On the occasion of the combined Trackhouse launch in the USA, the design of the Aprilia RS-GP25 of Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura was unveiled – Gulf as new sponsor
MotoGP action on the track is not yet available again, but the winter break is over in a way anyway. On Tuesday, the first of the MotoGP team presentations for 2025 took place. It was the presentation of Trackhouse Racing. The US-based team is the second Aprilia team in the premier class of the MotoGP World Championship from 2024. In 2025, Trackhouse-Aprilia will compete with Raul Fernandez (Spain) and newcomer Ai Ogura (Japan).
The venue for the Trackhouse launch in 2025 was Charlotte in the US state of North Carolina. Justin Marks’ racing team is based there. However, this primarily applies to the NASCAR department, not the MotoGP department. The MotoGP program is run from the Aprilia factory in Noale, Italy. Nevertheless, Charlotte was chosen as the location for the season presentation because this time it was a combined presentation.
In addition to the design of the two MotoGP bikes for Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura, one of the designs for the NASCAR cars of Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez and Shane van Gisbergen was also presented. Van Gisbergen is the new third full-time driver in the team’s expanded NASCAR program. The design shown on Tuesday matches the new MotoGP design.
In the MotoGP program of Trackhouse, the US oil company Gulf has been landed as a new sponsor during the winter. The Trackhouse design 2025 is dominated by the Gulf house color light blue. There are also yellow and gray accents.
The Gulf logo in the classic orange is relatively small. The stars and stripes look, which was used in the 2024 MotoGP season, has completely disappeared from Trackhouse.
Technically, the Aprilia bikes ridden by Fernandez and Ogura in the 2025 MotoGP season are both the current RS-GP25 specification. The Trackhouse team will thus have the same material at their disposal as the Aprilia factory team, which will field two newcomers in 2025: world champion Jorge Martin (coming from Pramac-Ducati) and Marco Bezzecchi (coming from VR46-Ducati).
This means that Trackhouse rider Raul Fernandez is the only one of the four Aprilia riders in 2025 who does not have to get used to a new environment and new technology. Fernandez’s teammate Ai Ogura is the 2024 Moto2 world champion and one of three MotoGP rookies in 2025. Ogura made his debut in the Trackhouse team as Miguel Oliveira’s successor at the Barcelona test in November 2024.
In the 2024 MotoGP season, Trackhouse Racing’s first, the team’s best results in the Grands Prix were two sixth places (Barcelona and Sachsenring) and a second place in the sprints (Sachsenring).
Incidentally, the Aprilia factory team with Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi is the second of eleven MotoGP teams to present itself, directly after Trackhouse-Aprilia. In this case, the design of the two RS-GP25s will be unveiled in Milan (Italy) on Thursday this week (January 16).