2020 MotoGP Rider Line-up in full

The 2020 MotoGP World Championship grid is officially signed, sealed and delivered as Johann Zarco slots into the final available spot on the grid with his deal to join Avintia Ducati.

His announcement completes a flurry of last minute changes to the overall make up of the 2020 MotoGP rider line-up, the Frenchman having thrown things into the air originally when he decided to negotiate his way out of his KTM contract one year early before landing at the privateer Ducati outfit.

That’s not to say there won’t be more changes to grid before we kick off again in Qatar in March 2020, but for now we have our 22 riders locked down.

What’s new on the 2020 MotoGP grid?

How valuable is a contract exactly? Not a lot in MotoGP anymore it seems...

While the 2020 MotoGP grid looked pretty set several months ago since we're in the midst of the typical two-year MotoGP contract cycle, everything changed with one bombshell after another that has served to really shake up the overall order.

Zarco has been the main catalyst for this following his decision to call it quits at KTM after just six months. That put the Austrian firm in a predicament as it sought to find a replacement but in the end it decided to invest in the future by promoting its Moto2 star Brad Binder into the Factory team alongside Pol Espargaro, the South African having originally been tapped for the satellite Tech 3 KTM outfit.

That inter-team shuffle - at the expense of a disgruntled Miguel Oliveira - opened up a spot at Tech 3, with Iker Lecuona getting the surprise nod. The Spaniard made an early debut at Valencia and impressed with his quick adaptation.

With KTM locking down its line-up expected to be the final act of the belated silly season, Jorge Lorenzo mixed it up all over again when he announced his retirement from MotoGP on the eve of the final round. Zarco was the original target to join Marc Marquez at Repsol Honda, but instead Moto2 World Champion Alex Marquez gets the nod instead to become the third rookie starting in 2020.

Zarco, however, would get his eleventh hour deal, his availability prompting Ducati to make some internal shuffles that removed Karel Abraham from the Avintia team to make way for the Frenchman. He is on a one-year deal dealt directly with Ducati, rather than Avintia itself.

Elsewhere, it is ‘as you were’ though Pecco Bagnaia will be granted a 2020-specification Ducati having run a year-old machine in 2019, while Fabio Quartararo will be given the same specification Yamaha M1s ridden by Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales following his stunning rookie season. Honda opted against this, with Takaaki Nakagami getting a year-old LCR model.

2020 MotoGP Grid in full

* Rookie