Almost every rider on the MotoGP grid has a contract that expires at the end of the 2026 season, just as the series enters a new era of rules and the arrival of Pirelli tyres. That state of play should precipitate something of a feeding frenzy when it comes to teams and manufacturers securing new names for the years ahead.
Yet, while there might be anticipated mayhem ahead in the rider market, there's a few key lynchpin decisions that will very much shape how the rest of the silly season pans out - and it's hard to see a more significant one right now than whether Fabio Quartararo elects to remain with Yamaha or whether he finally looks elsewhere after four tough seasons in a row with the manufacturer he became 2021 world champion with.
A MotoGP debutant with Yamaha back in 2019, under the colours of satellite team Petronas SRT, Quartararo rode the wave of instant rookie success to a well-fought title two seasons later, holding off Pecco Bagnaia and Ducati even as the first cracks in Yamaha's armour started to appear towards the end of that season.
Since then, however, Quartararo - and more pertinently Yamaha - has been on a downward spiral, with successes few and far between; the last time he stood on the top step of a podium was in the 2022 German Grand Prix, with a mere six podiums in the intervening 72 grands prix.
Quartararo is widely acknowledged as one of the series' three biggest talents, along with Marc Marquez and the somewhat-still-to-be-proven Pedro Acosta), and it's abundantly clear his lack of success since then hasn't been a personal problem, but rather one that stems from the abject uncompetitiveness of the Yamaha M1 - in race trim at the very least.
The M1 has had MotoGP's only remaining inline-four engine - a situation about to change for 2026 with the arrival of a wholly new V4-powered bike - and in the era of aerodynamics and ride height devices, the bike's traditional strength of cornering speed has been quashed and its weakness on top speed and acceleration has been magnified.
The result, quite apart from the lack of success on track, has been an increasingly vocal Quartararo - who's not exactly been subtle in sharing his belief that he is losing the best years of his career fruitlessly trying to wrestle a slow motorbike into winning races, his ultimatums to Yamaha having become so commonplace at this point as to have almost lost their bite.
Yet, despite the normalcy in his complaints at this point in his Yamaha career, it feels like the looming deadline for making his 2027 plans are finally starting to turn what has until now been somewhat misdirected anger into a more concrete understanding of what the future will hold for him.
"That is the last chance," Quartararo told The Race when we sat down together for an exclusive interview earlier this season, "and they know that. Everyone knows that.
"Next year's bike is going to be super-important for my future, and for my future decisions. But I don't think it's any secret. Yamaha knows what they need to do to keep me, and that's it. There are no more second chances."
That comes as no surprise at all, given Quartararo still has plenty left to win in MotoGP. But it's clear now that while Yamaha might have been given a final chance by him two years ago, when he signed what was at the time probably the series' most financially lucrative deal to stay put, it won't get that luxury again as he finds himself motivated by something more than money.
"I don't want to prove to anyone that I am fast, but I want to prove to myself," he admitted. "We know that we are struggling with the bike, and especially in the first races of 2023 I was really bad mentally. You never know if it is the bike or you yourself, and there were only two riders in Yamaha at that time. Frankie [Morbidelli, his then team-mate] was a bit out at that time.
"But now there are four of us [with satellite team Pramac], we know how hard we are pushing, and especially since last year I know how fast I can be for one lap. I clearly know where I can be if I have better potential."
And the past two years haven't been a complete waste for Quartararo, something even he acknowledged even as he bemoans the time lost waiting on Yamaha to improve. He's used it to work on himself as a rider and to improve on some of the inconsistencies and weaknesses he's occasionally demonstrated in the past - evidenced perhaps most glaringly when he threw away a comfortable championship lead in 2020 to drop from first to eighth in the standings.
But he's nonetheless at a point now where even that small win seems to be serving as a further source of irritation rather than something to celebrate.
"It's frustrating because I know how fast I can be," he stressed. "I am a much better rider than I was in the past, especially because in really tough moments I am a guy who always wants to win but I know that right now we do not have the tools. But even the front rows; I'm pushing like hell. And we can see compared to the other Yamahas that we are faster.
"But in the race you can't make a difference. We don't have the potential, and it's difficult on the mental side, but I want to keep working on myself and always try to be faster and faster like I did the last two years.
"Right now, I'm struggling. I really want to work on myself because right now it's the only thing that matters. We know that we can try everything that we want, but we don't have the grip and we don't have the power. I want to learn, and I've been trying many things to improve my skills and to feel a bit more some of the things that we've been changing."
That improvement in himself is something that bodes well for 2026, when Yamaha brings what isn't just a new engine configuration but is essentially a whole new motorcycle in an attempt not just to prepare for the new rules in 2027 but to show Quartararo how hard it is prepared to work.
Quartararo was able to make the transition to the new bike relatively quickly in mid-season private testing, and is already faster on it than he was on its predecessor - but it might well be too little too late when it comes to retaining his services, given the frustration with which he speaks about the transition.
"When we tried the V4, just for the first steps, I was a bit curious how I would adapt," he said. "At the end it's a Yamaha, but it's like changing brands for the first time. For how the bike was, I realised I was really fast. I was pretty quick to adapt. I was happy about that.
"But I’m still not happy, because I know it was the first tests, but this bike should be on track preparing for the season in Malaysia at the test, and we know how soon that is. We leave in January. That's why I think we need to take a lot of risk, and I don't think we are taking enough.
"Yamaha knows that we were a bit late with the V4, but we should have tried the bike much earlier. We need a lot of new things to be competitive, because we've seen all the weak points and we have to make a step to at least be as fast as the 2025 bike. This is something we really need to work on, and see what we can do."
Does that mean that there's an urgent timeline on when he will make a call about his future? Yes and no, because while he's comfortable to wait to see what options are available, it seems that Yamaha is expected to turn up to pre-season testing in only a few weeks' time with something that immediately works for Quartararo.
"I don't think there is a specific time," he explained, "and I think it's more about my feeling. I need to feel it. The Malaysia [February 3-5] and Thailand [February 21-22] tests will be really important, because at the end the bike we will have in Malaysia is the one that we will race.
"This year, for example, we were really fast in Sepang on one lap, and I did third [the third-best time in 2025 testing], but the [race] pace was not there. This is exactly what happened all season, so I think the Malaysia test is an opportunity for me to see a bit how is our bike and our opportunity for the season.
"There is no rush. Of course, I will not fall asleep in taking decisions. I'm one person who if I see things really clearly I will take a decision. I know how fast I can be and I know my value, so I think all these things together will make it really clear."
What options he has elsewhere remains to be seen, of course.
A Ducati deal might well be off the table, given its stacked line-up and Quarararo's unwillingness to do what Marc Marquez did and take a satellite machine. ("Marc was in a different situation," Quartararo said. "I have the potential to be in a factory team.")
KTM's financial uncertainty might be enough to dissuade Quartararo, too - but both Aprilia and Honda are looking fast enough to challenge Ducati, and both would move to make space for him were he available, especially if his financial demands were more flexible than they had been in the past as the quest for glory becomes a bigger motivator.
But one thing is abundantly clear from his words: there are still chapters to be written in the Quartararo story. And while he's not going to get carried away talking about what could be, he sees more championships in his future.
"We will talk about one more title," he concluded, "and I think that it's good to move step by step. But I know my potential, I know what I miss, I know how much the bike is affecting us, and I know that I can be there to fight for greater things."
