KTM has had a less-than-expected season in MotoGP. Brad Binder’s podium in Qatar, followed by Miguel Oliveira’s victory in Indonesia, even hinted at a high-level season, but the truth is that the regular dispute for podiums that was desired did not happen. Pit Beirer, sporting director, acknowledged the failure to achieve the goals, and pointed to qualification as an area for improvement.
On the ServusTV antenna, the official assumed that the goals for this season were not achieved: ‘We wanted to finish regularly on the podium this year. But when you start the race and you only have the speed of the top teams after two or three laps, it’s complicated. However, the race doesn’t start after three laps later. We wanted to fight for the podium, we lack a little’.
Knowing that this is a very complicated class, with constant improvements and sometimes minimal distances, Beirer stressed that qualifying pace is an important weakness of KTM: ‘The fast lap really bothers us. In the last two races we finished 2.7s away from the winner. But nobody cares if you finish sixth. Our next key has to be to go through qualifying. We have to build bikes that are made for that. That will be our next big step’.