Red Bull KTM Ajo · History

Red Bull KTM Ajo has been the name of Ajo Motorsport since 2012. The Finnish Grand Prix motorcycle racing team is based in Tampere and was founded and run by Aki Ajo, a former racer. It has competed in 125cc, Moto3, Moto2 and MotoE, and in 2012 it began running KTM bikes as the Austrian manufacturer’s team in the World Championship’s feeder classes. Its riders won world titles in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025.

World Championship debut and early years

The team made its World Championship debut at the Sachsenring in 2001, with Finland’s Mika Kallio as a 125cc wildcard. The bikes carried Honda badges, although Ajo prepared the engines. In 2002 Kallio was named Rookie of the Year. The first one-two came in 2003, when Andrea Ballerini won the Australian Grand Prix and Masao Azuma finished second. The squad raced the Honda RS125R until 2005. It switched to Malaguti in 2006 and began a stint with Derbi in 2007 that lasted until 2011.

125cc titles with Derbi

The first championships came with Derbi. In 2008 France’s Mike Di Meglio won four races and took the 2008 125cc world title. Two years later Marc Márquez won ten races to become 125cc champion in 2010, giving the team its second title in three seasons. In 2011 Johann Zarco finished runner-up in 125cc, with a win in Japan. The team also ran Aprilia machinery that year.

KTM and the Moto3 era

The partnership with KTM began when Moto3 was introduced in 2012, with the team running the RC250GP. That year Germany’s Sandro Cortese won five races, took nine podiums and claimed the first Moto3 title in 2012. In 2013 Luis Salom won seven races but finished third overall. In 2014, a season in which the team also fielded Husqvarna bikes, Australia’s Jack Miller led for much of the year before losing the title to Álex Márquez by two points at the final round. Miguel Oliveira was Moto3 runner-up in 2015. In 2016 South Africa’s Brad Binder gave the squad its second championship in the class.

The move into Moto2

Ajo Motorsport made its Moto2 debut in 2015 on a Kalex chassis, with Johann Zarco as its rider. The Frenchman won eight races, set an intermediate-class record of 352 points and became 2015 Moto2 champion. He defended the crown in 2016. The team switched to KTM machinery in 2017. Oliveira was runner-up in 2018, the year the squad won its first Moto2 teams’ title, and Binder was runner-up in 2019. When KTM stopped building Moto2 chassis, the team returned to Kalex in 2020. Between 2019 and 2022 it also competed in the MotoE World Cup.

The 2021 double and Pedro Acosta

In 2021 the team won both classes. Australia’s Remy Gardner took the Moto2 crown by four points from his teammate Raúl Fernández, while rookie Pedro Acosta won six races and the 2021 Moto3 title. Ajo also took both teams’ championships that year. In 2022 Augusto Fernández won four races and the Moto2 title. In 2023 Acosta, by then in the intermediate class, collected seven wins and fourteen podiums on his way to the Moto2 crown. The team also won the Moto2 teams’ title in 2022 and 2023.

The 2025 Moto3 title

On 5 October 2025, at the Indonesian Grand Prix in Mandalika, Spain’s José Antonio Rueda won the race and sealed the 2025 Moto3 world title with four rounds still to run. It was the team’s fourth Moto3 riders’ championship, after those of Cortese, Binder and Acosta. On 18 October 2025, after the Australian Grand Prix, where Rueda claimed his tenth win of the year and Álvaro Carpe finished third, Red Bull KTM Ajo also wrapped up the 2025 Moto3 teams’ title.