Steiner closes the file
Guenther Steiner answered with one word. Asked at the Red Bull Ring whether Tech3 ever put a 2027 contract in front of Maverick Vinales, the team boss said: “No.”
That settles a question that has trailed the Spaniard since the summer. Vinales will not be on the MotoGP grid next season. Tech3 confirmed Senna Agius alongside Luca Marini earlier this week, filling the last seat available for 2027 and closing the door for good.
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How a KTM rider ran out of options
Vinales joined Tech3 as a KTM-contracted rider and spent the first half of 2025 riding well enough to look like a candidate for the factory squad. A shoulder problem changed the trajectory. His form dipped, the promotion never arrived, and the arrangement unravelled from there. Vinales says he signed a deal in the summer to stay with KTM at Tech3 and that the manufacturer then revoked it.
Steiner framed the outcome as structural rather than personal. “Maverick is a KTM rider. And we needed to decide at some stage,” he said. “I don’t think Maverick told KTM that he wanted a works team seat, and obviously we don’t have that. So, we needed to make our decision.” From next year both Tech3 riders will be contracted to the team rather than to KTM, which removes the mechanism that put Vinales in the garage in the first place.
The shoulder still has no timeline
Vinales has not ridden since the German Grand Prix in July. KTM rated him a 50/50 chance of returning in Austria. He did not make it. Steiner had no update on the injury and no appetite for forcing one.
“He said this week himself he is not fit yet to ride,” Steiner said. “I’m of the opinion that, for his own sake, he needs to get healthy; he needs to get fit again. There’s no point coming back too early again, because I think that’s what happened. It is why he is where he is now. I want him fit as a human being, not as an athlete, for his future, as a person. That’s more important than racing motorbikes.”
Pol Espargaro has covered the seat for a fourth straight round in Austria. Vinales leaves the class with ten grand prix wins.
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