“Get on the Gas!” – With this slogan, the Pierer Mobility Group, including board member Hubert Trunkenpolz, KTM Motorsport Director Pit Beirer and Tech3 team boss Herve Poncharal, proudly announced the MotoGP entry of its own brand GasGas on August 19, 2022 on the sidelines of the Austrian Grand Prix. At least on paper, because in fact it was only a rebranding of the customer team Tech3 Racing, which was to start in GasGas red from the 2023 season and advertise the Spanish motorcycle manufacturer, which has been fully owned by Pierer Mobility AG since 2020.
At the beginning of 2025, this marketing experiment will be discontinued after just two years. The Pierer Mobility Group announced this on Thursday together with the new driver lineup in the Tech3 team: Enea Bastianini and Maverick Vinales. “A strong line-up and a new color palette will usher in a new era for KTM’s MotoGP factory project in 2025. The rebranded ‘Red Bull KTM Tech3 Team’ will complement the ‘Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team’ with the two Grand Prix winners Enea Bastianini and Maverick Viñales,” said the press release at the time.
Marketing goals exceeded: GasGas already known worldwide thanks to MotoGP
The name ‘GasGas’ will therefore disappear from the premier class in 2025 and will not be replaced by another group brand such as CFMoto, Husqvarna or MV Agusta. Rather, the two Tech3 riders will start in the same positions as the factory riders from the next MotoGP season. Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta in KTM orange. The big question now is, of course, why this ‘GasGas’ experiment is being discontinued after just two seasons in the premier class. There are several reasons, as KTM Motorsport Director Pit Beirer revealed in a separate media round on Friday.
“First of all, we have already been able to generate a lot of attention for GasGas,” begins the 51-year-old, and then explains: “GasGas is still the youngest brand in our family. Through everything that Pedro [Acosta] and Jorge Prado in the Motocross World Championship, we have become so well known worldwide that we can no longer grow and produce as quickly.” The goals with which the Pierer Mobility Group brought GasGas into MotoGP almost two years ago have long been exceeded and further marketing in MotoGP is no longer necessary.
No more color separation: KTM produces identical MotoGP factory bikes
But why not simply use the ‘premier class’ stage for another brand from the group? “We have now decided to focus fully on KTM,” says Beirer, keeping an eye on the current developments in the MotoGP rider market: “I always found it a bit difficult when you spoke to a top rider. Is it the GasGas? Is it the KTM? What are the differences between the motorcycles? Ultimately, we said that it was a great time to represent other brands, but that the project is also at its strongest when we have a lineup with four Red Bull KTM riders. We wanted to strengthen the project and no longer have to explain to people why we do this and that. This also applies to our engineers who work in both garages. Nobody asks anymore why the red guy is in the orange garage or what the orange guy is doing in the red box. People know that’s us anyway. So we said that now is the time to show people that that’s who we are. And we want to do that in orange.”
In the summer of 2022, KTM lost Miguel Oliveira to Aprilia because he did not want to be pushed from the orange factory team to the red, supposed customer team. In order to avoid a repeat of such a scenario, the Austrian manufacturer has now decided to have all four motorcycles compete in the same colors in the future. “Our goal is to have four factory machines in our project and not to divide them into one garage and the other. We want the drivers to not care which of the four places they get, as long as they get our bike, the right crew chief and the right framework,” confirms Beirer, who can feel confirmed in this plan by the commitments of Bastianini and Vinales.
Pit Beirer: No MotoGP comeback for MV Agusta anytime soon
The German is therefore not very sure about the rumors that the Pierer Mobility Group is planning to bring the legendary name ‘MV Agusta’ back to MotoGP in the near future. “A new name in MotoGP – I heard our board member Mr. Trunkenpolz say that. So I’ll leave it to him. However, no one has told us that we should go into MotoGP with a different brand in the immediate future. We currently have a different, very clear goal in our racing department.”
Of course, this means a return to the top of MotoGP, after all, KTM has been waiting for a Grand Prix victory since August 2021. But would it really have taken four visually identical bikes to achieve this? What do you think? Tell us your opinion on the GasGas exit in the comments!