After his injury this year, it became quite clear that Håkon Østerhagen wouldn’t be staying with the JM Honda team for the 2025 season. It did look as though that he would stay within the Honda family as he was very close to signing with Swedish based team, JWR Honda.
However, the Norwegian won’t be signing with the JWR Honda team after all and he also isn’t expected to race a Honda.
We understand that the Norwegian, who has bags of talent will sign a deal with German based team, Schmicker KTM. The deal will see him contest the EMX250 championship as he hopes to use the 2025 season to rebuild his career.
The main goal for Østerhagen will be to avoid injury as that’s been the real problem for his career so far and why he hasn’t been able to fulfil his true potential thus far. It’s not easy to keep coming back from injuries – if he can stay injury free there’s no reason why he can’t build back up and get back to his real level.
The EMX250 championship is a strong series but there’s no reason that Østerhagen can’t be a front runner if he has a strong winter behind him and come out swinging in 2025. The move to the Schmicker KTM team will see him being based in Germany and also contest the ADAC MX Masters championship in the Youngsters Cup class – a series he should be right at the front in.
KTM is a bike that Østerhagen has experience with in the past as he was with the CreyMert KTM team when he made the move to the EMX125 class before earning a ride with the official Fantic setup.
The Schmicker KTM team are also close to an agreement to sign up an MXGP World Championship rider for the 2025 season – we should have more on that coming soon.
