For months now, the MotoGP world has eagerly awaited news about what the 2027 grid will look like.

But, despite multiple signed contracts (like Pecco Bagnaia’s move to Aprilia) being open secrets inside the paddock, there’s been no official news - and that’s because teams and series organisers remain locked in painful negotiations over what the financial future of the series looks like.

And while the MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group (formerly known as Dorna), might now be trying to pressure manufacturers into making a decision sooner rather than later, even as soon as the next round of the championship in Le Mans this weekend, that decision seems further away than ever following a high-profile statement by teams during the last event at Jerez.

The crux of the issue comes down to money. Teams and factories want MotoGP to move away from the current financial system - where they get a block grant each season from Dorna - to a more equitable model more in line with most other professional sports series, where the money passed down from things like TV revenues and hosting fees is instead split on a percentage basis so that the more MotoGP makes, the more the teams earn.

This move, reportedly led by ex-Formula 1 team boss and current Aprilia team principal Massimo Rivola and being negotiated by former Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis (backed up, according to The Race’s sources, by a team of US lawyers who work with the Trackhouse team), comes amid the takeover of the series by Liberty Media, and an expected future windfall, which it also brought to F1.

In fact, a delegation from Liberty, including president and CEO Derek Chang and F1 boss Stefano Domenicali, was in attendance at Jerez both for the race weekend and for Friday night’s customary party, where teams, sponsors, broadcasters, and series partners get the chance to talk business.

And it’s at this dinner where some of the teams decided to start applying some pressure to MSEG, with Aprilia, Yamaha, and KTM not turning up - a situation that, according to a The Race source, meant tables being rearranged at the last minute to try to disguise their notable absence.

In that signal from the teams lies a hint at their real power in these negotiations, too. There’s no doubt in anyone’s minds that they will still be on the grid next year; all of them are spending considerable resources to prepare 850cc bikes for the new rules, and already have riders signed up.

But a part of the push from MSEG is that the teams also increase their spending on media, communications, and PR (part of the reason why the teams believe they should receive more from the organisers). 

That is, of course, an obvious component to Liberty’s planned growth of MotoGP, and something that’s very much in line with what we saw a decade ago in F1. But it also requires considerable team buy-in, meaning that they have perhaps more power than the old bosses of Dorna have so far understood.

It’s not Dorna, MSEG, or Liberty Media who control the schedules of riders and team personnel. Should the teams wish to make life difficult, they have chance to do so; there are, after all, some MotoGP riders and team bosses who you sense would relish the opportunity to turn up to mandated press conferences and answer every question with a team-mandated “no comment”.

Whether the Le Mans deadline this week is realistic or not remains to be seen - but, with teams seemingly even more at loggerheads with the organisers than before Jerez, one thing is for sure; we’re unlikely to see any factory rider announcements any time soon.