Source: Supplied.

A short time after the official presentation of the KTM RC16 project at the Austrian brand’s home grand prix at the Red Bull Ring, KTM’s MotoGP Factory Racing Team returned to the Misano circuit in Italy for another round of tests.

The latest is the 10th on the company’s development program since the official roll out of the project at the end of October 2015. The KTM RC16 is set to join the premiere class of road racing in 2017.

The team was last at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli at the beginning of May when the weather was for the first time ideal in 2016 after previous tests at the beginning of the year were hampered by bad weather.

This time the circuit on the Adriatic coast near Rimini showed again its sunny side for all three test-days from Monday to Wednesday. Alongside the assembled competition at the circuit, test riders Karel Abraham and Alex Hofmann joined Mika Kallio and the development team to continue working on the KTM RC16 MotoGP bike under near perfect track conditions.

“Compared to previous tests, this time we went deep into the hardware again,” KTM technical director on-road Sebastian Risse commented. “We had enough time to prepare many things that experience has shown us we have wanted to try for quite a while now. When it came to the bike, almost everything was new here, starting with the frame and the complete fairing, including the aerodynamics, right up to the ergonomics and the vehicle packaging.

“At the end of the three days all of the biggest components had showed their potential and of course we’re very happy about this. Now we have to put it altogether and check it also at another circuit. The basis will again be a lot better when we can confirm this on the very different track layout next week in Aragon. Then it will all come down to making maximum preparations for the final bike for the wild card entry in Valencia before our two factory riders take their place on the RC16 for 2017.”

The intensive development work for the KTM MotoGP Factory Racing Team immediately continues next week when there will be another three-day test, this time at Motorland Aragon in Spain.