MotoGP has turned its start-safety debate into immediate regulation change after the Grand Prix Commission confirmed front holeshot devices will be banned from this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix at Assen.
The official MotoGP communication says the devices, used to lower the bike for race starts, will be removed earlier than the wider 2027 technical reset had originally implied. The move arrives after start-line risk became a recurring paddock issue, with recent incidents and rider concern pushing the topic beyond a normal engineering argument.
It also follows Readmotorsport’s recent look at how Pedro Acosta’s ride-height device failure gave MotoGP another safety warning, and how Marc Marquez had already widened the start-device debate before Brno.
Germany grid change makes the safety response bigger
The Assen ban is not the only change. From the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring, grid spacing will increase across all classes, not only MotoGP.
The gap between riders will move from three metres to four metres, extending the distance between rows from nine metres to 12 metres while keeping three riders on each row. The logic is simple: give riders more physical margin at the most compressed and unpredictable point of a race weekend.
Crash.net has also reported that the package includes a future six-bike limit per manufacturer from 2028, formalising a cap that already mirrors Ducati’s current maximum presence on the grid.
For MotoGP, this is a meaningful shift in tone. The championship has not waited for the full 2027 rulebook to solve a problem that riders and teams have been discussing in real time. The wider technical reset remains important, as shown by Readmotorsport’s analysis of how MotoGP’s one-bike plan has turned the 2027 reset into a garage test, but Assen now becomes the first live proof point for a more urgent safety line.
After weeks of debate, MotoGP has moved from waiting for the next era to changing this one.
External sources: MotoGP official Grand Prix Commission update; Crash.net MotoGP report.
