All is not well in the world of MotoGP, despite Formula 1’s owners paying an astonishing €4.2billion (£3.3bn) to purchase the sport.
And that could have ramifications for F1 icon Lewis Hamilton, who has already expressed his interest in buying his way into the greatest show on two wheels.
KTM, one of just five MotoGP manufacturers, have now paused development on their bikes a week after filing for insolvency, as per motorsport.com.
The Austrian brand has a reported debt of €3billion (£2.5million) and is trying to avoid bankruptcy.
The news comes eight months after Liberty Media, the owners of F1, announced their mega money acquisition of MotoGP.
The American business first bought F1 in 2016 for $4.6bn and have seen extraordinary growth with Forbes recently rating the sport at the $17bn mark, adding that their empire of companies is the most valuable in the world.
The same sort of growth is hoped for MotoGP, and Hamilton, the biggest name in F1, was interested in getting involved.
Liberty CEO Greg Maffei said in October: “I think MotoGP is an unbelievably exciting product
“To see people riding motorcycles at 220mph, six inches from each other is wild, and the overtaking there is incredibly impressive.
“It’s unfortunately one that is too little known in the United States, and around the world there is interest in Asia and places.
“But the real heart of it has been Spain, Italy, to some degree France. I think there’s an opportunity to expand it.
“When we announced it, we had immediately people call up and say: ‘I want to buy a team’, including people like Lewis Hamilton.
“Why? Because they saw what happened in Formula 1 and they want to follow.
“We had major distributors call up and say they want to be involved and unfortunately I had to tell them: ‘We really can’t talk about it until we get EU approval’. We’d love to talk once we get it.”
Hamilton has already diversified his fortune into other sports, purchasing a stake in NFL team the Denver Broncos.
The 39-year-old was linked with the purchase of Ducati satellite team Gresini Racing during the summer, but that deal is yet to come to fruition.
MotoGP is also in the midst of a problem of sorts, with Ducati and their satellite teams completely dominating the sport well ahead of other manufacturers Yamaha, Honda, Aprilia and KTM.
The top four of the 2024 championship was made up of Ducati backed teams, and won by Jorge Martin on a Prima Pramac bike, becoming the first independent winner in the MotoGP era.
The best-placed non-Ducati finishers were KTM in fifth and sixth in the championship, with Brad Binder and rookie Pedro Acosta.
Fears over their participation in the world championship were eased in November, with motorsport.com reporting that staff were informed of the delicate financial situation, but told that the sporting project would continue.
