Mike Leitner: KTM achieved two wins, it's not a horrible season

It's not clear exactly when Mike Leitner found out he would be replaced as KTM's factory MotoGP team manager for 2022.

But during what proved to be his final official appearance in front of the media at Valencia he reflected on a 'roller-coaster' season for the Austrian factory, winning two races but falling well short of the title challenge predicted after last year's opening three victories in the premier-class.

"We started the new season not in the way we wanted, but after some races we found quite a good way to fix it and from Mugello were very competitive: Miguel [Oliveira] won in Barcelona, second positions in Sachsenring and Mugello. Brad [Binder] also did good results at that time," Leitner said.

"After the summer break we expected to continue in that way, but things turned [again]. Racing is racing, you have what you have, and things sometimes change quite fast.

"But for us also a big change in the whole racing operation was losing concessions, forcing you in a different way to develop the bike. Especially also from the company the way you get the new parts and all these things.

"We learned a lot about that and the target is clear, we want to do better in 2022."

The 59-year-old, a former 125GP racer and then Dani Pedrosa's long-time crew chief before helping assemble KTM's new premier-class team for 2016, underlined that the small margin between success and failure means none of the bikes on the current MotoGP grid have any single glaring fault.

"The class is so competitive, it's not that you have a bike with one big bad point," Leitner said. "Everything is so balanced and 0.15 of a second brings you in a completely different area. Just to put all the points together in line with the riders, the team and everything is not that easy always.

"We achieved two victories, I mean to be fair it's not a horrible season and Brad [finished] sixth in the championship. I think we will take the most positives out, learn from this season and take the next step.

"I think we've made a quite good analysis of where our weak and strong points are and the target is clear, keep the strong and work on the weak. But it will not be a totally new evolution of the bike [in 2022], we will work on the same aspects; aerodynamic, engine, chassis.

"We have a big field where we can still make steps and we are all focused to make a step over winter for the first race of 2022 in Doha."

But instead of heading the race team in Qatar next year, Leitner will 'transition to a consultancy role' with KTM.

Meanwhile, Pramac Ducati's Francesco Guidotti is set to appointed as Leitner's successor, joining another senior figure from the Ducati MotoGP programme, Fabiano Sterlacchini, who took up a senior KTM technical role earlier this year.

"We hired Fabiano [Sterlacchini]. He is a very experienced guy in the racing world, many years working for Ducati and actually he was looking for a job," Leitner explained.

"Mainly he will be the technical leader in the house of KTM, so he will coordinate all our operations, the test team and also development direction with all the engineers there.

"We think we did a good move and let's see the outcome."