amcn.com.au 73
TEAM KTM’S FIRSTseason in
MotoGP was very impressive.
At Round 1 in Qatar their race
pace was 1.7 seconds a lap off
the leader. By Aragon they had
reduced that gap to six tenths.
The factory worked fast and
was prepared to take risks with
new components that their
rivals most likely wouldn’t.
They rolled the dice for the
first time in May, when they
gave riders Pol Espargaró and
Bradley Smith a new big-bang
engine to replace the RC16’s
original screamer.
“We already knew we needed
a big-bang engine, so our
development plan was to have
it ready for Brno in August,
after the test team and the race
team had tested it,” says race
chief Pit Beirer (right). “But
when we saw on the dyno what
the engine could do we took it
to a Le Mans tyre test, where
Mika [Kallio, KTM’s test rider]
said it was so much better. So
then we flew in Pol and Bradley
for the next day of the tests.
Then we thought, let’s take the
engine to Jerez, so we flew it
down there in the Espargaró
brothers’ private jet. Then the
guys at the factory worked
to build more engines, so by
the Saturday at Le Mans both
our riders had two big-bang
engines each.
“At KTM we like to do
crazy things like this. It can
go wrong, you can blow up
your engine, but everything
went well. If we had waited
two more months to race that
engine we would’ve lost two
months. Every time we take a
shortcut we build from there,
also looking to 2018.”
In September KTM rolled
the dice again, this time with a
revised version of the tubular-
steel chassis.
“Once we found more
traction [with the new engine]
the negative was running
wide through corners,” says
Beirer. “We were strong into
the corners, but then we went
too wide and took too long
to get the bike straight before
acceleration. Pol told us he
would be turning and then
Valentino Rossi comes past
inside, picks up the bike and
goes straight off, while he was
still on the side of the tyres and
couldn’t open the gas. We tried
different head brackets and
other small improvements,then we had a new chassis to
test after the Aragon race. Once
again, we were crazy enough to
use the chassis for the Aragon
race weekend. Pol came in
after his first run and said: it’scrazy, I can turn and pick up
the bike and I’m there, I’m
ready to race with these guys!”
KTM know that its biggest
weakness is electronics.
“We don’t have experts who
have been in MotoGP for 20
years,” says Beirer. “The rider
says he wants more power out
of Turn 7, so we give him more
power, but then he destroys
the rear tyre; this is the kind of
thing we need to understand.
We often send our best
electronics guys to Magneti
Marelli, so we can build up our
knowledge in this area.”KTM
Wins 0
Points 69
Final position 5thThe KTM team is always
working hard, trying new
ideas. Pit Beirer (below)
admitted that shortcuts
worked for his team in 2017.New kid on the blocks