As MotoGP 26 releases for PC and consoles, the voice of the collection and the game sits down with TG for a chat
Printed: 01 Might 2026
MotoGP returned to the Goiânia circuit in Brazil this yr for the primary time since 1989. As veteran broadcaster Gavin Emmett was taking a trackside stroll together with his TNT workforce on the Friday afternoon of the race weekend, a younger child walked as much as him.
“And he goes, ‘are you the man who does the voice for the sport?’” says Emmett. “It made me chortle, as a result of it’s like – we’re in Brazil. We haven’t been right here [in Goiânia] for the reason that Eighties and we had been questioning what kind of tradition there was. And but, there’s this child, asking for an autograph. Clearly I had the mickey taken out of me afterwards.”
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It exhibits you ways essential the Milestone MotoGP video games are to Dorna and new proprietor Liberty Media’s grand plans to develop the game amongst a really worldwide viewers. Emmett has been concerned in MotoGP for the reason that early Noughties, and has been the voice of each the official worldwide broadcast feed and BT Sport/TNT Sport’s weekend protection. The truth that a younger fan recognised his dulcet northern tones primarily from the video games says rather a lot.
And it’s not simply essential to the followers. The collection is an oddity in motorsport, as a result of not like the simulator-heavy world of F1, riders actually do use the sport to study the tracks.
“ Genuinely,” says Emmett. “Once I was in Brazil, I used to be strolling the observe with Joe Roberts, and he goes, ‘oh yeah, I have been enjoying it’. It occurs on a regular basis. At Balaton Park final yr in Hungary I spoke to David Alonso, who mainly mentioned, ‘unquestionably’. And also you’re gonna do this, aren’t you?
“The standard of the 3D renders that they’ve bought is phenomenal. It’s uber real looking. And we do not have a simulator tradition like Formulation One. The Moto trainers, these simulators are alright, however racers aren’t utilizing them. They’re doing what Pedro Acosta does. Going round a tiny little grubby little race observe in Murcia on a overwhelmed up outdated KTM 800. However you continue to have to study the racetracks, and the one place that you are able to do that’s within the MotoGP recreation.”
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MotoGP 26, out now on PC and consoles, is the thirteenth recreation Emmett has lent his voice skills to: “I recorded in London after we did the primary ones. It took two or three days to get by means of all of the script traces.”
Put up-Covid, extra recording has taken place at dwelling in Leeds, which Emmett tells us bears a surprisingly shut resemblance to his precise commentary sales space on race day.
“Lots of people assume that we’re sat up on the high of the grandstand, trying down on the entrance, straight over the end line.
“However truly, we’re in a windowless sales space. We’re in a portacabin, that’s basically what it’s. We have no home windows. We simply have a display screen. And it’s sizzling, now we have blankets throughout for soundproofing. So it isn’t too dissimilar to being in a soundproof sales space, whether or not or not it’s in London or in Leeds.”
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MotoGP 26 rings in a number of notable modifications, which will be categorised as ‘how and why you get thrown off the bike and launched to the moon this outing’. Rider-based dealing with revises the physics mannequin to place you in additional instant, direct, leather-soiling management of the prototype, whereas new profession mode choices like the possibility to select an actual rider as a substitute of a customized creation and race highway bikes in your downtime give the outdated system some extra mileage. However arguably the most effective factor this yr’s recreation has going for it’s the precise season it’s depicting.
2026 ought to, by rights, already be dominated by Marc Marquez by now. His first season on the manufacturing unit Ducati workforce in 2025 represented a wedding of elite rider and elite equipment that created an totally – tediously, even – dominant show. This yr was billed to be a repeat of the identical. As a substitute, Marquez has but to win on a Sunday. It’s the Aprilias of Marco Bezzecchi and the newly rebuilt Martinator, Jorge Martin, who look the strongest. The highest Ducati? Why, Fabio Di Giannantonio, clearly.
“No matter occurs from this second,” Emmett says, “we’ve bought a narrative. If it’s Martin’s Lazarus-like comeback, if it’s Bezzecchi, the dropped man at Ducati, turning up at Aprilia and taking the championship.
“If it’s Marc Marquez, coming again after yet one more harm and successful the championship, that’s nice. Pedro Acosta being Mr Constant on the KTM… No matter occurs, we’ve bought a championship on our palms.”
Just like the MotoGP video games themselves, which enjoyment of tiny particulars and whose anorak-grade enthusiasm is infectious, Emmett is obsessed with his sport. You get the sense that he’d have been in that recording sales space for six days as a substitute of three, in the event that they’d requested him, and he nonetheless wouldn’t have run out of issues to speak about.
“ I do know we’re fortunate to be ready to speak about it and to inform the story of the game. I hope it comes throughout.” Don’t fear Gavin, it does. Anyway – aren’t you the man who does the voice for the sport?