Spaniard Pol Espargaro has today confirmed that he will be joining the KTM Factory team from next season, joining current Tech 3 teammate Bradley Smith at the Austrian outfit.
Espargaro announced the move during the pre-race press conference for this weekend’s Catalan GP after his team announced earlier that he would not be riding the Yamaha M1 for them next season.
Speaking in the press conference, he said that “I am going to sign with KTM for the next two years and join the new adventure with them. New team, new bike in MotoGP. I saw the opportunity to try something different and to try and be with these guys in the future. Working together with KTM will be crazy hard, but I’m ready to work. They also showed me they’re ready to work. We have an agreement for two years and I want to thank Yamaha, Herve and Lin as they gave me the chance to grow in MotoGP and this is my dream come true.”
Espargaro also confirmed that some interest had been shown by the Avintia Ducati team, who supposedly had offered the 24 year old a ride on a 2017 spec Ducati.
Details on who will replace Espargaro at Tech 3 are very scarce at the minute. The favourite to replace him, young Spaniard Alex Rins, now looks set to join Suzuki after Pol’s brother Aleix Espargaro announced that he was speaking to other teams after feeling “undervalued” at Suzuki. Johann Zarco could make the move up, which could be a popular move with a French rider riding with a French team.
Comments.
Loading comments…