Trackhouse Racing MotoGP Launch Photos And Press Release

By David Emmett |

Photos and the press release from Trackhouse Racing's launch of their 2025 MotoGP campaign:

TRACKHOUSE PRESENTS NEW SEASON LIVERIES & ATHLETE LINE-UP AHEAD THE 2025 NASCAR CUP SERIES & MotoGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Trackhouse brings new color scheme to the track for 2025:

Trackhouse Racing has, today, presented, a new livery for its NASCAR Cup Series and its MotoGP campaigns, together with the line-up of drivers and riders for both its teams. Incorporating vibrant blue and black base colors that have been a feature of the Trackhouse style since it first started racing in 2021 and adding accents in dayglo yellow, the covers came off one of its NASCAR Cup Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 cars and one of its Aprilia GP-RS MotoGP bikes at the team’s headquarters in Concord, North Carolina, revealing a distinctive and consistent design scheme for its 2025 season.

The Athlete line-up introduced the three Trackhouse NASCAR Cup drivers - #1 Ross Chastain, #99 Daniel Suarez and new for 2025, #88 Shane van Gisbergen, alongside its two MotoGP riders - #25 Raul Fernandez and rookie #79 Ai Ogura.

Trackhouse Racing NASCAR Cup line-up:

#1 Ross Chastain: Age 31 – Hometown: Alva, Florida

Ross Chastain became the driver of the No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Trackhouse Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2022. Wins at Talladega and the Circuit of Americas Road Course were highlights of the year eclipsed in the penultimate race of 2022 at Martinsville when Ross made the miracle move, subsequently named the "hail melon" to secure a spot in the Championship 4, capping off a remarkable inaugural year with Trackhouse Racing, finishing second overall. In the 2023 season he scored two Cup Series wins and in 2024 a further two victories brought his tally to five. For 2025, he continues in the #1 car for Trackhouse.

#99 Daniel Suárez: Age 32 – Hometown: Monterrey, Mexico

The only Spanish-speaking driver in the NASCAR Cup Series, Daniel made racing history in 2022 as the first Mexican-born and just fifth foreign-born driver to take the checkers, driving the No. 99 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Trackhouse Racing. The 32-year-old driver from Monterrey, claimed this history-making victory at the Toyota Save Mart 350, at Sonoma Raceway adding the accolade to those of being the first international champion in the 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series, as well as the 2017 and 2022 NASCAR All-Star Race Open Winner. In 2024, at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Suárez made history again winning in a three-wide finish with a 0.003 second lead, giving Daniel his second visit to Victory Lane. Now a dual US- Mexican citizen, he starts his 5th Cup season with Trackhouse in 2025.

#88 Shane van Gisbergen: Age 34 – Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand

Shane joined Trackhouse Racing for his first full season of NASCAR in 2024, running the full Xfinity Series schedule along with seven NASCAR Cup Series races. The New Zealander made an instant splash in 2023, winning the inaugural Chicago Street Race in his first NASCAR start. He became one of six foreign-born drivers to win a Cup Series race and the first driver since Johnny Rutherford in 1963 to win his first Cup Series start. Van Gisbergen is no stranger to success. He earned three Supercars Championships for Triple Eight Race Engineering in 2016, 2021 and 2022, plus 80 wins and 47 pole positions making him the fourth most successful driver in the Australian series. He’s also won the legendary Bathurst 1000 in 2020, 2022 and 2023.

Trackhouse’s unique Project 91 guest driver project propelled van Gisbergen onto the U.S. racing scene in 2023. The program is designed to expand the organization’s global reach by fielding a Cup Series entry for renowned international racing drivers. Formula One icon and 2007 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen first drove under the Project 91 flag at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International in 2022 and again at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on March 26. In 2025, Project 91 brings Indycar legend, Helio Castroneves, to the Daytona 500.

Trackhouse MotoGP Team line-up:

#25 Raúl Fernández: Age 24 – Hometown: Madrid – Spain

Raúl Fernández arrived in the Trackhouse Team at the beginning of the MotoGP project, as one of the youngest, most exciting, riders in the World Championship. Since the age of 11 years old, when he learnt his early racecraft on the tracks around Madrid, he has been ‘one to watch’. Rarely have rookies shaken up the intermediate Moto 2 class like Raul in 2021 when he blitzed the field with eight victories and only just missed out on the Championship crown, injury preventing him from securing vital points towards the end of the campaign. Having stepped up to the Premier class in ’22, his 2023 season, in MotoGP, ended strongly with a top 5 finish in the final race. In 2024, with Trackhouse, he led the Sprint race at the Catalunya Grand Prix and scored a top 6 finish in the Australian Sprint race. Heading into his 4th season in MotoGP, his third on the Aprilia RS-GP prototype making him the longest serving rider for the Noale marque, Raúl will pilot the #25 for Trackhouse.

#79 Ai Ogura: Age 23: Tokyo - Japan

Mid-year, in its first season, the Trackhouse MotoGP Team demonstrated its commitment to young developing talent and its ambitions for the future by signing Ai Ogura on a two-year deal. The brightest star to emerge from Japan in over a decade, Ai started on MotoGP’s first rung of the talent ladder as 14-year-old in the Asia Talent Cup and progressed up through Red Bull Rookies and Moto3 until, in 2024, he emphatically sealed the Moto2 World Championship crown. Ai calls Kiyose in Japan, home and will join the MotoGP grid at the age of 24, carrying the #79 on the front of his Trackhouse Racing RS-GP25

NASCAR v MotoGP:

The NASCAR Cup Series is the premier league of stockcar racing. The three Trackhouse Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 racecars weigh in dry at 3,200 lbs (1,451 kgs), push out up to 670 hp from their 5.86 liter (358 cubic inches) V8 engines and race wide-open on superspeedway oval tracks and shorter, tighter bowls, also visiting five road courses in the Cup Series schedule of 39 race weekends. Kick-off is on February 2nd, with the NASCAR CLASH, followed by the ‘big one’ at Daytona for the 500 – a race that this year will feature a fourth Trackhouse car, entered as Project 91 and piloted by the 4-time Indianapolis 500 winner, Helio Castroneves.

The MotoGP World Championship is the ultimate in two-wheel circuit racing. Trackhouse fields two Aprilia RS-GP25 prototypes, each of which weigh in at a minimum 346 lbs (157 Kilograms) and develop over 280 HP from their V4, 1000cc engine. The Championship in 2025 features 22 rounds, at road course tracks spread over 5 continents, each weekend including a Sprint race on Saturday and full distance Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Trackhouse MotoGP Team will start testing in Malaysia, initially with the Shakedown test for Ai Ogura, January 31 to February 2nd and then Raul will join him for the full test, starting on February 5th. The team will take part in the MotoGP 2025 Season Launch event in Bangkok on Sunday, February 9 and will unveil the final version of the Trackhouse Aprilia RS-GP25 at Buriram ahead of Round 1 – the Grand Prix of Thailand - February 28 – March 2nd.

RAUL FERNANDEZ

“The new bike looks amazing. I’m really happy to go out with these colors and I’m sure we will be well seen on tv and from the grandstands. It’s quite different to the rest of the grid. Also, it’s nice to have a huge brand like Gulf on board now. We have a new challenge, it’s a new year and we have new goals. This year will hopefully be a really nice one. We are all working hard - I was working on myself a lot during the winter and I think it’s going to be a great season. Let’s go and enjoy it!”

AI OGURA

“First of all, I would like to say thanks to everybody at Trackhouse. I’m really happy that we can get the season started soon and I’m just excited about this year. It will be a big challenge for me, but I have my guys in the team, they are all motivated, the atmosphere inside the team is great. I can’t wait to start the first test in Sepang! Our design is absolutely fantastic! I can’t wait to ride this beautiful bike and I’m excited to see what we can do this season.”

DAVIDE BRIVIO - TEAM PRINCIPAL

“This is another important moment because we are introducing our second year as Trackhouse Team. The first one has been a learning year and we will try to use everything we learned before in this second season, where we have many new things coming up. Of course, a new design of the bike, which goes more towards the Trackhouse image direction and we have an in place agreement with Gulf which means another exciting design. It’s a real privilege to be involved in a team with such an iconic brand - a brand, which I personally always admired in the motorsport environment. We can’t wait to show our special livery, which I believe will be something great and unique in MotoGP.”

“Speaking about our riders, Raul remains with the target to be stronger and stronger and then we have the big change with Ai, our rookie in MotoGP. He is Moto2 World Champion, which is raising expectations. We start this season with ambitions to improve what we did last year and also the team and not just the riders are learning more and more. I’m confident that we will see Raul stronger, with more experience and it will be nice seeing Ai growing up, improving race by race, which is the target. We are really looking forward to it and are very excited. We are well prepared, from physical and technical point of view. Let’s see what we can expect from this season.”

JUSTIN MARKS - TEAM OWNER

“I am really excited. In that first year in a new championship there were a lot of learnings for me and for a number of people on the team. It’s like now we are starting to figure out how the MotoGP program fits into the big Trackhouse picture. Everybody is just so excited that we are competing in this championship. I’m excited for 2025. I think the Aprilia bikes are going to be fast, Raul continues to get better, super excited about Ai coming onboard. We’re ready to go testing and get the ball rolling on the season."

"We are super excited to have Raul. There were times in 2024 where he showed incredible speed. He is taking a big step this off season in his preparation, in his mentally, kind of understanding where he needs to be on the race weekend in his mind. We are excited about that and I think there’s podiums in our future. If the bikes are there, the speed is there, certainly there’s a lot of talent, with mechanics and engineers. We showed already that we have the pieces and Raul’s got the talent to be able to compete at the front in MotoGP. So, certainly, we are looking for more of that."

"On the other side, I love rookies. I love taking this undefined, raw talent, putting them in these new positions, putting the support in around them and be able to mature into top level professional athletes. When we signed Ai and announced that he was joining the team, I don’t think he was leading in Moto2. He was in this battle for the championship and as soon as it was public that he’s going to join our team, he just went on to tear it up and won the Moto2 World Championship. This really shows what he is made of. If you look at the crop of rookies, when you look at the new guys coming into MotoGP in 2025, what else can you want than the reigning Moto2 World Champion? We are super excited about his talent."

"The greatest milestones for our company is aligning ourselves with some of the greatest brands of the world. We have done this for the Nascar side. Getting these iconic brands like Gulf to the Trackhouse journey, to invest in us and to grow with us, is hugely important to me. I was telling the Gulf executive going through this process, there’s these amazing moments in the history of motorsport and for a brand like that to be aligned with Trackhouse having the Gulf logos on the bike is humbling, amazing and we can’t wait to get that bike on the racetrack. It’s pretty special.”

Trackhouse MotoGP Team:

Trackhouse Entertainment Group owner Justin Marks announced, back in December 2023, that his organization will field a MotoGP World Championship team in 2024, a move expanding its reach across the global motorsports world and building on its success in the NASCAR series. Just six weeks later the Team pulled back the curtains on its season-opening design with two of its Aprilia MotoGP prototype bikes and introduced #88 Miguel Oliveira and #25 Raul Fernandez as its pilots. One week later, Trackhouse Racing MotoGP rolled out onto its pit-road debut at Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia.

Entering its sophomore year in the premier league of two-wheel racing, the Trackhouse MotoGP Team continues with 24-year-old #25 Raul Fernandez who, from the age of 11 years old, learnt his early race-craft on the tracks around Madrid. As a rookie in the intermediate Moto 2 class Raul took eight victories and only just missed out on the 2021 Championship crown. Moving up to MotoGP in 2022, Raul signed for the Aprilia Factory in 2023 and joined the new Trackhouse team at its launch in 2024. After another learning year on the RS-GP Aprilia, Raul signed for two further years with Trackhouse and will be the only rider with previous racing experience of the bike as the 2025 season commences.

Mid-year of its first season, the Trackhouse MotoGP Team demonstrated its commitment to young developing talent and its ambitions for the future by signing Ai Ogura on a two-year deal. The brightest star to emerge from Japan in over a decade, Ai started on MotoGP’s first rung of the talent ladder as 14-year-old in the Asia Talent Cup and progressed up through Red Bull Rookies and Moto3 until, in 2024, he emphatically sealed the Moto2 World Championship crown. Ai calls Kiyose, Japan, home and will join the MotoGP grid at the age of 24, carrying the #79 on the front of his Trackhouse Racing RS-GP25


The new Trackhouse Racing livery for the 2025 season 
 


Trackhouse's 2025 riders, left Raul Fernandez, right Ai Ogura 
 


Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura with the 2025 Trackhouse bike 
 


Raul Fernandez 
 


Ai Ogura 
 


Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks (center) with on the left, the NASCAR team, on the right, the MotoGP team 
 

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Comments

..I’m surmising they’re either awaiting bigger commitments from their sponsors-or ones not yet signed up-and that the livery will be subject to change(s) as the season progresses. Trackhouse do seem to have a fresh way of doing things so I wonder if they’re going down a similar presentation to LCR and the livery rotates dependant on the country they’re in. Be interesting either way..

Did they fly Ai and Raul to Charlotte just for that? Poor guys. 

Trackhouse was supposed to show the parochial MotoGP paddock how modern marketing works. Instead they're rehashing what LCR has done for years.  

...and not a good look. A motogp launch that is the warm-up act for the Nascar launch? In Charlotte. With almost no sponsors on the bodywork. 

I do want to believe in Trackhouse, I am excited that they are here, but have to admit I'm underwhelmed at the moment. I don't mind the blue bike but I had assumed it would be all Gulf retro and not just a few stickers.

Nice colours. Two Ducati have morphed into two Yamaha for 2025. Four KTM may struggle for their own reasons. If Aprilia can return to some sort of form and find some consistency it could be a good year for their riders. 

Nup, not a fan. Trackhouse, for me, are continuing a trend of underwhelming decisions.

Their rider line up seems destined to have them battling amongst the Honda’s, which is to say they will be…er…”promotionally challenged” (invisible).

Then you hear of the Gulf sponsorship, and images of Gulf Porsche 917’s, Steve McQueen in “Le Mans, GT40’s etc leap to front of mind and you’re aesthetically salivating….only to see this (to steal someone else’s peffectly apt description) club racer scheme that doesn’t so much scream “Gulf!” as whimper. The small logo aside I don’t think anybody would pick the association.

A massive opportunity gone begging.

Trachouse is moving forward right now friend. Bigger picture, Ogura can do the business and we needn't react to a "blank canvas" livery. Me? I welcome our Rizla-esque light blue serious entry, helmed by our good friend Davide. 

Please pardon a few of the obvious American etiquette misteps. They will be needing more of them. If you shield your eyes from Raul too, what remains is a lovely Team. 

Did I miss the Gulf orange on it? YES! But await the sponsor package, it will be STRONG.

KTM too will pull through fine. Early in the biz cycle haircut. Put eyes on industry behemoth Honda to catch such small fish as Orange and Aprillia, and enjoy their race w Yamaha. All the way back is a brilliant show!

Smurf blue funny. Rizla blue like Suzuki. Let's see what it looks like at round one. 

Who writes the press release?! It's American not the English language. Some of those sentences are painful ouch!

Shane Van Gisbergen is quite good at steering a car. Bathurst is one of the greatest circuits. I raced 250s there in 82, 83 & 85. Watch this https://youtu.be/_sosf4mYUv4?si=_uTArQsxdzC1NRh1

Eighties superbikes on skinny tyres and TZs of various sizes. An incredibly young Mick Cole almost convinced me that Mount Panorama could be made safe to race motorcycles around.

Apical, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I was a camper up there year after year, watching Kel Carruthers slay them as a boy, Hansford and willing chopping up one and other, always in awe of the bravery of you racers. Kudos to you 

… I’ll take a few miss steps to have an American team in MotoGP, just wish we could have an American rider too. But to pile it on, the shade of blue doesn’t evoke Gulf to me at all. And the prominent Chevy bow tie (logo) in the photo with Raúl, Ai and the bike is interesting - will we see it on the bikes? - but a competent photographer would have moved a step to the right and not blocked the T in Trackhouse. 

I like the color scheme overall, definitely will echo the sentiment that it's a bit too sparse for MotoGP level; hopefully more sponsors are still being brought onboard. But the silver/blue at the end of last year was not great imo, so this is still an improvement.

I like it.

Just race it like that. The less sponsors on it, the better.

Car looks great too.


And I wouldn’t write off Ai before a wheel has been turned in anger…
He’s a diesel.

Hopefully the Aprillia riders won't get beat up all year by the Ducati guys.

First impression... I like the colors. The factory Aprillias look good predominantly in black, and the Trackhouse team color design looks great to me. Less busy without a bunch of stickers. I hope the project works out for them financially.