“Concern” for one MotoGP manufacturer whose progress is "more grey to understand"

After scoring five Grand Prix podiums and a further four in Sprints in 2024, Pedro Acosta is searching for his first premier class victory in 2025, but doubts remain over the technical package he will be provided.

A switch from the satellite Tech3 team to the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing squad for this year is theoretically the step Acosta should need to turn the potential he showed somewhere like Motegi last year into MotoGP victories; but KTM’s preseason leaves much uncertainty about its performance this year relative to its rivals.

KTM’s winter testing followed a similar path to previous ones, with the Austrian brand showing signs of promise but also cause for concern, with the ultimate result being that it’s hard to precisely place them in the pecking order ahead of the opening round.

“As we’ve seen through so many preseason campaigns, KTM often have so many items to try.

“We don’t know what their full package - and, as a result, their full potential - until we get to the opening round.

“[In 2023] we wrote off KTM, then Jack Miller ended the opening day [of the first race] fastest.”

Appleyard added that the characteristics which have been associated with the RC16 in the past remain in 2025.

“One thing is obvious at KTM,” he said. Their strengths are still their strengths, their weaknesses are still their weaknesses.

“Their big weaknesses are drive grip and rear chatter.

“They are still playing with the rear seat unit. They have flip flopped in this test, and at Sepang, which tells you that they haven’t found answers.”

As a result of the apparent lack of progress from KTM this year, problems could be created for the factory team’s new signing: the ambitious Pedro Acosta; and there are issues at the Tech3 team, as well, with Enea Bastianini struggling to adapt after four years on Ducati machinery.

“My concern for Pedro Acosta going into this year is that his desire to win, his appetite for success, will far outreach the potential of the bike,” Appleyard said.

“At Tech3, Enea Bastianini uttered the words ‘I don’t think my riding style is suited to the KTM’.

“After just four days of testing, to say that? I get the impression it will be a very, very long year ahead for Bastianini.

“For [Maverick] Vinales on the other side of the box, we know how good he is under braking.

“If he gets that right, which is one of its strengths, if he gets the most out of this unique motorcycle in that area, he can arrive.

“But it will take time. This bike is so peculiar. It takes a different riding style to get the maximum from it.

“Going into the season opener, we look at Ducati and know where they’re at. Look at Aprilia, progress has been made.

“KTM? The waters are more murky, it’s more grey to understand where they’re at.”