For four of MotoGP's five manufacturers, it is very easy to put a positive spin on the 2025 season opener. Ducati dominated, Aprilia looks like it has the most improved package, Honda looked more competitive than in a long while, even Yamaha had newcomer Jack Miller's pace as a proof of progress.
For KTM, the big positive coming out of the Thai Grand Prix weekend was that it ended.
One round need only mean so much. In 2020, Suzuki non-scored in the season opener, then went on to win the riders' and teams' titles, and this campaign will be considerably longer than that COVID-shortened one.
But 2020 is relevant because it's also the last time that KTM truly wowed with a step it made with its RC16 bike, proving its mettle over a range of races and tracks. No disrespect to Pol Espargaro, a truly good rider who represented the brand well, but with a championship-calibre rider that year it was probably a championship-winning bike.
You couldn't really make that case in any year since, given Ducati has only grown more and more unbeatable year-on-year. KTM has always kept it respectable since that time - but it never 'wowed', never took a decisive step to that next level. The start of 2025 suggests it hasn't again.
Unpicking Buriram
KTM's chances of salvaging a semi-decent headline result from the Thai GP was lost with Pedro Acosta - its fastest rider on the weekend - crashing out early on on Sunday.
Acosta put it down to the bike's tendency to "unload the rear much easier", a worrying development given much of KTM's efforts in the off-season were thought to be aimed at providing a more stable platform to Acosta and his counterparts.
"The only way to not unload the rear is to brake softer, let's say," Acosta explained. "But... it doesn't really work for the laptimes for me! It means it's not quite OK to go fast."
Acosta argued after the race that the pace after crashing was "not bad at all" and potentially enough for a top-five, but whatever the evidence for that claim it really isn't on the timing screens.
He was 29 seconds back after crashing and finished the race 42 seconds back without having to deal with traffic (only needing to overtake Aprilia tester Lorenzo Savadori). That's top-six if you make charitable assumptions - but it still leaves even Aprilia rookie Ai Ogura well out of reach.
Which is not good enough.
"It's many things around that I think we are missing understanding of, more than anything,” said Acosta. “Why one thing is missing, why the other is not, we need to understand these things - then we can be a little bit more competitive."
Acosta also confirmed that KTM had tyre trouble at Buriram.
"All the weekend we were in quite a dramatic situation for this, let's say. We need to understand also why we have this degradation, that was not normal."
"I knew we had to be extremely soft on the rear tyre because it was easy to go through to the carcass," said Brad Binder, who finished eighth, 20s off the winner - in a race where he was six seconds off the winner last year and a tenth off in 2023.
"I had to be so smooth and ride so so soft on corner exits."
A low point?
New team boss Aki Ajo said after the weekend: "We know we need to improve in these types of climates but we also know that when it’s a bit cooler then we are competitive.
"We are learning, and in this way I’m happy. Performance-wise we have work to do."
Perhaps this is the worst we've seen of KTM for a while - the track layout seemed like it should suit it pretty well, but perhaps more mileage with a more consistent bike (after a lot of different-spec work in the off-season) and more friendly temperature will soon revive its season. Then again, it is a warm world.
The truth is, though, even taken as a lower boundary of performance within the range, for a manufacturer with championship aspirations this is unacceptably low.
And only at this point in this column do we get to KTM's still-precarious financial situation. The wider company has successfully staved off bankruptcy and has had a restructuring plan approved, and that wider company is thought to be very keen on continuing in MotoGP - and insists the programme has all the investment it needs.
Binder said coming into the weekend that the team is "very fortunate" that it is "not really affected" by what has gone on. The Buriram results may make you doubt that.
But while KTM's Thai GP would be a worrying performance if Binder's claim was false, it is no less worrying if we take it as truth.
