Here is David Da Costa, 2027 Moto3 World Championship rookie

During the MotoGP event that took place in Misano, we saw several announcements regarding the 2027 Moto3 World Championship season. Alongside Leonardo Zanni joining Leopard (and I will talk about that soon), it was announced that Snipers Team has signed David Da Costa, a young French rider competing in the Moto3 Junior World Championship and the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup.

Here on Palmen in Motorradsport, I had already mentioned his name while telling which riders could join the Moto3 World Championship in 2027. In that article, I wrote that, in my opinion, we would see again a French rider in the entry class of the Grand Prix paddock. Personally, I was thinking more about Guillem Planques (and I still think he may make this step as well), but I didn't rule out Da Costa, nor fellow Frenchmen Enzo Bellon and Rémy Sanjuan. After all, they are all having a good, or at least decent, 2026 season.

But, with all that said... Who is David Da Costa?

A start...with a setback!

His career began in motocross, same as many other young riders. Initially, it was his father who wanted him to get interested in motorbikes, but little David soon started having fun and wanting to go faster and faster in the home garden. At one point, when he was 6, his father enrolled him in the Loisirs Motorsport school, where he continued training under the guidance of experienced rider Julien Enjolras. At some point, David Da Costa caught the attention of another highly experienced rider, Baptiste Guittet, who also won two titles in the Superstock class of the Endurance World Championship.

At the age of nine, David Da Costa had his first experience with road racing. Following some advice by Baptiste Guittet, the young French rider's family bought him a Honda NSF100, and from there he gradually became more and more involved in road racing, until deciding to focus on it completely. In 2018, therefore, he was to make his road racing debut, entering the French 25 Power Championship on an Ohvale 160.

However, he didn't even make it to the first race, after he was stopped by a serious knee injury. How did Da Costa get injured? A bad landing while jumping on a trampoline with his sister... (here is an interview he gave to Moto-Net.com, where he also tells this story).

The real start

After a year and a half away from racing, however, David Da Costa restarted his career. Still under the guidance of Baptiste Guittet, in 2021 the rider from Solaize (a small town near Lyon) restarted from the 125cc class of the Coupe de France Promosport. The season, contested on a Suzuki GSX-R 125, was a positive one. Although he lost the title to Livio Mirabel by just six points, Da Costa won seven out of 16 races and stood on the podium on several other occasions.

The next step was a move to Supersport 300 in the FSBK Championship, the main motorcycle racing series in France. In 2022, riding a Yamaha, David Da Costa finished the season in fifth place, winning Race 2 at Nogaro and ending the year with a double podium at the final round at Le Castellet. Furthermore, thanks to his results, the French rider was selected for the R3 SuperFinale, an event featuring the best Yamaha riders from various national Supersport 300 championships and Yamaha R3 Cups, in Portimão.

And how did it go? Da Costa won Race 1, and then crashed at the final corner in Race 2, losing his chance to win the SuperFinale and therefore earn a seat in the R3 bLU cRU European Cup (now known as R3 BLU CRU World Cup) for the 2023 season. A small curiosity: that weekend, Da Costa raced not under the French flag, but under the Portuguese one, as he has Portuguese roots.

Thinking about it now, perhaps missing the chance to join the R3 bLU cRU European Cup changed the course of his career...

Moving to the "Road to MotoGP"

In 2023, David Da Costa took a major turn in his career, leaving production-based motorcycles behind and moving towards the "Road to MotoGP". In that year, he entered the PreMoto3 class of Objectif Grand Prix, a series within the FSBK through which the Fédération Française de Motocyclisme aims to identify and develop young talents. It proved to be a winning decision: Da Costa took the title with just three victories, but with a huge number of podium finishes and greater consistency than his rival Henri Mignot.

And so, in 2024, together with the BRS - Brechon Racing School team, Da Costa made the step up to the European Talent Cup (now the Moto4 European Cup). It was a difficult season, with only two points finishes and a ninth place at Estoril as his best result. Still, it allowed him to build foundations for the following season. And, at the end of the year, Da Costa was selected for the 2025 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup season.

The 2025 season, spent in the RBRC and once again in the European Talent Cup (this time with the JEG TAKE OFF GP Team), began with top 10 finishes in both series, but then suffered a major setback. Da Costa fractured his right tibial plateau in an accident in the Rookies Cup , when he crashed in Race 1 at Mugello with Gabriel Tesini. The injury affected his season, although he returned to racing towards the end of the year and achieved some decent results.

And so we arrive at 2026, a decisive year for his career.

Growing and joining the world stage

In 2026, Da Costa was confirmed for another season in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup, while in MotoJunior he moved up from the European Talent Cup to the Moto3 Junior World Championship, remaining with the JEG TAKE OFF GP team.

The season, although still without any podium finishes, is nevertheless progressing well for the French rider, who is collecting several top 10 finishes in both series and spending entire races fighting in the leading group. In addition to the progress he has made compared to a 2025 season, affected by his right leg injury, in the Moto3 Junior World Championship David Da Costa has consistently been among the top ten, and even fighting for more, despite racing for a considerably smaller team than the main ones of the championship, such as CFMOTO Aspar and Monlau.

This certainly caught the attention of several people in the paddock and also attracted the interest of Snipers Team Owner Mirko Cecchini, which has now signed him for the 2027 Moto3 World Championship season.

David Da Costa will therefore become the first French rider to compete in the Moto3 World Championship since Lorenzo Fellon, who raced there from 2021 to 2023. In my opinion, he will not be the only one, but for now there is already plenty of interest and curiosity surrounding Da Costa, and what he will be able to achieve in his rookie season.