Article by Sebastian Vasile – Published Thursday, January 29, 2026, 12:38 / Updated Thursday, January 29, 2026 12:49
The first transfer bombshell in MotoGP for the 2027 season is already a reality after 2021 world champion Fabio Quartararo, 26, signed a two-year contract with Honda.
- The first official Moto GP race will take place on March 1, 2026, in Thailand. Next is Brazil, on March 22.
The information comes from motorsport.com, and if confirmed, it would mean that Quartararo will part ways with the other Japanese manufacturer – Yamaha, with whom he has competed since his debut in the premier class in 2019. Initially, the Frenchman was part of the Petronas satellite team, and in 2021 he switched to the factory team and won the world title.
Afterwards, however, there was a decline from Yamaha, who have not taken a win since the middle of the 2022 season. Throughout this period, Quartararo did not hesitate to criticize his team for the lack of progress, even after the development of the new V4 engine.
However, it seems that even these efforts by Yamaha were not enough to convince Quartararo to stay with the team after the end of the 2026 season. His transfer to Honda will mean that one of Joan Mir and Luca Marini will have to look for a new team for next year, according to sportal.bg.
For now, however, there are options, as a large number of drivers in the premier class have contracts that expire at the end of the 2026 season. Early predictions already indicated that Quartararo would be one of the key pieces in the market for premier class drivers, a market that everyone expected to explode from the start of 2026, and it has.
