Motogp’s Influence On Motorcycle Design – The 2024 MotoGP season starts this weekend in Qatar, so we’re taking a quick break from our regular programming for our annual review of this year’s MotoGP race bike liveries.
MotoGP is the pinnacle of motorcycle racing, producing race bikes with astonishing levels of engineering. As much as we love custom bikes and classics at Bike EXIF, we can just as easily spend hours poring over the details of a well-tuned racing machine.
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However, engineering only tells part of the story. Once a race bike is built, it’s up to the team’s designers to make it look good and keep the team’s sponsors happy. A good MotoGP livery is eye-catching and memorable, and it should look as good driving at 200-plus miles per hour as it does standing in the winner’s circle.
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We’ve ranked this year’s MotoGP race bike liveries from worst to best, including only the teams that ran the same livery for both riders (sorry, LCR Honda). This year’s crop has equal amounts of hits and misses — so take a look, and let us know in the comments if you disagree.
Updated, 12 March 2024 This article was edited to include the two liveries of the LCR Honda team.
12. Trackhouse Racing Trackhouse Racing is the only organization in the world that has both NASCAR and MotoGP teams, and they want you to know about it. When he took over the defunct Cryptodata RNF team late last year, he broke the news with a pair of Stars and Stripes-themed Aprilia race bikes. At the time, I assumed they were trolling us — but, as it turns out, they weren’t.
Think about Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira, who have to spend an entire year riding these bikes with straight faces.
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11. LCR Honda (Idemitsu) LCR Honda is the only team in MotoGP to have a different title sponsor for each rider – and, by extension, two different liveries. You’re looking at Takaaki Nakagami’s ride this season, paid for by Japanese petroleum company Idemitsu.
The advantage of giving all the prime real estate on a bike to a sponsor is that it creates a very streamlined design. But the disadvantage is that it can easily look corporate – and Idemitsu Honda falls into that trap. The white, black and dark red color combo looks great and has a lot of potential, but the overall design is kind of vanilla.
10. Yamaha Factory Racing Long before it took over energy drinks from tobacco companies as motorsport’s primary sponsor, Yamaha boasted some of the most prestigious liveries in racing. The Japanese powerhouse’s Marlboro and Camel era is fondly remembered – and even their new Fila and Movistar outfits were eye-popping. Not so much for their current graphics.
For 2024, Yamaha Factory Racing’s Aldo Drudi-designed ‘Camo’ livery will remain for another year. And, like most camo-based designs, it’s not aging well. Yamaha’s combination of gloss blue and gloss black will always look attractive—but maybe next year they’ll replace the jagged camo-inspired graphics at a somewhat less retro price.
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9. Red Bull GasGas Tech3 This is GasGas’ second year in MotoGP as a brand, and they’ve marked it with a livery that’s a little more interesting than the plain red they wore last year. The GASGAS logo still dominates the side of the bike, but the all-red scheme is now interrupted by a new hit of branding from new sponsor Red Bull.
It seems acceptable for what it is – a giant branding exercise. Factory sponsorship of GASGAS’s permanent Tech3 team is actually a way for KTM (GASGAS’s parent company) to run a second pair of bikes while still getting the GASGAS name. The good thing is that this is one of the least cluttered dresses on the grid this year.
8. Ducati Lenovo Peco Bagnaia’s 2023 campaign culminated in him becoming the first MotoGP racer to win back-to-back championships with the #1 plate since Mick Doohan did so in 1998. He is running the #1 plate for the second year in a row. , the Italian rider is looking to make it a hat trick.
As for the Ducati he is driving, it is finished in the same red color scheme that Ducati has always been riding. You can’t blame the Italian factory for a look that has undoubtedly become iconic in its own right, but it would have looked a lot better without the dashed bright red lines running across its fairings.
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Ducati reportedly added that motif to its MotoGP bikes (and all other racing bikes, including its new Motocross competitor) to reflect the curves of the race track. But the more likely story is that a designer came up with it, and a marketing executive put a press release-worthy spin on it. Either way, it feels like an afterthought.
7. Pertamina Enduro VR46 Fresh sponsorship means a brand-new livery for the Valentino Rossi-owned Pertamina Enduro VR46 team. Rossi’s unmistakable signature yellow covers the tip of the nose, which fades into the white half of the rear which is cut by a red sponsor stripe. This is either the coolest, or laziest, dress on the grid, depending on your point of view.
There are shades of the famous Brawn GP Formula One car here, and the bike is certainly easy to see on the track. But it’s also a bit gaudy, with a lot being done to really make it stand out. Either way, it’s a notable step back from the Mooneys-sponsored livery that the VR46 team ran last year.
6. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing After Ducati, Red Bull KTM is the least likely to make any significant changes to its livery from year to year. And I’m totally fine with that.
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The KTM RC16 is simply gorgeous in its traditional Red Bull colours. The distinctive matte midnight blue base looks like it was made for a MotoGP bike, and the Red Bull and KTM logos share top billing without competing for space.
The look of the KTM RC16 is not going to change any time soon, because it doesn’t need to. Like its Formula One counterpart, it is on its way to becoming a modern racing icon.
It also helps that the RC16 looks just as fast standing still – and even faster when Brad Binder and Jack Miller drive it with the reckless abandon you’d expect from a South African and an Australian.
5. Prima Pramac Racing With no less than four teams running Ducati machinery, it’s hard to stand out. Prima Pramac’s 2023 scheme was my favorite design of the year; An attractive livery that makes the team’s bike look better than its counterparts.
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Prima Pramac has doubled the red and purple colors from last year’s design, but ditched the white base in favor of black pieces. The graphics have also been toned down, providing a less frenetic experience than its predecessor.
It works… mostly. Although the Prima Pramac’s heavy colors lack the refreshing feeling of last year’s white-based paint scheme, it’s still a brave livery when you consider the amount of purple in it. It also matches well with the rider, as many of the graphics are carried through to the rider’s leather.
4. LCR Honda (Castrol) Like the Idemitsu bikes, with which it shares a paddock, the Castrol-sponsored LCR Honda benefits from the simplicity of a single-brand design. Except here, the result is an unforgettable dress that rarely misses our podium.
The eye-catching effect of Castrol’s signature red and green stripes, set on a white background, tells only part of the story. The real kicker here is the nostalgia that Johann Zarco’s Honda evokes.
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Here’s more than just a hint of Colin Edwards’ 1998 and 1999 Honda RC45 Superbike World Championship contenders. This is a true retro reissue – a glimpse into Honda and Castrol’s storied history in motorcycle racing. And it looks pretty intense even without the legacy.
3. Repsol Honda Repsol and Honda are celebrating three decades together in MotoGP this year. It is the longest-running partnership in two-wheeler motorsports, and has yielded 15 World Championship titles, 183 premier class wins and 455 podiums from six World Champions. It has also given the game some of its most memorable motorcycle designs.
However the Repsol and Honda partnership is changing, and this is reflected in the RC213V’s 2024 livery. The Repsol logo is no longer the centerpiece of the design, taking second place to Honda’s branding. But the overall design is no less impressive.
The new design still features Repsol’s splashes of orange and red, but adds a prominent navy section that gives the bike a full-on business vibe. And the black pieces you see aren’t black at all – they’re covered in a ghostly checker pattern, set against the corresponding carbon fiber bits.
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2. Gresini Racing I gave Gresini’s ultra-fresh Pantone 2122 blue livery third place last year, but this deserves more recognition. Few designs on the grid this year (or in recent years, really) have been put together like this.
Gresini’s 2024 livery is a continuation of last year’s aesthetic, with a few deliberate changes. There’s a little more visual movement in the red stripes set against the powder blue, and minor tweaks to the sponsor logos.
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