POL ESPARGARO EXPECTS NEW QUESTIONS FOR KTM 850 AFTER RED BULL RING TEST

KTM test rider Pol Espargaro is heading into Monday’s Red Bull Ring group test with a clear priority: to find out how the factory’s new 850cc MotoGP bike measures up when it’s pushed on a different circuit and against the wider field.

Espargaro, who finished Sunday’s race in 16th, has been splitting his time between development work on KTM’s future machine and standing in for the injured Maverick Viñales on Tech3’s current 1000cc/Michelin package. For the Austria test, he said the work starts with understanding how the bike behaves when conditions change from one venue to the next.

“There is a lot of work. First of all, to see how the bike reacts on another race track, because every time we got to another circuit with different conditions, track temperatures, the bike changes completely and we need to reset-up everything and we get a lot of information,” Espargaro explained.

He also pointed to the tyre side of the programme, noting that the test will involve three tyre compounds. “We [will] get three tyre compounds, so we need to understand how they work.”

Beyond his own feedback, Espargaro is especially interested in what other riders and teams think once they get time on the machine. “But especially I'm curious what the MotoGP guys say, what our guys say when they try the bike, and how we are compare to the others.” He referenced KTM’s recent progress at Mugello, where he said the lap-time picture had looked competitive versus Ducati, and that improvements followed. “Because that's also something really interesting. In Mugello we were not too bad lap time-wise, compared to Ducati, but we improved quite a lot the lap times.”

For Austria, though, he framed the test as a fresh puzzle. “But a new race track, it's a new enigma.”

The Monday session is also only the second occasion where current MotoGP race riders are eligible to try the 2027-spec machines and Pirelli tyres. As a result, the Red Bull Ring test is not just about collecting data for KTM’s 850 programme, but also about building a clearer picture of where the bike sits relative to the competition under race-rider scrutiny.

KTM is expected to give Sunday’s winner Pedro Acosta the chance to ride its 850cc machine, despite Acosta’s planned move to Ducati next season.

Espargaro won’t be the only rider sampling the new 850s in Austria. Takaaki Nakagami, who impressed with 13th as Joan Mir’s replacement, confirmed that Honda’s riders Diogo Moreira and Johann Zarco are set for their 850cc/Pirelli debuts during the test. “Tomorrow main job is that Diogo and Johann will try the new bike,” Nakagami said. “I will ride also, but the main job for tomorrow is to help the two guys. Hopefully they like Honda’s [new] bike.”

Moreira and Zarco are contracted to Honda for next season, though it remains unclear whether Moreira will join Fabio Quartararo at the factory HRC team.

As the test is being run as a private event, there will be no official lap times published on Monday.