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/1176510
KTM PRESIDENT/CEO STEFAN PIERER: PART 1 P84 Feature mance superbikes like the RC8 belonged on the street. Are you still going to make an RC16 for the customer? It's not out of the question, but I think for the next three years, we will clearly focus on MotoGP. We want to win! That's the reason why we go racing—it's not about just taking part, like in the Olym- pic Games. At the end of the day, we want to win. Keep it simple! So that's why you have two MotoGP teams, not just one? Exactly so—that's a big help because you're getting more data. One of the big problems for us at the beginning in MotoGP was lacking data the others had because they had the advantage of a couple of years on us. So at every racetrack, they already had all the data to set the bike up. Our first year, we just collected the data, the second year we made compari- sons, and now the third year, we can finally deal with the data. But for that, don't you need a really experienced rider? Okay, you've got Pol Espargarò, but you've released Johann Zarco. Yes, but fortunately, one of the biggest and best decisions we've made was to sign Dani Pedrosa as our test rider, because he was the guy who really did that for Honda, and he's a truly excellent technical guy! A big portion of the progress you've seen us make over the last couple of months is thanks to Dani. Because he has such a strong reputation, if Dani is saying it's like that, then there's a certain respect, especially from the young guys. So I am now very happy about the progress of our GP program! But it's costing you quite a lot of money, and the kind of budget that you have to spend to compete in MotoGP, let alone be successful, is signifi- cant for a relatively small com- pany like KTM against the three Japanese manufacturers. Since the beginning, we have always spent around 3% of our sales volume on factory racing, in all the different categories from rally to supercross, from moto- cross to MotoGP. Can you quantify that for me last year, how much was that altogether? 3% of 1.5 billion euros is 45 million, so that's the net expo- sure, and it's always been like that. But this year for the first time we're spending a little bit less than the year before, because we've done the hard work on MotoGP development, and now we're doing what I would call fine-tuning, and this is not that costly compared to developing a concept bike and collecting all the right people together. And I think this is the most important thing—to have the right team, the right skilled people. They're our basis for success. Money—okay, it's a platform, but even if you put in another 10 million euros, "WE WILL USE KTM'S PLATFORMS TO CREATE A NEW GASGAS ENDURO RANGE, AND WHAT I CAN REVEAL TO YOUR READERS NOW IS THAT WE WILL ALSO ENTER MOTOCROSS WITH GASGAS, TOO, IN ALL CLASSES." Pierer plans to make GasGas a household name in motocross while adding trials bikes to the company's off- road lineup.