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The immediate impact of Pedro Acosta remains a game-changer for KTM’s MotoGP programme – but increasingly, it’s also a welcome distraction from the RC16’s declining levels of performance.
In his public statements, Acosta has focused heavily on the mistakes he made in the first half of his MotoGP season – frankly describing them as “not enough” when asked to assess them – but it is inevitable that sooner or later these issues will be resolved and his attention will turn to the machinery.
The evidence is strong that this mechanism has taken a step back, or at least remained constant compared to the rivals who are increasingly finding their rhythm. In the constructors’ championship, KTM’s worst result in the first four rounds (19 points) still brought it more points than its best result in the five rounds that followed (11 points). At Assen and the Sachsenring, the RC16s were not a factor.
One explanation could be that Acosta is the culprit here – after starting the season so well, he has fallen behind and so KTM’s standards have fallen with him as he has been the standard-bearer. But Brad Binder and Jack Miller have also clearly fallen behind, in results but clearly in peak performance. Only Augusto Fernandez seems to be going the other way, given how poorly he has started the season.
Last year, the KTM was the only bike able to coexist with the Ducati team at the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring. This year, the Aprilia is the bike that KTM is trying to hold on to – with the Ducati in a completely different postal area.
Was this an unkind series of tracks, perhaps? “No,” insisted Miller. “We need more development. Simple as that. “We’re on the same package – in terms of the basic stuff, we’re on the same stuff as Misano last year. We need more development, we need more work, simple as that.”
The Misano reference, specifically, relates to the carbon fibre chassis, which had a spectacular public debut in the hands of test driver Dani Pedrosa at the San Marino Grand Prix, and was quickly stamped for use by factory riders as well.
“We’re still in the first prototype of the carbon fiber structure, and we haven’t touched anything there,” Miller said.
“So I think something needs to be done, both here and even with the swingarm length, we’ve reached the limit at the back of the bike. So… we definitely need to keep trying to develop it.”
It’s surprising to hear about the lack of development from a KTM rider, given the company’s reputation not long ago for offering too much to try to get riders to hint at confusion.
KTM seems to have been consciously keen to move away from that in favour of a standardisation process, to the point where you wonder if they’ve over-corrected – although Miller “won’t say” that.
“We haven’t had an update in a long time, for sure,” Binder agreed, but for him it wasn’t a case of a very conservative development approach either.
“I think more than anything else we need a clear understanding of the direction we need to go in,” he added.
It’s a vague answer – but it makes sense in the broader context of Binder and KTM’s season. For a while there seemed to be a different theory being floated about what was really holding the RC16 back – the new 2024 Pirelli rubber being put on in large quantities by Moto2 ahead of Sunday’s MotoGP race was one idea (with Binder feeling grip was counter-intuitively peaked on Friday), while the new Michelin rear and the fact that KTM hadn’t exploited it as well as others was another.
There was also a background vibration, reported by all four regular visitors but at really different points.
“We played a lot with the balances this week, and finally we did things that we haven’t done before, which don’t really make sense – and that makes the bike a little bit better,” Binder said of the German Grand Prix. “So, obviously we need to understand things a little bit better, and then they can bring the parts to help us.”
The RC16 has a powerful engine. It is good at braking, which was a shortcut to the results when combined with being great at the start – because even when the speed wasn’t there, riders were able to grit their teeth and hold on to their place through the impossibility of being overtaken.
Miller believes the car is aerodynamically sound, too. However, as he puts it, the car still needs “a little bit of everything,” which means more grip and more roll—which is actually a great thing. Everything.
“It’s just about knowing what we need to do to get more cornering ability, more grip. Whether it’s front or rear. We need to accelerate, brake later, throttle earlier, and hopefully maintain more speed through the corners – it’s kind of like that, isn’t it?” he laughed.
It’s always a compromise, and KTM seems to have never found the right compromise. The vibration issues that had caused a lack of rear grip earlier in the season gave way at the Sachsenring (logically given the high grip level) to understeer, probably due to the strong rear being pushed forward.
Both Binder and Miller have found ways to mitigate this problem in Germany, but this has come at the expense of other things.
But all this would not be a problem if the bike was running in front. And it wouldn’t be in anyone’s hands, even if it was better than the double whammy that Assen and the Sachsenring inspired.
For a manufacturer that will likely have a rider ready to challenge for the title in 2025 in the up-and-coming Acosta, even a bike that occasionally wins and tops the podium isn’t really enough. Right now, the RC16 isn’t even doing that.
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