MotoGP is the jungle, it is the place where every thousandth gained from the rival is a victory and where, precisely, “free” advantages cannot be granted. That is why KTM is currently stuck in a kind of labyrinth from which it is difficult to get out without paying a toll.
This season is not the best for the Austrians, although Pedro Acosta is being a tough rival with a bike that is obviously not at the level of Aprilia and Ducati. Even so, the Murcian is getting all the potential and a little more out of the RC16, and apart from some falls and abandonment in Assen due to his physical problem, it has been the technical failures that have deprived him of having added a good handful more points.
Precisely these technical problems are what have led KTM to try to take measures in favor of safety, which would imply having to make an exception in the regulations. And what the Austrian manufacturer needs is to open the engines, and for that there are established rules that make it very difficult for them.
It is something that is included in the regulations as an option. But for that to happen and not entail penalties, it must have unanimous acceptance by all members of the MSMA, that is, have the approval of the rest of the manufacturers.
KTM seeks the approval that Yamaha did find in 2020
That is the point that KTM has not been able to solve for now and that is, according to the information revealed by Motorsport.com, what the Austrians have asked for is to be able to open them to inspect them and thus determine what the problem is.
This is the big difference with, for example, what happened with Yamaha in 2020 when they were clear that the failure was caused by specific elements, exactly due to defective valves. This made the rest of the manufacturers give the go-ahead. Now, on the contrary, KTM knows that it has a problem and that it obviously affects safety as we saw in Montmeló, but they do not know what causes it.
So, based on that uncertainty, Ducati, Yamaha and Honda have not given the go-ahead, so they will not be able to carry out that inspection and adopt the solutions that are required. As far as is known, there have been different meetings at Sachsenring and, at least for now, they have not had the expected result since Mattighofen.
And in MotoGP the problem of some is the advantage of others…
