Qatar MotoGP to be skipped by personnel from one Ducati team

MotoGP’s Qatar Grand Prix is set to be one of the championship’s most controversial events, and to be skipped by some personnel.

At the moment, the race is to go ahead as planned on 6–8 November, but some riders have been clear that they do not want to race in the country that is located on the western coast of the Persian Gulf, the entrance to which is the now-well-known Strait of Hormuz.

It’s not only riders that would not like to go to Qatar given the conflict that has been ongoing in the Middle East since 28 February, when MotoGP held its first round of the 2026 season in Thailand. Team personnel, too, have their own feelings on the subject.

While no one has yet publicly confirmed that they will not go to Qatar, VR46 Racing Team boss Alessio Salucci says that he has already been informed of one person in his team that will not be going to Qatar next week.

“There are things that go beyond sport, beyond work, beyond everything,” Salucci told Italian publication GPOne ahead of the Malaysian MotoGP.

“I already know that someone will be missing,” he added, although he stressed that this is not in reference to a rider.

“If we want to pretend nothing is happening, then we can pretend nothing is happening, but it isn’t a safe situation.

“There is more to life than just work, more than just sport.”

The situation surrounding the Qatar race has prompted the championship’s riders to try to pull together and form a kind of union. Nothing has yet been made formally, but riders including Enea Bastianini and Alex Marquez have spoken about how the situation has made the riders more “united” than in the past, and how this could help future riders.

While the conflict in the Middle East has been in a kind of pause of late, the passage of the US mid-term elections next week is reportedly set to mark the start of renewed hostilities. A US senator has labelled plans to re-escalate the war on Iran as “insane”.