MOTOCROSS / SUPERCROSS

The disciplines of motocross and supercross are framed by several incredibly popular and well-organized racing series on a global scale. Thousands and thousands of fans and spectators fill stadiums around North America for the AMA Supercross Championship, that runs between January and May before the U.S season filters in AMA Pro National Motocross and concludes with the SuperMotocross-specific dates. AMA Supercross and Motocross is based on strict production rules, casting each 450 and 250 SX and MX category as superb promotional platforms for KTM’s innovative KTM SX motorcycles.

Outside of American borders, the FIM Motocross World Championship – ‘MXGP’ – is an internationally renowned and historic contest that originated in 1957. KTM have an important connection and legacy in Grand Prix stretching back to the earliest years. MXGP now visits at least three continents and reaches twenty rounds in eight months. MXGP is arguably the most technical and diverse test of motocross skills and machinery but also has a prototype rulebook, enabling KTM to display the finer points of the KTM 450 SX-F in the MXGP class and the KTM 250 SX-F in MX2 but also trial new developments for both racing and serial production of the future.

Red Bull KTM have claimed an FIM Motocross World Championship (in either MXGP or MX2) every season bar one since 2008. From 2009 four different riders have won multiple MX2 titles while Jeffrey Herlings (a Red Bull KTM racer since 2010) and Tony Cairoli (also since 2010 and now Red Bull KTM Team Manager from 2023) are the 2nd and 3rd most prolific Grand Prix winners of all-time. Herlings needs just two successes from the 2023 MXGP campaign to top the list. This year KTM icon Cairoli will guide Herlings in MXGP and oversee the development of youngsters Andrea Adamo, Sacha Coenen and Liam Everts in MX2.

For 2023 the Red Bull KTM North American wing will enter 2019 and 2021 450SX Champion Cooper Webb for his fifth season with the team. The 27-year-old is partnered again by Aaron Plessinger and KTM stalwart Marvin Musquin; the Frenchman having made his KTM supercross debut in 2011 and has been in ‘orange’ since the middle of the 2009 MX2 World Championship (a competition he ruled in 2009 and 2010). Ryan Dungey, a three-time 450SX #1 from 2015-2017, and Ken Roczen used the KTM 450SX-F to own 450SX midway through the last decade and on three occasions. Promising talent Max Vohland returns to continue his AMA supercross and motocross education as part of the 250SX and 250MX fields.