While Pedro Acosta took his fourth podium of the year – a performance that he is the only one to have achieved on Sunday without having a Ducati during the last 12 Grands Prix – his future teammate Brad Binder was having a difficult weekend. on the official KTM, which allowed the Spaniard to take back fifth place in the championship and acquire the status of “best of the rest” behind the four title contenders.
Binder’s weekend got off to a bad start on Friday. Struggling in the first session, he felt progress in the afternoon but only took 14th place, which sent him to Q1 for the fourth time in a row. “Unfortunately, as soon as I make an effort, I tend to lose the front”explained the KTM rider on Friday evening. “I really need to understand what’s going on because I’m always losing the front, every time I attack I keep losing it. So I never complete a good lap, and that puts me in Q1.”
In Aragón and during the two Misano races, Binder finally managed to grab Q2 but this was not the case at Mandalika. He made a mistake in his first stint and was unable to take advantage of the second due to a damaged rear brake guard, which relegated him to 19th position on the starting grid.
“The tests weren’t too bad, everything went pretty well”he explained to the official MotoGP website. “Qualifying was going really well, I felt pretty good. All weekend it always took me a lap to get the front tire up to temperature, then on the second lap I attacked and I was really doing a very good lap but I lost the front in the penultimate corner so I lost that lap, which was my fastest.
Brad Binder
Photo de: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“I came back, put on a new tire knowing that I could do a very decent lap if I put everything together and unfortunately I had a technical problem on my first flying lap so I lost that opportunity. “That’s what put me 19th on the grid.”
During the sprint, Binder was only able to move up to 13th place, far from the points, after losing time on the first lap: “I had a crazy start, really good, but then I didn’t disengage my ride-height device until turn 11, so it wasn’t ideal. When I managed to disengage it, I think “The guy in front of me had a good three-second lead, so I lost a lot of time.”
“Once I unlocked it and got going again, I tried to pass and get up to speed, and my times weren’t bad at all actually, it’s just that I “I was really far away after the start.”
Ineffective changes on Sunday
On Sunday, Brad Binder’s comeback was much more convincing but hardly more satisfactory. He took advantage of the start incident to move up to 12th after the first lap, then overtaking took him to ninth position. The South African benefited from the retirements of Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marc Márquez but, lacking pace, he was overtaken by Maverick Viñales, Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco.
Brad Binder
Photo de: Rob Gray / Polarity Photo
The fall of Enea Bastianini and a pass on Zarco on the last lap finally allowed Binder to take eighth place. “A better start than yesterday, everything went a little better but I couldn’t really attack from start to finish, I did the same time in the last lap as at the start”he lamented on Sunday. “That’s what limited me today.”
Changes made from warm-up were not satisfactory: “We have a lot of work. We tried different things [samedi et dimanche] and it seems like that’s not really what we need. You have to keep pushing, trying, and you have to understand.”
After the finish, Binder was under investigation for riding with too low pressure but was ultimately not penalized. “According to our data, it’s okay”he said, he had the verdict of the race stewards.
With Luca Bartolomeo and Léna Buffa
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