The 2024 MotoGP season kicks off in Qatar this weekend, so we’re taking a fast break from our common programming for our annual critique of this 12 months’s MotoGP race bike liveries.
MotoGP is the top of bike racing, producing race bikes with mind-boggling ranges of engineering. As a lot as we love customized bikes and classics right here at Bike EXIF, we will simply as simply spend hours poring over the small print of a well-tuned racing machine.
Engineering solely tells a part of the story although. Once a race bike is constructed, it’s as much as the workforce’s designers to make it look good—whereas protecting the workforce’s sponsors joyful. An excellent MotoGP livery is arresting and memorable, and may look simply pretty much as good going 200-plus miles per hour because it does parked within the winner’s circle.
We’ve ranked this 12 months’s MotoGP race bike liveries from worst to finest, together with solely groups that run a single livery for each riders (sorry, LCR Honda). This 12 months’s crop has hits and misses in equal measure—so have a look, and pontificate within the feedback in the event you disagree.
10. Trackhouse Racing Trackhouse Racing is the one group on the planet to personal each a NASCAR and a MotoGP workforce, they usually need you to realize it. When they took over the defunct CryptoDATA RNF workforce on the finish of final 12 months, they broke the information with a pair of Stars and Stripes-themed Aprilia race bikes. At the time, I assumed they have been trolling us—however, because it seems, they weren’t.
Spare a thought for Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira, who must spend the 12 months racing these bikes with straight faces.
9. Yamaha Factory Racing Long earlier than vitality drinks took over from tobacco corporations as the first sponsors of motorsport, Yamaha boasted a few of the most iconic liveries in racing. The Japanese powerhouse’s Marlboro and Camel eras are remembered fondly—and even their newer Fila and Movistar liveries have been pure eye sweet. Not a lot for his or her present graphics.
For 2024, Yamaha Factory Racing’s Aldo Drudi-designed ‘camo’ livery persists for an additional 12 months. And, like most camo-based designs, it isn’t growing older nicely. The Yamaha mixture of gloss blue and gloss black will at all times look sharp—however perhaps subsequent 12 months they will commerce the jagged camo-inspired graphics for one thing rather less passé.
8. Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 It’s GASGAS’ second 12 months in MotoGP as a model, they usually’ve marked it with a livery that’s marginally extra fascinating than the plain purple paint job they sported final 12 months. The GASGAS emblem nonetheless dominates the aspect of the bike, however the all-red scheme is now punctuated by a recent hit of branding from new sponsor Red Bull.
It appears satisfactory for what it’s—a huge branding train. GASGAS’ manufacturing unit sponsorship of the enduring Tech3 workforce is admittedly only a method for KTM (GASGAS’ mum or dad firm) to run a second pair of bikes whereas getting GASGAS’ title on the market. On the plus aspect, it’s one of many least cluttered liveries on the grid this 12 months.
7. Ducati Lenovo Pecco Bagnaia’s 2023 marketing campaign culminated in him being the primary MotoGP racer to win back-to-back championships with the #1 plate, since Mick Doohan did it in 1998. Running that #1 plate for the second 12 months in a row, the Spanish rider’s seeking to make it a hat trick.
As for the Ducati he’s piloting, that’s wearing the identical all-red coloration scheme that Ducati has run since perpetually. You can’t blame the Italian manufacturing unit for sticking to a glance that has undoubtedly grow to be iconic in its personal proper, however it might have seemed loads higher with out the dashed shiny purple traces that run throughout its fairings.
Ducati purportedly added that motif to its MotoGP bike (and all of its different racing bikes, together with its new motocross contender) to suggest the curves of a race monitor. But the extra doubtless story is {that a} designer got here up with it, and a advertising and marketing govt put a press release-worthy spin on it. Either method, it seems like an afterthought.
6. Pertamina Enduro VR46 Fresh sponsorship means an all-new livery for the Valentino Rossi-owned Pertamina Enduro VR46 workforce. Rossi’s unmistakable signature yellow covers the nostril finish, fading right into a white rear half that’s lower by a purple sponsor stripe. It’s both essentially the most good, or the laziest, livery on the grid, relying in your perspective.
There are shades of the legendary Brawn GP Formula One automotive right here, and the bike is actually simple to identify on the monitor. But it’s additionally slightly garish, with an excessive amount of happening to make it actually stand out. Either method, it’s a marked step again from the swish Mooneys-sponsored livery that the VR46 workforce ran with final 12 months.
5. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Next to Ducati, Red Bull KTM is the least prone to make any important adjustments to their livery 12 months on 12 months. And I’m completely superb with that.
The KTM RC16 is drop-dead attractive in its conventional Red Bull colours. The typical matte midnight blue base appears prefer it was made for a MotoGP bike, and the Red Bull and KTM logos share high billing with out competing for house.
The KTM RC16 look isn’t going to vary any time quickly, as a result of it doesn’t must. Like its Formula One counterpart, it’s nicely on its technique to changing into a modern-day racing icon.
It additionally helps that the RC16 appears quick as heck standing nonetheless—and even quicker when Brad Binder and Jack Miller journey it with the form of reckless abandon that you just’d count on from a South African and an Australian.
4. Prima Pramac Racing With at least 4 groups operating Ducati equipment, it’s laborious to face out. Prima Pramac’s 2023 scheme was my favourite design of the 12 months; an eye-popping livery that put the workforce’s bike a lower above its counterparts.
Prima Pramac has doubled down on the purple and purple hues from final 12 months’s design however has ditched the white base in favor of slivers of black. The graphics are toned down too, providing a much less frenetic vibe than its predecessor.
It works… largely. While the heavier tackle Prima Pramac’s colours lacks the recent really feel of final 12 months’s white-based paint scheme, it’s nonetheless a courageous livery when you think about the quantity of purple it options. It additionally comes collectively properly with a rider onboard, since most of the graphics are carried by to the rider’s leathers.
3. Repsol Honda Repsol and Honda have fun three a long time collectively in MotoGP this 12 months. It’s the longest-standing partnership in two-wheeled motorsports, and has yielded 15 World Championship titles from six World Champions, 183 premier class wins, and 455 podiums. It’s additionally given the game a few of its most memorable bike designs.
Repsol and Honda’s partnership is altering although, and that’s mirrored within the RC213V’s 2024 livery. The Repsol emblem is not the centerpiece of the design, taking second billing subsequent to Honda’s branding. But the general design is not any much less impactful.
The new design nonetheless options splashes of Repsol’s orange and purple, however provides a dominant navy part that offers the bike an all-business vibe. And the black bits you see aren’t simply flat black both—they’re lined in a ghosted checkered sample, set towards corresponding carbon fiber bits.
The shiny orange wheels from Honda’s 2023 contender wouldn’t go amiss, however I’m nitpicking right here.
2. Gresini Racing I ranked Gresini’s ultra-fresh Pantone 2122 blue livery third final 12 months, however it deserves extra recognition. Few designs on the grid this 12 months (or lately, in reality), are fairly as nicely put collectively as this.
Gresini’s 2024 livery is a continuation of final 12 months’s aesthetic, with a couple of well-judged tweaks. There’s slightly extra visible motion within the purple stripes which are set towards the powder blue, and there’s been a modest reshuffle of the sponsor logos.
It’s one other design that pairs nicely with the rider’s leathers, and it nonetheless options the identical neat little touches it did earlier than, like a touch of white on the within of the fairing’s aero wings. It’s additionally the best-looking Ducati on this 12 months’s line-up.
It appears so good that I may virtually forgive Gresini for ditching Fabio Di Giannantonio in favor of Marc Marquez for this season. Almost.
1. Aprilia Racing In uncooked type, the Aprilia RS-GP is among the best-looking bikes within the MotoGP paddock. But, as Trackhouse Racing has confirmed, its livery could make or break it.
Aprilia’s manufacturing unit workforce has caught to their tried-and-true coloration palette of black, purple, and purple, however they’ve sharpened up the graphics and adjusted the stability of purple to purple for 2024. Those adjustments have created essentially the most cohesive, and hottest, livery on this 12 months’s MotoGP grid.
The genius is within the particulars. Jagged graphics on the entrance fender and brake cooling ducts flit between purple and purple, with the purple bit tracing a line to the again of the bike. The division of white and purple on the Aprilia emblem emblazoned throughout the fairing is echoed completely on the bike’s nostril wing, whereas the mismatched wheels serve the bike’s forward-biased visible.
At a look, it’s simple to put in writing it off as a matte black race bike with a couple of kinetic graphics. But get nearer, and it reveals itself as an excellent piece of graphic design.
Image sources: MotoGP.com, Ducati Press, KTM Press, Aprilia Press
Source: www.bikeexif.com