A long-time MotoGP calling card of the KTM bike seems to have become a considerable weakness instead in 2026.
KTM rider Pedro Acosta lost the championship lead during a Brazilian Grand Prix weekend in which he struggled to make his way to the front - while his fellow KTM riders made no impression at all on either race.
The RC16 was clearly not particularly competitive at Goiania, a long way off the Aprilia RS-GP and the Ducati Desmosedici.
But Acosta also found himself particularly hamstrung by a straightline speed limitation. He lamented after the Sunday race that in his slide down the order only Jorge Martin overtook him in a corner, with others just blasting past on the straight.
This is an unfamiliar reality for the KTM, whose engines designed under the stewardship of tech mastermind Kurt Trieb have looked consistently the class of the field over the years in terms of delivering top speed (as evidenced by Brad Binder and Pol Espargaro holding the joint MotoGP top speed record of 366.1km/h, both on KTMs).
Already in the Thailand GP opener this year, it was clear that, while engine internals are frozen in spec across 2025-26, KTM's main rivals have figured out ways to extract more straightline speed. And its engine guru Kurt Trieb, was poached by Honda last year.
Top speed per weekend
Thailand
Ducati: 345.0km/h
Aprilia: 345.0km/h
KTM: 342.8km/h
Honda: 342.8km/h
Yamaha: 338.5km/h
Brazil
Ducati: 348.3km/h
Aprilia: 346.1km/h
Honda: 345.0km/h
KTM: 342.8km/h
Yamaha: 341.7km/h
Average top speed across riders
Thailand
Aprilia: 343.4km/h
Honda: 341.7km/h
KTM: 340.9km/h
Ducati: 340.7km/h
Yamaha: 336.9km/h
Brazil
Aprilia: 344.2km/h
Ducati: 344.1km/h
Honda: 342.8km/h
KTM: 341.5km/h
Yamaha: 339.6km/h
Things looked more obviously difficult for Acosta at Goiania.
"We are losing a lot the speed in the straight," he lamented on Saturday.
"For us it's no way even to maintain the slipstream. And it's not easy to try to overtake somebody, if you are going to lose that much only in one straight, on this short a track."
And he did not believe it was just wheelspin out of the final corner. "No, the problem is that we are slow.
"We are slow, that's it. Looks like our competitors improved more than us in top speed - that's it.
"I understand that sometimes we cannot be the fastest bike - but now we are slow, to be honest, we are slow. I can be fast in one lap, trying crazy lines and these things, but you need some speed to try to pass somebody.
"Maybe when we arrive to Europe, [smaller] tracks like Jerez, Le Mans, maybe we won't feel it that much.
"But at the moment we will go to America and we will suffer for this."
Context:
KTM's once-dominant straight-line speed advantage has become a major weakness, costing Pedro Acosta the championship lea
Context:
This reversal highlights how quickly competitive advantages can disappear in MotoGP's technical arms race.
Context:
KTM lost engine guru Kurt Trieb to Honda last year, coinciding with rivals finding more speed despite frozen engines.
