Former Motocross rider for the Austrian firm, Pit Beirer found refuge there after his accident which caused him to lose the use of his legs during the 2003 Bulgarian Grand Prix. Endowed with exceptional strength of character, he quickly established himself as Sports Director of the Off-road program before extending his influence over all of Ktm's competition.
This interview, carried out just before the testing at the Red Bull Ring (see Ktm report here), highlights how these, despite the first confrontation with the competition, were ultimately anecdotal, so much so that the Austrian manufacturer's will seems to be established in the long term, and at the highest level!
The fact that Pol Espargaró and Bradley Smith are joining you is big news, so now the bike has to match the level of these riders. You must be excited to move in this direction…
“When you talk about projects where I'm not sure where it's going to go, then that's a big one. I have gained a lot of confidence over the last few months thanks to the introduction of the right people. The guys have already made the team very strong. When we started, I had the people to take the first steps, but not those capable of fine-tuning a bike to woo a MotoGP rider to the top. The combination of all these people now is fantastic. The engineers at our company have some remarkable ideas and technology, but they hadn't worked with a MotoGP at this level, and the combination with the track operations guys… you should see it. It can't be better! They put so much energy into building the new race shop. I'm impressed with the level of confidence the drivers have put in us and they've given us a lot of credit by doing that. »
Did you have to make them an aggressive offer? After all, it was an untried motorcycle...
“No, I was really surprised to see the confidence they had in us to have the bike ready. They know very well what we've done so far in competition and how successful we've been, and that if we're going to do something, then we're doing it right. And – phew! – this confidence has become a form of pressure! It was nice to see, but you can observe how these guys ride on the track and what their best results are, so now we have to provide them with a bike that is at least as good as the one they have to fight at the same level. For sure we will start slightly behind, because they have fantastic bikes at the moment, but on the other hand we can only do these last steps with the right riders. So for us there's so much choice for the set-up of the bike that it's really important to have everything in place and then we'll go on the Monday after Valencia when they can ride on it. Afterwards, it will depend on how quickly we are able to work on their wishes, between Valencia and Qatar. Mika [Kallio] is doing a fantastic job for us developing the bike now, and thanks to the times we compared with the race times at Jerez, Brno and Mugello, we know a lot more. This is just the start of a very long-term project and, for sure, we can't just enter MotoGP and make up the numbers. We won't give up until we play with them, that's for sure. »
