until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
The entire 22-bike MotoGP grid will run retro liveries at this year’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone as part of the series’ celebration of it’s 75th season of racing.
Each team's special colours will be unveiled in front of fans in a televised ceremony on Thursday ahead of the August race weekend.
The eleven teams have been told to take inspiration from their own racing history, with each tasked with choosing vintage-inspired colour schemes that will be used throughout on all three days at Silverstone.
As part of that retro theme, BMW's safety cars are also set to sport historic designs while the podium ceremony will also have a distinctly throwback flavour.
The showcase of the new bikes will happen live in the Silverstone paddock, with televised coverage as well as access for fans in the paddock as part of the 'Day of Champions' fundraising event hosted every year by MotoGP’s charity partner Two Wheels for Life.
What colours should we see?
For some of MotoGP’s brands, the colours that we deserve to see for this event are quite straightforward.
Honda
Honda, of course, has its iconic red and silver scheme used when it first joined racing and made wildly successful in the hands of Mike Hailwood.
It’s a design Honda know how to use, too, given that it has in the past reinvented it as a special scheme for its Honda Team Asia Moto2 and Moto3 bikes.
Yamaha
Similarly, Yamaha has a pretty obvious choice with its iconic speed block colours.
And it doesn’t have to look far for inspiration either, given that test rider Cal Crutchlow has sported a red and white scheme based on that design for his recent wildcard appearances.
Ducati
Ducati may have a long history of racing in red, but its original racing colours were very different - and it would be fantastic to see its bikes once again sporting a chrome silver scheme.
It has toyed with that look before, most notably in World Superbikes with Troy Bayliss at Imola in his title-winning season (pictured above).
Satellite teams
Among the satellite teams, both LCR and Gresini have a chance to throw back to the most successful liveries used by team bosses Lucio Cecchinello and Fausto Gresini respectively.
Gresini has already dabbled with this by running a tribute to its late founder’s championship-winning 1987 bike (pictured above).
LCR can go a similar route with Cecchinello’s own history - or can do very little to modify the already retro-looking Castrol Honda scheme that Johann Zarco has been using this year.
As for Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team? Well, there’s more than enough colours from his own career that would be absolutely perfect. Hawaiian flowers, anyone?
