Maverick Vinales: misled and disappointed by KTM, no to Superbike

The Spanish rider seemed to have a guaranteed spot on the 2027 grid, but then things changed: in Brno he expressed his disappointment.

Among those who currently don’t have a MotoGP seat for next year is also Maverick Vinales. His case is a bit particular. At the start of 2026, news emerged of KTM’s intention to promote him to the factory team for 2027 (HERE is our article), but the rider’s left shoulder issues changed the plans of the Mattighofen manufacturer.

Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio will join the factory squad, while some decisions still need to be made in the Tech3 box. Keeping the 31-year-old Spaniard on appears difficult, especially if particularly positive results don’t arrive in the next races.

Vinales is still dealing with the consequences of the injury suffered after his crash in MotoGP Qualifying at the Sachsenring in 2025. On that occasion he ended up with a dislocation and a fracture in his left shoulder. He underwent surgery and skipped some grands prix in the second half of the season. He has never been at 100% since returning, but during winter training with his new performance coach Jorge Lorenzo he didn’t seem to have major problems. Getting back on a MotoGP bike changed everything.

The shoulder wasn’t functioning properly in the early rounds of 2026, and in Austin he didn’t complete the weekend due to severe pain caused by a screw that shifted after the 2025 surgery. He ended up back in the operating room and, after also missing Jerez and Le Mans, he returned for the Catalan GP.

Maverick still isn’t right and the situation is quite complicated. He needs time to get back to 100% fitness and his future in MotoGP is heavily at risk: "They’re asking me for results,” reports Marca, “but at the moment I’m still injured. It’s really hard to give an answer. Maybe right now I can’t give my best, but in two months I’ll be able to."

Vinales confirms that at one point his future move to the KTM factory team was a done deal, then it all fell through and today he really doesn’t know what he’ll do in 2027: "With KTM I showed my loyalty to them: in the winter I was in the factory team, then I moved to Tech3 and now I don’t even know where I stand anymore. It’s hard, when you trust someone, their word... I could also have gone my own way and signed with someone else, but I don’t think that was the right way."

He isn’t the only rider who seems destined to leave MotoGP and look for a good alternative. It’s automatic to think of the Superbike World Championship as plan B, but the number 12 of the KTM Tech3 team doesn’t seem open to a switch to the production-derived series: "In Superbike I don’t think I’d see myself, to be honest. In motorcycling, if I leave here, I’ve already done everything I had to do, I have nothing else to do. If I leave here, I’ll enjoy life."