It took exactly one weekend for the contract season of MotoGP to turn upside down. Maverick Vinales and Yamaha made a bombshell announcement, that they would be parting ways at the end of this season and cutting short what should have been a 2-year deal. It sent the entire community – and likely, many of the teams still without a full lineup for next season – into chaos, with everyone scrambling to figure out who would fill in the gaps and where the remaining riders without contracts would fit in. In what has so far been a rather quiet and predictable silly season, this was something of a rude awakening.
The announcement leaves us with six free seats in the 2022 grid. One spot is free in both the factory Yamaha and Aprilia squads, and the satellite teams Petronas and Tech3 are in the same position. The newly formed VR46 squad has yet to make any formal announcements on their riders, which means both spots are theoretically available. With all that being said, not all of these positions are complete unknowns. We know Luca Marini will almost certainly inhabit one seat in the VR46 team, and we know the second seat will be held by either Rossi or his Moto2 protégé Marco Bezzechi. We also know that the Tech3 position will go to either Raul Fernandez or one of the current riders, with the decision mostly coming down to Fernandez himself as to whether he is comfortable stepping up after just a single season in the Moto2.
The Aprilia seat seemed destined to be given to their current test rider, the ousted Andrea Dovizioso, right up until the second the paddock caught wind of the fact that Vinales and Yamaha were splitting up. With a rider of Vinales’ calibre suddenly on the market, the assumption was that Aprilia would pin him down immediately to create a potentially fierce partnership between him and Aleix Espargaro. Previously teammates in the Suzuki team, they both have a clear drive and passion, and Vinales in particular has quite an impressive record to bring with him. If the position does go to Dovizioso, the Vinales may find himself without any options and forced to either step away from the sport or into a World Superbike position.
With all of those seats looking fairly safe – Vinales to Aprilia, Fernandez to Tech3, Marini and Bezzechi to VR46 – the community has been setting their sights on the two remaining seats at Yamaha. Who will take the factory seat alongside Quartararo, and who will join the Petronas project? One likely prospect appears to be that current Petronas rider Franco Morbidelli will step up to the factory spot. This would actually make a lot of sense given how the factory has treated him over the last few months, and would help patch over some of the damage done by refusing to give him a proper A-spec bike to race on this year. This decision would likely suit everyone except for Petronas, who will be faced with trying to fill two seats while keeping up with their goal of promoting young talent for factory teams.
In all the mess of names that have popped up for the Petronas seat(s), one that I haven’t even heard mention of is Iker Lecuona. The 21-year old Spaniard is in his second season with Tech3 and currently without a ride for next year, and while he technically has a chance at keeping his current position, it seems far more likely that either of his competitors will be given the contract instead. This leaves Lecuona with the option of moving back down to Moto2, a move that has often lead to more struggles than success, or nab one of the remaining seats elsewhere in the MotoGP field.
Looking at his record, you can sort of understand why no-one is bringing his name forward in all of these discussions. Lecuona has taken just one podium in his time in Grand Prix racing, a third place finish in Moto2, and since stepping up to the MotoGP he has finished in the top ten only four times. It’s not a premium track record, but in a way the numbers mask some real progress on his part. In this season alone Lecuona has just barely missed out on making it into Q2 on several occasions, and in race conditions he has looked increasingly competitive. Had he not crashed out of the race in Assen he likely would have been on for his best result since making the move to the premier class.
His improvement over recent rounds is especially promising when you consider the enormous pressure he must be under. Lecuona was brought into the class as a 20-year old, a replacement for the outgoing Zarco, and without any solid results in the time since his odds of holding onto a seat for 2022 began to look rather slim. Now his seat looks set to go to Raul Fernandez, a young talent who has already taken multiple wins and podiums in Moto2 despite being a rookie, and Lecuona would have known this meant his seat was under fire. Despite all that, he has been able to keep improving himself and besting his own results, working on himself and gaining trust in the KTM underneath him.
Should Petronas be considering him? In reality, I don’t think they really have a choice. There are no more riders within the current grid looking for seats that they could feasibly take on, and if their goal is to promote younger riders then that rules out the likes of Dovizioso and Petrucci. Many people have been talking about riders coming up from Moto2 or across from WSBK, and I fully expect them to select one such rider as a rookie for next year, but taking on two rookies would be incredibly tough on the team. Having at least one rider with experience on a MotoGP bike provides the project with a base to work off, and while Lecuona doesn’t have the best record so far he does bring with him two seasons worth of experience battling on such a machine.
This could also be a hugely beneficial move for Lecuona himself. Having only ridden on a KTM MotoGP bike for two years, he isn’t exactly attached to the machine, so a move to a different manufacturer wouldn’t be as much of a problem as it can be for enfranchised riders. One only has to think back to Jorge Lorenzo’s move to Ducati after being a Yamaha rider for so many years to know what that can look like. With youth and a reasonable amount of experience on his side, now could be the perfect time to see if Lecuona can perform better on a different manufacturer. If it turns out his riding style matches up well with the Yamaha, then he could be a surprise package in 2022.
All in all, I think it would be a shame to lose Lecuona from the MotoGP grid in 2022. He’s a smart young rider with a lot to prove, and while he has yet to blow anyone out of the water, he has shown himself to have grit and determination even when faced with the possibility of losing his ride. And who knows? Maybe he could be the next Quartararo on a Yamaha. Only time – and the continued silliness of contract talks – will tell.
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