That Pedro Acosta has become the central figure on the MotoGP side of the KTM insolvency story, just one year into his premier-class career, is testament to his immediate impact.
It was inevitable that his future, as that of the central pillar of the project's own future, would generate speculation.
What wasn't guaranteed, though, was Acosta's manager elevating the topic from conjecture to reality.
As KTM hopes to navigate its financial crisis, the liabilities counted in billions and the unsold bikes in warehouses, through self-administration, the message from its racing programme has been that the MotoGP side continues unabated.
The entries, all four of them, are to race in 2025, and 2026, and development and testing is to continue, and nothing is to happen to the project's competitive aspirations because the racing side of the company is separate to the insolvent KTM AG and because KTM needs continued racing success as part of its business model.
That logic makes it easy for KTM riders and their camps to deflect any questions about the financial side in the immediate future. And it makes it doubly important and interesting that Acosta's manager Albert Valera has chosen not to do that at all.
Valera's very informative appearance with the Motorsport Network's Por Orejas podcast included the claim that Acosta, Acosta's family and Valera himself are "worried" about KTM's situation and ability to develop in MotoGP (more so than just field bikes) - and, more pertinently, an admission that trust in the project has been undercut.
"The KTM company, at the time, told us that they were a giant," said Valera of Acosta's two-year factory team deal announced back in June, "and that they were in a position to take on Ducati - but it has not been so."
Valera also said that every rival factory has reached out to check on Acosta - and acknowledged the theoretical possibility where Acosta may need to seek alternative MotoGP employment.
None of that is groundbreaking in its own right. Obviously, Acosta and his representation will be worried and exploring alternatives when you're talking about your employer being in this kind of financial hole. But it is one thing to feel it and create contingencies, and it's another thing to go public with your concerns.
And Valera is no small fry in this game - he is the very same manager who took Jorge Martin out of KTM four years ago to set up his eventually title-winning Ducati move, and also the manager who oversaw Jorge Lorenzo's blockbuster late-career switches. But even if he didn't have that pedigree, it's safe to assume that his rhetoric on this reflects how Acosta is feeling.
It is important because there are, at most, four riders who a team manager in MotoGP wouldn't automatically swap for Acosta if given the chance. Those riders are Marc Marquez, Fabio Quartararo, Pecco Bagnaia and Martin - and even for all of those you'd at least consider it for a second or two.
For now that doesn't matter because KTM isn't (and isn't expected to be) in breach of contract with Acosta, and if the MotoGP project is supported at the required level it's all academic anyway. And that is at least made believable by the incoming engine freeze that will take MotoGP into the next regulations cycle in 2027 - so at least KTM will not have to worry about dual engine development between the current formula and the 850cc units of 2027.
Except, well, even with that in mind it cannot be that simple for a company under the watchful public and government eye to maintain its same level of commitment to MotoGP competition given the implications its crisis is already having on regular people.
It has spent big in MotoGP already, to lay the foundations, and that big spending has not turned it into a regular winner. Why shouldn't Acosta, or the other riders in the project, fear reductions, given KTM - as well as Honda, Yamaha and Aprilia - needs every cent to close the current chasm to Ducati.
Acosta was happy to sign up to 2025-26 with KTM without a guarantee of a title-winning bike, but it's very clear his expectation is to at least be much closer. The way he had gone about his rookie season suggests that, even at 20, he is in a desperate hurry to win and win a lot. This is not about getting one title aged 29 or whatever - it's about winning the first one as early as possible and then establishing yourself as the guy to beat in MotoGP.
Compare and contrast the reaction from his camp to that of new KTM acquisition Maverick Vinales - who was reported by Speedweek.com, via the words of KTM motocross world champion from the 1980s Heinz Kinigadner, to have bought KTM stock! That surely isn't to be taken as an investment opportunity but simply a show of faith from the rider towards his new company.
Vinales, who beamed and effused through his first media session as a KTM rider back in November, also cheerfully attended a private test at Jerez with Dani Pedrosa and Pol Espargaro - both absent from the track in the collective test at Barcelona.
OK, one is a rider making an effort to show himself as a true part of the company, and the other is a rider manager simply seeking to protect his rider's interests in public. Those do not have to be mutually exclusive - and yet it would make sense for Acosta and someone like Vinales to approach this in a very different way.
Vinales needs to make his future with KTM - and who knows, if the Acosta situation proves untenable, Vinales may well be first in line to parlay that into a factory team future.
But that still seems in the realm of wild fantasy for now, because KTM giving up Acosta would be tantamount to giving up on the programme. Even if it does end up scaling down, Acosta is the one asset it absolutely cannot afford to part with.
So Valera's remarkable public proclamations don't mean Acosta is on the market.
What they do mean is that there is quite a real possibility that Acosta and KTM will end up on a collision course in terms of targets and expectations. After all, if the bike remains meaningfully short of the reference point, the Ducati Desmosedici, will Acosta be able to be truly confident its development isn't being hampered by the financial side? Will KTM be able to convince him of anything? Will it have any hope of retaining him for 2027, assuming there is a 2027 bike to sign riders for?
Unless KTM can somehow deliver the best bike it's ever made while operating under the shadow of multiple billion Euros of debt, this could get much more awkward real fast.
