Red Bull KTM team manager, Ian Harrison, spoke to the media after Anaheim 1 and was understandably delighted with his two new signings, Eli Tomac and Jorge Prado, going 1-3, respectively in a dream night for KTM.
“That’s what we shoot for,” said Ian. “And I just feel so blessed and humbled that we have two guys on the podium tonight. This field is deep, it’s stacked, and to do that is truly a big feat. So I’m proud of the team and everyone who’s put the work in behind the scenes and the riders themselves. Really, really proud”.
Speaking on Prado, Ian said: I’ve always felt like Jorge is an incredible rider. I haven’t worked with him that much. He did most of his riding in Europe, but you can see that he’s talented. He went through some equipment this winter, and he put in a lot of hours. And when you put in that much time, there’s going to be some reward behind that.”
On Eli, the answer was similar… Tomac works hard! “I would just say like the work, the work, the amount of work they put in is impressive and that always pays back dividend. So, yeah, he’s a workhorse for sure”.
But Ian also admitted some new suspension components have helped: “We also got new suspension components that actually came in a couple weeks earlier. But we had no chance of changing them there because that was in Australia. The stuff was in a crate. So we had to wait for that. And when we got back and we tested that stuff, I felt like we made another nice little step forward.
“You’re always trying to improve, and it doesn’t always go that way. But we have a good group of guys there now, and I think they really have a good grasp of what we can do to get better. We all put our heads together. Everyone had ideas that we could try, and we were lucky enough to roll it all into one package. And when we put it on the bikes, it took some fine tuning for each rider, of course. But they all said, yeah, this is better. And for the amount they ride, I knew that it was better. It wasn’t just a guess, it wasn’t just a one lap thing. It was hours and hours of riding. So yeah, good.”
