After a distinctly not-great few months of headlines for KTM - at least in terms of the wider business rather than the racing department - it would not have been too surprising if it went for a minimalistic, bare-necessities approach to launching its 2025 MotoGP campaign.
But that wasn't quite the case - with KTM instead making all four of its riders across the two MotoGP teams, team chiefs from both outfits and KTM motorsport boss Pit Beirer available for conversations with the media.
The caveat was that six of those seven figures weren't at liberty to discuss the financial health of the company, with media asked to direct any such questions towards Beirer.
It underlined the message that KTM's MotoGP programme is taking a business-as-usual approach - and that, insulated from wider company troubles, its teams aren't targeting stability and survival in the face of the threat of budget cuts, but in fact that next step towards finally winning a MotoGP title.
Full tilt for 2025
Beirer spoke to media extensively, and made it clear that KTM's intention - under the currently proposed restructuring programme - is to maintain the MotoGP programme at full volume.
It had been a "rough winter", he said, and only on December 20 was it confirmed that racing would remain part of the rebuilding manufacturer as it stands.
Still, KTM awaits February 25 - the date on which, under its current self-administration process, investment needs to be confirmed and creditors need to approve of the plan for the company going forward.
Beirer "strongly believes" there will be a positive outcome. "It's not over," he cautioned. "Also if February 25 goes good, for sure things aren't [suddenly] super easy the next day.
"But I can really guarantee you we have a super, super strong plan going into the future for this company, and it's not a question of one year or two years - or also one year racing or two years racing - we want to have KTM here forever. Including the race department. That's for sure."
That includes MotoGP. And for 2025, though there have been some cost savings around the MotoGP programme, Beirer insists the actual performance side of the project has been unaffected - and that it will have the money it needs to maximise its season, for there would be no point in showing up otherwise.
"If you aren't sure about that, I really tell you honestly, we would stay home. Because in MotoGP you cannot participate just to be there.
"You need to give everything to stay in the hunt with these great manufacturers. If you stand still for a year, you miss the train of, let's say, one second, and then you drop from fighting for a podium to last.
"We've done our homework, we have a plan, we spoke also to our sponsors and partners and of course the board.
"We did so many things [to save money]. We could save a lot of money on some parts - but we didn't stop developing our motorcycle. And we are a bike manufacturer, and that's our life insurance also, looking into the future, to develop motorcycles and to provide the best motorcycle in the world.
"We want to get out strong in MotoGP - and, to your question, not just start the season strong, we also want to finish the season strong."
Beirer also disputed reports of a development freeze at KTM, saying that any development stoppage was instead connected with the introduction of a MotoGP-wide engine freeze covering 2025 and 2026 - which he was the driving force behind.
KTM's engine is strong enough for it to afford that competitively.
What about 2027?
Is a KTM exit for 2027 - the start of a new rules cycle, so the debut of an all-new bike - a foregone conclusion, though? Could it really afford to build a machine to new rules?
Beirer was optimistic - though he was clear it hinges on the outcome of February 25 and, presumably, the will of creditors and investors.
"'27 so far is still in an early stage, because the regulation was not even finished until yet. It's not even 100% finished. So you cannot build a bike at this moment.
"But our engineers are here, they are working on that '27 bike. But it's not the bike to have hardware in the house.
"After February 25 for sure we will have a different situation and more clarity about the really long-term future. And there's still time enough to work on the hardware. But for sure we are working already on the '27 motorcycle, that's part of the planning."
Beirer pleaded to simply give KTM more time on that question.
"Not one of my racing colleagues in the other factories have a racing budget for '26. Not one other manufacturer has a contract with [MotoGP promoter] Dorna for '27 onwards. So I ask - please everybody, we have a really rough time behind us, and... out of this really, really difficult time we managed to be here. We are here today, we go racing still, in every category.
"Give us a little bit of time to get also then ready for '26 and '27. But I can also swear to you - if we managed to get out of this and race in '25, we will find solutions for '26 and onwards."
How riders and teams are facing it
While, as mentioned above, riders and team bosses were instructed not to talk about KTM's financial situation and certainly didn't bring it up of their own volition, a couple of questions did steer them into that territory.
Pedro Acosta was quizzed on his manager's admission that the insolvency was a shock and a concern - and took a different tone: "It's not a thing that I have to think about. This is work for the guys in the factory, for Pit and all the management. At the end we are only quite focused on being fast on track. It's the biggest help that we can give to everyone - if we're winning.
"For this we're quite calm. At the end, like I say, it's not my work to think about that. Quite calm, like I said."
Acosta also said he was "on the phone with the factory" throughout the winter - and he's known to have visited, as did Brad Binder, who said he was left "really impressed".
"We have a lot of things to test in Malaysia, so it's really good that we have Dani [Pedrosa] and Pol [Espargaro] there now [for the shakedown before the test], to really go through everything for us, because for sure there's quite a lot," said Binder.
"For me it's super clear that by no means...there was no pause at all in our steps to try and get closer to the front and fight for a championship."
Binder insisted, too, that any drop-off from KTM last season was not connected to the financial situation of the parent company.
Tech3 team manager Nicolas Goyon said of the off-season: "We did exactly the same as every year, and from their [KTM's] side the message was really clear: 'We're going to race, we're going to race like normal, don't worry, just be ready for Sepang'. And that's what we've done."
And new arrival Maverick Vinales, while repeatedly reasserting his and all the staff's "commitment", pointedly chose to focus on KTM's recent motorsport successes - an AMA Supercross win in its season opener and a Dakar Rally triumph - to argue that "KTM is on good times".
"They're only missing one, one championship, so we need to push very, very hard to try to reach it."
Catching Ducati needn't be multi-year task
The Ducati machine won 19 of 20 grands prix last year, and while KTM had a chance to snipe one or two sprints or GPs that was never going to meaningfully change the nature of the season.
But while Ducati's advantage over the rest only ballooned in the latter half of 2024, there's a confidence from the key players on KTM's side that it can be reduced just as swiftly.
"At the end we are improving a lot," said Acosta - who initially answered in the affirmative about whether Ducati can really be reeled in in just one off-season, though then cautioned to wait until testing.
"It's true that...let's see what's going with less Ducatis on track [as Pramac switches to Yamaha], with [Jorge] Martin at Aprilia, with the stronger line-up of KTM of all times, let's see what's going on.
"At the end it's maybe [not a question for now], even before the winter test; let's see what's going on in Malaysia and then we can talk about it."
Binder was a bit more optimistic still.
"Some tracks I feel like we're right there [with them]. We're in with a shot. But some other tracks and other situations, it seems a lot more difficult," he summed up.
"However, if you actually run the numbers and you see the gap per lap, it's really not that much.
"I've seen it before where things have looked...gaps and stuff have looked quite a long way maybe, but in reality when you make some small steps, two-three small steps, at the end of the day that gap disappears, just shrinks.
"That's our goal going into this pre-season."
Tech3 = KTM and KTM = Tech3
"We have the strongest line-up of KTM whole times - and I will raise [that] to say that we are the strongest line-up in the whole championship," said Acosta.
New Tech3 recruits Vinales and Enea Bastianini were treated through the whole launch - as KTM had promised all through last year - as not just an extension of the works team, but an equal part of it.
"For me, we have four factory riders, and we are working like one unit. All the riders, all the work we do around us, it's for all of us," said KTM team manager Aki Ajo.
It's a message clearly conveyed also by the near-identical liveries (apart from the race numbers, the only real way to differentiate them is the works team's Mobil 1 sponsorship versus Tech3's Motul sponsorship) and the joint launch and the indistinguishable race suits.
It has inevitably come as a consequence of KTM pulling sister brand Gas Gas out of MotoGP, but KTM could still have given Tech3 a different colour. Tech3, however, insisted that's not what it would've wanted anyway.
"In Tech3 history, since we switched from Yamaha to KTM...this was one of our goals, one of our targets. We really wanted to be as close as possible with a factory," said Tech3 chief Goyon.
"This is something that we kind of suffered a little bit [without] when we were at Yamaha, and this is one of the reasons why we switched. And it's clear that this year having exactly the same colour, having such a strong line-up, this is kind of a dream come true for us!
"We really feel part of the project - we were before, but now, also with this livery, with all the same colours, this is what the target of the Pierer Mobility bosses is. Showing the people that the company is strong, has four top riders, four very similar bikes - and us as Tech3, we are of course super happy and proud of this achievement."
And while it's reflected in the livery, Goyon made it clear it was already effectively the case last year, that there's now barely a distinction between 'KTM staffer' and 'Tech3 staffer' and that, if there's any staggered introduction of development parts, who gets them will be determined by the points rather than team status (as was already the case in 2024) - which Beirer confirmed.
Miller-like impact from Vinales and Bastianini?
Having three full-on team-mates instead of one is something that both Binder and Acosta choose to see the benefits of rather than a source of extra pressure and headaches.
After all, while it's harder to be the team leader against three riders than against one, there's clearly a big hope at KTM that a Ducati-like policy of constant information sharing and communication between top-level riders will raise the baseline for everyone.
"It's true that they don't have much experience with the KTM, but on the other hand - for example Maverick won races with three manufacturers, Bastianini has all the information in his head about the Ducati and he was quite fast in the last couple of years...at the end it's not a question mark. They will be fast," Acosta said.
"I think this has to be a snowball that becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. Everyone has his strong points, for this we have to put everything together and make a strong line-up."
"I really think both of them can bring something special," said Binder.
Their arrivals have come at the expense of Jack Miller, now a Pramac Yamaha rider.
Miller has long maintained that he feels that even in a relatively limited time he had been pivotal to KTM's development programme with his Ducati know-how (aided by that of engineers recruited from Ducati) - and here it was something Binder happily corroborated unprompted.
"Of course we saw in the past with Jack, just with him coming in and he could really try and pinpoint some small issues, and once we almost headed in that direction that he set out, we made a really big step," said Binder.
"So I expect the same this season [with Vinales and Bastianini], and I think it's going to be really good for us."
