Even though Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro finished more than half a minute behind Qatar MotoGP winner Maverick Vinales, the whole team is pleased with the performance and direction they found in the desert.

Both Smith and Espargaro have found the RC16 an entirely different beast than the Yamaha M1 they left at the end of 2016, with the Spaniard calling it a ‘black and white’ change but he believes the Red Bull-backed bike is easier to ride.

“For me it’s much easier to ride a KTM than a Yamaha. The only problem is that we are slow. This bike is completely different from what I was used to. With the KTM, the more you push, the faster you go. On the contrary, the secret with the M1 was a smooth riding if you want to get a good lap time. The philosophy is black and white,” he told BSN in Qatar.

“I think it starts from the chassis, that is different from all the other machine.  You cannot not turn as you would like and then there is the engine, that is also so different. It looks like our bike is working more in high revs, while Yamaha works more in low rpm, so they can take profit of the grip in the corner entry because they stress less the tyres.”

But Espargaro also believes the rider can make a huge difference to the KTM as it requires a lot more input than the M1 ever did.

“The rider can make the difference, while on a Yamaha it was like riding on rails. I don’t know it has changed character with Maverick Vinales. When I was in Tech3 there was only one line and I had to follow it. Here you have more freedom.

“This is a young project. We know that this is only the beginning. The bike hasn’t the personality yet. We are building it. We are working at the development of the bike and we know which is the direction to follow.”

Team boss Mike Leitner believes it was a big step for both riders to even finish the race and important data was gathered on both sides of the garage.

“We are super happy. It was very important that both riders finished this race. We showed what a big step this is for our company. Everyone has been working very hard and this is the result. We had no technical problems or issues in any of the sessions, or in the race and this is super good. The lap times in the race were really impressive and we didn’t expect that.”