From Oliveira to Viñales, from Petrucci to Bastianini: the KTM "curse" of broken promises and burned-out riders

Who will race for KTM during MotoGP’s period of revolution? The current silence and doubts, alas, are nothing new...

Lately there’s been talk of reliability issues for KTM, plagued by several technical problems in every session of a GP, but there’s more. In terms of rider management, we unfortunately have to admit that the Mattighofen brand is not as solid as you’d expect. Over the years it has “burned” quite a few MotoGP riders, and this year the story seems to be repeating itself... What’s happening behind the scenes at KTM? We don’t know, but we can revisit several episodes that have occurred over the years.

In 2022, for example, Miguel Oliveira, still the most successful rider in MotoGP with KTM (4 wins, Binder with 2 is the only other KTM race winner), was surprisingly offered a “demotion” back to Tech3 from the factory team after the sudden signing of Miller, without the Portuguese rider being aware of it. The Tech3 option was rejected by Oliveira, who then moved to Aprilia Trackhouse. A few years earlier, in 2019, Johann Zarco lasted just half a season, struggling a lot, before risking his MotoGP career by ending the deal early without any plan B. Opportunities for a relaunch later came from LCR Honda and then with Ducati. That same year Hafizh Syahrin, a rider who had still managed top 10s the previous season, paid the price for Tech3’s switch from Yamaha to KTM, thus ending his very brief MotoGP career.

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In 2021 Iker Lecuona and Danilo Petrucci didn’t hold their tongues (rightly so) after being officially sidelined by KTM Tech3 during qualifying for the Styrian GP. An episode that caused quite a stir: the two riders, who were on track at the time, were literally blindsided. KTM then offered a sort of “consolation prize” to Petrucci by allowing him to do the Dakar, a surprise edition in which the rider from Terni even won a couple of stages, before the definitive split. Raul Fernandez, equally surprised by that KTM announcement and therefore “bound,” stayed one (unsuccessful) year at Tech3 before moving to Aprilia, then the RNF satellite team. His teammate Remy Gardner, the 2021 Moto2 world champion, left MotoGP after a 2022 to forget, moving to the Superbike World Championship with Yamaha.

Augusto Fernandez, who arrived in MotoGP in 2023 after the Moto2 title, was doing a good job in the premier class, showing encouraging signs in his rookie year. The arrival the following year of Pedro Acosta as his Tech3 teammate led to him being “sidelined” at KTM, and this year he moved into the test rider role for Yamaha. Jack Miller, who later moved to Yamaha Pramac, also found himself pushed aside to allow Pedro Acosta to step up to the factory team. Let’s finish with the present: Acosta now has a signed deal with Ducati in his pocket, Brad Binder seems close to being left out in the cold (this time meaning out of the KTM project) after years of loyalty, Maverick Vinales has openly expressed his bitterness about KTM’s previous promises and current changes of course, and let’s not forget Enea Bastianini, from GP winner with Ducati to “Where has he gone?” with the Austrian brand. In short, KTM’s problems are not in short supply...