2021 will therefore have been Mike Leitner's last season as manager of the official KTM team in MotoGP. A change in the organization which was presented as a carefully considered decision between all parties. Moreover, the one who leaves his place pointed out that he himself had strongly suggested the name of his successor, Guidotti. However, when Leitner returns to the subject, we still note that everything was not that simple...
Mike leitner no longer in charge of the factory team KTM in MotoGP, but it still remains in the hands of the manufacturer. So to speak, he was placed on a sort of unavailability while awaiting his future missions. An unmarked sequence which betrays the fact that what brought him there was not entirely premeditated for a long time... The person concerned also admits it half-heartedly on speedweek : " a change in the MotoGP team structure has been mentioned several times, so it's not entirely surprising » he begins before blurting out: “ but it still happened a little faster than expected. I have to admit it ».
An admission that requires clarification: “ together with Stefan Pierer, Hubert Trunkenpolz and Pit Beirer, we spoke openly beforehand about the fact that as team leader, I can no longer make the greatest contribution to this project. This view also came from my side. The decision was made after the last test in Jerez ».
« As I said, this topic has been discussed for a long time. There were several candidates for the position of team leader. Francesco Guidotti was one of them. I spoke to him about it myself at the Valencia Grand Prix and at the Jerez tests in November ". Then he specifies: “ I was not released. I have a sole proprietorship, as is often the case in racing. And my KTM contract runs until the end of 2022 ».
Mike leitner takes stock of his journey since the debut of the RC16: “ I've had so many different titles at KTM since January 2015, I don't even remember them all. I have all the training, as chief engineer and so on. I also started at KTM in 2015 as a consultant. When I started there there were only a handful of people working on the MotoGP project ».
Mike Leitner: “notre sport consiste à faire fonctionner les pneus"
« Over the past seven years, we have achieved something huge together at KTM Racing Factory. I will definitely come to a few Grands Prix, where I will keep my eyes open and collect my impressions. I will see everything from a different point of view. If I see something that I think can be improved, I will share my ideas with Pit Beirer. Stefan Pierer also said he would like to know my opinion he said.
Mike Leitner ends by recalling the context of the last season and its progress, which led him to resign himself to repositioning himself: “ we must take into account that it was the first season where we no longer had any concession advantage in the regulations. We had to change the way we worked, we had to test differently and faced challenges as a result ».
« Our sport is making tires work. If it doesn't work, you can't assert yourself. Sometimes the whole package works right away and other times you have problems in the first free trials and then it's difficult to resolve them. We need to find solutions in this regard at KTM and we will work hard for this ».
