Luca Marini’s announcement as a Tech3 KTM MotoGP rider from 2027 onwards marks the first signing of the team’s Guenther Steiner era – and, in that sense, it is fitting.<\/p>\n
After fielding KTM-contracted riders for several years, Tech3 is pivoting to having riders under its own contractual control (note how Marini was announced only by Tech3 and not by KTM) – and Marini was not thought to be particularly high on KTM’s shopping list for its satellite team.<\/p>\n
But he is a quintessential Steiner signing, and a rider who – even before the actual talks had started in earnest – seemed to be the inevitable fit for Tech3.<\/p>\n
When the cracks first started really showing in the Maverick Vinales relationship with Tech3 and KTM, I remember mentioning Marini to Steiner – and being very surprised when he indicated they had not yet met (with the hint being that Marini wasn’t hugely on the radar).<\/p>\n
In the end, Marini more or less had to be the choice.<\/p>\n
During his time in charge of the Haas Formula 1 team, Steiner very clearly favoured long-time continuity with established ‘midfield professionals’ – see Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, who were only eventually phased out due to budget – over ‘upside’ bets or rookies or any left-field options.<\/p>\n
Tech3 is more established in MotoGP than Haas has ever been in F1, so Steiner has showed a keenness on a rookie signing (which he never wanted at Haas). Senna Agius is the favourite for that rookie spot.<\/p>\n
But two rookies was a no-go, even though there were suggestions KTM had an interest in this. For Steiner, having a benchmark of established quality was paramount.<\/p>\n
Ideally, this would have been one of the incumbents, Enea Bastianini or Maverick Vinales. <\/p>\n
But Vinales has become non-viable through injury and what can only be described as ‘baggage’. <\/p>\n
And Bastianini, also through ‘baggage’, had long made up his mind towards going somewhere else – he just never seemed truly settled as a Tech3 KTM rider, initially hamstrung by the adaptation from the Ducati and subsequently never truly at ease on a bike he found to be too much of a ‘bucking bronco’.<\/p>\n
It is curious that Steiner has sounded so dismissive of Brad Binder – expected to go to World Superbikes as a BMW rider – as another option. But Binder and Marini seemed like the only logical riders to pursue, and now Marini has got the nod.<\/p>\n
He is not a flashy, buzzy signing by any means, but he does seem fundamentally misunderstood – to the point where a lot of people exist under the impression Marini has stuck around by virtue of being Valentino Rossi’s brother.<\/p>\n
Certainly for this signing, that is completely irrelevant. Marini has stuck around because he has a paddock-wide reputation for possessing a keen engineering mind, and because he scores points and keeps equipment intact.<\/p>\n
He has outqualified Honda team-mate Joan Mir only once all season. He is, however, outscoring Mir 86 to 29.<\/p>\n
If Tech3 wants someone who will maximise its chances at stealing a win here or there, Marini is absolutely not the guy. <\/p>\n
But after the travails of the Bastianini-Vinales line-up, all the irritation the various dramas surrounding both are known to have caused, the appeal of Marini is only too clear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luca Marini’s announcement as a Tech3 KTM MotoGP rider from 2027 onwards marks the first signing of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-869037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869037","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=869037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}