The CEO of KTM has had a very prominent role in recent months, as a result of the reconfiguration of the two teams that the Austrian manufacturer has in MotoGP. His participation was key in unblocking the situation that concerned Raúl Fernández, who this Wednesday was announced as joining the RNF team, after KTM agreed to lower the termination clause of the contract that linked them until the end of 2023.
The case of the Spaniard, who has already signed a biannual agreement with Aprilia, where he will be a partner of Miguel Oliveira -who will also leave KTM-, is one of the many conflicts that the Mattighofen house has had with its riders when the time comes to agree their conditions or their departure.
Among them are the examples of Pol Espargaró, when the Catalan signed for Honda with a view to 2021; or that of Fernández and Remy Gardner, the current Tech3 couple. However, of all of them there is one, that of Jorge Martín, who caused a schism in the company’s offices, who had no choice but to let Ducati go, two seasons ago (2021).
The man from Madrid took advantage of a gap in his contract generated by the exceptional circumstances derived from the covid, to nullify the renewal clause that KTM intended to activate, and thus he was freed to land at Pramac, where the #89 will also compete the course coming. That episode caused the builder of the orange motorcycles to harden the necessary requirements for any of its riders to be released, something that Fernández has suffered in his own flesh.
“The case of Martín will not be repeated. He is the reason why we now make serious contracts, which make it clear that any driver who wants to leave and has a contract in force, will have to pay an amount to do so, “says Stefan Pierer in conversation with Motorsport.com , before adding: ” We released Jorge because he’s a good kid and we didn’t want to hinder his career. But we were the ones who let him go.” In this aspect, the outcome described by the businessman does not exactly match the one reported by the pilot’s environment, which insists that the conversations were not exactly friendly.
At this point, one wonders if all these messes can not be to some extent counterproductive for the brand image. Pierer puts all the weight in the behavior of the pilots and their environment.
“Let me be clear: if the pilot’s behavior does not fit with our family values, we will not think about him again. That was the situation with Raúl and his family. We already have experience with complicated parents. Starting with Casey Stoner (in 2004 he raced for KTM in 125cc). Or with Miguel’s father [ Paulo Oliveira ], who is also not the easiest person to get along with. KTM invests a lot in them, but the relationship and respect has to be two-way”, emphasizes the leader.
KTM seems to carry worse than anyone that its staff wants to change the air. And not just the pilots. In fact, the departure of one of its MotoGP technicians to the competition also led to the introduction of penalties for team members.
