Brazilian MotoGP debutant Diogo Moreira. His LCR Honda teammate, veteran Johann Zarco.
Yamaha’s incoming World Superbikes champion, Toprak Razgatlioglu. Ducati’s 2025 race-winning rookie, Fermin Aldeguer.
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It’s a quartet of riders – two of whom are yet to even start a MotoGP race, and one who has done just 20 of them – who are the calm in what’s sure to be an otherwise stormy MotoGP rider market next year; Moreira, Zarco, Razgatlioglu and Aldeguer are the only four riders who have contracts that last into 2027.
MotoGP’s annual game of musical chairs is a volatile one at the best of times, but the looming move for the sport to ditch the 1000cc engines that have propelled MotoGP since 2012 for new 850cc bikes shod with new-for-2027 Pirelli tyres raises the stakes for every other rider.
Get your next contract right in a field of brand-new bikes, and your career could either get back on track, or reach new heights. Get it wrong, and it has the potential to be a slippery slope towards the rear of the grid, or – worse – out the door.
A rider who hasn’t won a race for three and a half years holds all the cards.
And he knows it.
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Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 world champion for Yamaha, has one Grand Prix podium finish in the past two seasons while simultaneously bolstering his status as arguably the grid’s best rider not named Marc Marquez.
Quartararo’s 2025 season – ninth in the championship – looks like a typo relative to the meagre results of a trio of peers on the same machine who all languish in the bottom five of the standings of the 22 full-timers in the sport.
Quartararo has been handsomely paid as MotoGP’s biggest earner as Yamaha has wilted but, at 26 and after a chastening past three seasons, has all the leverage to hold Yamaha’s feet to the fire.
Hand on heart, the Frenchman likely doesn’t want to leave, but might have to if he’s to reclaim past glories as Yamaha seem as far away – arguably further – than at any time since 2022, when Quartararo led the title chase at the halfway stage before being mowed down by Francesco Bagnaia and Ducati.
Ducati has barely stopped winning since, but there’s no guarantee that trend will continue given the seismic changes set for 2027 and the banning of much of the aerodynamics and ride-height device wizardry that has underpinned the Italian brand’s march from occasional race-winner to paddock powerhouse.
Honda, once behind Yamaha in what was derisively referred to as the ‘Japanese Cup’ as the European factories ascended, is on the march.
KTM has a young star in Pedro Acosta, but no wins since late 2022 and is under financial strain, again.
Aprilia has 2024 world champion Jorge Martin, who has spent two-thirds of this season injured while initially trying to escape a two-year deal to move elsewhere before the complexity and financial penalty for doing so saw him abruptly change his mind.
Every other factory would move mountains for Quartararo if he springs loose, and ‘El Diablo’ has a big decision to make that will have ripple effects throughout the entire grid.
Based on the Frenchman’s mounting frustration, that decision might come sooner than later.
Quartararo’s talent is undeniable, but 2025 has been another year of largely anonymous results for Yamaha. (Photo by Paul CROCK / AFP)Source: AFP
ONE-LAP BRILLIANCE MASKS YAMAHA’S WOES
How good has Quartararo been this season?
Consider his points (182) and championship position (ninth) relative to the three other Yamaha full-timers on the grid in Jack Miller (68, 18th), Alex Rins (63, 19th) and Miguel Oliveira (36, 20th), all multiple-time Grand Prix winners who have been rendered as also-rans because of the deficiencies of Yamaha’s YZR-M1 machine relative to the rest of the field.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola joins Pit Talk to review a successful yet tumultuous year in MotoGP, look at the growth of Marco Bezzecchi and his hopes for Jorge Martin, and discuss Liberty Media’s arrival while reminiscing about his F1 days working for Australian Paul Stoddart. Listen to Pit Talk below.
Hard data aside, Quartararo has provided a series of moments where analysis, telemetry and stats can only explain so much. A rider on a Yamaha shouldn’t have only Marc Marquez on a Ducati ahead of him in the pole position count this year, but somehow Quartararo has managed it.
In Spain in round five, Quartararo broke the Jerez all-time track record by taking pole by three-hundredths of a second over a stunned Marquez. A round later in France, Quartararo sent his home fans into delirium with another pole that again set a new benchmark for MotoGP bikes at Le Mans.
A third straight pole – and circuit record – came the next time out in Silverstone, a staggering lap that was three-tenths of a second faster than Ducati’s Alex Marquez, the best of the rest. He qualified on pole for the Dutch Grand Prix in round 10, and broke the all-time Phillip Island circuit record in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix to set his fifth pole of the season; Marc Marquez, who had the title wrapped up with five rounds to go in Japan, has eight poles this year and is the only rider besides Quartararo with more than three.
The combination of volcanic pace, dancing on the edge of adhesion and a 2025 Yamaha can only do so much over a race distance, though; Quartararo finished second in Spain to Alex Marquez, but has just one other top-10 finish (10th at Assen) from his other poles, either fading back to the pack, crashing out trying to keep up with the frontrunners or – at Silverstone – being denied a win from a comfortable lead when his bike’s ride-height device became stuck while leading on lap 12 of 19.
Fabio Quartararo’s results from pole positions, 2025
Spain (Rd 5): Qualified 1st, Sprint DNF (crash, lap 1), Grand Prix 2nd (+1.561secs behind winner, A. Marquez)
France (Rd 6): Qualified 1st, Sprint 4th (+2.840, M. Marquez), Grand Prix DNF (crash, lap 4)
Great Britain (Rd 7): Qualified 1st, Sprint 7th (+7.231, A. Marquez), Grand Prix DNF (mechanical, lap 12)
Netherlands (Rd 10): Qualified 1st, Sprint DNF (crash, lap 10), Grand Prix 10th (+24.743, M. Marquez)
Australia (Rd 19): Qualified 1st, Sprint 7th (+8.706, Bezzecchi), Grand Prix 11th (+16.965, R. Fernandez)
Broadly, Quartararo’s pole laps are perceived to be achieved despite what he’s riding, his race fade-outs coming largely because of it.
It’s why his impeding free agency is so compelling, and why he holds so much power over where he might end up if he bites the bullet and leaves the only brand he’s ridden for since he entered MotoGP in 2019.
Of the best of the 18 other riders with contracts to the end of 2026, Martin has been hurt this year and can be volatile most seasons, while Alex Marquez – good as his runner-up 2025 campaign has been – has had one truly impressive season in a six-year MotoGP career.
At Ducati’s factory team, Francesco Bagnaia – after four seasons where he’d either won the world championship or fought for it until the final round – has been a week by week, seemingly session by session mystery in 2025.
Marc Marquez, 33 next February and with his redemptive career arc completed with a seventh MotoGP title this season, shapes as someone in MotoGP for a good time, not an overly long one.
Quartararo knows his worth as Yamaha’s most valuable asset, and hasn’t been shy in flexing it.
With Yamaha persisting on using an inline-four engine for its MotoGP project – the only brand to do so after Suzuki withdrew from the sport at the end of 2022 – the success of the V4-powered Ducati in particular has seen Quartararo strongly express his preference for Yamaha to go down that same power plant path, Yamaha fast-tracking its embryonic V4 developmental engine to such an extent that it has already been raced twice by test rider Augusto Fernandez in Misano and Sepang, a timescale that looks hurried relative to the careful, publicly risk-averse approach historically employed by the Japanese MotoGP manufacturers.
With Rins nowhere near his Grand Prix-winning best since injury cut him down in 2023 – and with Yamaha bringing in Razgatlioglu for next season as a rookie – Quartararo’s vote of confidence in Miller as a rider with developmental experience from his time riding for Honda, Ducati and KTM was a significant factor in the Australian staying on for 2026, despite Miller – by many metrics – having his worst statistical season in a decade. Quartararo – not renowned as a great test rider, more a racer who pushes what he’s given to extremes – knows Miller’s technical know-how is arguably more important than the results he achieves in competition.
On the surface, it appears every Yamaha decision is about keeping Quartararo motivated, well-compensated and engaged; arguably it should be, has to be.
A pair of recent press offerings suggest his patience is wearing thin, though.
Quartararo’s staggering pole lap in Australia was the latest in a long line of times in 2025 where he’s transcended his machinery. (Photo by Martin KEEP / AFP)Source: AFP
MARQUEZ MOVE COULD OFFER A TEMPLATE
Ahead of the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island last month, a revealing Quartararo interview with es.motorsport.com made it crystal-clear as to what he’s looking for from Yamaha as the 2027 regulation reset looms, particularly given the Frenchman gave consideration to leaving Yamaha three years ago and – on that occasion – elected to bet on what he knew.
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“In 2022, I was very close to leaving … but I’d just won the title in 2021 and was leading the championship, so I stayed,” Quartararo said.
“Then I renewed until 2026 because I trusted what I saw about the bike’s development and what I thought would happen this year. It didn’t go as expected – we haven’t improved. Hopefully the 2026 bike will be better.
“It was about weighing pros and cons. Giving Yamaha these two years was clearly their last chance. I’ll admit there was also a bit of ego involved, I wanted to get back to the top with this bike.
“There’s very little time. What Yamaha hasn’t managed to achieve in years, I hope they can do in a few months because I don’t have much time either, that’s clear. I have a lot left to do.
“My biggest dream was to be a MotoGP rider and win a world title and I’ve done that, but I’m not satisfied with what I’ve achieved compared to the potential I have now. I know I’m much better now than in 2021 when I was champion. After three tough years I’ve learned a lot about fighting without the right bike. I’m a winner, and I know what I still need to achieve before I retire and feel fulfilled.”
Grand Prix wins by manufacturer since Quartararo’s 2021 world championship
65: Ducati (Bagnaia 27, M. Marquez 14, Bastianini 7, Martin 7, A. Marquez 3, Bezzecchi 3, Miller 1, Zarco 1, Di Giannantonio 1, Aldeguer 1)
6: Aprilia (A. Espargaro 3, Vinales 1, Bezzecchi 1. R. Fernandez 1)
3: Yamaha (Quartararo 3)
2: KTM (Oliveira 2)
2: Honda (Rins 1, Zarco 1)
2: Suzuki* (Rins 2)
(* Suzuki withdrew from MotoGP after the 2022 season)
Stay with a familiar family, or leave home and spread your wings? It’s the tale of Marquez’s seventh MotoGP title this season, which only came after he somewhat reluctantly left Honda – who he’d raced his entire MotoGP career for from 2013-23 – for Ducati after he finally recovered from years of injuries and surgeries and felt Honda wasn’t ready to win again on his timeline.
The Spaniard was considerably older than Quartararo when he elected to tear up his 2024 contract with Honda and left a reported 20 million Euros (A$35.6 million) on the table to sign with Ducati, a move that now looks like a masterstroke after he won the 2025 title, and given Honda has won a single race since he left.
Quartararo has taken note.
“In Marc’s last year at Honda, it was already clear that the bike mattered too much and he didn’t want to hurt himself anymore,” Quartararo said.
“For me, what he’s done is an example. In two years he’s gone from doing nothing because of the bike to winning races last season and now taking the title comfortably. As a rider and a person, it’s spectacular.
“Marc left Honda when all the other factory teams already had their riders under contract, but his example – going for the best bike regardless of money – is definitely inspiring.”
Marquez moving from Honda to Ducati and getting back to the top of the world this season will offer Quartararo food for thought. (Photo by Toshifumi KITAMURA / AFP)Source: AFP
2026 PRE-SEASON TESTING VERDICT LOOMS
Less inspiring? That’d be the early returns from Yamaha’s V4-powered machine dipping a toe in the MotoGP pool in the San Marino (Round 16) and Malaysian (Round 20) Grands Prix with Fernandez, two outings that showed there’s no ceiling to Yamaha’s ambition, but how much work lies ahead of it.
In Misano, Fernandez qualified 22nd out of the 23 starters, 1.7secs from pole, and was 18th of the 19 finishers in the sprint race, 27secs behind the winner (Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi) in 13 laps. In the 27-lap Grand Prix the next day, Fernandez was 14th of the 16 finishers, over a full minute behind the victorious Marc Marquez.
At Sepang, Fernandez qualified last, 2.3secs behind Bagnaia, and finished second-last in the sprint and Grand Prix, 25 and 47 seconds adrift of the winners (Bagnaia, Alex Marquez) in 10 (sprint) and 20 (Grand Prix) laps respectively.
Yamaha deserves credit for being willing to take the public risk with a project that’s clearly still undercooked, but Fernandez – a rider accomplished enough to be on the full-time MotoGP grid for two seasons and a world champion in Moto2 (2022) – was honest to the point of being blunt when asked in Malaysia whether the Yamaha V4 will be competitive by next year’s opening Grand Prix in Thailand in early March.
“Not really, not really,” Fernandez began.
“Now we are far [from the pace], but if we go in the right direction after all the data that we have analysed… in [the post-season] Valencia [test] we will confirm, and after that I will say if we will be ready [for Thailand] or not.
“One of the topics is the engine. I would like to have – as they say that we have more power – something more similar to what it’s going to be. And then we need a base, we need to keep working on what we saw here and in Misano. We need the balance of the bike … we’re still unbalanced.
“We need to accelerate the development and the process a little bit, but the good thing is that there is something clear, some direction to follow now.
“The only thing is that we don’t have time.”
Fernandez raced at the back of the pack in Misano and Sepang on a V4 Yamaha that’s very much in a developmental phase. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
All three Yamaha riders who are being retained for next season – Miller, Rins and of course Quartararo – have been hanging on Fernandez’s every word at Misano and Sepang, and undoubtedly picking his brain away from the public glare.
With 2026 pre-season testing set for the same Sepang venue in early February, the sound of the ticking clock is growing ever-louder.
“I think that the two most important things are Valencia and Sepang [tests],” Quartararo said in Malaysia.
“Of course at Valencia I know that the bike will still not be completely ready, but in February here [Sepang], the bike will be almost the one that we will race so it’s going to be super important to have what I want in the Sepang test.
“I need a fast bike, I need to feel that the bike is a winning bike, and the bike that is ready to fight for top three and top five for every single session, every single sprint and every single GP.
“[The expectations are] really clear from my side. It’s going to be difficult of course, but it’s what I need. I spent many years struggling, but now I want a winning bike.”
Quite where that winning bike is – Yamaha or elsewhere – remains to be seen.
But once Quartararo decides whether to stick or twist – and he’s likely to react swiftly to what happens in Malaysia next February – one decision will be like rolling a hand grenade into a rider market that’s awaiting the next move of the rider with the most long-term upside in MotoGP.
It’s a contract call that will set off a scurrying for seats at the table before they all fill up – while requiring a leap of faith and an eye towards 2027 to make sure that seat is one you’d actually like to be left sitting on when the music stops.