Jorge Lorenzo was the first 1000cc champion on a Yamaha, 15 years ago. His successors line up again soon to discover who will be the last. After the winter layoff, testing begins in earnest with the shakedown at Sepang (for rookies, test riders and the unsuccessful Yamaha) in the last two days of January, then in earnest for the full grid three days later at the same track.
All eyes will be on the new line-up for the last year of the big bruisers. Next year a new era begins, when MotoGP rules shrink the engines (to 850cc) and simplify the technology (less aero, no rider-height devices).
In the 14 years since the 1000s arrived, Marc Marquez has won half the remaining titles, Lorenzo and Pecco Bagnaia two each, Joan Mir, Fabio Quartararo and Jorge Martin the remainder. Notably all but Lorenzo are still racing for the final honour in a well-loved class.
Time to place bets. And given last year’s return to basically unbeatable form, don’t expect to get good odds on Marc. He’s the favourite by far, for me and surely everyone else.
But all sport can be unpredictable, and motorcycle racing even more than most (just ask last year’s defending champion Martin, who missed most of the season. And Marc, for that matter, who endured five wilderness years before his fairytale comeback.)
So who else?
Choose with your head, and Martin must be up there. But that’s off the form book because of his prolonged 2025 absences, and not a single race competed fully fit and up to speed.
Go with results and his Aprilia teammate Marco Bezzecchi, who shone late last season in a surge to third overall, looks pretty tasty.
Likewise runner-up Alex Marquez, who also took three wins as he emerged from the shadows. Less flashy than Bezzecchi, but more consistent.
And can we really believe that two-times winner and double champion Bagnaia’s ghastly slump can continue? (Matter of fact, I do believe it… but that’s just me.)
Choose with your heart – and why not? – and it’s Bagnaia again… have to feel sorry for him.
Or one of KTM’s underdogs: Pedro Acosta, super-talented but as yet no win.
And how about Quartararo, talented enough for serial poles, but his Yamaha serially outpaced in the races?
A real sentimental choice, which brings us to the other side of the equation.
Which bike will be good enough?
Yamaha’s new V4 makes its race debut for just one year of competition. It would be a miracle for it to be competitive straight off the drawing board. Can miracles happen? In this context, I don’t think so.
But the biggest question concerns Ducati. The Desmosedici remained the pick of the bunch last year… but not in a straightforward way. The GP25 iteration worked okay for genius Marc, but was no step forward for Bagnaia or satellite rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, inconsistent in the extreme. It was the year-old GP24 that reliably excelled, for Alex as well as race-winning rookie Fermin Aldeguer.
This year, Aldeguer will be ‘rewarded’ with one of the iffy GP25s, while both Alex and Diggia escape that fate to join Marc and Bagnaia on the GP26. Rivals will be agog to see if Ducati’s 1000cc swansong machine will avoid the missteps of the previous year.
Those rivals need to avoid missteps of their own.
Aprilia must sustain its own strong improvement through last season, when the RS-GP emerged from a now-and-then star on smooth and rhythmic circuits to a potential winner at other tracks as well.
KTM needs to do more than sustain, after a year when progress was clearly not to the level required to keep up. They could blame the financial problems that threatened the team’s very existence, but there will be no room for excuses this year.
This just leaves the potential surprises.
Number one: Honda. The rate of improvement last year could see the Big H winning races this year, though the thought of a title to bookend the 1000s is a bit far-fetched.
Finally, potentially the most surprising of all. Toprak Razgatlioglu. Learning a new class on the all-new V4 Yamaha… the Turk will need all the help veteran teammate Jack Miller can give him if he is to live up to some people’s expectations.
