Can KTM win the 2021 MotoGP title?

KTM was MotoGP’s biggest improver last year – the factory scored its first-ever MotoGP victory at Brno in August and by the end of the season had won as many dry-weather races as Ducati, Honda and Suzuki combined. That’s a mighty achievement for a company that entered the premier class only four years earlier.

Those successes – victories at Brno, Red Bull Ring and Portimao, plus further podiums at Misano, Le Mans and Valencia – were the result of a bike that had improved in all areas, although most of all in chassis performance, thanks to an all-new steel beam frame which replaced the RC16’s original steel trellis.

Improvements to the frame’s longitudinal stiffness (more) and lateral stiffness (less) have made the RC16 much more rider-friendly and will be a key factor in the battle for the 2021 title.

“Generally the bike is much easier to ride and much more versatile to ride than it was before,” says RC16 project leader Sebastian Risse. “Before 2020 it was a one-line bike – you had to brake really hard to get it working and use quite extreme v-style cornering lines. Some riders could do this – especially Pol [Espargaró] – but the others struggled a lot.

“Now riders that want to be strong in corner entry by braking late and killing their mid-corner speed to prepare the exit or by carrying speed into and through the corner can use the bike to gain an advantage.”

The RC16’s performance in the braking zone has been part of its character since the machine contested its first race in March 2017. How did KTM achieve this? Obviously Risse won’t tell us, but it’s likely a combination of geometry, centre of mass, chassis stiffness and so on.

“When Pol and Bradley [Smith] first raced the KTM they told us that compared to what they were used to [Yamaha’s YZR-M1] that our bike’s braking was its strong point,” Risse continues.

“And once you give something good to a rider he doesn’t want to give it away, especially when it’s something that allows him to attack. Even though our bike had weak points at that time the front end allowed our riders to attack other guys and also to block them, which helped a lot when they were fighting.

“So this strong point becomes the character of the bike because you build your bike around it. You change other things, but the riders always want to keep the strong point so that part of its character becomes stronger.”

What’s really important about the RC16 allowing riders to use either a point-and-squirt technique or fast, flowing corner speed is that it gives them two ways to attack corners, depending on the corner, what bike and rider they’re racing against and so on.

Somehow KTM has also managed to make the bike work with Michelin’s latest rear tyre. These are two aspects of performance that both Ducati and Honda are still trying to achieve with their V4s, so they need to look closely at the KTM and work out what they need to do to make the Desmosedici and RC213V more versatile and rider-friendly.

KTM’s new concept frame is still in its infancy, so (in theory at least) there should be plenty of room for further improvements in 2021 and beyond.

The RC16’s slightly oval beam sections may look simple but of course they’re not. Just like the aluminium frames used by KTM’s rivals, what you see on the outside is very different from what’s on the inside.

“The design develops more and more and the more you know your targets, not just in term of global stiffness but also in terms of local stiffness, then the more complex the parts become,” says Risse. “Your cross-section may be the same everywhere but you can tailor the thickness of the tubing to meet your targets.”

Straight-line speed has never been a problem for the RC16. The engine’s V4 configuration makes it naturally more powerful than the inline-fours. Last year the bike was just 3.5mph slower than Ducati’s Desmosedici at the fastest tracks and only 1.4mph down on Honda’s RC213V.