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MotoGP teams need saving from themselves A MotoGP 'transfer window' is closer to becoming reality than ever before, following a frenzied rider signing period for the upcoming 2027 season. The sheer scope of rider movement agreed for 2027 before a single race of the 2026 season had even taken place has prompted some factories to pursue a regulation that would limit the ability of manufacturers, teams and riders to sign and submit valid contracts for the following season before a certain date. LCR team boss Lucio Cecchinello, who heads up the teams' association IRTA, confirmed to The Race that a proposal was being developed - and that the 'window' of contractual validity would be opened around May-June-July. This would mean that the numerous agreements reached for 2027 early - such as Pedro Acosta's Ducati deal, Pecco Bagnaia's Aprilia contract, Fabio Quartararo's Honda contract and more - would not be allowed to happen in the same way going forward. We have more detail on the proposal in our YouTube video below. But does MotoGP actually need something like this? New MotoGP team boss Guenther Steiner, who has arrived from Formula 1 (which has no such system and feels no need for it), is unconvinced, describing the idea as "a little bit bulls***". "What happened here this year, for me, it was amazing," he mused. "I've never seen it anywhere else. In January, they talk about who signs already for '27 somewhere else. "But then they don't admit it [that they signed], but everybody knows. Everybody knows what's going on, but nobody knows. "I think even with the regulation, you could not change that. You can put something in that if [a deal] is announced before, it is not official. But that's also a little bit bulls***. "In the end, we need to grow up." Steiner believes that the uncertainties - and, specifically, the injury risks - are too high with MotoGP riders for these early commitments to make sense. "I think it needs also a little bit of discipline by the management of the teams. Not only putting rules in place for everything. It's like, this is not good for the sport. "In my opinion, why would you sign somebody, especially in a sport like MotoGP - it's a long season, 22 races, you sign someone and there's an accident or something, you know… "Nobody thinks about the downsides which can happen. Everybody thinks, 'Oh, I need to get the best guy as soon as possible'. But it could go against you and then you don't look very smart, in my opinion. "But until that happens, people, it looks to me like they don't care. And then when something bad happens to them, they just find an excuse for it. 'I didn't tell him to fall off the bike'. And I hope nobody falls off a bike, by the way! [But] they do. "We can sit here all day trying to make it sound like it doesn't happen - it happens, you know. As we have seen already this year quite a few times." Steiner, whose Tech3 team has played out its 2027 negotiations much later than most and for whom that was a deliberate strategy, isn't wrong in his general assessment - but modern MotoGP manufacturers are de-incentivised from showing restraint in contractual matters. Most of them have more than two riders not just on their bikes (across factory and satellite teams) but under factory contract specifically (see Fabio Di Giannantonio and Fermin Aldeguer at Ducati, both LCR Honda riders, both Tech3 KTM riders, etc.). It arguably gives manufacturers more 'bullets in the chamber' than ever before. Where one 'bad' signing still leaves you with a roster to fall back on. But succeeding in just one of your contractual pursuits, with a truly A-tier rider, can be transformative to your programme, while waiting around too long and failing entirely to grab a top name will be ruinous for your championship hopes, no matter how good a bike you have been cooking up back at the factory. Names like Marc Marquez, Fabio Quartararo, Pedro Acosta were all self-evidently too valuable to ever linger on the market - but also too aware that a mid-season injury could significantly depress their sporting and financial potential, so themselves incentivised to commit early to a big-money, big-status deal. So the early rush to sign is just an expression of this particular market's particular set of conditions - and the only way to break out of it is to impose limits. Whether those limits will be strict and robust enough, and whether MotoGP succeeds at getting them rubber-stamped along with a corresponding system of sanctions - that's an entirely different question.