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 main points of a well-tuned racing machine.
Engineering solely tells a part of the story although. As soon as a race bike is constructed, it’s as much as the workforce’s designers to make it look good—whereas conserving the workforce’s sponsors blissful. A great MotoGP livery is arresting and memorable, and may look simply nearly 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 greatest, 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 hold forth within the feedback in the event you disagree.
10. Trackhouse Racing Trackhouse Racing is the one group on this planet to personal each a NASCAR and a MotoGP workforce, and so they need you to understand it. After 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. On 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 have to spend the 12 months racing these bikes with straight faces.
9. Yamaha Manufacturing unit Racing Lengthy earlier than power drinks took over from tobacco firms as the first sponsors of motorsport, Yamaha boasted a number 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 Manufacturing unit Racing’s Aldo Drudi-designed ‘camo’ livery persists for an additional 12 months. And, like most camo-based designs, it isn’t getting old properly. 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. Crimson Bull GASGAS Tech3 It’s GASGAS’ second 12 months in MotoGP as a model, and so they’ve marked it with a livery that’s marginally extra attention-grabbing than the plain pink paint job they sported final 12 months. The GASGAS emblem nonetheless dominates the facet of the bike, however the all-red scheme is now punctuated by a contemporary hit of branding from new sponsor Crimson Bull.
It appears to be like satisfactory for what it’s—a huge branding train. GASGAS’ manufacturing unit sponsorship of the enduring Tech3 workforce is basically only a manner for KTM (GASGAS’ father or mother firm) to run a second pair of bikes whereas getting GASGAS’ identify on the market. On the plus facet, 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. Working 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 without end. You’ll be able to’t blame the Italian manufacturing unit for sticking to a glance that has undoubtedly turn out to be iconic in its personal proper, however it might have appeared rather a lot higher with out the dashed vibrant pink 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 observe. However the extra doubtless story is {that a} designer got here up with it, and a advertising and marketing government put a press release-worthy spin on it. Both manner, it looks like an afterthought.
6. Pertamina Enduro VR46 Contemporary 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 minimize by a pink 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 Components One automobile right here, and the bike is actually simple to identify on the observe. Nevertheless it’s additionally slightly garish, with an excessive amount of happening to make it actually stand out. Both manner, it’s a marked step again from the swish Mooneys-sponsored livery that the VR46 workforce ran with final 12 months.
5. Crimson Bull KTM Manufacturing unit Racing Subsequent to Ducati, Crimson Bull KTM is the least more likely to make any important modifications to their livery 12 months on 12 months. And I’m completely tremendous with that.
The KTM RC16 is drop-dead beautiful in its conventional Crimson Bull colours. The everyday matte midnight blue base appears to be like prefer it was made for a MotoGP bike, and the Crimson Bull and KTM logos share high billing with out competing for area.
The KTM RC16 look isn’t going to vary any time quickly, as a result of it doesn’t have to. Like its Components One counterpart, it’s properly on its approach to turning into a modern-day racing icon.
It additionally helps that the RC16 appears to be like 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 a minimum of 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 minimize above its counterparts.
Prima Pramac has doubled down on the pink 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 really works… principally. Whereas the heavier tackle Prima Pramac’s colours lacks the contemporary 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. However the total design isn’t any much less impactful.
The brand new design nonetheless options splashes of Repsol’s orange and pink, however provides a dominant navy part that provides 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 in opposition to corresponding carbon fiber bits.
The intense 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 in recent times, in actual fact), are fairly as properly 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 pink stripes which might be set in opposition to the powder blue, and there’s been a modest reshuffle of the sponsor logos.
It’s one other design that pairs properly 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 to be like so good that I may nearly forgive Gresini for ditching Fabio Di Giannantonio in favor of Marc Marquez for this season. Virtually.
1. Aprilia Racing In uncooked kind, the Aprilia RS-GP is likely one of the best-looking bikes within the MotoGP paddock. However, 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, pink, and purple, however they’ve sharpened up the graphics and adjusted the steadiness of pink to purple for 2024. These modifications 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 pink, with the purple bit tracing a line to the again of the bike. The division of white and pink 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 jot down it off as a matte black race bike with a couple of kinetic graphics. However get nearer, and it reveals itself as a superb piece of graphic design.
Picture sources: MotoGP.com, Ducati Press, KTM Press, Aprilia Press
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