BASTIANINI SAYS KTM RC16 HAS TOO NARROW A SETUP WINDOW HE FEARS WILL LEAD TO A DISASTER

Enea Bastianini says his KTM RC16 is forcing him to ride with constant caution as he approaches the end of his time with the Red Bull KTM Tech3 team. After the Misano weekend, the Italian pointed to a specific “setup window” issue, arguing that the bike’s range for making changes is far narrower than what he experienced on Ducati.

Bastianini explained that when he was on the Desmosedici, riders benefited from a “wide setup window,” which made it easier to adapt to different track demands and conditions—whether sessions were stop-start or flowing, or whether the weather was cold and damp versus warm and dry. On the RC16, he believes that flexibility is missing.

“The window is very close [small], at the moment, of this bike,” Bastianini said. He added that the consequence of that narrow operating range is that pushing too hard on the wrong side of the setup can quickly become dangerous to race rhythm.

“You need to work on that window. If you try to go out it's a disaster,” he warned. In his view, this isn’t just a one-off problem; it shows up repeatedly over race distance, affecting not only him but also other riders on the grid.

“That is for me the main problem and usually we have so many times during the long race, starting from me but also from Pedro [Acosta] – we can do something more compared to Saturday and also compared to the rest of the weekend,” he said, linking the issue to how performance evolves from day to day.

Bastianini also suggested that while he understands what needs to be found for the future, turning that understanding into consistent results is difficult. “I think we know what we need to find for the future. I have it clear inside my mind but it's not easy to do,” he said, before reiterating that the current window remains too tight.

Despite those concerns, he described Misano as a weekend where Sunday looked more promising than the earlier days. He said the pattern is familiar: Friday pace can be there, and time-attack performance may appear strong, but Saturday often fails to deliver the same feeling.

“To be honest more or less it's always the same,” Bastianini said. “On Friday we can go more or less fast. Also during the time attack [but] we have so many times during the Saturday we don't find the same; I don't find the same sensation on the bike, I don't find this. This happens in every weekend.”

He said he expects the team to have clearer direction after Misano, pointing to how competitive he felt when he had confidence and support from the front. “I hope after this weekend to have much clearer that situation because for Sunday we are competitive,” he said. He referenced a strong late-race lap—“especially at the last lap I did 1m31.2s”—and explained that his best riding tends to come when he can build trust in the bike as the race progresses.

Bastianini’s Sunday result reflected that improvement over distance. After starting 16th, he recovered into the top 10, passing Luca Marini on the last lap to finish eighth.

Still, he stressed that the bigger issue is not only what happens at the end of races. In his words, the start is where the RC16 makes things complicated, because he struggles with instability at the front.

“The main problem for him is that he does not feel strong at the start of the race because of instability at the front,” the report noted, and Bastianini agreed that the difference between early and late performance is significant.

“Well it's not just at the end of the race the difference, but at the start of the race it's very complicated,” he said. He described “a lot of movement from the front” and said he feels the front “very on the limit at the start.”

From there, he said the situation improves lap by lap. “But after, lap-by-lap, that's improved and also I can ride more with the rear; I can go early on the throttle; I can try to go on the side with the rear tyre and that helped me to turn and also to do some different manoeuvres.”

Bastianini concluded that the team needs to keep searching for a different solution because results can swing widely. “But anyway we need to work because we are not always on top. We are sometimes okay, we are there, but sometimes we are very low in the classification. We need to find another solution.”

He also suggested Misano offered useful comparison data from start to finish. “I think after that GP we have more data to study because I think it's been the best GP to compare from the start to the end of the race.”