As Repsol will not extend its 30-year partnership with Honda’s MotoGP factory team, HRC is close to an agreement with Castrol as its successor for 2025
Although it has been an open secret for months that the collaboration between the Honda factory team and title sponsor Repsol will come to an end at the end of 2024, Honda’s racing department HRC was officially informed by Repsol on the Sunday of this year’s San Marino Grand Prix in Misano of its intention not to renew the contract.
With a short statement issued on September 8, immediately after the first of this year’s two Misano races, Repsol officially put an end to a 30-year relationship that has recently lost some of its importance, mainly due to the departure of Marc Marquez.
With the end of the longest-running alliance in the premier class of the MotoGP World Championship confirmed – one that began in 1995 and has since produced 15 drivers’ titles, 10 constructors’ titles and 183 Grand Prix victories – our colleagues at Motorsport.com Spain.
Honda has already reached an agreement with Castrol. The British fuel and lubricants manufacturer has been one of the main sponsors of the Lucio Cecchinello-owned satellite Honda team LCR for years. Currently, Castrol is one of the main sponsors on Johann Zarco’s bike.
The new agreement between Castrol and the Honda factory team will not jeopardize the existing one with the LCR team. It is assumed that the relationship between Castrol and the factory team in 2025 will not yet reach the status of a title sponsorship. However, depending on a number of parameters, the partnership could be expanded in the future.
After Marc Marquez’s move to Gresini-Ducati was officially confirmed in October 2023, the budget that Repsol pumps into the Honda factory team was significantly reduced. This became visually apparent from the fact that the Spanish oil company’s logo will no longer be as prominent on the factory Hondas in the 2024 MotoGP season.
Only on the overalls of Joan Mir and Luca Marini is the Repsol logo still in a central position. On the bikes, however, the Honda lettering is significantly larger than that of Repsol in the current season, with the Repsol logo appearing only in a much smaller form than before, in the lower part of the fairing.
Since the beginning of the year, the Honda factory team has been dominated by its own corporate colors red, blue and white, instead of Repsol’s orange. The fact that the team will still officially be known as the “Repsol Honda Team” until the end of 2024 is a gesture of goodwill from Japan.