the end for team roberts?

Simultaneously with the public on August 12th, KTM informed its
partner, Team Roberts, through a press release that it is going to
cancel all its activities in relation to the current racing season in
the MotoGP series.

KTM thereby is in breach with its initial commitment to participate
through Team Roberts in the 2005 racing season. In contrast to KTM's
recent press release, in which it sought to present itself merely as
an engine supplier, the cooperation between KTM and Team Roberts was
supposed to be a partnership on equal footage. KTM not only undertook
to contribute the engines, electronics, tires and the costs for the
team rider, but also committed to share the responsibility for the
funding of the team's budget for the racing season 2005. This budget
was arrived at and agreed upon be-tween KTM and Team Roberts
representatives in early February.

There were no additional requests for funding by Team Roberts over and
above the original agreed upon amounts, only requests for on-schedule
payments that were never received.
Team Roberts has acted honourably and in good faith to fulfill the
obligations that were agreed with KTM. Team Roberts would not begin a
project such as this without funding in place to complete the
obligations to Dorna and our other sponsors for the entire season.

Both parties were perfectly aware that a participation of Team Roberts
in the 2005 racing season would not have been a viable option without
KTM's technical support and funding. In reliance on KTM's commitment
as a strong and equal team partner, Team Roberts decided to engage in
the racing season 2005.

At first, KTM effectively announced its cooperation and "the agreement
reached" with Team Roberts. In fact, KTM also put considerable effort
in this cooperation with Team Roberts in the current racing season.
However, contrary to the other rac-ing series, in which KTM
participates, the expected success in the MotoGP series did not
materialize.

Against this background and due to internal strategic business
decisions and alterna-tive allocation of resources as announced by KTM
in its recent press release, KTM decided to pull out of the
cooperation with Team Roberts in the middle of the current racing
season and to disregard its commitments with Team Roberts.

As KTM has not only failed to deliver competitive engines in the
current racing sea-son, they have also failed to live up to their
funding responsibilities and choose to breach their commitment to
supply engines, electronics, tires and a rider to Team Roberts 2005
MotoGP efforts.

As we celebrate our 20th season of participation in motorcycle
racings’ premier cate-gory, Team Roberts will continue to assist in
the professionalism and development of our sport. We are passionate
about MotoGP and although our success during the past few years has
been mixed and our views not always agreed, we have tried to succeed
in a way which we believe may benefit the sport in the future, and we
have committed 110% to our goals.

Obviously the departure of KTM creates severe problems for us and we
will address the situation with our best efforts to continue in the
championship.

We would like to thank all of our fans and motorcycle industry
colleagues who have expressed support to us and encourage our
continued participation. We also want to thank our suppliers and
colleagues, who have been extremely patient in light of our current
circumstances.