KTM faces one of MotoGP’s biggest fumbles as rider market frenzy nears

It’s one of the big quirks of MotoGP’s current contract cycle that the paddock’s eyes are firmly locked on 2027, and we’re only a few weeks removed from the end of the 2025 season.

But the major rules reset in 2027 coincides with virtually all rider contracts being up for renewal at the end of next year, with a substantial shake-up of the current order expected. It’s hard to remember a time in recent memory when so many huge names are up for grabs, where most spots on the grid offer a chance at a strong competitive package, with the caveat of a new rules cycle complicating decisions further.

In the world of North American sports, the hockey scene was rocked last weekend when the Vancouver Canucks traded its generational defenceman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild. Hughes was a first-round draft pick for the Canucks in 2018 and has established himself as one of the NHL’s top 10 talents, and arguably its greatest defence player. He was also easily the best defenceman to wear a Canucks jersey in its five-decade history.

It’s a trade that came as the Canucks repeatedly failed since his debut to build a winning structure around him, with its most meaningful playoff run coming in a whirlwind 2023/2024 season that was more fluke than anything else. The trade, done with Hughes’ value at an all-time high and the Canucks pivoting fully to a complete roster rebuild, struck like a knife through the heart of the Vancouver fanbase.

This trade has been seen as nothing but the ultimate sign of the current ownership and management’s failure to utilise a talent the likes of which may never come along again for the team: a total fumble of a generational talent.

That got me thinking about Pedro Acosta and how he is facing a similar situation at KTM after a second season in the premier class, which delivered well below expectations, and even further below what the young Spaniard is clearly capable of.

KTM has prided itself on talent development through the Rookies Cup and its well-supported Moto3 project, as well as building a ladder to MotoGP through Moto2 with the Ajo Motorsport squad.

It is a system that has seen Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira find championship-winning, or at least the ability to fight for titles, in the lower categories before stepping to MotoGP and becoming grand prix winners at the highest level.

But the arrival of Pedro Acosta into grand prix racing with the KTM structure felt like a genuinely major moment for the Austrian manufacturer. Acosta’s year one title in Moto3 and his rapid rise to Moto2 title-contending status by 2023 had already convinced the paddock that his MotoGP potential was astronomical.

He fought for the podium in his first race on the GASGAS-branded RC16 with Tech3 in the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix and was on the podium a few weeks later in Portugal. He scored nine podiums in total across grands prix and sprints, as well as coming close to victories during the Japanese round, before crashes robbed him.

Acosta was rough, like all rookies are, but his talent was undeniable, and there wasn’t a soul in the paddock who didn’t predict him to be winning races in year two with the factory KTM squad.

But that never came to pass. Acosta didn’t stand on a podium until the Czech Grand Prix ahead of the summer break. He managed 12 in total across sprints and main races, but was never really - save for the Portimao sprint - in a position to win. What would have smarted Acosta more was the fact Fermin Aldeguer took a rookie season win in Indonesia for Gresini Ducati, while Raul Fernandez - a former KTM hot prospect - took a satellite Aprilia to a maiden victory in Australia four seasons into his premier class career.

Acosta’s frustrations boiled over in 2025

It was very much a season of two halves for KTM, whose financial problems in the background did nothing to help the MotoGP project along. From the outset in testing, it was clear that the RC16 hadn’t made much of a step forward.

In its defence, KTM had assembled arguably its best line-up to date, with generational talent Acosta paired alongside double MotoGP winner Brad Binder, while Tech3 had 17 premier class victories in its line-up with Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini.

Vinales was the only KTM rider to have found any sort of meaningful direction with the bike in the early part of the season. His breakout Qatar podium charge offered solid foundations for KTM to build on with the rest of its stable, once it could finally convince them that Vinales’ set-up was the direction to follow.

After nine rounds of the 2025 season, Acosta had no podiums and a best of fourth twice. In the same period in his rookie campaign, he’d already chalked up five rostrum appearances across sprints and grands prix.

The 2025 RC16 wasn’t as strong in braking as the previous year’s bike, leaving him unable to utilise his greatest asset, while the machine had a terrible tendency to rip through rubber like an unruly dog left unsupervised with the presents under the Christmas tree. The stiffer rear tyre carcass Michelin brought for the 2024 season, and the resulting vibration, was a headache KTM continued to battle, too.

By the British Grand Prix, Acosta’s patience was wearing thin: “I don’t accept, and I’m not patient. That’s it,” he raged after the Silverstone race. “Opportunity passes one time in life. I will not take all of my life to be a champion in this championship. I need help from the factory. That’s it.”

Two weeks later, he told the media that the 12 days between the British and Aragon rounds were enough for KTM to have brought something to improve the bike. All of this angst came as he batted away questions about his future, with strong links to VR46 Ducati and Honda for 2026. Eventually, KTM had to have a word behind closed doors.

Certainly, Acosta’s talent and his overall mature approach to racing did a good job of masking the fact that he is still so new to the world of MotoGP. In the second half of the season, he grew more considered in his words, though his frustrations were still evident.

A maiden podium at Brno was followed by bike updates that helped transform him into a consistent podium challenger in the second half of the season. He lifted himself into fourth in the standings, but that was hardly enough to satisfy a hunger for victory that is borne out of the fact that he’s known no different since 2021; his two years in MotoGP are his first without wins in grand prix racing.

KTM has surprisingly little to show for its time in MotoGP so far

KTM’s mantra of ‘Ready To Race’ adorns all of its branding and press assets. But after almost 10 years in MotoGP, that slogan is becoming more and more tenuous.

To date, it has just seven victories in MotoGP since its debut in 2017. That’s about one win for every 24 grands prix. Its last victory was Miguel Oliveira’s Thailand success in the wet in 2022, while its last dry-weather win was the Portuguese rider’s triumph at Barcelona in 2021. About 65 races have passed since then, meaning KTM is well overdue.

For all of the success it has had in racing, the fact that it hasn’t cracked MotoGP is a testament to how tough the class is. But also a reminder that massive resources aren’t everything. For much of its life in MotoGP, KTM has been able to throw a lot at the project, considerably more than Aprilia, for example.

But Aprilia, albeit with two years’ headstart, has eight grands prix victories. Aprilia also only started fielding a race-winning bike in 2022, two years after KTM breached the top step of the podium for the first time. The Piaggio Group isn’t short of cash, but Aprilia has always operated as one of the grid’s smaller factories.

Yet it ends 2025 having achieved its best season ever, in the face of injury problems for its star signing Jorge Martin, and goes into next year with legitimate title aspirations and a bike that will be highly sought after in the 2027 rider market.

Comparing Aprilia and KTM, the latter should have the advantage in every metric. It has arguably the better rider line-up across its four bikes; it has - until recently - had a seemingly vast resource pool to throw at the project; it has the better test team, which now comprises Dani Pedrosa and Pol Espargaro; and it has the junior roster to safeguard its future.

Yet KTM hasn’t converted that into consistent race wins. There has always been the argument that its dedication to its steel frame - now a carbon one - and WP suspension in the face of convention has held it back. All of the convergence that has happened in recent years with bike design does give some weight to that argument.

But KTM has proven its methods can produce results. What hasn’t helped are some of the personnel blows it has taken, chiefly the loss of Fabiano Sterlacchini to Aprilia late last year. KTM says it is close to securing an investor for its MotoGP team, but the ongoing uncertainty over the brand’s future won’t make it any easier to snare top engineering talent.

Rumours suggest Acosta has already made his decision

Despite the uncertainty over its future, KTM has already track tested its 2027 engine and offered encouraging comments about it. It’s hard to look past this test as anything but a show for potential investors and KTM ownership that this is a project with life in it.

It’s also hard not to look at it as a message to Acosta that it is working hard behind the scenes with his best intentions at heart.

But time looks to have run out. According to veteran journalist Manuel Pecino, Acosta has already signed a 2027 deal. With whom, he wouldn’t say, but the strong hint is that it is with the factory Ducati squad.

If that is the case, it’s a smart move from Ducati. It puts pressure on Marc Marquez not to drag out negotiations, because Ducati has someone signed up already with immense potential. And if Marquez leaves, Ducati has itself an insurance policy. Time will tell how correct those rumours are.

But if Acosta has, in fact, signed a deal for 2027, it’s hard to see that being with KTM. Given the form of the bike in 2025, coupled with the uncertainty of the longevity of the project, committing to KTM now is too bold a move to make, with the downsides being as big as they are.

KTM will at least be able to fish for a significant signing in place of Acosta, though it will be going to the market with a much weaker bargaining position than it already did. Not only does it have to convince riders off the back of an underwhelming 2025, under the cloud of financial uncertainty, it will also now have to do so with the failure to convince its own protege that KTM was not good enough for his future.

There are not many names currently out there that could make up for the devastating loss of Pedro Acosta KTM faces, and fewer still who would be willing to sign. He was 152 points clear of the next-best KTM in the standings, which was Brad Binder. Only Enea Bastianini, in a worryingly inconsistent campaign, was able to score any podiums on the RC16 next to Acosta.

At this juncture, Binder is yet to really fulfil any of the potential he brought with him to MotoGP. Vinales has been too hit-and-miss rider throughout his career to back him as a championship contender, while Bastianini’s general underachievement won’t spur KTM onto any title challenges either.

KTM could look again to bolstering its roster with young talents it has developed over the next few years. And while there are some promising names coming up the ranks, landing another Pedro Acosta will be tough.

In its hands, KTM had in Acosta a potential partnership akin to Marc Marquez and Honda when the seven-time world champion stepped into MotoGP. Now it looks like it will have to come to terms with one of the biggest fumbles in MotoGP history…