The MotoGP season is halfway through and the Austrian team continues to grow
The MotoGP World Cup is halfway to a stop this July for a squad holiday and, with nine races held between the 19 scheduled on the 2021 calendar, this year may well be the affirmation of Miguel Oliveira’s KTM in the range of ‘players’ who ‘like’ to share the victories among themselves.
Starting with the facts, KTM currently occupies third place among the Constructors – a table resulting from the sum of the best result in each race by manufacturer. The Austrian team only loses this year to Yamaha and Ducati, placing themselves, at this time, ahead of historic ones such as Suzuki (the champion in Team title) and Honda.
| Miguel Oliveira leaves a warning: “You have to count on me until the end of the championship” |
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The KTM kicked off for the first full season in MotoGP in 2017, in the midst of the golden age of the partnership between Honda and Marc Márquez. The path was made through the expected initial thorns with Pol Espargaró and Bradley Smith; the first significant result for the brand came in the second year with the first podium by the Spanish rider.
The following year, in 2019, growth evolved in the form of sponsorship of a satellite team supplying the KTM RC16 to Tech3 and promoting Miguel Oliveira to the premier class in Hervé Poncharal’s team. In 2020, the first victories arrived. Brad Binder debuted in KTM at the highest place on the podium at Brno; Miguel Oliveira has two more victories with the RC16 in the Red Bull Ring (GP of Styria) and in Portimão.
With two more second places in the total of three podiums and a fifth place by the Portuguese (another fourth place and two fifths of Binder in the best results), KTM arrives in the middle of this year a solid third place among Manufacturers meddling in the midst of MotoGP history. In this history in the premier class, it should be noted that Honda is the record holder of victories (310) and only two more manufacturers reach the triple digits: Yamaha (241) and the already absent MV Agusta (139).
Suzuki (95) and Ducati (53) continue the list of notables in the premier class. The next team in action is KTM already occupying ninth place in the top 10 of this Constructors history with their four victories in five years in MotoGP. Having taken off from Aprilia (which never won in the premier class) in a kind of ‘second division of the class, the Austrian team has its head well out this year to assume the rightful occupant of that ‘first division’ of historics.
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MotoGP Constructors’ Championship:
| KTM 114 pts |
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| Honda | Aprilia | 62 pts |
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