Marco Bezzecchi
Enea Bastianini just endured the worst season of his MotoGP career so far, but did begin to make some progress on KTM’s bike.
Leaving Ducati was always going to leave the Italian rider facing a difficult adjustment to his new team, and despite a little wobble, he managed to get to the end of the campaign with Tech3.
Bastianini scored one podium in Catalunya, but could’ve had at least one more, after he was stripped of a good result when he crashed during the Czech Grand Prix.
He rounded off the campaign by scoring three top 10 finishes in four weekends, showing KTM that he can be consistent on their bike.
Despite being very quick on a Sunday, Bastianini faces a ‘brutal’ issue at Tech3 and needs to pick his pace up in Qualifying. It has held him back recently.
It also didn’t help that Bastianini told his crew chief to ‘leave right now’ after he admitted to wanting to work with Toprak Razgatlioglu for 2026. It derailed his progress a bit.
READ MORE: Enea Bastianini shares whether he’d still like to be racing for Ducati alongside Marc Marquez
Enea Bastianini admits he couldn’t work on ‘crucial’ setup of KTM bike in Valencia test
Every MotoGP rider transfer was ranked by the MotoGPNews team, and Bastianini was listed 10th of the 12 that happened this season.
The reason why? This is an ex-factory Ducati rider who has won multiple premier class races. He would have expected more from himself this year.
With his contract set to expire at the end of 2026, and the MotoGP rider market primed to descend into chaos, who knows whether he’ll be able to earn another deal.
A lot of that may depend on how he performs over the next 12 months. Unfortunately, the post-season test in Valencia wasn’t a great time for him, as he was unable to test the ‘crucial’ setups on his new bike.
“I was hoping for better, but unfortunately we only had three and a half hours,” he told the Italian edition of Motorsport.com. “We worked so hard, we had to choose some things for next year.
“As always, there are some things that worked well and some that weren’t quite right yet. But hey, I finally tried the new saddle; it wasn’t bad, but we still have work to do.
“In any case, the initial impressions with it were positive. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to work on the setup, which was crucial for me, so in terms of times, we remained there.”
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Why Enea Bastianini can have hope for the 2026 MotoGP season
Although Tech3 were unable to round off the season as successfully as they would have hoped to, the factory team’s performance was promising.
Pedro Acosta was a regular contender for podiums towards the end of the season, and that bike should end up in the hands of Tech3.
With a little winter development, there’s no reason why Bastianini won’t be contending for podiums every weekend in 2026.
He can learn from being a part of the same manufacturer as Acosta, and hopefully, will reap the rewards of his work.
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