Luca Marini is changing direction. From 2027, the #10 will leave Honda HRC and join Tech3, moving onto KTM machinery for the next chapter of his MotoGP career. The deal covers the 2027 and 2028 seasons and arrives just as the Championship enters its new 850cc era.
After Ducati and Honda, KTM will become the third manufacturer of Marini’s MotoGP career.
But this move carries a particular meaning. Because Luca is leaving a manufacturer where he has spent three seasons working, developing, waiting and growing alongside a difficult project. And he is joining a team that, faced with the blank page of 2027, appears to have chosen exactly that kind of rider.
Someone who brings more than speed.
He brings method.
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Three Honda seasons worth more than the results alone
When Marini joined Honda in 2024, he stepped into the seat left vacant by Marc Marquez. It was never going to be an easy situation. The RC213V was going through one of the most difficult periods in its recent history, and Luca entered a project that demanded patience, analysis and a willingness to keep working even when Sunday’s results did not immediately reflect that effort.
The stronger results came with time.
But perhaps the most valuable part of those three years was built away from the podium.
Marini became a highly regarded technical presence within the Honda project, known for the precision of his feedback and his ability to work closely with engineers — qualities Tech3 specifically highlighted when announcing his arrival.
And now he takes that experience with him.
Not to go backwards.
To start again.
Tech3 chooses experience with Luca Marini for MotoGP’s reset
2027 will not be an ordinary season.
MotoGP will move from 1000cc to 850cc machinery, opening a major new technical chapter for every manufacturer and team on the grid.
And that is exactly where Marini comes in. Tech3 will continue its partnership with KTM into the new regulations, beginning another phase of the relationship between the French team and the Austrian manufacturer.
Guenther Steiner made the reasoning behind the choice clear: Tech3 wanted a rider who could contribute not only through speed, but through his mentality, engineering collaboration and ability to help develop a motorcycle through difficult circumstances.
In other words, Luca has been chosen partly because of what the hardest years at Honda taught him.
From Honda to KTM, without looking for shortcuts
It would be easy to read this move simply through the colours.
Honda out.
KTM in.
But Marini’s path over the last few seasons tells a more interesting story.
He left VR46 and a competitive Ducati to take on Honda at one of the toughest moments in its history and has accepted seasons in which the work being done was often more visible than the results being celebrated. He kept testing, explaining, developing.
Now he changes again.
And once again, he is walking into a project that will need to be built.
At Honda, he learned how to keep working when the result did not arrive immediately.
At Tech3, that experience may be exactly why they wanted him.
A different Tech3
The team Luca joins in 2027 will also be entering a new chapter of its own.
With Guenther Steiner as CEO, Tech3 is preparing for the next phase of its partnership with KTM and for the technical reset that will affect the whole MotoGP grid.
The ambition is clear: not simply to take part in the new era, but to make progress within it.
That will require speed, of course.
But it will also require understanding a completely new motorcycle as quickly as possible.
And that is where Marini could carry significant weight.
Because speed is visible on the stopwatch.
A rider’s ability to help a team find the right direction often becomes visible much later.
Another Italian rider changes colours
Within just a few days, the 2027 rider market has reshaped another part of the Italian presence on the MotoGP grid.
Enea Bastianini will leave Tech3 for Trackhouse Aprilia.
Luca Marini will head towards the KTM garage Bastianini is leaving behind.
Two completely different stories.
Two fresh starts.
And two Italian riders approaching MotoGP’s technical reset by changing almost everything.
For Luca, KTM will be his third manufacturer in the premier class.
Ducati gave him his first MotoGP podiums.
Honda asked him to learn how to build.
Now KTM is handing him another blank page.
And perhaps that is what makes this next chapter of Marini’s career so interesting.
After three years spent showing how valuable the work that never makes Sunday’s photographs can be, from 2027 he will have a new project in which to turn that work into something of his own.
Luca changes colours.
But not the way he has reached this point.
One step at a time.
With patience, method and that desire to build which, this time, may be exactly what Tech3 needs.
LINK:
Read: Bastianini starts again with Trackhouse: the Beast will ride an Aprilia from 2027
Read: TECH3 SIGNS LUCA MARINI FOR NEW MOTOGP ERA FROM 2027
