Zonta van den Goorbergh’s Moto2 career comes to an end – future in the Supersport World Championship

At just 16 years of age (and before the current age limit of 18 came into force), Zonta van den Goorbergh moved straight up from the Red Bull Rookies Cup and the Junior World Championship to the Moto2 World Championship. The Dutch rider has been competing in the middleweight category of the World Motorcycle Championship since 2022 – he has been with Team RW Racing from the very beginning. Now aged 20, he has only three single-digit finishes to his name. His best race result came in 2024 at Motegi in Japan, where he finished fifth. That season, he finished 22nd in the overall standings – Zonta has never achieved a better position in the World Championship table to date.

There is little doubt about Zonta’s talent; some experts are convinced he simply needs the right environment. Nevertheless, there will be no place for him in the GP paddock after the 2026 season. His future is now secure: as announced by SPEEDWEEK.com, Zonta will move to the Supersport World Championship in 2027 – where he will be Can Öncü’s new team-mate at the successful Dutch team Ten Kate.

Ten Kate is making a fresh start in 2027. The team is switching from Yamaha to QJ Motor – a multi-year contract has been signed with the Chinese manufacturer. QJ Motor was founded in 1985; at its state-of-the-art factory in Wenling, 500 km south of Shanghai, 1.2 million motorbikes and 2 million engines are produced annually. QJ is part of the Geely Group, which employs around 120,000 people and whose portfolio also includes the car brands Volvo, Polestar, Lynk & Co, Lotus, Smart and Zeekr.

Zonta van den Goorbergh: Ideal conditions at the top-tier Ten Kate team

At Ten Kate, Zonta van den Goorbergh will find excellent conditions; the tuning experts from Nieuwleusen, north-east of Zwolle, have the expertise to turn the QJ into a championship-winning motorbike. To date, the team has won twelve riders’ titles in the Supersport World Championship – nine with Honda and three with Yamaha.

For 2028, QJ is planning a fundamentally new Supersport motorbike, which will incorporate a great deal of Ten Kate’s know-how. There has also been talk of a Superbike for some time now. No one should expect to see the same slow SRK 800 RS next year as in 2026, which managed a meagre five World Championship points. Ten Kate knows exactly what matters when it comes to a racing machine. And QJ has the necessary resources to make it happen. If you divide 1.2 million motorbikes by the number of working days in a year, you’ll quickly realise that the 500 units required for homologation can be produced between breakfast break and lunch.

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22.10.2026 - 23:55