KTM’s new majority stakeholder affirms commitment to motorsport, fueling optimism within the team
KTM’s Motorsport Director Pit Beirer was at the German Grand Prix to react to the news that Bajaj, the new majority stakeholder of the troubled Austrian company, intends to continue motorsport activities in the future.
“It’s good news,” Beirer said. “The company’s rebuilding. We sold more than 100,000 motorcycles in the first half year, which is looking all good. I have a great relation with our new CEO Mr (Gottfried) Neumeister. He’s a real racing fan and we’re planning the future.”
However, Beirer stopped short of confirming KTM’s participation beyond 2026, when its contract to maintain a presence in MotoGP runs out. “Bajaj said always that they won’t break any contracts. It’s not daily business as I have the green light from the company to plan.
“I’m working really hard to motivate our engineers and to get our bike working better. We had some very intense discussions at the start of the season about how we can make it work. Now it’s so nice to go back to our normal job. Company’s looking good, we have a solid base and KTM is looking to the future.”
As Neumeister watched on from pitlane at Brno, KTM enjoyed its best weekend of the year with Pedro Acosta, Enea Bastianini and Pol Espargaro all impressing.
“A lot of things came together this weekend,” explained Espargaro. “Historically we are fast here. This morning I was very quick with the used tyre. This helped all the guys think, ‘Okay, this retired guy is fast! We can really go faster than him!’ Also, when the track is super grippy as it is, Ducati mechanically generate this grip and we struggle a bit more than them. So when we have this natural grip with the track our guys are super quick and we can use it to be fast. Our bike works super good in these conditions.”
Of his own performance, Bastianini stated the fact he had never ridden at Brno on a Ducati was a help. “I never was here with the MotoGP bike and it was a small advantage for me because I was without any reference, any line and I started this GP with a different mindset and it’s been better.”
A sense of optimism now prevails within the Austrian factory for the first time this year. “I have a test on 30-31 July in Barcelona that we are going to do with Dani (Pedrosa),” said Espargaro. “And there are some updates about to come on the bike that are promising and we were putting a lot of effort on the test team.”
