Grand Prix, then famously squandered it to lose the title at the final round in Valencia just 10 races later. That June day at the Sachsenring remains his – and Yamaha’s – most recent MotoGP victory.
Quartararo won three Grands Prix in his failed title defence in 2022 … and none since. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
Since, there’s been occasional podiums, five astonishing pole positions last year on a troubled bike he somehow dragged to ninth in the championship, and a healthier bank balance; the Frenchman’s two-year contract extension in 2024 was reportedly worth 12 million Euros (A$19 million) per season, making him one of the sport’s highest-paid riders.
The frustrations, though, continued to mount, and – underwhelmed by Yamaha’s efforts to fast-track its brand-new V4 engine project to the grid in 2026 – Quartararo agreed to move to Honda for 2027-28 before this season even began, the deal finally being announced in July.
With the 850cc regulation change approaching the speed of an Aprilia – if not Yamaha’s sluggish YZR-M1 – time testing the new bikes, to be shod with new tyres from new supplier Pirelli, is precious, and appears to be at the heart of the Quartararo/Yamaha public spat after Aragon, where Quartararo failed to complete the sprint after an engine let go before finishing last after a listless ride in the Grand Prix proper.
Afterwards, it came to light that Yamaha had barred Quartararo from testing its 850cc bike on Pirelli tyres for the one-day test at the Red Bull Ring on September 21, the Monday after the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix.
It’s not unusual for teams to park riders who are heading elsewhere for the following season when it comes to testing new machines at any time, let alone when MotoGP is about to embark on its biggest regulatory change in 15 years. That said, KTM (with Acosta) and Honda (with Mir and Marini) have or are giving track time to riders set for pastures new.
That – and Quartararo’s simmering disgust at being 15th in this year’s standings, his worst-ever season – was the tipping point.
In an interview session with French media after the Aragon GP, the 2021 world champion pulled no punches.
“For the future, I am not in a position to help … and for personal reasons, I don’t want to help,” he said.
“I wanted to do the tests in Austria, but unfortunately, Yamaha doesn’t want me to ride on Pirelli tyres. I wanted to do something, but they won’t let me.
“Personally, I don’t want to develop the [Yamaha] bike for the 2027 riders. If we can improve something for this year, I’ll do it, but I’m not going to push myself to the limit and act as a test rider like I did this weekend.”
Yamaha’s management, typically very measured and corporate in matters of conjecture or controversy, reacted strongly.
With Quartararo’s teammate Rins and Pramac Yamaha stablemate Miller both likely off to World Superbikes – Rins almost certainly with another manufacturer – next year, the Japanese brand will use Miller’s teammate Razgatlioglu at the Austria test, and is set to call up the Australian’s 2027 replacement, Spanish Moto2 rider Izan Guevara, to ride its new bike.
It was the departing Miller that Yamaha factory team director Massimo Meregalli brought up in an interview with French publication L’Equipe in response.
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“Fabio should follow Jack’s example – he always gives his all and makes sure that, even if things get tough, everyone stays in good spirits,” Meregalli said.
“We’ll be using Razgatlioglu and most certainly Guevara for the test in Austria because they’ll be with us next year.
“All the manufacturers have taken this decision [not to run riders who are leaving]. Martin and Ogura won’t be testing the Aprilia, Bagnaia won’t be testing the Ducati, Acosta won’t be testing the KTM. We won’t be letting Miller test our 850cc, either.”
In the same L’Equipe story, Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Paolo Pavesio – who came to the role five months after Quartararo was retained on huge money by Yamaha in 2024 – expressed a similarly unimpressed tone.
“Fabio regularly complains that we’re not developing the bike, and when we ask him to test new parts, he criticises us for it, saying he loses his way,” Pavesio said.
“He lacks a bit of objectivity. Of course, we’re not at the level we’d like to be. But like our rivals, we’re trying to move forward.”
All eyes, then, will be on Quartararo’s response and approach to this weekend’s 14th round of the season at Misano, the same track where he became the first French premier-class world champion five years ago.
If there’s a relationship that may not last the rest of the season – given Yamaha has test rider Augusto Fernandez on hand, the Spaniard having already appeared as a wildcard at four events this season while simultaneously testing the 2027 850cc machine – this might be one of two …
Quartararo, the 2021 world champion, will move from Yamaha to Honda next season. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
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Other end-of-season break-ups aren’t as likely to end as harshly as Quartararo/Yamaha, no matter what fence-mending goes on in public over the coming weeks.
But the union between Maverick Vinales and KTM could come close.
Just as Aprilia was beginning to show signs of the form in 2024 that has led the smaller of MotoGP’s two Italian factories to become its number one force this season, Vinales left for KTM at the end of that season, the same campaign where he was the only rider to deny Ducati a clean sweep of the entire 20-race calendar by winning the Grand Prix of the Americas in Texas.
It’s a move that hasn’t gone well, besides one remarkable Vinales ride in round four of last season in Qatar where he qualified sixth, led for five laps, crossed the line in second just 1.8secs behind a rampaging Marc Marquez … and was then demoted to 14th by a 16-second tyre pressure penalty.
Seven rounds later in Germany, Vinales crashed in a wet qualifying session and badly damaged his left shoulder. He’s barely been seen since, missing 13 of the subsequent 25 rounds as his recovery lingers, and has scored just 13 world championship points in the past 14 months.
Out of contract and out of other seats to grab for 2027 – the two unconfirmed seats on next year’s grid are slated to go to runaway World Superbikes leader Nicolo Bulega (at VR46 Ducati) and Australia’s Senna Agius (at Vinales’ current employer, Tech3 KTM) – the Spaniard’s return if and when it happens could be tense.
Vinales has missed almost as many races as he’s started since joining KTM for the 2025 season. (Photo by Ronny HARTMANN / AFP)Source: AFP
“I’ve already accepted that I’ll probably be out of MotoGP, I don’t want to stay here at KTM,” he said at this year’s German Grand Prix, pouring petrol on a fire already blazing.
“They sent me a contract, I signed it, and two weeks later they told me it wasn’t valid.”
Vinales’ time with Yamaha from 2017-21 ended in controversial circumstances where, just one race after qualifying on pole and finishing second to then-teammate Quartararo at Assen in 2021, he was suspended by Yamaha after being accused of trying to blow up his bike’s engine in Austria, and never raced for the brand again.
KTM test rider Pol Espargaro, as he has for the past two rounds, will deputise for Vinales this weekend at Misano, it would surprise few if Espargaro is drafted in for the majority of the final run to Valencia, particularly through the gruelling five-round ‘flyaways’ outside of Europe through Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and – should it go ahead – Qatar.
Of the other alliances on the grid looking forward for Valencia to come and go, the Bagnaia/Ducati marriage – one that has produced 31 wins and two premier-class world titles – has been headed towards an uneasy conclusion ever since Ducati opted to sign Acosta to partner Marc Marquez in an all-Spanish super team straddling generations for the next two seasons, Bagnaia moving to Aprilia next year on a four-year deal.
Coincidence or not, Bagnaia’s form has faceplanted ever since Marquez arrived in the sister garage – he finished fifth overall last year for his worst championship result since 2020, and has slumped further to eighth this year, his last-round crash in Aragon one of 12 DNFs in his past 19 Grands Prix starts.
Bagnaia’s mostly successful stint at Ducati is headed for a quiet, underwhelming conclusion. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
The Bastianini/KTM relationship – which always felt like a second-choice option for both parties – will likely peter out as the Italian rider finally gets his wish to be back on an Italian bike, ‘The Beast’ heading to Trackhouse Aprilia for next season.
Martin’s final races of his two-year contract with Aprilia, which he spent most of 2025 trying to extract himself from while injured, could shape the title fight given the Spaniard is leading the championship from Marquez and his own teammate Bezzecchi, both of whom are in the minority of riders staying put for 2027.
Aprilia will have little leverage in asking Martin to do the team thing to help Bezzecchi hold off Marquez if the title fight shakes out that way, while Martin already has experience in fighting for a championship for a manufacturer he’s about to leave, which he did successfully in 2024 for Ducati before leaving for Aprilia, a move that was announced five months beforehand.
For riders like Quartararo and Vinales, though, the end of the season can’t come soon enough.
That’s indisputable; what’s less clear is whether those relationships, formed with optimism and forged through varying levels of success, can even reach 2026’s finish line.