Repsol : Marc Márquez and Jorge Lorenzo celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Repsol Honda Team

The Repsol Honda team presented today in Madrid the 2019 squad that will seek to continue the winning streak in the MotoGP World Championship. This season, the team's riders will include Marc Márquez and Jorge Lorenzo, champions in eight of the last nine seasons.

The season, which begins on March 10th in Qatar, will be a special one for both companies, as it coincides with the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Repsol Honda team. Also present at the event were the two riders from the first team in 1995: Mick Doohan and Àlex Crivillé.

The event featured speeches from Antonio Brufau, Repsol Chairman, and Tetsuhiro Kuwata, Director of the Honda Racing Corporation (HRC). They were joined by Begoña Elices, Repsol's Executive Managing Director of Communication and the Chairman's Office; Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna (commercial rights holder for the MotoGP World Championship); Jorge Viegas, President of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM); and Manuel Casado, President of the Real Federación de Motociclismo Española (RFME)..

Repsol and Honda have the most successful alliance in the MotoGP World Championship, with 401 races completed, 168 races won, and 14 world titles. This partnership has become synonymous with success and technological evolution, embodied by the close relationship that exists between the research centers of Honda in Saitama (Japan) and the Repsol Technology Lab in Móstoles (Spain). This relationship has led to four world titles for Mick Doohan; the first World Championship in the 500cc category for a Spanish rider (Àlex Crivillé, in 1999); and the youngest MotoGP champion in history, Marc Márquez

The Repsol Honda event coincides with this year's celebration of the 50th anniversary of Repsol's participation in the motorsport sponsorship. In 1969, Repsol became the first Spanish company to display its logo at motorsports competitions, and in 1971 began its history in motorbike championships with its support of Ángel Nieto, who sported an 'R' on his bike. He was followed by the World Rally Championships of Carlos Sainz, the Formula 1 debut of Pedro Martínez de la Rosa, the Dakar Rallies of Nani Roma and Marc Coma, and the 24 world titles of Toni Bou, among many other successes.

During his speech at the event, Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau emphasized that 'we are proud to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Repsol Honda team. This alliance is a way of demonstrating that every year we can improve both our fuel and our lubricants, thanks to the collaboration between the engineers and everybody involved in the team. This is a very competitive environment and our alliance has been very successful, so we would like to thank Honda for all their effort, talent and contribution to this team. I hope we can celebrate a great 2019 and that this collaboration between Repsol and Honda continues to be as strong as ever.'

The company's involvement goes far beyond sports, however. The researchers at the Repsol Technology Lab have been working since the mid-1990s on custom manufacturing of the best fuels and lubricants, and in 2018 they dedicated around 10,000 hours to the competition program. For this season, they have produced approximately 6,000 liters of lubricant and 40,000 liters of fuels for the Repsol Honda team. High-level competition allows for the evolution of products in extreme conditions, which will later benefit all of the company's customers.