
About the sense and nonsense of youth programs
When browsing through our almost inexhaustible archive, we repeatedly come across interesting content that makes you think. This article is about a case of self-promotion by a manufacturer under the guise of supposedly exemplary youth programs using the example of the Austrian company KTM. As is well known, the oranges very often praise themselves for their commitment through Red Bull-financed and influenced media such as Servus TV, the MotoGP broadcaster for german speaking countries. For years, attempts have been made to sell failures like good performances in this way. But here are two examples that show how their promotion of young talent clearly turned out to be a pure waste of money. Every MotoGP fan knows the more prominent one.

The prime example of a misjudgment – Brad Binder
Anyone who deals intensively with the careers of past and present world-class drivers quickly realizes that not all of them had it really easy on their way. Pilots from countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa often faced classically difficult conditions. Nevertheless, there were a lot of extremely successful drivers from there, and Binder can definitely be counted among them by now. By 2020 at the latest, this became finally clear to the public, when he immediately achieved what neither Pol Espargaró, Troy Bayliss or Fabio Quartararo did. Even if KTM was extremely advantageous in Brno, thanks to in-depth knowledge of the new Michelin tires in connection with the special route. At some point this will be forgotten and all that counts is Binder’s first win as a rookie for KTM at the Masaryk Ring.

When Binder fell through in the KTM junior program
The prime example of how wrong the KTM experts sometimes were without a doubt is Brad Binder. There is a Red Bull documentary about Binder that is very illuminating on this point. KTM Moto3 and 2 team boss Aki Ajo and Rookies Cup coach Gustl Auinger said in unison in the interview that the South African’s talent could not have been recognized during his Red Bull KTM Rookie Cup time. The fact is rather that the two former racing drivers who are considered experts were meant by “one” and were wrong about him at the time. Binder fell out of the “KTM family” and his career almost came to an end.

Without the family, things would have ended for Binder after 2010
A father like Marc Marquez’s as a truck driver would not have been able to help Brad back then. But his parents were able to do so. It was they who provided the necessary means to enable him to continue his dream. The rest of the story is known, after that the South African drove “on his own account” for a long time.

The return to oranges came very late
Binder was only signed by KTM 4 years later, after he had achieved two podium places in 2014. The years before, team boss Aki Ajo and the former GP racing driver Gustl “Tut-anch” Auinger were terribly wrong about him. Brad Binder, of all people, became the 2016 Moto3 World Champion for KTM and was the first rider to win a MotoGP race for the Oranges. Of course, there were also successful Rookies Cup drivers like Zarco right away, but at Binder of all places the system had completely failed at his time.

Prime example of a pure waste of money
Have you ever heard of the KTM European Junior Cup? If not, this is not an educational gap, even for racing fans. The KTM Duke 690 is an almost perfect supermoto bike. Anyone who wants to race on back roads in the Black Forest through southwest Germany or over passes, for example, knows almost no opponent with this bike. But the author of this article knows what he is talking about or writing about, he has already ridden almost everything that has 2 wheels and for sure often close enough to the limit. The fact that a junior cup with this bike was held in the framework program of the WorldSBK, for example on routes such as the Masaryk Ring, borders on stupidity.

The KTM Duke 690 – a top bike, but not for GP racetracks
This single cylinder bike is simply unsuitable for permanent racetracks. Nevertheless, KTM launched a junior series on completely unsuitable tracks. In contrast to bikes like a Yamaha R3, the benefit for the rider for a later career was almost zero. We recently held the program for the WSBK event in 2012 in hand. Below is the list of drivers, we did not find any footprints in any major series of them in later years.

About the sense and nonsense of youth programs
The KTM Duke 690 Europa Cup was undoubtedly a good instrument for the Austrian brand to get their bikes out there. But one can at least argue about the usefulness of the “European Junior Cup” from back then. A look at our ever-growing rich history of earlier years of racing shows that it has always been possible without such programs. But we are not the only ones who think very highly of really useful programs like the Yamaha BluCru Cup on R3 motorcycles. It is also absolutely legitimate for manufacturers to use this youth development scheme to search for talent in order to then commit them to their own teams.

“Ready to Race” with severe restrictions
KTM learned something new later and with the RC 390R brought a suitable bike to offer a suitable bike for near-series supersport events and even in the WSSP 300. But the fate of the Freudenberg Racing Team and Kiefer Racing show that the oranges always focus on their own interests. While Kiefer disappeared completely, the Freudenberg team from Saxony was only able to name one more drivers for 2021 instead of the previous year. In Moto2, the KTM slogan “Ready to Race” even became “Ready to retire” in mid-2019, when the oranges completely unexpectedly drew their tails in the middle series. Shortly before that, their representatives had praised themselves for their exemplary concept for the next generation. Yamaha and Kawasaki are currently the clear role models when it comes to really serious, long-term and serious commitment.
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