MotoGP kicked off its 2026 season this past weekend, with its first Grand Prix round at Chang International Circuit in Buriram, Thailand. Thailand’s also known for its tuk-tuks, so the folks at Dorna-I-mean-Liberty-Media-I-mean-MSEG decided to let each team get some of the preseason jitters out with something fun: A one-lap team-based tuk-tuk grand prix, complete with a driver swap halfway through the lap.
The result? Just an all-around fantastic time. The warm-up lap is the real star of the show here, with the Pramac Yamaha team absolutely refusing to keep all three wheels of their tuk-tuk on the ground if they can help it. Unsurprising from a team with showmen like Jack Miller and fresh-from-World-Superbike rider Toprak Razgatlioglu, but a joy to watch all the same. The single lap race, too, is a riot — even if it saw another late-last-lap one-position penalty like the much-maligned call against Marc Marquez in Saturday’s sprint race.
The boys are having fun
MotoGP riders may be as competitive as any top-tier athletes, but they still seem to have a genuine sense of camaraderie out on the track. Every interior shot through this entire race shows ear-to-ear grins, and the guys are all laughing and making jokes together throughout the event. It’s a fun contrast with the extremely official-looking MotoGP graphics package, where times are still live-tracked the way they would be in a two-wheeled race.
Given the stunning success of this race, I hereby move to make this a regular part of the MotoGP calendar — or, alternatively, for a similarly high-budget racing series to spring up centered entirely around tuk-tuks. Maybe just swap every Formula 1 chassis for one of these three-wheeled people haulers. It’d certainly make the races more interesting, and maybe we’d get to see Max Verstappen crack a smile that actually reaches his eyes.
