Spanish KTM rally veteran Jordi Viladoms has announced he will retire from an active racing career to become rally sport manager for the KTM Motorsport squad.

With 10 Dakar Rally events to his credit and, the last of which was with the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team alongside Australia’s Toby Price, Viladoms’ move to the position of sport manager is another important step in rally sport for KTM.

“I am very happy about the experiences I’ve had in my active career but now is the right time for me to make a change,” said Viladoms. “After 10 years of rally sport I’m completely healthy and very motivated for the new tasks. My goal is to pass on my experiences and knowledge to our younger generation and make it accessible to all the riders in the team.”

Having the former runner-up Dakar Rally contender take the position of sport manager will be an asset to the team according to KTM rally team manager Alex Doringer.

“The recent months and especially the Dakar Rally has shown how extremely important Jordi is for our boys and the new generation in the team,” Doringer explained. “In addition, his home country of Spain offers perfect training and the distance to Morocco is also not far from his home base. We are losing one of our best riders but we are also gaining very important strength in the other side of our team.”

Battling sickness, Viladoms finished out his rally career with a 17th overall placing during the 2016 Dakar Rally event.