MRW Issue 1

Beirer started the interview
by addressing the journalists,
saying “I don’t know
what to say, as you can imagine
I’m still smiling from Sunday”
referring to Sunday’s fantastic win for
the Austrian manufacturer. He went
on to say how proud he was of the
KTM MotoGP project because they
started with nothing, to a design, to a
bike that wasn’t competitive, to now,
becoming a team that has won a MotoGP
race and which appears to be
more competitive than ever.
The first question asked by one of
the eager journalists raised the topic
of whether or not KTM is ready to
lose their concessions (Concessions
being the special privileges that newer,
less competitive teams are given
to help bridge the gap to the bigger
teams). This is an interesting question,
because now that KTM is becoming
a more serious threat to the
podium regulars, the loss of concessions
is something that the Austrian
factory will have to consider.
Beirer said that he had not even
thought about the fact that KTM
might lose their concessions but
made it very clear that if it were to
happen, he and KTM would take it
as a compliment. It would show that
they have reached the level of competitiveness
that they aimed to reach
at the beginning of the project.
Beirer goes on to say that KTM are
ready to lose their concessions and
that it would not affect them very
much. Beirer then mentions that despite
the win from premier class rookie,
Brad Binder, at Brno, the target
stays the same. Their target, he says,
is to have more than one bike in the
top 10 positions come the chequered
flag on a Sunday. More specifically
though, to achieve this goal not because
people have crashed in front of
them, but rather because they have
the pace to run in those positions,
and fight to stay in those positions.
The next question asked was about
the fact that over the last 3 years
KTM seemed to have been making