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NEWS
BRIEFS
The Panigale V4 has won a Good Design Award, completing a trio of 2025 international design awards that also includes 2025 iF Design Award and the 2025 Red Dot Award.
Harley-Davidson has confirmed agreements with Niti Racing( Indonesia), who join previously announced teams Saddlemen Race Development( USA), Cecchini Racing Garage( Italy), and Joe Rascal Racing( Australia) on the provisional entry list for their MotoGP hosted Bagger World Cup. Additionally, Joe Rascal Racing has received approval to expand its entry from two to three riders. In terms of format, it has now been announced that at the United States, Netherlands, Great Britain, Aragón( Spain), and Austria Grand Prix the weekend will follow a threeday format with two Free Practice sessions on the Friday, qualifying sessions and Race 1 on Saturday( scheduled immediately after the MotoGP Tissot Sprint) with Race 2 held either on the Sunday morning or afternoon, depending on the event. At the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, there will be a modified format with FP1, FP 2 and qualifying all on the Friday with the Bagger World Cup Race 1 and Race 2 both on the Saturday.
First it was lay-offs, then re-hires and now it is to be lay-offs again in Austria- as Bajaj Mobility AG( formerly PIERER Mobility AG) starts to flex its muscles and weigh its next steps following effective acquisition of the KTM group of brands. " The aim is to sustainably strengthen competitiveness by reducing fixed costs, streamlining structures, focusing the product and project portfolio, and optimizing our international site and leadership network. As part of this necessary realignment, a reduction of around 500 employees- predominantly in salaried positions and middle management- is unavoidable." The headcount as of December 31, 2025, amounted to 3,794 employees.
BP Oil has agreed to sell a 65 % majority stake in its Castrol lubricants business to alterative investment firm Stonepeak- an Equity Investor by any other name. The deal that values the entire division at $ 8bn.
CEO & Founder Anton Wass says that his Barcelona, Spain based EV manufacturer Stark Future " opened 2026 with + 200 % January growth and strong operating momentum." Stark is one of the few e-PTW manufacturers who is actually making money( the Stark ' Varg ' is a much admired off-roader). Wass says that the demand remains strong across key markets as delivery capacity and partner confidence improve further; www. starkfuture. com
Supersprox, Dakar and the River Danube
The 2026 Dakar rally closed with Luciano Benevides KTM, taking victory by the smallest of margins, from Ricky Brabec Honda. Racing is tough, no matter how small the margin, there can only be the one winner. Those margins don ' t only live with riders and their teams. They affect sponsors too, especially the technical sponsors- they share the win or lose mentality. The Dakar Rally may have changed in recent years, but it remains one of the world ' s top challenges. Between 13- 15 days of racing and navigation, with marathon stages, where the riders are not able to be assisted by the teams. Covering about 5,000 km( 3,000 miles) of racing stages and, after 49 hours of full speed racing, in January 2026, the first and second position riders were separated by only 2 seconds. Dakar is THE test for the riders and the machines who enter and Supersprox has supported the top teams every year since their first Dakar experience in 1986. Was a successful undertaking for them? Judge for yourself. During that time, Supersprox hybrid sprockets were fitted on the winning bikes no less than 21 times. In a highly competitive sector, characterised by claim and counter claim [ like most motorcycle industry segments ] that is HUGE. KTM and Supersprox have a total of 21 Dakar Rally victories from 2001 to this year. Starting in 2004,
Race preparation for Dakar in 2015
Dakar 2019
Dakar- 2004- 2026 Winning With Supersprox 2004: Nani Roma( ESP)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2005: Cyril Despres( FRA)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2006: Marc Coma( ESP)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2007: Cyril Despres( FRA)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2008: Cancelled 2009: Marc Coma( ESP)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2010: Cyril Despres( FRA)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2011: Marc Coma( ESP)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2012: Cyril Despres( FRA)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2013: Cyril Despres( FRA)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2014: Marc Coma( ESP)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2015: Marc Coma( ESP)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2016: Toby Price( AUS)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2017: Sam Sunderland( GBR)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2018: Matthias Walkner( AUT)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2019: Toby Price( AUS)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2020: Ricky Brabec( USA)- Honda Fitted with Supersprox 2021: Kevin Benavides( ARG)- Honda Fitted with Supersprox 2022: Sam Sunderland( GBR)- Gas Gas Fitted with Supersprox 2023: Kevin Benavides( ARG)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2024: Ricky Brabec( USA)- Honda 2025: Daniel Sanders( AUS)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox 2026: Luciano Benevides( ARG)- KTM Fitted with Supersprox
with Nani Roma, Supersprox has been on KTM, Honda, GasGas, Husqvarna, Yamaha, Hero and probably 95 % of all privateer bikes at Dakar. When it invented the Hybrid( dual material) sprocket in 1998, Supersprox subsequently spent several years refining and perfecting the concept, trying to work out the correct way to combine the two materials in production processes that guaranteed reliability and durability. In early 2004, Supersprox CEO( DJ Maughfling) visited KTM to show the first ' ready to race ' Supersproxstealth sprockets. DJ says: " KTM production staff were cautious about the idea at first. They simply had not seen anything like that before. They told me that they wanted to make at least six months of tests on the concept before committing themselves. I left them 10-15 samples and thought nothing more about it. " You need to remember that KTM was much smaller back then and they had only started to have Dakar success quite recently at that stage- in 2001 when Fabrizio Meoni won the event. What happened was that when the KTM race team mechanics saw the sprocket they immediately thought it was a great idea. They decided to fit it on Nani Roma ' s 2004 Dakar bike and go race with it.
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18 INTERNATIONAL DEALER NEWS- MARCH / APRIL 2026 www. idnmag. com