MotoGP’s iconic Repsol Honda partnership will cease at the end of the 2024 season.
Spanish petroleum company Repsol has served as the title sponsor of the works Honda premier-class team since 1995, with the likes of Mick Doohan (pictured below), Alex Criville, Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden, Casey Stoner and Marc Marquez all winning titles in its colours.
There had been persistent rumours in recent years, however, that Honda – whose MotoGP competitiveness has declined badly since it last won the title with Marquez in 2019 – and Repsol may be headed for a split.
It hadn’t materialised until now, but Marquez’s departure for 2024 seemingly left the partnership on particularly shaky ground – as evidenced by Repsol branding being relegated to just part of the motif on Honda’s works livery for 2024, rather than providing the dominant colours.
“Repsol is grateful for HRC’s [Honda Racing Corporation] commitment and dedication during all these years in which we have worked together,” a Repsol statement read.
“The multi-energy company will continue to be linked to motor racing to continue developing products and services of the highest quality.”
The news arrived – surely coincidentally – on a day in which Repsol-branded Hondas were already absent from MotoGP racing, as works riders Joan Mir and Luca Marini both withdrew from the San Marino Grand Prix due to illness.
What likely isn’t coincidence, however, is that the Repsol split comes amid a particularly woeful Honda season – in which it sits fifth of five factories in the manufacturers’ standings, with no top-10 grand prix finishes and no realistic chance to even reel in fellow struggler Yamaha, much less any of the other brands.
Honda will not be losing sleep about any of the commercial implications – apart from the fact that it is Honda, it has just saved a reportedly pretty handy amount through Marquez’s decision not to ride for it in 2024.
But the split with Repsol is, on the face of it, another blow for a suffering programme.
Yet Repsol Honda being no more feels right, and it may well be symbolically good for Honda. Just like it couldn’t meaningfully use Marquez this year so was right to let him go, its Repsol heritage right now feels like more of a burden than a blessing.
The RC213V is in bad shape. The guys tasked with riding it oscillate between emotionless pragmatism and barely concealed frustration. This is a rebuild that’s barely kicked off yet.
And, in this state, this is a team that does not need the Repsol Honda cross around its neck, the spectre of the dominant bikes ridden by Doohan, Rossi and Marquez. It does not need casual fans to tune in and go ‘wait, what do you mean the Repsols are running 18th and 19th?’.
Fresh start. Clean break. These Hondas do not sit on the shoulders of giants. Whatever this programme does from here on out will come after a climb from rock bottom.
The Repsol split, just like the Marquez exit, must simply be another push to start from scratch, unburdened by what had come before.
