West and KTM 250 looking ahead to french debut Australian rider Anthony West is scheduled to make a delayed start to the 250cc Road Race World Championship with the Red Bull KTM GP250 team in the French Grand at Le Mans in May. The all-new KTM 250 project is in the early stages of development and is part of KTM’s carefully planned expansion into grand prix road racing. The 2005 season was always planned as a development and evaluation year for the 250cc project as part of KTM’s long term strategy of a full scale world championship campaign for 2006. With a planned focus on the three-rider 125cc KTM squad the 250cc prototype is still being prepared by Austrian engineer Harald Bartol prior to its first test sessions. It is anticpated that West, who is already set-up in Europe at his Austrian base, will race the KTM 250 at Le Mans, the fourth race of the season. “The KTM 250 was always planned as a development project for 2005 so not being present for the opening race in Jerez is not a major issue for us,” said KTM motorsport manager Kurt Nicoll. “The 125cc team is our primary focus for 2005 and it makes sense to complete evaluation trials of the the new 250 before we start racing. “Harald Bartol and his team have done a tremendous job on advancing the 250 bike from design phase to prototype over the winter and we are sticking with KTM’s policy of testing before racing.” The KTM 250 will not be at the current IRTA tests scheduled for Barcelona and Jerez (next week). Private test sessions will be completed in advance of the race debut of the KTM 250. “The 250 is progressing according to our target which was always to have a bike that would be begin show its potential in the second half of the 2005 season,” said Bartol. “There is no reason to rush our technical plan which is focussed on the 125 team and some support for the MotoGP V4 project. The 2006 season is our priority with the 250 and that’s why we signed Anthony West to a two year with that development program in place.” The KTM 250 is part of overall strategy by KTM to increase its involvement in the Road race world championship with the Austrian manufacturer now represented in the three FIM world championship classes – 125, 250 and MotoGP. The Red Bull KTM GP125 team will be spearheaded by three talented and committed riders – Mika Kallio (Finland), Gabor Talmacsi (Hungary) and Julian Simon (Spain). The MotoGP project is a joint effort with TeamKR with British rider Shakey Byrne riding a KTM V4, 990cc powered machine.