MotoGP: After frustrating 2022, Motegi gives KTM plenty to look forward to in 2023

By the standards they have set in the past couple of years, the 2022 MotoGP season has, on the whole, been a rather disappointing one for KTM.

After a quiet start to life in MotoGP after entering the Premier class in 2017, the shortened 2020 and 2021 seasons had seemingly seen the Austrian manufacturer start to establish themselves as a contender for the top prizes.

Claiming five race wins and seven more podiums across the 32 races held between the start of 2020 and end of 2021, the relatively new entrants to the series certainly looked to be heading in the right direction.

However, that trajectory had started to look like it was taking a rather considerable downward turn over the course of this year.

Prior to this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi, there had not been a single KTM finish on the podium in a MotoGP race since Miguel Oliveira’s victory in a rain-affected Indonesian GP, some 13 races earlier.

That has not been helped by the disastrous rookie campaigns of Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez in the factory’s satellite Tech3 team, with the duo, who finished one and two in the Moto2 championship last season, both making their disappointment at their treatment by KTM this season clear at one point or another.

The pair will both be heading for pastures new from the start of next season, leaving a rather sizeable cloud over the factory given the way that situation appears to have been handled.

Meanwhile, the rapid emergence of Aprilia as a race winner, regular podium finishes and even unlikely title contender with Aleix Espargaro, means that KTM had arguably almost become something of the “other” factory competing in MotoGP this season.

But over the weekend in Motegi, things took a turn for the better for KTM, in