MotoGP Rookies 2027: Why Holgado and Agius Are Making the Leap Now

• Daniel Holgado will ride for Gresini alongside Joan Mir from 2027 on a two-year contract
• Senna Agius is set to receive a one-year contract at Tech3, probably with an option to extend
• Manuel Gonzalez leads the Moto2 championship and will nevertheless stay with IntactGP in 2027

The 2027 MotoGP season brings a technical reset and a clear generational change. Five rookies are expected to join the grid, four of them from Moto2. Two of them are currently in the spotlight. Daniel Holgado speaks openly about why he is moving up after just two years in the intermediate class. Günther Steiner explains why Tech3 signed Senna Agius rather than his teammate Manuel Gonzalez, who leads the Moto2 standings. Both stories show the criteria teams are using to choose their riders for the new era.

Which rookies will start in MotoGP in 2027?

Five newcomers are expected for 2027: Daniel Holgado, Senna Agius, David Alonso and Izan Guevara from Moto2, plus Nicolò Bulega from the World Superbike Championship. Holgado will ride for Gresini Ducati, Agius for Tech3 KTM and Guevara for Pramac Yamaha alongside Toprak Razgatlioglu.

David Alonso has signed a multi-year contract with Honda. Which team he will ride for has not yet been decided. Bulega is expected to take over Franco Morbidelli’s seat at VR46. This move had not yet been officially confirmed at the time of writing.

2027 is seen as a favourable moment for newcomers because the technology is changing fundamentally. Displacement drops to 850 cc, aerodynamics are reduced and ride-height devices are banned. These are systems that allow riders to lower the bike when accelerating. In addition, the tyre supplier switches from Michelin to Pirelli. Because all teams and riders start with new bikes, the experience advantage of the established riders is smaller than in previous years.

Why is Daniel Holgado moving up after only two Moto2 years?

Holgado sees the new regulations as a unique opportunity. Because tyres, engines and aerodynamics all change at the same time in 2027, he considers the moment particularly suitable for rookies.

Talks with MotoGP teams began early in the season. At the time, the Spaniard was second in the championship. He started with third place in Thailand and a win in Brazil and even led the championship after two races. For him it was clear back then that this was the right moment, and the teams saw it the same way. Whether he would have preferred to fight for the Moto2 title for another year, he leaves open. He sums up his attitude like this: “The chance of MotoGP may only come once in a lifetime, and then you have to take it.”

Holgado’s career explains the teams’ interest. In 2021 he won the Moto3 Junior World Championship. In the Moto3 World Championship he took four wins and became runner-up in 2024 behind David Alonso. In 2025 he moved up to Moto2 with the Aspar team, won two races as a rookie, stood on the podium five times and finished the season as best rookie in sixth place. In 2026, the win in Brazil was followed by further podiums at Mugello and Silverstone.

He is currently sixth in the Moto2 championship. In his words, he is consistently in the top 5 at most weekends. He mainly wants to improve in the race itself, as qualifying is already going well. For the rest of the season, he aims to fight for the podium in every race.

What advantage does experience with Pirelli tyres bring?

Holgado already knows the Pirelli tyres from Moto2 and considers this an important advantage over the current MotoGP riders. He sees the biggest difference to Michelin in how the tyres’ performance drops over race distance.

“In my opinion, Pirelli is completely different from Michelin, especially when it comes to the drop,” says Holgado. The drop refers to how much grip decreases over the course of a race. With Pirelli, this degradation is quite large, and you need race experience to understand the tyre properly. That is exactly the experience the Moto2 graduates bring with them.

Holgado answers cautiously when asked whether the rider will become more important in the new era as aerodynamics shrink. He does believe something is shifting. In his view, however, the bike and the manufacturers’ work remain decisive. Because everything is new, the manufacturers have to develop from scratch and the riders have to adapt their style to the new machines.

What does Holgado want to learn from Joan Mir and Marc Márquez?

At Gresini, world champion Joan Mir will be his teammate, from whom he says he wants to learn a lot. He also hopes that, as a rider in a Ducati team, he will be able to see the data of experienced riders such as Marc Márquez.

Gresini is completely reshuffling its rider line-up for 2027. Holgado and Mir replace Alex Márquez and Fermín Aldeguer, with both riders signing for two years. Mir became MotoGP world champion with Suzuki in 2020 and rode for Honda for four years after Suzuki’s withdrawal. His contract is directly with Gresini and not with Ducati.

Márquez was Holgado’s great idol even as a child. “It will be crazy to race against him next year,” he says. Holgado is set to ride a MotoGP bike for the first time at the Valencia test after the season finale.

In Moto2, too, he benefits from a strong teammate. He already fought for the title with David Alonso in Moto3, and today the two share the garage at Aspar. After the races they look at the data together. Alonso is fast and a good teammate, and he can learn from his data, Holgado explains.

Why did Tech3 sign Senna Agius and not Manuel Gonzalez?

According to Günther Steiner, Agius’s future potential tipped the scales. “Potential for the future. That was the deciding factor,” the Tech3 CEO says of the 21-year-old Australian.

Steiner openly calls the decision difficult. Both riders are very good, and Gonzalez is ahead of Agius in the championship. For him, age makes the difference. Agius is three to four years younger, and in Steiner’s assessment that gives the team more time to develop him. On top of that comes his determination. Steiner points out that Agius’s family moved from Australia to Europe for his career. Anyone who does that at a young age really wants it, Steiner believes. Besides talent, this will to succeed was his main argument.

According to Steiner, Tech3 was not under time pressure. The team deliberated for a long time and only made its decision a few weeks before the announcement. For the riders still on the market at that point, there were no other options anyway. The time was used to make the best possible decision.

What role did Agius’s Australian origin play?

According to Steiner, marketing played hardly any role. “In the end, not a big one. The best thing you can market is still performance, as strange as that may sound,” he says.

The topic is an obvious one, because with Agius an Australian remains on the grid in 2027. Jack Miller is leaving MotoGP after twelve years and moving to the Yamaha factory team in the World Superbike Championship. In addition, the Australian Grand Prix moves from Phillip Island to Adelaide in 2027, and the organiser keeps a home rider this way. Steiner admits that an Australian passport could be an advantage compared to a Spanish one. However, it was not a criterion in the decision and was not analysed beforehand. Anyone who picks riders based on nationality or other characteristics risks the opposite if success does not come, he argues.

Gonzalez’s camp sees things differently. His manager Edoardo Rovelli said in early September that every negotiation had failed for a different reason. Asked whether a passport other than a Spanish one would have changed anything, he replied: “One hundred per cent.” Nationality is also said to have played a role at Ducati in the World Superbike Championship. According to Rovelli, they needed an Italian there because three Spaniards were already sitting in the four factory seats in MotoGP and Superbike. BMW, on the other hand, said its own bike was not yet at Gonzalez’s level.

What is known about Agius’s contract with Tech3?

Agius is said to have signed a one-year contract directly with Tech3 and not with KTM. It probably contains an option to extend.

His teammate will be Luca Marini, who according to Steiner’s concept brings experience to the team. The mechanics crew basically stays the same, but the crew chiefs are new. Marini will work with Eneko Hernando, Agius with Francesco Munzone. Steiner says he did not make an offer to Maverick Viñales, whose seat Agius is taking over.

How did Senna Agius work his way into MotoGP?

Agius came to Europe with his family in 2020, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. His first two years in the Moto3 Junior World Championship were still unremarkable, with 13th and 14th places as his best results.

The turning point came in the Moto2 European Championship. In 2022 he finished runner-up there behind Lukas Tulovic. When Tulovic moved up to the Moto2 World Championship, IntactGP brought in Agius as his successor. In 2023 he won the European title and contested his first World Championship races at the same time. From 2024 he competed in full Moto2 seasons and took his first podium at his home race at Phillip Island. In 2025 came wins at Silverstone and Phillip Island, and in 2026 he won in Austin and Jerez. That brings him to a total of four Moto2 wins.

Looking back, Agius describes the final months before the decision as nerve-racking. He tried to concentrate on the results on track and sees the promotion as deserved. When he came to Europe, he was a nobody and completely lost. He managed the turnaround within six years. He is already looking to Australia’s big names Wayne Gardner, Mick Doohan and Casey Stoner. For him, being there is only the first step; his goal is to achieve what these riders achieved.

What’s next for Manuel Gonzalez?

Gonzalez stays with IntactGP in Moto2 in 2027, entering his third season with the German team. However, he says he is not giving up on his MotoGP goal.

In sporting terms, the 24-year-old Spaniard would have deserved promotion. After 15 of 22 race weekends, he leads the Moto2 championship by 35.5 points over Izan Guevara and has won five races this season. Tech3 would have been his last option for 2027. He has only ridden a MotoGP bike once so far: in June 2025 at a test with Trackhouse Aprilia in Aragón, when Ai Ogura was absent through injury. He left a good impression there, but no concrete offer followed.

Gonzalez is happy about staying with IntactGP. He feels well looked after in the team, enjoys riding and wins races. “Why should I look for something new?” he asks. Team manager Jürgen Lingg sees it the same way. His new teammate will be David Almansa, who is moving up after one season in IntactGP’s Moto3 team.

First, though, Gonzalez faces the title fight. In 2025 he had a 61-point lead over Diogo Moreira after six race weekends and still lost the championship by 30 points in the end. Lingg explains that Gonzalez played it too safe in some races back then. “Last year he was a bit too much in management mode in certain races,” says the team manager. The team has completely switched off this strategy. When a chance arises, Gonzalez now also takes a certain amount of risk.

What is still open at Honda for David Alonso?

Honda has not yet decided whether David Alonso or Diogo Moreira will ride alongside Fabio Quartararo in the factory team in 2027. The other rider is expected to compete for LCR Honda.

Honda announced Alonso’s multi-year contract on 21 July, but without naming a team. The Spanish-born rider races with a Colombian licence. Moreira is riding for LCR as a rookie in 2026 but already has a factory contract with Honda. His contract runs for two years plus an option. The option takes effect automatically if he moves up to the factory team in 2027. Otherwise, he would be free for 2028. Both Honda line-ups are apparently set to be announced at the Japanese Grand Prix from 2 to 4 October. This would also clarify in which environment Holgado’s long-time rival starts his MotoGP career.

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