The first fairings appeared in the early 50s. In the beginning of the World Championship races, the bikes were fitted with a front plate carrying the number and a small canopy protecting the rider against the wind. This small protection began to grow until becoming a huge fairing that covered the bike completely. In the 50s this fairing, called "dolphin type fairing", was used by all makes; it covered the front tyre and the chassis-engine set completely. The lack of dimension and design limitations gave way to all kinds of inventions and gadgets, some of them with great aesthetic impact but little effectiveness. The purpose of the fairing was to protect the rider against the wind and at the same time reduce the air resistance rate of the bike as a whole. The most common material in that time was aluminium, a light and easy to shape material.

The different makes competing in the World Championship began to develop their own works and studies regarding the effectiveness of fairings, always trying to reduce the bike's resistance against wind and to improve aerodynamics. MotoGuzzi, as well as MV Augusta and Gilera, had a wind tunnel built between two mountains at their factory in Mandello del Lario. There, the engineers of the transalpine brand developed their designs for the bikes that would take part in the World Championship.

The first dimension and design limitations for fairings arrived in 1958. It was considered that they added too much weight to the motorbikes and that they were too dangerous in case of side wind, because of their large surface. From that year on the fairings had a design and dimensions similar to those used nowadays.

The materials used for the fairings also developed with the years. In the 50s and 60s the most commonly used material was aluminium, and with the 70s came the fibreglass, which was very easy, simple and cheap to repair.

When the first sponsors arrived in the world of competition, the fairing got a new function and suddenly became the most important publicity carrier of the motorbike. Sponsors began to put their logos and colours on the side surfaces of the fairing and thus began a new era of the Motorcycling World Championship.

A step forward was done in the early 90s with regard to the materials used to build fairings. Fibre gave way to carbon and later to the mixture of carbon and Kevlar. These two materials quickly found their way into the World Championship, standing out due to their excellent qualities: very resistant, light and easy to repair. But its price was certainly not in harmony with the rest of its features.

Today, these two components are still the main materials used to produce fairings. Their technical characteristics allow designing and creating much lighter fairings, since it is not necessary to apply so many layers of these materials to achieve the necessary stiffness. Another way to increase the stiffness of fairings is to introduce tiny transversal rods between the different carbon and Kevlar layers.

Despite the higher resistance of the fairings, thanks to the evolution of their design and components, riders' crashes are something inevitable, that usually leave these elements useless. For these cases, the Repsol Honda MotoGP team has a total of four complete fairing sets -1 front, 2 lateral, 1 seat, 1 back, 1 bottom, 1 tank cover and 2 mudguards - fitted to the four Repsol Honda RC211V of the riders, plus another four complete sets lacquered and fitted with all corresponding stickers. In addition, for extremely urgent cases, they have all the necessary tools and materials to repair fairings.

And every time the Repsol Honda MotoGP team needs to renew their fairing stock, they are ordered directly from HRC who orders them from one of their Japanese suppliers. They were produced in England before, because of costs and proximity, but every time a change was made in Japan, the communication with England was complicated and slow, so HRC finally decided to locate the production centre in Japan.

The complete fairing set of the new Repsol Honda RC211V weights approximately 6'5 Kg., including the total weight of the seat, front, side and bottom fairing, the back protection and the tank cover. Everything is made by hand and in small production quantities. Every time one of the riders of the Repsol Honda MotoGP team crashes, some 5.000 Euro end up on the track, only for the fairing! If the seat gets broken as well, which is more complicated to produce due to the high resistance needed to carry the riders' weight, add 8.000 Euros.

And considering these amounts, you may ask yourself how much a crash with greater consequences for the bike might cost... No doubt the new and explosive Repsol Honda RC211V is a highly competitive, unique and exclusive bike..., but also a very expensive one!.