Three of the factory MotoGP teams have already revealed when and where they’ll reveal their team liveries and riders for the 2019 season. And comparing to recent years, Yamaha, Honda and Ducati will make big changes as to where they’ll do the team liveries reveal.
The first team to show its colors will be the Ducati Factory.
The Italian team usually does its reveal in the Madonna di Campiglio ski resort, in Italy, but next season the team led by Luigi Dall’Igna will show us their new colors and present Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci in Switzerland, on the 18th of January.
The new Desmosedici GP19 prototype will be more of an evolution and not a revolution compared to previous years, since the GP18, with which Dovizioso conquered second place in the championship, was already considered the best bike of the field.
The second team to show us its new colors will be the Repsol Honda factory team.
The Japanese team, which managed to conquer all MotoGP titles in dispute last season – Rider, Team and Manufacturers title -, keeps Marc Marquez as their main rider. But for 2019, Jorge Lorenzo is joining Honda Racing Corporation family, replacing Dani Pedrosa who is now a factory KTM test rider.
The Repsol Honda team will show the RC213V updated for 2019 in Madrid and not in Southeast Asia, as we’ve got used to in recent years, on January 23.
Last, but not least, the Yamaha factory team will also make big changes in the way they’ll show the 2019 spec YZR-M1 prototype.
For the last five seasons, when Movistar started sponsoring the team, the Yamaha team has held this special event in Spain. But this season, the factory Japanese team will have a new main sponsor, with Monster Energy replacing Movistar on the M1 fairings.
On the next February 4th, in Jakarta, Indonesia, the new colours of the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP team will be revealed, with the Iwata factory choosing Indonesia and Southeast Asia because of the impact this even can have on potential customers. We cannot forget that in Indonesia alone, 7 million motorcycles are sold every year!
For 2019, the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP team hopes that Valentino Rossi and Maverick Viñales are able to find the solution to the bikes performance problems, that held back both riders from achieving race wins and fight for the MotoGP title as expected.
During the first tests for next season, things haven’t gone completely well for them, with Viñales stating that the new spec M1 works better that the last one, but with Rossi saying the new prototype isn’t really an improvement as it should be.
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