MotoGP Silly Season reveals brutal impact of looming rule changes

Five of the 2026 grid don’t have contracts for next season, and the rumour mill suggests they’re all looking elsewhere.

Jack Miller has already confirmed this is his final MotoGP season, while fellow regulars Maverick Vinales, Franco Morbidelli, Brad Binder and Alex Rins are all heading for the exit door.

All of them are multiple race winners in MotoGP and all of them have taken part in over 100 races.

However, what is more telling is perhaps the fact they’re all 30 years of age or older.

With a new set of regulations coming in next year, teams are relying on younger riders to need less time to adapt to the new bikes.

Fabio Di Giannantonio (27) and Ai Ogura (25) are stepping up to factory teams for the first time in KTM and Yamaha, respectively, while Diogo Moreira (22) could do the same at Honda.

Moto2 talents Dani Holgado (21) and David Alonso (20) already have contracts for the new campaign and could still be joined by more of their title rivals, with the trio of Senna Agius, Manuel Gonzalez and Izan Guevara linked to the final spots on the grid.

Playing its part could also be the closeness of the Moto2 championship with 81.5 points between Gonzalez in first and Alonso in sixth, meaning MotoGP talent scouts have had to be hard at work identifying the biggest upside.

There is more at play too, though; all five riders likely departing MotoGP have shown in the past that changing bikes isn’t their forte, and 2027 will undoubtedly be the biggest swap yet.

The new regulations see bikes drop from 1000cc engine capacity to 850cc and aerodynamics stripped back, meaning if you’ve not impressed at changing teams in the past, why would you be trusted for an even bigger switch?

And there’s another crucial 2027 rule change too - Pirelli tyres.

The manufacturer will be replacing Michelin next season and has widely been cited as one of the biggest challenges for riders.

However, those in Moto2 already use Pirellis and will be up to scratch.

It may also explain why riders are now moving from a Pirelli-supplied series in WorldSBK to MotoGP, with Nicolo Bulega likely to follow Toprak Razgatlioglu, who has impressed widely since making the switch.

Explaining the point further, Pirelli’s head of racing, Giorgio Barbier, commented: “The reason the riders don’t like certain aspects of our tyres is that the motorbikes are tuned for the current ones.

Whether those consequences are the departures of Miller, Binder, Rins, Vinales and Morbidelli, we’ll never know for sure, but it’s clear the MotoGP grid is no longer so focused on age and experience, and we’ll have to see how that plays out next year…