Viñales–KTM, a truce after the sparks? Beirer speaks: extends an olive branch and leaves the door open for 2027

The back-and-forth between Viñales and KTM continues: Pit Beirer extends an olive branch to his current Tech3 rider.

KTM’s reply to Viñales’ latest statements was inevitable. The atmosphere remains very tense, but when asked about the matter today, Pit Beirer preached calm and postponed any discussion until after the summer break, with cooler heads. The Austrian brand’s motorsport director did, however, share his view on the current situation and reached out to the Spanish rider: he highlighted the physical troubles he has unfortunately run into, added that Tech3 is not a B-team, and stressed that a spot to race the 2027 MotoGP World Championship is still available.

“It’s no secret that we hoped he would be one of Tech3’s future riders. Last summer we talked about this possibility, and he told us not to worry about his health.” This is how Pit Beirer began on motogp.com during the MotoGP pre-qualifying sessions. “We waited, then the opportunity came to sign Alex and Fabio, and Maverick still wasn’t even close to his old physical form.” He emphasized this point: “We know what kind of rider he is, but there was this stupid crash in the rain, and since then things seem to have gone very badly.” The crux seems to be that Maverick Viñales didn’t want Tech3 but the factory team—hence the Spaniard’s anger. “Tech3 is not a B-team. Günther and the guys are working incredibly hard to build a fantastic team for the future,” Beirer underlined.

In the past, Günther Steiner had already stated he absolutely wanted to avoid having two rookies at Tech3. That appears to be the line of thinking confirmed by KTM as well. “We tried to give him time, to wait, to show us something. We then decided with Günther that one of the two riders will be a young talent coming up from Moto2, but we want someone experienced alongside him.” Hence the outstretched hand to Maverick Viñales. “I’m sorry about the situation, we like Maverick a lot... Time is running out, but the seat is still there; we never told him no.” As for the missed factory team seat, “I can understand his frustration; it was his hope and he wanted to fight there. But now we need to calm down, the season is still long, and he still has to get fully back in shape. Let’s use the summer break to cool off and then we’ll talk again.”

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