A Forward Glance Into 2026
Hear ye, hear ye motorsports fans. Abandon thy comfy slippers and throweth off thy snuggy. It is time to go racing!
Will 2026 be another Ducati walkover, or has their streak run its course? Will Aprilia find that little bit extra? Will Yamaha get their V4 to fire on all cylinders? Will Jorge Martin ever get bored of watching reruns of Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman in bed? What silly self-appointed nickname will Viñales take on this year? Will HRC finally succeed in murdering Joan Mir? Will Arnold Schwarzenegger ever cop to being Nicolo Bulega’s biological father? The answers lie just beyond the horizon.
In our beloved conquest of lapping the petrol powered bicycle quickly, one never knows what to expect. That is exactly why it is so damned exciting. Luckily, we at RunningWide have been blessed with the gift of foresight and will tell you exactly how all of it will play out.
In this article, we will predict the 2026 WSSP, WorldSBK, Moto2 and MotoGP season. Some of it will prove to be correct, some of it will not. The Gods are a capricious bunch. But you know better than to doubt your prophet, do you not?
WorldSSP
The World Supersport class has always been an exciting watch, if not the most exciting. Lately though, we are not so sure. Apparently, a supersport bike can in present times be anything in between a jet fighter and a ride on lawn mower.
The entry list to this Superbike feeder class mostly leaves us equally lukewarm. Some of the better known names on the entry list are Masia, Arenas, Bayliss and Aegerter. Of which, Jaume Masia and Albert Arenas, both Moto3 champions, and Dominic Aegerter, two-time Supersport champion, should draw your attention. But, while all twenty-eight riders are obviously motorcycle demigods, we cannot help but feel that not very many of them are actually on their way up.
In terms of taking said World Lawn Mower Jet Fighter championship, our hopes are with Can Öncü. We will not soon forget his tremendous 2018 Valencia Moto3 wildcard win, earning him the title of the youngest ever Grand Prix winner. It seems to us that the universe had once had much bigger plans for the Turk. A switch from the Grand Prix circuit to the Supersport class came with varying success. After a great showing for second place last season, can Can finally pilot his new Ten Kate Yamaha R9 to ultimate glory? We think Can can.
WorldSBK
I feel we can be brief about this one. It can only be Nicolo Bulega’s season to lose. The 2025 and 2024 runner-up has never been anything but fiercely competitive and could just as easily have come out on top last year. He has had strong rivals in both Superbike and Supersport classes. But the grid this year doesn’t look to be a match for the young Schwarzenegger look-alike. We’d be surprised if Bulega didn’t bulldoze the field.
There would be a case to make for the likes of Miguel Oliveira, Stefano Manzi and Jake Dixon, pretty much the only riders on the grid anywhere near their prime. But as they are all new to the class and, to our eyes, on lesser bikes, they start off on the back foot.
Nicolo Bulega, it’s all but in the bag.
Moto2
The Moto2 championship is traditionally one of the harder ones to predict. It is an intense and highly competitive class on the Grand Prix calendar. The bikes are all broadly the same and the riders are on a level where the top 20 can typically qualify within a second of one another. This year looks to be no different. Scrolling through the entry list, there appear to be solely top five contenders on the twenty-eight rider grid.
There’s a couple of riders we expect to see at the top of the standings this year, starting with the CFMoto Aspar squad; David Alonso and his teammate Daniel Holgado. Both rookies in the class last year, they showed an exceptional eagerness to compete. Former Moto3 champ Alonso started off the 2025 season as the favourite among rookies. It was Holgado who turned in a much stronger finish to the season, ending up well ahead of his fellow Asparian in the rankings.
Also in his second season of Moto2 is our countryman, Collin Veijer. He appears to be a slighty more calculated, methodical beast than his peers. More of a sniper than a brawler, if you will. We know he has the speed, we know he has the race craft, and he now also has the experience of his rookie season under the belt. We fully expect Veijer to be a stable stop 5 finisher this season, and hopefully a title candidate.
There is a good handful of seasoned Moto2 riders in the mix, and none of them are anything to sniff at. But there are two main reasons for not even going into them. Number one is that this new, very talented generation is itching to kick in the door. And we imagine them capable of going up and over. Number two is that David Alonso has stated openly and clearly that he has no other plan than to be the 2026 Moto2 World Champion. Now I personally have declared many times that I would either lose weight, quit smoking or generally live a meaningful existence. I know that there is a difference between the wording of the words and the actual doing of the deeds. But there is something about little David that makes us believe him when he says it. He is just stating facts.
We will be cheering on Veijer, our money will be on Holgado. But despite that, and all the Gonzalezes in his way, David Alonso will be champion.
MotoGP
Let’s start of with Ducati. We have the feeling that their winning streak is coming to a close. The Italians might well be able to make another season stick, certainly with a recharged Marc Marquez at the helm. But the bike itself? Its advantage does seem to be decreasing. With the new rules coming in 2027, being good enough for one more season might be all the GP26 needs to do.
Aprilia appears to be first in line to attack Ducati’s dominance with their RS-GP26. Last season proved that the bike can win races. We’d like to see it battle for the championship now. Another thing we’d like to see is Aprilia being able to make full use of all that Jorge Martin they bought. Rumour is though, that he recently looked at a photograph of the RS-GP, and subsequently has to undergo another twenty-seven surgeries.
Bezecchi is going to have to carry the brand and incidentally, that looks to be a good bet too. Bez has been incredibly competitive in the past and could well be the dark horse this season. If, for any reason, the welds in Marc Marquez’s RoboCop arms come loose, we bet that the Italian will rise to the occasion.
We don’t expect huge surprises from KTM, Honda or Yamaha, though all seem to be closing in on Ducati slowly. Not enough to keep up, we suspect.
The Yamaha news that got our attention hadn’t anything to do their new V4 engine anyway. No sir, it was the signing of Toprak Razgatlioglu. If ever there was an exciting, likable rider. Man, we go all dreamy-eyed for the guy. One can’t reasonably expect Toprak to be competitive this season. But my dude, it would be so earthshakingly cool if he could be.
Besides Toprak and Diogo Moreira, the grid is pretty much the grid as we left it. We don’t really foresee any big shocks this season to be honest. The Ducati is still allround the most competitive motorcycle out there, and Marc Marquez still outclasses his rivals by a good stretch. Our money is on Marquez for the title.
