Enea Bastianini believes KTM still has significant technical weaknesses despite recovering to seventh place at the 2026 French MotoGP. The Tech3 KTM rider endured a difficult weekend at Le Mans marked by two crashes and ongoing performance limitations, particularly when using the soft rear tyre.
Bastianini initially showed promising pace before crashing during Q1, which damaged his chances of progressing into Q2 and left him starting only 14th on the grid. His weekend became even more complicated after another crash during the sprint race, although he eventually recovered strongly in Sunday’s grand prix.
Despite finishing seventh, Bastianini still crossed the line around five seconds behind KTM’s leading rider Pedro Acosta, who finished fifth. According to the Italian rider, the performance gap highlighted KTM’s ongoing difficulty in achieving optimal rear-end stability, especially while managing soft tyre performance over race distance.
“Today we made it to the chequered flag, and yesterday I crashed two times. But today I tried to save the position. My expectation was a bit higher compared to what I achieved,” Bastianini said.
The Italian explained that the RC16 suffered excessive rear movement once grip levels began to drop during the middle and final stages of the race. That instability made it difficult for him to maintain consistent race pace and maximise acceleration performance on corner exits.
“I think at the moment we have some limits and we need to understand what they are. With the soft rear tyre it was difficult for us to push because we had too much movement. From my side, it was very difficult to manage,” he added.
Rear-end stability has remained one of KTM’s main development concerns throughout the early stages of the 2026 season. The RC16’s aggressive acceleration characteristics have frequently made it difficult for riders to preserve rear grip consistency during long runs, particularly at circuits with high track temperatures such as Le Mans.
Meanwhile, temporary team-mate Jonas Folger successfully completed his first MotoGP race in three years after replacing the injured Maverick Vinales. Although he finished more than one minute behind the race winner, Folger described the weekend as an important opportunity to better understand the RC16 package.
KTM now heads into the Catalan Grand Prix under increasing pressure to solve its stability and tyre management problems if it wants to remain competitive against the growing dominance of Aprilia Racing and Ducati during the middle phase of the 2026 MotoGP season.
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