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The Red Bull KTM Ajo KTM Moto2 Team has won the Moto2 World Championship three years in a row with riders Remy Gardner (2021), Augusto Fernández (2022) and Pedro Acosta (2023). The Pierer Mobility AG also ran Moto2 Factory teams for GASGAS (2022 until the end of 2024) and Husqvarna (2023 and 2024).
Since 2020 the Austrian manufacturer used Kalex chassis in the Moto2 World Championship, after having built their own steel chassis from 2017 to 2019. Miguel Oliveira finished second in the overall rankings in 2018 and Binder achieved the same position in 2019, when he lost the title fight to Alex Márquez by only three points. Since the 2020 season all Pierer Group Moto2 teams used German Kalex aluminium chassis and therefore could not take part in the constructors championship anymore.
But, as in the three years of the in-house steel chassis, there are still huge KTM logos displayed on the Red Bull KTM Ajo bikes. And in the meantime, brands like Honda, Fantic and Yamaha also participate in Moto2 series with Kalex chassis. The German engineering company of Alex Baumgärtel won its first Moto2 world title in 2011 with Stefan Bradl. A year later Marc Márquez accomplished his Moto2 title fight on a Suter. Since then Kalex has won all 11 rider and constructor championships in a row.
Most of the people in the paddock do not know or care about which teams are running which chassis.
"If we manage to win a Moto2 race quite a few people in the paddock congratulate me, like in the days when we built our own Moto2 chassis", KTM CEO Stefan Pierer (67) told GPONE.com.
The KTM boss decided to stop building Moto2 chassis after three years at the 2019 Austrian GP for a simple reason. "We needed to improve our MotoGP performance and preferred to add ten more engineers to our MotoGP program", Pierer revealed.
But two years ago the Pierer Group was approached by Italian Moto2 manufacturer Luca «Boscos» Boscoscuro. His plan was to build chassis for the Pierer Group, and name them KTM, GASGAS or whatever the group decided. At that time, the former 250 cc European Champion had lost his only Moto2 satellite team to GASGAS and Jorge Martinez for 2022, and was having trouble finding enough budget for his successful Moto2 project. Then in 2023 Fermin Aldeguer won the last four races. So the Spanish MT Helmets MSI-team (Garcia & Ogura) switched to Boscoscuro motorcycles for the current year, and the 2024 results got even better.
Before the British GP (August 4th) all four Boscoscuro riders are giving Kalex a hard time in repeating its title success. Garcia (2), Ogura (2), Aldeguer (2) and Lopez (1) have accomplished seven wins out of nine races. They lie first, second, fourth and fifth in the championship.
KTM CEO Stefan Pierer showed some interest in the Boscoscuro project for 2023 – but the Joint Venture never came to reality because KTM Factory Racing needed the budget and all resources for the premier class.
For Pierer Mobility the Moto3 and Moto2 categories continue to play an important role, because they have trained and educated many talents in the smaller classes for years – like Binder and Oliveira and the exceptional Rookie of the Year Pedro Acosta (20).
For that reason Stefan Pierer raised the question in the KTM racing department a few month whether it would make sense to build a carbon chassis for Moto2. It had been quite a surprise when KTM showed up with brand new MotoGP carbon chassis at the Misano GP in 2023, because Pierer had repeated many times that steel frames were the DNA of KTM. "Steel chassis are our religion", he said every time he was questioned about the brave task trying to win the MotoGP title with a steel frame – last achieved by Ducati with Casey Stoner in 2007.
But after some brainstorming with Motorsport Director Pit Beirer and Hubert Trunkenpolz the Austrians came to the conclusion that winning the MotoGP title should still be the first priority.
With hindsight it was the correct decision to continue to run Kalex bikes in the future. Because at the moment Pierer has no title contender in the Moto2 class – despite entering four brands (KTM, GASGAS, Husqvarna and CFMOTO).
"It became obvious after a few races in 2024 that we do not have a Moto2 rider in any of our teams who was strong enough to join MotoGP in 2025," Pit Beirer admitted after the first third of the current season. "The last few years have proven that you need a real dominant and consistent Moto2 rider if you want to promote him to the premier class."
Even proven talents like Raúl Fernandez, Remy Gardner and Augusto Fernández had a hard time moving up to MotoGP.
Pit Beirer knows the reason for this . "The step from the Moto2 to MotoGP is really brutal. It will take some time and work for us to find the next MotoGP talent inside the KTM family. At the moment none of our riders is ready to rise to the top class of GP racing. Also at the other teams I do not see a Moto2 rider who is ready for MotoGP."
