MotoGP 2019: Lorenzo to Ride For Repsol Honda Team in Two-Year Deal
Just days after former MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo won secured his first Ducati win in MotoGP, and a day after Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) announced that 2018 would be the last year for Dani Pedrosa on an HRC-prepped Honda, HRC has announced that Lorenzo will be riding for Repsol Honda Team in 2019 and 2020.
The HRC press release reads: “Honda Racing Corporation is pleased to announce the signing of three-times MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo. The Spanish rider will join the Repsol Honda Team for the next two years.
“From 2019, Lorenzo will become teammate to four-times MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez: two great champions with great talent and high hopes that will make a stronger team and contribute to the development of HRC.”
Lorenzo has had one of the most impressive careers in MotoGP history, with three MotoGP World Championships (2010, 2012, and 2015) on Yamaha YZR-M1 machinery.
To date in his premier-class MotoGP career, Lorenzo has 45 wins and 111 podiums in 177 starts. Lorenzo also has two World Championships in the former 250cc class, scoring back-to-back crowns in 2006 and 2007 for Aprilia.
Lorenzo has ridden for Honda in the past. In 2005 he rode for Honda in the 250cc class. Lorenzo finished in fifth place that season, his maiden year in the 250cc class, with six podiums, but no wins.
In two years with the Ducati Team, Lorenzo has struggled. Although he won in Mugello on Sunday, in 24 starts on the Ducati, he scored just 178 points and found himself on the podium just four times.
Lorenzo finished seventh in the 2017 MotoGP World Championship Series, his lowest placing in GP racing since he was 12th at the end of the year in the 125cc class in 2003. Lorenzo’s worst year on a Yamaha was a fourth place at the end of the 2008 campaign.
Replacing Jorge Lorenzo on the factory Ducati is Danilo Petrucci. The Italian has been strong on the Independent Team Pramac Racing Ducati, finishing a best of second at Le Mans this year.
