Exclusive Interview with KTM Reveals Plans for World Domination (Page 2)

← Continued from Page 1 of "Exclusive Interview with KTM Reveals Plans for World Domination"ae: Since you mentioned MotoGP, how's the project going? I saw Alex Hoffman having fun with the bike at the Red Bull Ring. TK: The guys in the MotoGP project could provide you with more details, but I can tell you that the longest stage in this affair was the one when we needed to have all the experts assembled in one place. Once these smart fellows were under the same roof, they created a new motorcycle in record time, engine, chassis and all, and the bike, as you saw, is alive. When we took it out for the first time, it was supposed to be a small shakedown, but things went surprisingly well. The bike put in way much more laps than we expected, and it looks very promising. We are, however, very realistic, too. At the end of the day, the first test says nothing, but the next 15 months will be very interesting. It's hard to tell what they will bring, because there is a lot of work to do, but we want this bike to be at the top of road racing. The motivation is 100% based on going to MotoGP for much more than simply being there. We don't want to just fill the grid. We want to learn, and we want to learn quick. Nobody expects a podium in 2017, but we want to climb to the top quickly, technology-wise. ae: This goal sounds huge, so I presume you are keeping everything under the same roof... TK: Definitely yes, the whole thing is too complex to split it in parts. Everything needs to be done in the same place, as a major factory effort. We need a permanent testing team ready at hand at all times, working with externals will not do. This maybe works when you are already at the top, but for now, we need to learn everything there is to be learned, all the lessons, by ourselves. We must learn how to do things, all the sides of what MotoGP means. ae: Your subsidiary, WP Suspensions, is rumored to be eyeing selling parts in MotoGP. TK: From a business case standpoint, WP is a parts supplier. Their main goal is to develop high-performance suspensions for OEM and aftermaket areas. There are no limitations as to what they can do to achieve this. WP can sell parts to anyone if they are smart enough to become so competitive. If they learn and engineer these components, sure they can enlarge their business. Whichever team tests their gear and finds it suitable, they are free to use WP. In racing, things are down to a single principle: the stopwatch. If WP is doing the proper job, they can sit anywhere. ae: Back to the street bikes, the 1290 Super Duke GT. Any particular expectations for the bike? TK: My main expectation for the Super Duke GT is that I will be able to ride it as much as possible next year. It is about sensation, and this bike is so unique that I don't want to compare it to anything else. There are surely a lot of nice bikes out there to play the same game, but people who will get behind the bars of this one will quickly understand that there is no other like it. It's about having an ultra-fast bike, with the performance, cornering ability and DNA of the Beast, without any changes, but with long-distance travel capability. [QUOTE]We refuse to work on crossovers[/QUOTE]