A factory team and they supply bikes to a satellite team, Tech 3, which may, or may not be independent. Andy
KTM has €3bn of debt and 100k unsold motorcycles. the outcome will be a smaller firm with fewer products. probably means MV is looking for a new owner, again.
100,000 unsold motorcycles , that’s over 1/3rd of a years production. Clearly their factories were run as per the old fashioned Soviet supply led economies.
I’m not sure of the source for the ‘100k motorcycles’ l, but I’ve seen the 3bn debt from multiple sources. Madness
Potentially huge, could even mean they go back to a single manufacturer. Honda must be rubbing their hands together in anticipation Andy
Can we assume that even though they’re legally committed to arriving on the grid every race weekend for the next two(?) years, any development will have stopped and they’ll be riding around on 3 year old technology by the end of it?
If what I’ve read, can be taken at face value, all development of the current KTM Moto 3 engine and MotoGP bike has been put on hold for the immediate future. As to KTM’s contractural responsibilities, that’ll take a bit more digging. Andy
I do wonder if Dorna will stump up support, if it really gets desperate. I wonder what the combined rider salary and bonus scheme is costing. Not sure if I can use this expression but it won’t be peanuts. Tens of millions of Euros ? Andy
I found this, https://www.the-race.com/motogp/ktm-crisis-is-its-motogp-future-under-threat/, is an interesting read. It would appear that the MotoGP side of the organisation is actually (marginally) more sound than we thought and a significant part of the debt is not core business related. Andy
If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry, https://www.visordown.com/news/ktm-motogp-team-bought-lewis-hamilton-not-so-fast Andy
This, https://motomatters.com/analysis/2024/12/02/ktm_insolvency_and_motogp_what_we_know.html, seems to be a more detailed assessment. Andy
Puts things in a *bit of perspective. Wonder how much they’ve blown on their talent scheme over the last few years (compared with other manufacturers) to end up with Acosta on a shit bike and likely see him sod off to ducati in a year or two.
Every time a team gets in financial trouble his names mentioned about “buying a moto gp team” purely to get clicks. Personally I’d love it if he invested in the sport and many more to follow please. I’d start as a rival to m lav racing and work my way up if it were me.
