Updated after Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales’ contract extentions with Aprilia.
Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales have become the fifth and sixth riders to officially confirm a place on next year’s MotoGP grid after extending their contracts with Aprilia.
The pair thus join only Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda), Franco Morbidelli (Monster Yamaha) and Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM) in having a deal announced for 2023.
While Espargaro, Vinales, Bagnaia, Marquez and Binder are signed until the end of 2024, Morbidelli has found himself out of sync after being parachuted into Monster Yamaha in place of Vinales on a two-year deal that expires at the end of 2023.
In addition to the six riders with firm deals for next season, others have some kind of ‘option’ in their contracts to extend for 2023. Binder’s KTM colleagues Miguel Oliveira, Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez plus many of the Ducati riders are understood to fall into that category.
But most of the MotoGP grid – including Joan Mir and Alex Rins of the soon-to-close factory Suzuki team – remain free agents for 2023, when the potential rookies list could include Yamaha’s WorldSBK champion Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Razgatlioglu is tipped to test an M1 next month. But with reigning world champion Fabio Quartararo expected to re-sign alongside Morbidelli the only Yamaha space available for the Turkish star would seem to be at the satellite RNF team, but Razgatlioglu’s manager Kenan Souoglu has always insisted Razgatlioglu would only join a factory MotoGP team…
MotoGP 2023: Factory Teams
Repsol Honda:Marc Marquez (End of 2024)
Pol Espargaro (End of 2022)
Monster Yamaha:Franco Morbidelli (End of 2023)
Fabio Quartararo (End of 2022)
Lenovo Ducati:Jack Miller (End of 2022)
Francesco Bagnaia (End of 2024)
Suzuki:Alex Rins (End of 2022)
Joan Mir (End of 2022)
Aprilia:Aleix Espargaro (End of 2024)
Maverick Vinales (End of 2024)
Red Bull KTM:Miguel Oliveira (End of 2022)
Brad Binder (End of 2024)
MotoGP 2023: Independent Teams
Gresini Ducati:Fabio di Giannantonio (End of 2022)
Enea Bastianini (End of 2022)
WithU RNF Yamaha Team:Andrea Dovizioso (End of 2022, Yamaha contract)
Darryn Binder (End of 2022, Yamaha contract, option for 2023)
Tech3 KTM:Remy Gardner (KTM contract, end of 2022)
Raul Fernandez (KTM contract, end of 2022)
LCR Honda:Alex Marquez (HRC contract, end of 2022)
Takaaki Nakagami (HRC contract, end of 2022)
Pramac Ducati:Johann Zarco (Ducati contract, end of 2022)
Jorge Martin (Ducati contract, end of 2022)
VR46 Ducati:Luca Marini (end of 2022)
Marco Bezzecchi (end of 2022)