Rider market, Enea Bastianini announces: "Clear ideas, decision soon

Final pre-season test proves difficult for Bastianini, still not comfortable with the KTM: he could change manufacturer in 2027.

The 2026 MotoGP championship kicks off next weekend, and Enea Bastianini is certainly not heading to the Thailand Grand Prix with high expectations. In the latest test held at Buriram he finished eighteenth, the worst KTM rider and even behind the Yamahas of Jack Miller and Fabio Quartararo. With the new RC16 he hasn’t found the feeling and speed he expected.

While his feelings at Sepang weren’t that bad, at the Chang International Circuit he found himself in a somewhat different scenario and spoke about it to Sky Sport MotoGP: "This test wasn’t as positive as the one in Malaysia. We were always slow and didn’t improve much over the various sessions, so I think the race weekend will be complicated. Still, I’m trying to stay positive, I think we can definitely do better. In the last two sessions I found something, I’ll try to carry it into the weekend to do well."

Compared to the KTM RC16 he tried at the last MotoGP test of 2026, Bastianini didn’t feel a huge change, although he finally had the chance to try the new frame and appreciated it: "Actually, the bike is quite similar to the one in Valencia. I tried a different frame, I liked it and we’ll carry it into the weekend. It’ll be tough at first, but I’m confident we’ll manage to sort things out soon. Compared to Sepang, at Buriram I found a more physical bike; it broke up a lot over the curbs and keeping it in line wasn’t easy. We worked a lot to solve this problem and it seems we managed when we tested the new frame. Before, it was hard to do 10 laps at the top."

The KTM Tech3 rider knows that the first Grand Prix in Thailand will be quite complicated for him, but the season is long and he’s confident he can make significant progress on the RC16: "It seems like Ducati and Aprilia are doing very well - he said - perhaps the most consistent is Ducati. Then we’ll see, there are a lot of variables. It would be nice to be competitive: I don’t think we’ll be fighting for the top 5, but I’m here to try. We’re at the beginning and we need to understand which direction to take, I’m not worried."

There’s a lot of talk about the rider market right now, with many contracts expiring at the end of the year and numerous moves expected for 2027. There hasn’t been much discussion about Bastianini’s future, but news could be coming for him as well: "I’m more focused on being fast on track - he explains - we need to prove we can do better. Then, of course, I’ll have to make a decision about my future. My ideas are quite clear, I’ll decide soon and it will definitely be the right choice." It will be interesting to see which colors the rider from Rimini will race with, a rider it would be great to see consistently in the spotlight in MotoGP again.