MotoGP 2026 livery reveals: Where, and when are teams launching?
All the details for the upcoming 2026 MotoGP launch season.
The 2026 MotoGP season is due to get underway at the end of February at the Buriram International Circuit in Thailand, but before that comes launch season. Here are all the dates you need as each team unveils its colours for the upcoming season.
Pramac Yamaha - 13 January
Pramac Yamaha will kick off 2026’s MotoGP launch season at Accademia Musicale Della Chigiana in Siena on 13 January.
The satellite Yamaha team will clearly be one of the most intensely watched teams in 2026 from the outset of the season thanks not only to the major technical changes at Yamaha – namely the switch from inline-four to V4 – this year, but also for the arrival of Toprak Razgatlioglu alongside Jack Miller.
VR46 Racing Ducati - 14 January
The VR46 Ducati team will be the next to launch, one day after Pramac on 14 January. Little will change for VR46, besides perhaps the livery, in 2026: Fabio Di Giannantonio remains and keeps his current-year Desmosedici; Franco Morbidelli also remains and will remain on a year-old Ducati.
VR46’s launch will take place in Rome.
Aprilia Racing - 15 January
Sticking with the Italian theme, Aprilia’s factory team will host its season presentation for 2026 in Milan on 15 January.
Marco Bezzecchi stood out as one of the strongest riders in the second-half of 2025 even before he took Marc Marquez out in Indonesia. A title challenge from the Noale manufacturer is perhaps the only possibility of preventing another Marquez destruction of the field, so the pressure is on this year in a way it never has been before in the history of the RS-GP project.
Plus, there is the continuation of the Jorge Martin situation, which could go much better than in 2025 and still not be good enough to warrant an extension of that deal into 2027.
Ducati Lenovo Team - 19 January
As previously alluded to, Marc Marquez is the clear favourite for the 2026 MotoGP title. He utterly dominated the 2025 season despite the chaos going on on the other side of the factory Ducati box.
Bizarrely, the success of Ducati Lenovo in 2026 could be determined by the performance of its second rider, rather than its first, since Francesco Bagnaia’s 2025 season was incredibly perplexing and disappointing. The team launches at Madonna di Campiglio on 19 January.
Monster Energy Yamaha - 21 January
With Alex Rins and Fabio Quartararo still on its books for 2026 and Monster Energy still signed up as title sponsor, the biggest change at the factory Yamaha team for this year is that all-new V4 engine.
We’ve already seen the early versions of Yamaha’s V4 in action, of course, during testing and some wildcards by Augusto Fernandez in the second half of last year, but 2026 will see Rins and – arguably more importantly – Quartararo racing the bike for the first time.
At this stage, it seems likely that it will be Quartararo’s last season with Yamaha, which has continuously disappointed him technically since 2022, and that final chapter is due to launch at an event in Jakarta on 21 January.
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing & Red Bull KTM Tech3 - 27 January
Both KTM teams will launch together on 27 January, the factory team and Tech3 both keeping the same riders as last year: Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta; and Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini, respectively.
Tech3, of course, is now under new management after the takeover by Guenther Steiner, which is the major change at KTM for this year. Well, the liveries aren’t likely to change, are they?
Gresini Racing Ducati - 31 January
Gresini will launch their 2026 season on 31 January in Kuala Lumpur, the same day as the final day of the Shakedown test at nearby Sepang.
It keeps Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer for 2026, but has a small change in machinery since Marquez will now get factory bikes.
LCR Honda - 1 February
After Toprak Razgatlioglu, Diogo Moreira was the second and final new addition to the MotoGP grid for 2026. He’ll be unveiled in LCR Honda colours on 1 February alongside Johann Zarco.
Honda HRC Castrol - 2 February
The factory Honda team will bring MotoGP launch season to a close for 2026 on 2 February in an online event.
The team continues for the third straight season with Luca Marini and Joan Mir, and will be looking to build on a 2025 that saw it transition from backmarker to podium contender.
Four days after the final team launch, all 11 teams will head to Kuala Lumpur on 6–7 February for the official season launch event, beginning one day after the official Sepang test on 3–5 February.
