Enea Bastianini tells KTM not to turn their bike into a Ducati
“This bike is different and has to remain a KTM"
Enea Bastianini says he was “surprised” by a lot of elements of the KTM MotoGP bike he tested last November but has warned against the marque creating a Ducati clone.
The seven-time grand prix winner moves to the Tech3 KTM squad having spent all four years of his MotoGP career so far on Ducati machinery.
While his knowledge of the dominant Ducati will prove vital to KTM in developing its own machine, Bastianini noted that there were a lot of areas where the RC16 was just as good.
As such, he says the bike “has to remain a KTM” and isn’t looking to make many comparisons between the Ducati and the RC16 when testing begins next week.
“The job of Ducati was so good, and also the bike was so good,” he said following KTM’s 2025 launch.
“I don’t know very well for the moment how the work will be inside KTM. But during the test we talked a lot, trying to do the test for the future.
“The bike has some potential. To compare with Ducati is not easy, because the bike is different, also the strongest points are different.
“But for the rest, it was ok. Also the set-up was ok from the start, also the position on the bike is very similar.
“But for the rest, I don’t know which areas where we have to work more because I only did 50 laps.
“So, I need more time to understand better. But, well, I remain surprised.”
When asked to build on where specifically the KTM surprised him, he added: “On the entry, the bike has a lot of grip, and for this I am surprised.
“We need to work on the drive because on drive the Ducati was so nice. But I don’t want to do a lot of comparisons.
“This bike is different and has to remain a KTM. We have to do the strongest parts of the bike much stronger.
“For me, this is the best thing, and also I have to adapt my style a bit to the bike because after four years it’s not easy to change.”
Bastianini will be reunited with crew chief Alberto Giribuola at Tech3 this year, having previously worked with him at Gresini in 2022.
For Bastianini, he believes working again with the ex-Andrea Dovizioso crew chief will speed up his adaptation to the KTM this winter.
“With Albi, it’s very, very good to be back again together,” he beamed.
“Well, it’s one point more to have him inside the box because he knows very well my style and what I need.
“It will be good also to shorten my adaptation, we can try to do something good much earlier.
“This is so good. We talked a lot during the winter to arrive prepared for the test and try to do already some modifications on the bike before starting.”
