The 2026 MotoGP season started on a chilly Tuesday morning at Circuit de Valencia. There were new faces and special liveries, but due to the concession rules and the fact that 2026 is the final year of a mature formula, there were few surprises in terms of the machinery rolled out of the garages in the morning. Teams like Yamaha and Honda that had a great deal of leeway in testing, due to their lack of results, had shown their development racebikes and upgrades incrementally through the season. But there were still things to learn by lapping, so all of the healthy – and relatively healthy – full-time riders were present, and some new riders were getting their first tastes of what it is like to ride a modern MotoGP racebike.