MotoGP Announces Huge Concession System Overhaul For 2024
After a dominant season for Ducati, MotoGP wants to bring the field closer together and announces a huge concession system overhaul.
Honda has adopted a new colour scheme for the 2025 MotoGP season following the departure of long-time sponsor Repsol.
Luca Marini and 2020 champion Joan Mir unveiled a red, white and blue Honda RC213V livery during Honda’s season launch in Jakarta. The team will represent the corporate colours of HRC.
On the occasion, the Japanese manufacturer also announced Castrol as a new sponsor to fill the gap left by Repsol. The team will be rebranded to Honda HRC Castrol in 2025.
In recent years Castrol served as a title sponsor for one of LCR’s bikes, and last year Johann Zarco’s green Castrol LCR machine was usually Honda’s best-performing MotoGP bike.
HRC ended up at the bottom of the teams’ standings, even behind its satellite team LCR, with the marque finishing last in the constructors’ standings with just 75 points.
Its factory riders Joan Mir and Luca Marini finished last in the riders’ standings, while the brand’s best result was an eighth-place finish by LCR’s Johann Zarco at a wet Thai GP.
With Repsol out, Honda is promoting its own racing department in 2025, in a variant of the design already seen on its bikes in the World Superbike Championship.
The most successful manufacturer in premier class history is also aiming to bounce back after its worst season in recent history, aided by the new concession system.
Along with Yamaha, it will get extensive freedom to test the bike this year with its race riders, including at the on-going shakedown in Sepang, as well as the ability to introduce more updates during the season, including new engines.
Honda was the final factory team to unveil its colours for the 2025 season, following Yamaha and KTM over the previous two days.
LCR is now the only team remaining to revealed its 2025 bike, having scheduled its launch on 8 February. You can find all team presentation dates here.
Official testing begins February 5th in Malaysia, before the championship moves to Thailand for the final two days of pre-season running ahead of the 2025 campaign getting under way on February 28th at Buriram. You can find all preseason testing dates here.
