KTM will also feel further emboldened about the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing MotoGP team going into 2025 and beyond as a deal has been agreed for long-standing friend and ally Aki Ajo to take the reins as Team Manager.
The Finn has run his own team, Ajo Motorsport, in Grand Prix racing for more than two decades and initiated an official-and successful-partnership with KTM in 2012 when they won the very first Moto3 world title with the KTM RC4. Red Bull KTM Ajo went on to secure two further class titles—2016 with Brad Binder and 2021 with Pedro Acosta—and provided the ideal foundation for the talent coming through the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup. Ajo’s Moto3 project helped six riders reach the MotoGP class.
In 2017 Ajo expanded Red Bull KTM representation to Moto2 and enlarged the KTM GP Academy up through the Grand Prix pyramid. Three more of his riders in the intermediate division moved on into MotoGP and the team won three titles in a row from 2021-2023.
KTM, now with nine years of MotoGP competition aboard the KTM RC16, and with Binder and Acosta will see Ajo use his intimate knowledge of the company, staff, and racers—along with a championship-winning philosophy. KTM are seeking those last few percent of performance to fight—consistently—for trophies and believe in Aki’s spirit and organization to make that happen.
The teams in Moto3 and Moto2 will continue under the inside development banner of Red Bull KTM Ajo, nurturing some of the brightest prospects of the KTM GP Academy.
Aki Ajo: “It’s an honour to be offered this great new role and opportunity to work in MotoGP with Red Bull KTM Factory Racing. At the moment MotoGP is at a very high level, so we have to keep on working in many areas and use the strengths that we have to build up this KTM package to an even better standard. We need to keep pushing, but I think this project is already composed of many good parts to be right on top; we have to manage them in the best possible way. Thanks to Stefan, Hubert, Pit and Jens, and to everybody in the KTM structure.”
Pit Beirer, KTM Motorsports Director: “We have a very special relationship and a very close collaboration with Aki and so we felt this was the best decision to take the MotoGP project forward. I’ve said it before and will say once more: he believed in us at that time when we were just building up in this paddock, so the trust and the friendship is something special. His team’s success speaks for itself. He has won titles with both of the riders that will be in the pitbox for 2025, but that knowledge is just part of the skillset he will bring. We know we can count on a lot of pedigree and, of course, Aki knows our company and the way we race. I’m very happy and proud that we decided to take on this challenge together and continue this story in such great success and stories being told, which had started a long, long time ago.”
