Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1151987
IN THE WIND P54 KTM's New Moto2 Racer Debuts K TM's promised an all-new Moto2 bike, designed to reverse the problems suffered by its riders in the first part of the season, and it arrived as promised at Brno and made an encouraging start, with top rider Brad Binder second-fastest out of the box in the first practice. But he was struggling to keep it up as the weekend wore on, and the new bike was not the instant answer. It arrived at Brno for of- ficial Red Bull Ajo team rid- ers Brad Binder and Jorge Martin without any previous chance to try it and proved tricky up against a pack of race-proven rivals. "It's like starting all over again," said Binder. Although the chatter problems appeared to have been solved, it was back to square one in terms of looking even for a base setting, let alone fine-tuning for the track. The bike has an en- tirely new chassis as well as all-new fully enclosed bodywork, which renders the unique steel-tube frame invisible, and links the fair- ing flanks with the dummy tank cover in a continuous sweep of bright orange. "The whole balance is different," said Binder, who had earlier opined that the previous two versions made for the new-this-year Triumph engines had too much weight over the front wheel. "The engine has been moved back, and we're re- ally starting again." Was there potential for improvement? "We'll have to wait and see," he said. KTM was a strong chal- lenger last year, especially at the end of the season, when Binder and team- mate Oliveira won three of the previous six races. Compared with Moto2 rivals Kalex, Speed Up and the Japanese NTS chas- sis, KTM has missed the margin quite severely with the new 765cc Triumph engine. "This year has been a bit of a disaster," said Binder on the eve of practice. "But every weekend we seemed to find something." He had finished second at the last two races before the sum- mer break but crashed out of the Brno race. Michael Scott The new KTM Moto2 racer looked promising until Brad Binder threw it at the wall during the Brno race. Alex Marquez Offered Petronas Sprinta Moto2 Contract R unaway Moto2 Championship leader Alex Marquez has been offered an interesting proposal to join the Petronas Sprinta team in Moto2 for the 2020 season, with the view of moving him up to the MotoGP squad in 2021. The move to Petronas sets up the possibil- ity of Marquez competing against his brother, Marc, in the premier class on Yamaha equip- ment, a scenario Yamaha Racing boss Lin Jar- vis said "to have a [Marquez] brother in Yamaha with MotoGP when the other brother is with our main rival [Honda] would be strange." Alex Marquez has been linked to the Pramac and Avintia Ducati squads in recent months; however, he's declared his intentions to stay in Moto2 for one more season. His manager, Emilio Alzamora, has been in ongoing negotia- tions with the Marc VDS team about a one-year contract extension, with a move to MotoGP likely for 2021. CN Alex Marquez in the Petronas team opens up the possibility of a Yamaha seat in 2021 in MotoGP.