Across a mad few hours on Thursday, many of the key players in the 2027 MotoGP rider market seemingly committed to new manufacturers for next season, as a flurry of Spanish media reports suggested the biggest pieces of the puzzle are settled.
Motorsport.com Spain reported that Fabio Quartararo will leave Yamaha to join Honda, with Jorge Martin set to split with Aprilia and replace Quartararo at Yamaha, while AS suggests that current KTM star Pedro Acosta’s deal to join Marc Marquez at Ducati is almost done.
But so far that leaves one past world champion without a ride.
And it would quite frankly be crazy for both parties should Pecco Bagnaia and Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola right now not be doing everything in their power to unite for next season.
Likely deposed from Ducati by the arrival of Acosta - something that Bagnaia has been quietly steeling himself for even as he hoped for more time to repair his standing within the brand he won two titles for - it sounds after Thursday’s day of manic news like he now finds himself something of a free agent.
Bagnaia’s been linked more by speculation and inference than any concrete evidence to a sideways move to satellite Ducati team VR46, run by his mentor and manager Valentino Rossi.
But there’s a strong argument to be made that as desperate as he might be right now to return to winning ways, Bagnaia’s awful 2025 season wasn’t enough to mean that his time as a factory racer is done and dusted quite yet.
And, with Martin seemingly leaving a troubled seat at Aprilia behind to replace Quartararo at Yamaha (likely alongside World Superbike champion Toprak Razgatlioglu, should his rookie season with Pramac go the way factory boss Paolo Pavesio envisions), it means that there’s the perfect opportunity to create an all-Italian dream team at Aprilia that delivers on multiple levels for Bagnaia.
Firstly, there’s no doubt that the bike is good enough to help him return to the top step of the podium, even if it’s maybe not quite enough to threaten Marc Marquez for titles. Making big strides forward in recent years to the point where the RS-GP in the hands of Marco Bezzecchi was arguably the best machine on the grid in the latter races of 2025, there’s no longer the question mark about performance that Aprilia has had in the past.
Secondly, there’s the other side of the garage. Bezzecchi isn’t just a rival to Bagnaia; he’s one of his very best friends, and the pair are regularly inseparable when they’re off the bike. A product of growing up together in Rossi’s VR46 Academy as well as shared interests, their harmony inside the team would likely be something akin to what we saw at Gresini when it had both Marc and Alex Marquez, such is the friendship between Bagnaia and Bezzecchi.
Then, there’s the thing that’s arguably been missing most of all from Bagnaia’s 2025 season: a team boss who is more than happy to put an arm around the shoulders when it’s needed, and who provides perhaps a kinder environment than the cut and thrust world of Ducati under the management of engineering genius Gigi Dall’Igna.
That’s not necessarily a fault of Ducati, mind you - given that it’s an atmosphere that Marquez in particular thrives in (and that KTM protege Acosta should be well capable of handling).
But it increasingly seems that it’s not quite what works best for Bagnaia, something that Rivola should absolutely be pointing out in contract negotiations.
In reality, the only thing likely to count against Bagnaia’s chances right now is the financial side. Unlikely to be offered the same sort of money at Aprilia as Martin at Yamaha or Quartararo at Honda given how badly the struggling (but improving) Japanese brands need headline acts, and with Aprilia unable to commit the same level of resource to MotoGP at the best of times, Bagnaia could likely find more money elsewhere.
However, it’s hard to imagine that he’s going to find a bike and - perhaps more importantly an environment - that charts a path back to the top step of the podium quite as quickly as Aprilia.
