Why is Tech3 switching from GASGAS to KTM for MotoGP 2025?

After two seasons in red as GASGAS, Tech3 will join the factory team in running Red Bull KTM colours for the 2025 MotoGP campaign.

So why the change?

It was hoped that creating a clear visual distinction between the in-house KTM team and Tech3 would end the impression of the French squad being a ‘B team’ while providing publicity for the Pierer Mobility Group’s newest GASGAS brand.

But although KTM pledged factory-spec bikes for all, underlined by GASGAS rookie Pedro Acosta currently being the leading RC16 rider, the split identity had caused some confusion.

KTM motorsport director Pit Beirer explained that the goal is now to make the Tech3 seats - to be taken over by new signings Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini next season - indistinguishable from the factory team.

“It will be all in orange, because our dream is still four factory riders. And not saying ‘OK, it's this garage or that garage’. Our ultimate goal is that the riders wouldn't really care which of the four places they would pick.

“With Herve, we have a fantastic partner where we have full trust, like it's one of us. So for us it’s not ‘his team, our team’

“Pedro helped us a lot to also show the potential of our Tech3 operation. That it's a full factory operation. That you get the chance there to fully perform. So I'm sure without Pedro, also maybe we could not make or couldn't convince the other two boys [Vinales and Bastianini] to go in that direction.”

Beirer also hinted that, for commercial reasons, the decision was taken to put the focus purely on KTM and added that Red Bull backed the four-rider approach.

“I think we made some great publicity for GASGAS. It's still the youngest brand in our family and through Pedro and what Jorge Prado does for us in motocross, the brand is now famous all around the world,” Bierer said.

“On the other side, we decided to commit really fully to KTM. The market is also facing a difficult moment out there and for our project I find it always somehow difficult if you talk to a top rider, ‘Yeah, but is it the GASGAS or is it the KTM? What's the difference between the bikes?’

“At the end we said, ‘you know what, it was a great time showing different brands [but] we feel the project is the strongest if it's a line-up with four riders, [all] Red Bull KTM’.

“I'm so thankful that our partner, Red Bull, sticks with us also for this project and sees it as a four-rider team.

“Also they saw it for a moment more like the two-rider [factory] team, when we started the project. So now they said ‘OK, let's go all together with four’. Let's decide together which riders we want to have, which riders we can support. So all four riders can go to the Red Bull Training Center and get the full support out of that rider package.

“So it was a decision to make that package just stronger and not explain to people ‘Why this? Why that’. This is us and also the engineers in the background who need to serve both garages, it's no longer a question mark: ‘Why the red one is in the orange garage? Why the orange one is in the red garage?’

“People anyway, know it's us. So we said it's maybe a moment to show it's [all] us and it's orange.”

Beirer was also quizzed on recent comments by Hubert Trunkenpolz that KTM intends to bring the MV Agusta name into MotoGP with Tech3, by modifying some RC16s when the technical rules change in 2027.

“I heard our board member, Mr. Trunkenpolz, saying that. So I leave it up to him.” Bierer said.

“In my very near future, nobody told us, ‘Please go with another brand to MotoGP’. So in the race department, we have a clear target at the moment.”