The Business Side Of Motogp – The 2024 MotoGP season kicks off in Qatar this weekend, so we’re taking a quick break from our regular program for our annual challengers for this year’s MotoGP race.
MotoGP is the pinnacle of motorcycle racing, producing racing bikes with incredible engineering. As much as we love motorbikes and bikes here at Bike EXIF, we can spend hours researching the details of well-designed racing machines.
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Architecture only tells part of the story. Once a racing bike is built, it’s up to the team’s designers to make it look good—while keeping the team’s sponsors happy. A good MotoGP bike is functional and memorable, and it needs to look good going 200-plus miles per hour as it’s parked in the winner’s circle.
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We’ve ranked this year’s MotoGP championship from worst to best, including the only teams running the same livery for all riders (sorry, LCR Honda). This year’s crop is equally hit and miss – so check it out, and comment if you disagree.
Update, 12 March 2024 This article has been updated to include two liveries for the LCR Honda team.
12. Trackhouse Racing Trackhouse Racing is the only organization in the world to own a NASCAR and MotoGP team, and they want you to know. When they took over from the CryptoDATA RNF team at the end of last year, they broke the news with a pair of Stars and Stripes-themed Aprilia racing bikes. At that time, I thought they were trampling on us, but that was not the case.
Avoid the thought of Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira, who have to spend the whole year racing these bikes with straight faces.
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11. LCR Honda (Idemitsu) LCR Honda is the only MotoGP team that has a different theme for each of its riders—and, in addition, two different liveries. You’re looking at Takaaki Nakagami’s ride this season, sponsored by Japanese oil company Idemitsu.
The advantage of providing one supporter for all the top positions on the bike is that it creates an uncluttered design. But the downside is that it can look like a company—and Idemitsu Honda falls into that trap. The white, black, and dark red combo looks good enough and has heaps of potential, but the design is vanilla.
10. Yamaha Factory Racing Long before energy drinks replaced the tobacco industry as the main sponsor of motorsport, Yamaha boasted some of the world’s fastest racing. Marlboro and Camel’s Japanese years are fondly remembered—and even their new Fila and Movistar liveries were eye candy. Not so much for their current photos.
For 2024, Yamaha Factory Racing’s Aldo Drudi designed “camo” livery will continue for another year. And, like most camo designs, it doesn’t age well. Yamaha’s combination of bright blue and gloss black has always looked sharp—but maybe next year they’ll swap out the cool camo graphics for something a little more subdued.
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9. Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 It’s GASGAS’ second year in MotoGP as a brand, and they’ve put on a livery that’s a lot more interesting than the standard red paint job they sported last year. The GASGAS logo still dominates the side of the bike, but the red scheme has now been dropped with a new hit from Red Bull’s new sponsor.
It seems possible because of the content – a great job of branding. The GASGAS factory sponsorship of the perennial Tech3 team is just a way for KTM (GASGAS’s parent company) to run two bikes and get the GASGAS name out there. On the other hand, it’s one of the most undisputed of the series this year.
8. Ducati Lenovo Pecco Bagnaia’s 2023 campaign culminated in him becoming the first MotoGP rider to win back-to-back plate #1 races, since Mick Doohan did it in 1998. Running that plate #1 for the second year in a row. , an Italian rider looking to make a hat.
As for the Ducati he is riding, which is wearing the same red color that Ducati has been riding since time immemorial. You can’t say that the Italian factory keeps looking at the look that has undoubtedly become famous, but it looks very good without the red lines that go through its pictures.
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Ducati has added that its MotoGP bike (and all of its racing bikes, including its new motocross competitor) will feature racing bars. But the more important story is that the producer came up with it, and the marketing manager put in the right media to release it. Either way, it sounds like a guess.
7. Pertamina Enduro VR46 New livery means a new livery for Valentino Rossi’s Pertamina Enduro VR46 team. The famous Rossi signature yellow covers the end of the nose, and fades into a white rear half that is cut by a red support line. He’s the best looking, or the laziest, of the bunch, depending on how you look at it.
There are shades of the famous Brawn GP Formula One cars here, and the bike is easy to spot on the track. But it’s a bit complicated, which is a lot to make it look good. Either way, it’s a notable step back from the Mooneys-backed swish that the VR46 team ran with last year.
6. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Next to Ducati, Red Bull KTM is the most likely to change their lives year after year. And I’m totally fine with that.
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The KTM RC16 is gorgeous in its traditional Red Bull colors. The midnight blue matte finish looks like it was made for a MotoGP bike, and the Red Bull and KTM logos share a lot of money without competing for space.
The looks of the KTM RC16 won’t change anytime soon, because they don’t need to. As its counterpart to Formula One, it is on its way to becoming a modern racing brand.
It also helps that the RC16 looks quick from a standstill—and quick as Brad Binder and Jack Miller ride with the kind of carefree separation you’d expect from South Africa and Australia.
5. Prima Pramac Racing With at least four teams running Ducati machines, it’s hard to stop. The 2023 Prima Pramac scheme was my favorite design of the year; a brilliant display that sets the team bike above its peers.
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Prima Pramac has moved on from the red and purple colors from last year’s design but has ditched the white base instead of the black scarves. The graphics are also toned down, giving off a more subdued vibe than the previous set.
It works… mostly. Although the heaviest of Prima Pramac’s colors don’t have the same feel of last year’s white paint, it’s still quite bold when you consider how much purple it contains. It also comes together well with the rider, because most of the images are taken to the skins of the rider.
4. LCR Honda (Castrol) Like the Idemitsu bike it shares the paddock with, the Castrol-sponsored LCR Honda benefits from the simplicity of its one-piece design. Apart from this, the result is so memorable that it just misses our podium.
The striking effect of Castrol’s signature red and green stripes, set against a white background, only tells part of the story. The real kicker here is the nose that Johann Zarco’s Honda raises.
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There is more than enough to say about Colin Edwards’ 1998 and 1999 Honda RC45 Superbike World Championship contenders here. It’s a retro look-back to Honda and Castrol’s history in motorcycle racing. And it looks very beautiful, even without a legacy.
3. Repsol Honda Repsol and Honda celebrate thirty years together in MotoGP this year. It is the longest association in two-wheeled motorsport, and has delivered 15 World Championship titles from six World Finals, 183 wins, and 455 podiums. It is also credited to the sport with some of its most memorable motorcycle designs.
Repsol’s partnership with Honda is changing though, and this is reflected in the 2024 RC213V livery. The Repsol brand is no longer at the top of production, taking second place next to the Honda brand. But the design is very useful.
The new design still has the splashes of Repsol’s orange and red, but it adds a big part of the military that gives the bibe the whole business. And the little bits of black you see aren’t actually black – they’re covered in a reflective, textured carbon fiber finish.
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2. Gresini Racing I placed the Pantone 2122 blue Gresini in third place last year, but it deserves more praise. Few designs on the board this year (or in recent years, really), are as well put together as this one.
Gresini’s 2024 livery is a continuation of last year’s aesthetic, with a few well-judged tweaks. There’s a subtle movement in the red stripes set against the powder blue, and there’s been a slight change to the sponsor logos.
It’s something else