Following one of the wildest silly seasons in recent memory, many of the riders of the 2023 MotoGP lineup have settled into safe contracts with new teams and employers, and are rapidly preparing for testing to kick off before the first race of the season. Plenty of them will feel lucky to have come out of the contract talks of 2022 relatively unscathed – for context, we lost Remy Gardner to WSBK, and he was the reigning Moto2 champion – and the majority are seeing out two-year contracts.
That said, not everyone is as safe as someone like Pecco Bagnaia or Marc Marquez, who are continuing longstanding relationships with their respective manufacturers. As we look ahead to the start of a new championship, here’s some members of the grid who are facing heavy pressure to perform and improve in the coming months.
Franco Morbidelli
Anyone who followed the craziness of silly season 2022 will be unsurprised to see Franky’s name here. The former Moto2 champion enters his sixth season in the MotoGP class with a single-year contract up his sleeve, meaning he doesn’t have a job locked in past the end of this year, and he’s in the uniquely fun and horrifying position of being the only factory rider in such a position. If any rider on a satellite seat has aspirations of riding for a factory outfit in 2024, his is the seat they’ll be gunning for.
The worrying thing for Morbidelli is that his performance last year didn’t do him any favours at all. The man is either still feeling the aftereffects of his 2021 injuries or hasn’t gelled with the newest evolution of the Yamaha, but regardless of the reasoning the result was a mostly barren run throughout 2022 where he failed to impress or improve at all. It hardly matters that he’s a former grand prix winner – modern-day MotoGP moves too quickly for results from several years ago to hold much weight.
With rumours flying about Yamaha’s options for a new satellite squad and Jorge Martin circling like a vulture, Morbidelli’s future with the Japanese outfit is in serious doubt right now, and the Italian needs to bag some big results from the very start of this season if he wishes to retain his current posting.
Takaaki Nakagami
Nakagami is a rider on a lifeline. Having barely survived the 2022 silly season thanks to his likely successor Ai Ogura opting to spend one more season in Moto2, he now faces a season that is effectively borrowed time. He’s one of the oldest riders on the grid, has been racing in the premier class since 2018 yet has no wins or podiums to show for his work, and earned a reputation as someone to avoid on track after wiping out a number of riders over the course of last season.
The worst part for Nakagami is it’s no longer looking like just one rider is after his seat. While Ai Ogura looks set to take over the Japanese-sponsored seat in LCR, Moto3 is bubbling over with young Japanese talents who will have aspirations of a MotoGP berth in the next 2-3 years. While Nakagami skated by when he was in the lower classes and earned his promotion despite not particularly having to work for his results, the gaggle of riders directly below him are all showing real talent and speed, and every time one of them has a standout season it delivers a hammer blow to his future.
The good news is that Honda will likely take Taka on as a test rider following his eventual retirement, but all MotoGP riders want to do is race, and if Nakagami wishes to continue doing so with his current employers he’s going to need to take a big step – bigger than any previous results he’s notched up until this point.
Augusto Fernandez
Given Augusto is the sole rookie for 2023, you’d think he would cruise to a fairly safe season and simply work on improving his riding and adapting to the class so he can attack the ’24 season as a fully-fledged rider. Unfortunately for him, he will actually enter the class with immediate pressure being applied to him in the form of a former teammate: Pedro Acosta, who is shaping up as a favourite for this year’s Moto2 title.
See, while Augusto has been someone with an up-and-down Moto2 career who finally came good last year, Acosta is a ridiculous talent who KTM have been lucky enough to snag from the start of his career and retain within their fold in both lower classes. If he is the once-in-a-generation talent that everyone is hyping him up to be, then KTM will do everything in their power to keep him for 2024 and beyond, and part of that deal will likely be an early MotoGP seat. Problem is, the only one that’s realistically available for next year is the one currently occupied by Augusto himself, meaning he is the one with pressure being applied from the factory.
It’s a curious position to be in, and one that KTM will have to balance very carefully. On the one hand, they need to have room ready for Acosta the second he wants a MotoGP position; on the other, they’ve gained something of a reputation for being too harsh on young riders and shuffling them off the conveyer belt before they have time to prove themselves. Regardless, Augusto is assuredly in a dangerous position and needs to come out of the gates swinging this year.
Raul Fernandez
No relation to the previous entry, but someone who has also been tried and tested by the current KTM system. Raul served out his rookie MotoGP season in 2022 within the Tech3 squad, and wasn’t happy about it at all. See, Raul had actually intended on remaining in Moto2 for a second season in order to guarantee he was ready for MotoGP, and instead found himself forced into the premier class by contract clauses, something that soured his relationship with the factory for much of last year.
So when a seat became available at the newly partnered RNF Aprilia team, Raul shored it up with eagerness and got himself out of the KTM family in a hurry. The argument is that his single season in Moto2 was so exceptional that he deserves a second chance in MotoGP, with everyone choosing to simply ignore the abysmal year he had at KTM in 2022.
This, unfortunately, is exactly where the pressure mounts on Raul. While his results last season are excusable given the circumstances, if he moves to a more competitive factory and continues to underperform then there simply won’t be a case for his continued time in the premier class. It’s a sink or swim moment for the young Spaniard – prove to Aprilia they were right in banking on him, or fail and return to Moto2 with his tail between his legs.
Honda, and more specifically Alberto Puig
What exactly has gone wrong at Honda? The manufacturer’s fall from grace in recent years has been both spectacular and horrifying, going from championship-winning material to bottom of the factory team’s pile in a matter of months and struggling to recover from there. A big part of that has to be put down to losing their star rider Marc Marquez to injury for a great many months, but the fact that not one of their other riders has risen to the challenge is rather alarming.
2023 represents a major reshuffle for the team. After their “brand new” machine failed to create any real change in 2022, there’s changes up and down the order, with two new riders freshly pinched from Suzuki and people stepping into all sorts of managerial positions. Among all of them, the one person who has managed to retain his position – asides from Marc, obviously – is Alberto Puig, the long-standing team boss at Repsol Honda.
Puig may have survived the latest round of purges, but there’s no denying the weight of responsibility he currently feels. Should Honda once again fail to find the source of their problems and present a real solution, people will surely look to the root of the program for answers – and should Puig be unable to give a real answer, his head could be next on the chopping block.
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