Featured in the June 2019 Issue of Roadracing World:
Each year when MotoGP visits the United States,
U.S. motorcycle distributors often give American journalists a chance to tour
the brand’s factory MotoGP team’s pit box (a.k.a. garage). This usually
involves a media relations person from the team giving a short guided tour of
the sanitized space along the lines of “this is where we heat up the tires” and
“this is where the riders sit when they come back into the box …
That didn’t happen when KTM North America arranged
a visit inside the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing MotoGP pit box during the Red
Bull Grand Prix of The Americas at Circuit of The Americas. Instead, a few
journalists were allowed to have a short chat with Pit Beirer, KTM’s
Motorsports Director, and an extended Q&A session with Sebastian Risse,
KTM’s MotoGP Technical Director.
KTM has come a long way in a short amount of time
in the Grand Prix World Championship. In 2012, KTM jumped into the new,
four-stroke Moto3 World Championship and not only won the Rider Championship with Sandro Cortese but finished
1-2-3 in the Rider Championship and won the Manufacturer Championship over
Honda.
And now KTM is closing in on Honda and the other
larger, more experienced manufacturers in MotoGP, and they are rightfully proud
to talk about how they’ve done it …
(Above) Pol Espargaró (44) is the most successful KTM rider in MotoGP, with a best qualifying position of fifth and a best race finish of eighth so far in 2019, both at Circuit Of The Americas (COTA). Photo by Kohei Hirota.
Taking the
road racing department in-house, letting young engineers experiment, and giving
them the support and encouragement they needed has resulted in wins and
Championships for KTM’s Grand Prix program. Motorsports Director Pit Beirer
explains how, in MotoGP, the company still has something to prove and the path
it intends to take to prove it. It’s all in the June 2019 issue of Roadracing
World!
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