Why MotoGP teams are withholding their 2027 rider announcements

Marco Bezzecchi's renewal with Aprilia is the only 2027 MotoGP rider move to have been made official so far, despite many other deals having already been agreed  The lack of announcements is no coincidence; it is the result of a collective strategy with major implications for the championship’s future.

In fact, the staged 'wedding ceremony' organised by the Noale manufacturer on the eve of the Sepang test raised eyebrows among rival factories, which are leading what is a deliberate and coordinated silence. Autosport understands that most of the key movements concerning factory garages have already been signed and sealed.

That includes Marc Marquez’s renewal with Ducati and Pedro Acosta’s arrival to replace Francesco Bagnaia, now that the two-time world champion (2022 and 2023) has committed to Aprilia. Although Bagnaia held talks with Yamaha, the all-round struggles displayed by the Japanese manufacturer in Malaysia, combined with what he considered an insufficient offer, prompted him to change direction and join Aprilia, where he will team up with Bezzecchi – one of his closest friends in the paddock.

In response to Fabio Quartararo’s move to Honda, Yamaha has secured Jorge Martin, while discussions continue over who will partner the 2024 world champion. KTM, meanwhile, has already agreed to promote Maverick Vinales from its satellite outfit, Tech3, and he will share the factory garage with Alex Marquez.

The pieces involving independent teams will fall into place after the factory seats are formally confirmed, although nearly half the grid already knows which colours it will represent at the dawn of the 850cc era. Yet only one move – Bezzecchi’s – has been communicated publicly. That is far from accidental.

Behind this quiet approach lies a strategy agreed upon by members of the MSMA [Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers Association], which for nearly a year has been negotiating with MotoGP Sports Entertainment (formerly known as Dorna) over what would effectively be MotoGP’s equivalent of Formula 1’s Concorde Agreement; in other words, the contract that governs how revenue from the championship’s commercial rights – primarily television – is distributed.

The current agreement between the promoter and the participants expires at the end of this season, and negotiations over the new deal, which must cover the 2027–2031 cycle, remain unresolved. In this context, teams are reluctant to publicly confirm their 2027 riders because, as things stand, there is no binding document securing their participation in the championship for that period.

Autosport has learned that several announcements which were ready to be released have been put on hold pending progress in the talks.

The two parties – MotoGP Sports Entertainment and the manufacturers – have met several times in recent weeks. One of the most recent gatherings took place on the evening of 4 February at the Sama Sama Hotel in Sepang, where much of the paddock personnel stay during winter testing in Malaysia.

Present were Lin Jarvis, appointed by the MSMA to lead negotiations with MotoGP Sports Entertainment, along with Paolo Pavesio (Yamaha), Massimo Rivola (Aprilia) and Pit Beirer (KTM). The following day, the same group reconvened in Ducati’s hospitality unit at Sepang, this time joined by Gigi Dall’Igna, ahead of a subsequent meeting with Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of MotoGP Sports Entertainment, in Kuala Lumpur on the eve of the season launch event.

Carmelo Ezpeleta, Dorna CEO

Photo by: Marc Fleury

Positions are gradually converging, but it remains unclear when an agreement will be finalised. The next MSMA meeting is scheduled for Tuesday in Buriram, where the season gets underway on Sunday, and it would not be surprising if a breakthrough were achieved there.

Ultimately, both sides are bound to reach an understanding for obvious reasons: all stakeholders want a championship in 2027.

The central sticking point concerns the distribution of the championship’s revenue, the bulk of which come from television rights. MotoGP Sports Entertainment’s current proposal reportedly guarantees a fixed payment of around €8million per team.

The manufacturers, however, are pushing for a percentage-based model tied to overall revenue. That is the system used in Formula 1, which, like MotoGP, is owned by Liberty Media.

Teams believe that Liberty’s involvement will be key to MotoGP’s growth and argue that sharing revenue directly would provide the strongest possible incentive. MotoGP Sports Entertainment, by contrast, prefers to maintain the existing structure, albeit with improved financial terms.

It is within this broader negotiation that manufacturers have opted to withhold any official confirmation of their 2027 rider line-ups. The silence has been adopted as a form of leverage – though its effectiveness remains to be seen.

After all, as noted above, the factories themselves are among the most invested stakeholders in the MotoGP project, having already committed millions of euros to the development of the new 850cc machines set to debut in 2027.