{"id":408123,"date":"2026-01-12T10:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T10:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408123\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T10:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T10:50:11","slug":"motogp-2026-rider-line-ups-ranked-from-worst-to-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408123\/","title":{"rendered":"MotoGP 2026 rider line-ups ranked from worst to best"},"content":{"rendered":"

There aren’t many changes in the MotoGP rider line-ups from 2025 to 2026, but perceptions of a lot of those riders changed massively during the last 12 months.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, The Race MotoGP Podcast panel Matt Beer, Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Megan White gathered to debate their ranking of all 11 teams’ line-ups.<\/a> Here’s where they ended up.<\/p>\n

11th – LCR HondaJohann Zarco + Diogo Moreira\"\"<\/p>\n

Equal ranking to 2025
Highest ranking: 9th (Megan)
Lowest ranking: 11th (Val)<\/p>\n

LCR’s swapped an underwhelming Moto2 graduate in Somkiat Chantra for reigning Moto2 champion (and Honda’s pick for the future) Diogo Moreira, but it doesn’t lift the satellite Honda squad off the bottom of our ranking.<\/p>\n

And that’s more a reflection on how much strength in depth there now is on the MotoGP grid than a comment on the LCR line-up itself, with Moreira and last year’s shock French Grand Prix winner Johann Zarco offering a textbook blend of youthful promise and proven experience.<\/p>\n

What Val called Zarco’s “very shaky” final part of 2025 and the open question of how 21-year-old Moreira will adapt to MotoGP and whether any rough edges remain add up to just enough doubt to leave LCR narrowly last.<\/p>\n

10th – VR46 DucatiFabio Di Giannantonio + Franco Morbidelli\"\"<\/p>\n

Down four places from 2025
Highest ranking: 9th (Simon + Val)
Lowest ranking: 11th (Matt)<\/p>\n

The biggest drop in our rankings from 2025, more because Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Di Giannantonio cemented opinions while other teams’ riders exceeded expectations.<\/p>\n

“If this line-up stays the same for 2027 then you’d have to question the ambition of the team, because consistency is fine but only if you consistently achieve,” said Megan – with the whole panel agreeing that while both riders are fundamentally good, this is a relatively mid-tier pairing on a grid where most teams have at least one clear star.<\/p>\n

Simon hoped for more consistent performance from Di Giannantonio and feels the erratic Morbidelli is “running out of options and is only on the grid because he’s the boss’s mate”. With plenty of paddock doubts about Valentino Rossi’s ongoing commitment to MotoGP team ownership, those VR46 roots might soon count for little.<\/p>\n

Even the fact they finished sixth and seventh in last year’s riders’ championship doesn’t sway opinions of Di Giannantonio and Morbidelli much, with Matt arguing that a “congested points system” and “other riders having Jekyll-and-Hyde seasons” made it possible for a regular top-10 finisher to outscore riders with much higher peaks (Di Giannantonio finished 2025 only 26 points behind Pecco Bagnaia!) and Simon feeling those championship positions were the least you’d expect from riders on Ducatis.<\/p>\n

9th – Pramac YamahaJack Miller + Toprak Razgatlioglu\"\"<\/p>\n

Equal ranking to 2025
Highest ranking: 7th (Megan)
Lowest ranking: 11th (Simon)<\/p>\n

World Superbike megastar Toprak Razgatlioglu finally arrives in MotoGP to replace Miguel Oliveira alongside Jack Miller, albeit surrounded by question marks that have little to do with his outright talent.<\/p>\n

Has the 29-year-old left it too deep into his career to make this switch, and will this season simply be a relatively low-key learning one before he capitalises on MotoGP’s switch to Pirelli tyres in 2027?<\/p>\n

It’s that expectation of 2026 not really counting for Razgatlioglu in MotoGP terms plus the expectation that Yamaha will be mainly using Miller as a test rider for its V4 development this season that steered Simon to place this pair last.<\/p>\n

Miller’s regarded as a known quantity – fast in qualifying in particular, an asset to a team in Pramac’s position, but too prone to fading in races. Razgatlioglu is all unknowns in MotoGP terms right now, albeit with a potentially huge upside if what he’s achieved elsewhere can translate.<\/p>\n

8th – Trackhouse ApriliaRaul Fernandez + Ai Ogura\"\"<\/p>\n

Equal ranking to 2025
Highest ranking: 5th (Simon)
Lowest ranking: 11th (Megan)<\/p>\n

An absolutely wild spread of judgements on Trackhouse duo Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura, with Simon ranking them ahead of even the works KTM line-up in a lofty fifth and Megan putting them last.<\/p>\n

But maybe that’s no surprise when looking at two riders whose peaks are so wildly out of kilter with their troughs.<\/p>\n

The Fernandez who won the Australian GP hasn’t been visible for most of his frustrating MotoGP career so far, and the Ogura that made such a stunning start to his rookie season was rarely seen again – albeit amid injury later on.<\/p>\n

For Fernandez at least the encouraging element is the current trajectory – with two of 2025’s final three weekends being his best in MotoGP so far. But as Matt put it, “it’s still just flickers. Yes the Moto2 season that launched him was extraordinary so the talent clearly exists. But when someone’s underperformed for as long as Fernandez has, you need more than flickers and moments, you need a long run of consistently good results to believe in it”. <\/p>\n

7th – Tech3 KTMEnea Bastianini + Maverick Vinales\"\"<\/p>\n

Down two places from 2025
Highest ranking: 6th (Val + Matt)
Lowest ranking: 8th (Megan + Simon)<\/p>\n

“There is so much talent in these two guys, but what level of talent will turn up each week is so unpredictable,” says Simon of Enea Bastianini and Maverick Vinales, who showed the best and worst of themselves in their first season on KTMs.<\/p>\n

Before injury spoilt his season, Vinales earned admiration for how he handled KTM’s situation, though Val sees Vinales’ lack of first-lap incisiveness even on a bike that starts this well as an ongoing concern. Will now being mentored by Jorge Lorenzo make a difference?<\/p>\n

For Bastianini, what Megan calls the “you’re so fast but there’s only a lap and a half left, where was this?” habit is just not what you need in an era where one qualifying session sets two grids and overtaking is hard.<\/p>\n

6th – HondaLuca Marini + Joan Mir\"\"<\/p>\n

Up one place from 2025
Highest ranking: 6th (Megan)
Lowest ranking: 7th (Everyone else)<\/p>\n

Luca Marini and Joan Mir feel like the right level of solid pairing Honda needs in a current situation, though only Simon feels either of them (Mir) has the potential to be the star this team might need if its improvements continue.<\/p>\n

And in the moment, it’s actually Marini who Simon’s most impressed by. He felt Mir “was doing the same as he had before on a bike that was now improving” while Marini “really stepped up a level and was Honda’s ‘MVP'” – which earns all the more credit given Marini’s serious mid-season injury.<\/p>\n

5th – YamahaFabio Quartararo + Alex Rins\"\"<\/p>\n

Down one place from 2025
Highest ranking: 4th (Megan, Simon, Matt)
Lowest ranking: 5th (Val)<\/p>\n

Yamaha topped this poll at the start of 2024 when Alex Rins first joined Fabio Quartararo. Since then, Rins has had statistically one of the very worst stints as a works Yamaha rider in the MotoGP era.<\/p>\n

How much of that remains a consequence of his mid-2023 leg injury? We have to assume that’s still a major factor, though Val pointed out Rins keeps insisting it isn’t and we have to therefore respect that… even though that actually reflects worse on Rins’s performance level.<\/p>\n

Rins gelling with the V4 Yamaha and turning it around in 2026 would certainly go down well with us. In the meantime, this line-up is being carried by Quartararo.<\/p>\n

4th – KTMPedro Acosta + Brad Binder\"\"<\/p>\n

Down two places from 2025
Highest ranking: 3rd (Val + Matt)
Lowest ranking: 6th (Simon)<\/p>\n

A split panel here, with Simon getting impatient with Pedro Acosta’s failure to win a race “despite having 44 chances each year to do so” and feeling like Brad Binder’s increasingly long winless run (since August 2021 in grands prix and April 2023 in sprints) plus the gulf between him and Acosta in 2025 are damning.<\/p>\n

Val and Matt have kept the faith, disagreeing that Acosta’s thrown away chances and still convinced he’s actually overperforming in KTM’s situation. And while neither disagrees that Binder had a dreadful 2025, they’re not ready to give up on someone who led KTM so convincingly for so long and still has outstanding racecraft.<\/p>\n

3rd – Gresini DucatiAlex Marquez + Fermin Aldeguer\"\"<\/p>\n

Up seven places from 2025
Highest ranking: 3rd (Simon + Megan)
Lowest ranking: 5th (Megan)<\/p>\n

By far the biggest mover in this list, exemplified by Simon declaring Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer the worst pairing on the grid a year ago and now putting them third.<\/p>\n

That “phenomenal turnaround” he sees comes from them defying his expectations that “they’d just crash their brains out all the time” and instead showing their best form consistently.<\/p>\n

Whether they rank so high going into 2027 feels like a moot point for us, though. Aldeguer still had rough edges, and now faces an uncertain 2026 given his recent leg injury.<\/a> Simon suspects it wouldn’t take much for Marquez to revert to his old, sketchier, ways. And while Val says he’s always believed in Marquez’s ultimate potential, he wonders if “being put in some more uncomfortable situations” this year – such as improvements by others meaning it’s not a foregone conclusion Marquez will always make Q2 – will mean old frailties are more prevalent again.<\/p>\n

2nd – ApriliaMarco Bezzecchi + Jorge Martin\"\"<\/p>\n

Up one place from 2025
Ranking: 2nd for everyone<\/p>\n

The real start for Aprilia’s best-ever MotoGP line-up? Plenty of faith in Marco Bezzecchi after he emphatically put his poor 2024 behind him and returned to form in his new home, with Simon suggesting that if we’re ranking pairings then Bezzecchi plus Aprilia team boss Massimo Rivola might be the best relationship in the paddock.<\/p>\n

Jorge Martin’s title defence season became a terrible litany of injuries punctuated by a bizarre attempt to leave a team he’d barely actually raced for and then a U-turn on that stance (then another injury caused by ploughing into his team-mate).<\/p>\n

Despite all that, most of the panel don’t really have any doubts about Martin putting it all behind him in 2026. “Has Martin ever been slow when fit?” asks Val rhetorically, while Simon believes “all the trials and tribulations will make him a calmer, more complete and ultimately better rider”.<\/p>\n

Only Matt is hesitant – pointing out that to go through so many injuries, some of them very serious, and to be up against a stronger team-mate challenge than ever before and be almost a year behind that team-mate in bike and team acclimatisation all adds up to uncharted territory for Martin.<\/p>\n

1st – DucatiMarc Marquez + Pecco Bagnaia\"\"<\/p>\n

Equal ranking to 2025
Ranking: 1st for everyone<\/p>\n

Would Pecco Bagnaia’s bizarre 2025 dips threaten the Ducati works pairing’s position atop our ranking?<\/p>\n

No, and there wasn’t any real danger of it either, with every team that could have been a contender to topple Ducati having too many question marks over one of its riders as well.<\/p>\n

With Marc Marquez’s status as the best rider on the grid somehow even more unquestionable after 2025, the debate is all about Bagnaia.<\/p>\n

But even then there’s consensus that it’s the lows of last season that were the anomalies, rather than those bad weekends potentially being Bagnaia’s new normal for whatever reason.<\/p>\n

While we all agree that Bagnaia needs to do better in 2025, Simon says “I still haven’t seen anything to change my opinion that when Bagnaia’s performing as he can on a factory Ducati he’s the second-best rider on the grid”.<\/p>\n

That “second-best” status carries a pretty significant caveat now, though Val wonders whether Bagnaia might be pragmatic enough to conclude that being number two to Marquez in the best team on the grid is a decent enough situation to be in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There aren’t many changes in the MotoGP rider line-ups from 2025 to 2026, but perceptions of a lot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-408123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}