Michael Scott | January 16, 2025
Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
Can Red Bull Save KTM?
KTM’s fight for survival is simultaneously agonizing and inspiring. Fresh news comes week by week of rejigged rescue plans from a bullishly hopeful management. And MotoGP waits nervously to discover whether we will even see the orange bikes at all in 2025.
Few could be more nervous than the four riders. And of the quartet, it is the most junior who is the most likely to be rescued, should the unthinkable happen, and KTM be forced to abandon 2025 before it has begun. This is currently considered unlikely, but not impossible.
There is only one really established KTM stalwart. South African Brad Binder has worn the orange since 2015 in Moto3, winning the title in 2016, and has ridden the MotoGP V4 since 2020, winning two races and with a title best of fourth in 2023. His current long-term contract is supposed to last until the end of 2026.
If KTM is forced to abandon MotoGP in 2025, could KTM stalwart Brad Binder—who’s been on the orange team since 2015—lose his ride? Photo: Gold & Goose
The two in the Tech3 team—formerly GasGas but for this year a second full KTM factory outfit—are both brand new to KTM and must now be pondering the wisdom of their decisions to leave their previous employers.
Maverick Vinales abandoned a secure position at Aprilia, citing the bike’s unstable performance as the cause of his erratic, although sometimes brilliant, results—the major highlight a double win at COTA last year.
Enea Bastianini’s chances of staying at Ducati were less clear-cut after his factory-team slot went to Marc Marquez. It’s hard, however, not to imagine that a return to the Gresini team, a straight swap with Marc, would have been impossible.
The greatest focus, however, seems to be on Pedro Acosta, promoted to the main factory team for his second year after his inspiring, if patchy, 2024 Tech3 debut. As Spain’s next great hope, he has the support of Dorna, and there is already talk of their influence finding a way to put him on one of last year’s title-winning Ducatis in an ad-hoc team, should the worst happen at KTM.
Many will recall KTM’s previous bail-out, way back in 2005. They were providing engines to Kenny Roberts for his Proton MotoGP team, and things weren’t going well, with performance problems from a horribly peaky V4. Then KTM abruptly abandoned the project mid-season, leaving the Britain-based team floundering.
Circumstances are very different now. KTM was a small player then; now it is a major manufacturer with an impressive range of motorcycles and global industrial links. The current self-administration affects more than 3500 employees. For this reason alone, efforts to navigate out of the crisis are likely to attract high-level support from banks and even the state.
Just what these potential backers will think about the importance of going racing puts the MotoGP team’s immediate future much in the balance and could overrule KTM’s pledge to continue MotoGP business as usual for 2025, contemplating quitting in 2026.
At best, assuming both teams continue for this season, development has already paused, and results will be hamstrung. Riders will be stuck with the prototype seen at the November post-Catalunya GP test, following midseason development in the hands of test rider Pol Espargaro (who, like fellow tester Dani Pedrosa, is also now without a job).
Last year’s bike didn’t win a race, but it was still good enough to be the best of the rest in both riders’ and constructors’ championships. Development stasis will boost Aprilia’s position, and maybe even give hope to Yamaha, in the challenge to Ducati.
But looking for positives in this dire situation is a fool’s game. There’s nothing good about it—for racing, for riders or fans. Quite the reverse, for in difficult economic times, with sports-bike sales faltering, it throws a question over the value of participation in MotoGP for the others, perhaps especially Aprilia.
Yet, in (more or less) the words of the Polish national anthem, all is not yet completely lost. With Liberty Media’s apparently imminent take-over of Dorna, monopolies commission willing, MotoGP will take a step into the milieu of Formula One, where the involvement of mainstream manufacturers is essentially peripheral, while the technical, sporting and business sides have a momentum all their own. It’s effectively an independent industry.
And one of its mainstays is Red Bull, which operates its own racing company with two teams, Red Bull Racing and RB, son of Toro Rosso.
Red Bull’s MotoGP paddock presence is strong in terms of personal rider sponsorship, but the factory KTM MotoGP team is very much the flagship for the mega-rich energy drinks company.
It would not be a giant step for Red Bull to add one (or even two) MotoGP teams to their portfolio, taking over the existing infrastructure, and saving not only a lot of big-time jobs in racing, but also grid numbers, while taking Ducati’s strongest challenger on to the next level.
Here’s hoping. CN
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