The Red Bull KTM team in MotoGP is still trying to get the best out of the RC16 prototype, and even if the V4 engine has the power, the team is still having problems with the maneuverability in longer corners.
On fast flowing tracks like Mugello and Barcelona, and even in Austin, Pol Espargaró and Bradley Smith had a hard time to work the bike, and that is a problem with the frame KTM is using on the MotoGP machine.
Made in steel tubes and being a trellis structure, this frame is proving to be too rigid, and that’s a problem KTM acknowledges.
According to Pit Beirer, KTM Racing managing director, the Austrian brand will work hard to solve this problem as fast as possible, with their test riders already developing the bike for 2019 using different frame configurations than the one used by the factory MotoGP riders.
A good way to work around this problem could be using a different type of frame, like a double beam in aluminium, a solution used by all other manufacturers in MotoGP, but KTM Racing believes in creating their own frame, and they will make it work in MotoGP much in the same way they’ve done in Moto3 and now in Moto2.
The new 2019 KTM RC16 was already tested in Jerez a few weeks ago, and the times posted with that bike made Pol Espargaró ask KTM to build and start using the new frame as soon as possible. That new frame will likely arrive in time for the team’s home race, in Austria, which will happen in August.