The Honda HRC Castrol team has unveiled its 2026 MotoGP livery, with few changes compared to 2025.
The 2026 season will be Honda’s second with Castrol as title sponsor of its factory team, the lubricants company coming on last year after the end of the team’s agreement with Repsol that stretched back to 1994.
Honda also retains both riders in 2026, Luca Marini and Joan Mir entering a third, and possibly last, year of their partnership at HRC. Both riders are out of contract at the end of this year and Honda will likely be in a position to attract some of the championship’s most valuable talent for the 2027 season and the beginning of the 850cc MotoGP regulations thanks to the impressive development it showed in 2025 and will look to continue during 2026.
Indeed, Honda is thought to have already acquired the services of Fabio Quartararo for 2027, although nothing is yet official.
It is also possible that Diogo Moreira, the LCR rookie for this year, could step up to the factory team next year. His HRC contract lasts until 2028, so the Japanese brand could theoretically make space for him in its 2027 factory team.
Moreira, and his LCR teammate Johann Zarco, was unveiled in his 2026 LCR Honda colours yesterday (1 February) in an online launch event, but the Brazilian was already on-track last week at the Sepang Shakedown test (29–31 January), setting a faster time fellow rookie Toprak Razgatlioglu on the last of the three days.
Honda’s jump up from the fourth to the third category of MotoGP’s concessions system in 2026 means its non-rookie race riders will get their first look at this year’s RC213V during this week’s official test in Sepang on 3–5 February.
