Acosta: KTM's 2026 MotoGP bike feels "like built from zero"

Pedro Acosta says the scale of upgrades KTM has introduced over the winter makes him feel as though the Austrian manufacturer has built an entirely new MotoGP bike from scratch.

Although there are serious doubts over whether Acosta will remain with KTM in the next rule cycle, there is growing optimism within the team about what it can achieve this season.

This confidence follows an aggressive development push over the winter, as the engineers in Mattighofen worked to extract the final performance gains from the current-generation RC16.

It’s a stark contrast to the situation KTM faced ahead of the start of the 2025 season, when the company’s insolvency led to a factory shutdown and prevented it from making any meaningful changes to its MotoGP prototype.

While the 2026 machine is not an all-new design in technical terms, Acosta indicated the extent of the winter changes has transformed the bike, making it feel like “completely new” compared to last year.

“At the beginning of last year, we went to the Malaysia [test] with some updates of my 2024 bike, but it was not really anything new until mid-season,” Acosta said after KTM’s online launch event. “This year, I see a bigger step, maybe not two [steps], but I see a completely new bike building from zero. And this makes you super confident.

Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Photo by: KTM Images

“Also, it's true that the general situation of the factory is not the same as one year ago. You can feel it in the face of the people, that everyone is more calm and more confident. This makes you breathe.”

Brad Binder echoed his team-mate Acosta’s sentiment, revealing KTM had already made progress with the package it brought to the Valencia test in November - with more upgrades in the pipeline for Sepang.

“Going into this time last season, we definitely had a lot less things to try,” he said. “[This year] there's definitely a lot more big items and a lot more things to try when we arrive in Malaysia.

“I'd say last year was very much a spin-off of our bike from the previous year. But this year, at the moment, it's looking like we have some more fresh items to try. 

“Already in Valencia, we saw some small improvements. So I'm pretty sure that after this off-season, we're ready and we're going to be in a position to make a step forward.”

KTM’s MotoGP chief Pit Beirer described the 2025/26 off-season as a return of normality for the team, saying a “stable budget” allowed it to mount a major development push over the winter.

Dani Pedrosa, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Photo by: Hazrin Yeob Men Shah / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

“There is no secret that the company situation [also] made [its way] into our whole MotoGP project [and] gave us a real dent and a setback,” he said.

“But that we could fight out of that setback and become a podium contender in MotoGP again makes me so proud of the team, of everybody who stayed on board fighting and having the spirit and bringing us in a position that we could prepare now for ‘26 in a normal way, like having new parts ready for the riders in Valencia, [let riders] choose what they want to have in Sepang - [and] they will have in Sepang what they asked for. 

“I feel we are looking really prepared for ‘26. This year, we had a stable budget and strong planning. We shut off over Christmas; everybody could really recover and get ready for the bike build. So we are much more back to normality. I feel good. I feel we could make a nice step on the ‘26 bike.”