The French independent team dreamed for many years that a manufacturer would entrust it with factory motorcycles identical to the official team's machines, and not motorcycles from the previous year. The proposal finally came from KTM, which will therefore equip four riders with their latest motorcycles for the 2019 to 2021 seasons, and more if they like. The pilots have not yet been defined, but the organization is already being considered by senior officials.
According to comments collected by Markus Zörweg for motorsport-magazin.com, who are " These two additional places in MotoGP were absolutely necessary for KTM. It's not just because there's this contract with Dorna that says you have to provide a second team if that's desired. This simply fits with our strategy », explains the Director of KTM Motorsport Pete Beirer in an interview with Motorsport-Magazin.com.
KTM is the only manufacturer represented in all three categories of the World Championship: Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP. Motorcycles are also made available for the Red Bull Rookies Cup, which serves as a preliminary stage for the World Championship. “ But we have nothing to gain by training so many young people and not having room to then use them in MotoGP. You can't always bring a rookie directly into the official team. The pressure is often too much », worries Beirer.
Regarding the possibilities offered to KTM by the expansion to four riders, the new task also involves a lot of additional work. “ Lots of people are already making MotoGP machines. Then, they build others and simply install the old ones, for example at Tech3. But it's not like that in MotoGP “, explains Beirer.
“We are already at the limit with what we are doing now. Some of our employees already work 18 hours a day. To be able to manage the project of a second racing team, we must set up an additional team of around ten employees in our company ».
If you are interested, here are the concrete proposals from KTM. (PS: no, it's not an April Fool's joke.)
Photo credit: Marcin Kin for KTM
