Repsol Honda announces 2023 MotoGP team launch date

The launch, which will be after the opening test of the year at Sepang from February 10-12, will be held at ‘Campus Repsol’ in Madrid, Spain.

Repsol began its title sponsorship of the factory Honda team in 1995. The now familiar colours have been taken to title glory by Mick Doohan (4), Alex Criville (1), Valentino Rossi (2), Nicky Hayden (1), Casey Stoner (1) and Marc Marquez (6).

But the celebrations came to an abrupt halt with Marc Marquez’s arm injury in the opening round of 2020. Repsol Honda has been winless for two of the three seasons since, with Marquez managing just one podium last year, in-between battling diplopia and further arm surgery.

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Fortunately for Marquez and Repsol Honda, the pain and lack of movement that has tormented the Spaniard in recent years looks to have been substantially eased by last year’s bone realignment surgery.

The spotlight thus falls on the new RC213V to deliver, with ex-Suzuki technical boss Ken Kawauchi brought in to revamp the floundering project.

Mir, who took Kawauchi’s GSX-RR to the 2020 MotoGP title, joins the project in place of Pol Espargaro and will be seeking to become the first rider other than Marquez to win on a Repsol Honda since Dani Pedrosa in 2017.

Between them, Marquez and Mir have won ten world titles in all grand prix classes.