KTM will start building its 2025 MotoGP racebikes on Monday and will ship them off for the pre-season tests and the first four rounds of the new season, the company’s MotoGP technical director says.
In a report published at speedweek.com, Wolfgang Felber, who took over development of the RC16 in the wake of Fabio Sterlacchini’s move to Aprilia, says the built will be complete by the third week of January, as normal.
The machines will be evolutionary and an update of the 2024 models, and they will be based on the configuration seen in the post-season test at Barcelona, he says.
“As far as preparations for the new season are concerned, everything is currently going as normal. In recent years, we have trimmed all processes so that we build the new machines in the third week of the year. It will be the same in 2025 – next Monday we will start rebuilding all the motorcycles,” Felber told speedweek.com.
“Everything is timed so that at the end of week 3 we pack the boxes for the big test in Sepang. From then on the bikes are on the road for a long time. The vehicles will only arrive in Munderfing again for the European season opener in Jerez.”
The report says that eight racebikes will be built and shipped to Malaysia for the shakedown in Sepang, then will be used for the remaining tests and the Grand Prix events in Thailand, Argentina, Texas and Qatar.
“We are clearly talking about an evolutionary model in 2025. A radical new approach was out of the question. We already had our actual shakedown during the last tests in 2024. The 2025 version worked as hoped and the basis has been defined. The plan now is to build all machines accordingly with new parts,” Felber says.
Reports from the insolvency proceedings in Austria have indicated that KTM plans to pull out of Grand Prix racing, but not before 2026. KTM has said it plans to race in 2025, although with a trimmed-down effort that reduces the amount of money spent in the past. Felber says the racing department remains committed to the 2025 effort.
“We are in racing. We have our brains, our computers and our motivation. The very last thing we think about is giving up,” he says.
