You have to give credit to the factory Honda MotoGP team, they are true pillars of consistency, and have shown a strong commitment to using the same livery over, over, and over again each year.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this…per se. Good branding scholars will tell you the value of an iconic and unchanged marque, and having the same design on their race bikes certainly makes it easy on fans.
However, when it comes to launching your team for the next season, it creates the problem of people asking, “why should we care?”
This is because MotoGP teams no longer show their bikes for next season at the team launch events.
Instead, they just use the bikes from last year with this year’s paint…which in the case of the Repsol Honda team, it really just means it is last year’s bike that is under the unveiling sheet..
We suppose there is some news in seeing Alex Marquez alongside his brother, both in their MotoGP outfits. But, it is hard to get excited about the younger Marquez’s entry onto the MotoGP grid.
This is because Alex Marquez has a steep hill to climb if he wants to change the minds of many in the grand prix paddock, and so far his testing results have failed to excite – or stem any of the calls of nepotism aimed at the HRC camp.
To Honda’s credit, the Japanese outfit now has two storylines to offer MotoGP journalists: 1) Will Marc Marquez win the 2020 title (this is the big headline every year)? And 2), can Alex Marquez prove the doubters wrong with his rookie season. As we are fond of saying, only time will tell.
If you want to see photos of last year’s bike with Alex Marquez’s number on it, enjoy the high-resolution gallery below.
Photos: Repsol Honda
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