You fucked up and signed 5 riders for your 4 bike team. What do you do? You already tried to just bring on another two bike team but that got shut down, you've only got 4 seats to sit 10 cheeks. Those cheeks comprise:
- Brad Binder, the guy with the weird beard that is 4th in the championship this year on the back of two sprint race wins, the one that brought you your first win, and generally regarded as your best rider
- Jack Miller, noted DUI defender from his Ducati days and has picked up a handful of podiums for you this year
- Pol Espargar贸, the golden boy who helped get your project off the ground years ago and returned after a horrible stint at Honda just in time to almost fucking die in the first race this year and make us wonder if he'd ever even ride a motorcycle again only to come back and be competitive despite not being 100%
- Augusto Fern谩ndez, 2022 Moto2 champion who has been doing a very good job for a rookie in the class this year and showing if nothing else that your bike can be competitive even in less experienced hands
- Pedro Acosta, who won Moto3 his first year and is looking to win Moto2 in his second year in that class, the rider that has so much promise that you signed him up for 2024 without actually making sure you had space for him
One of these riders isn't going to be on the MotoGP grid in 2024. Who do you pick?
Well duh, you're KTM, you tell Pol to sit out despite him spending a number of weeks this year in a hospital bed with a fucked up lung and his jaw wired shut! Important legacy with the team? Has proven he can at least keep up with the other riders when he's fit? Popular with all the crew? Nah, he's last in points on the team this year, give him some ambassador title and put him on a forced sabbatical. You can't even make him your test rider because THAT seat is filled too and you know damn well he's no Dani Pedrosa, who could probably be winning races on your bike if he wanted to go full time.
Hate this dumb shit F1 wannabe behavior. Both Ducati and KTM have been doing this shit, KTM in particular has a ton of Red Bull sponsorship (both Austrian companies, as you do) and they behave every bit of RBR that they can. Can we please keep that shit out of motorcycle racing? Yall got a whole F1 you can be assholes in, keep the shit in the toilet.
No official statement from the riders yet but I hope Pol goes "fuck this" and goes to WSBK or something out of spite.