Brad Binder is consolidated in fourth place in the MotoGP standings and admitted that he had anticipated a title bid for 2023. Things didn’t work out as he’d hoped, although he admits to being in some of his best form so far in his career.

Regarding his position in the championship and his desire to challenge for the title, the KTM rider revealed his desire… for this year: ‘Well, I had plans to try this year, but you never know and that’s the point. I feel like I’m riding well at the moment, I’m in some of the best shape I’ve ever been in and we’ve had some really good races this year and I think the worst one this year was Sepang [last GP], and I was fast in every session apart from the races unfortunately’.

The focus now is on finishing the year well: ‘I’m excited to see how we finish the season. I was second here last year and second in Valencia, these are tracks I’m usually good at, so if we can somehow finish the year strong and start next year fresh, I hope we’ll be more competitive’.

O conteúdo Brad Binder admitted he had ‘plans’ to try title attack in 2023: ‘It was the idea but you never know’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Brad Binder is looking forward to the Qatar GP, this year at a very different time of the season. His first impressions of the new asphalt are positive, although the south african is concerned about some of the challenges that the new asphalt, at a different time of year, could bring for the riders.

‘I’m looking forward to getting started. I did a few laps on the bike and (the tarmac) looks crazy, very good, we’ll see how grippy it is, that’s always the question, but it looks a lot better than usual when we come here. Last year was very good for us, right from FP1 we were fast and we finished the weekend in second place, so the podium was good’, Binder began by telling the press, before showing to be confident:

– I think this year there are some small things we can do that will be much better, and of course our bike is much more competitive: I expect the lap times to be much faster and I hope we can have a strong weekend.

And then he talked about the need for the riders to have more time to adapt to the different (new) conditions: ‘The problem is that you have very little time, limited time to work with this format and now when the morning and afternoon, and the mornings are right out because they’re very different and the nights are a different world. Basically you have a session where you can try to figure out what tyres you need, what works and what doesn’t. I don’t know if they’ve extended [the programme], they haven’t told us anything. No, I was wondering if the longer sessions could help us understand a bit better what we would need’.

O conteúdo Brad Binder wants more track time at Losail before the races: ‘I don’t know if they extended the programme, it was important’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Today was a less happy day for Brad Binder, and a lot of it was due to… too much speed. The South African had problems slowing down his bike, which made it difficult for him to enter corners, but he emphasised at the end that this situation served as another learning experience for the team.

Analysing his day, the KTM rider spoke about the Warm Up and how he believed he had solved some less positive situations, something that didn’t come true one race later: ‘Today was a somewhat complicated race. In the Warm Up we tried a few things that worked very well […]. In the race I struggled to stop the bike in all the braking zones, and I felt that I was never able to slow down and if you don’t brake well you don’t turn well, and today the thing I struggled with the most was the constant loss of the front of the bike. It was difficult to manage at first, I tried to be patient, to understand what was going on and whether it would get better during the race, but I didn’t get that far…’.

Binder then explained that the failure was crucial: ‘I ended up tucking the front of the bike after nine or ten laps and that was basically the end of the day, there’s not much to say. Already yesterday we had a lot of locking coming from the rear of the bike, the engine braking didn’t work well or at least it wasn’t working as well as we would have liked […]’.

The high temperature on the tarmac was a determining factor: ‘With the track temperature at 20ºC it doesn’t seem to work and it complicated everything, but I think it was a good learning day for us. We know which way to go when things don’t work as well as they did here’.

O conteúdo Brad Binder had (a lot of) trouble braking at Sepang: ‘If you can’t slow down, you can’t turn’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Enea Bastianini is back! The dark days are over and the “Beast” is back winning in MotoGP, and with a great performance at the Malaysian GP, with the Italian on the factory Ducati taking the lead on the first lap and beating a highly motivated Álex Márquez and the duo of title contenders, Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín.

One more race, 11 points separating Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín and one more “take” in the fight for the championship. All set for the start in Sepang!

Martín got off to a good start and in the first corner looked to be the leader, but it was Enea Bastianini who took the lead, with Álex Márquez coming in second, Bagnaia and Martín in third and fourth respectively. Marco Bezzecchi was fifth, with Jack Miller in sixth being the fastest of the Ducati riders, with Fabio Quartararo in seventh.

At the end of the second lap there was the first real glimpse of the most anticipated duel, with Martín briefly reaching the podium places by beating Bagnaia, who responded immediately and returned to his fight.

And it was here that the fight for the title came to a head, with Martín repeating his attack shortly afterwards, with the result being the same: Bagnaia was leading on two occasions.

Meanwhile, on the following lap, Joan Mir “led” Honda to a record 50 crashes in one year, with the #36 having its 23rd in 2023. Despite the crash, Mir looked physically fine.

The race was approaching its first third and Bastianini was leading by 0.7s over A. Márquez. Bagnaia was 2.090s behind and Martín, who had lost a lot of time to the Italian, was 3.002s off the front.

Miguel Oliveira was the next to fall, with five laps completed, and Raúl Fernández soon followed. Total disaster for the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team.

With 12 laps to go, this was the top ten:

And don’t think Aprilia’s nightmare could end there! Aleix Espargaró had his third crash of the weekend and went down, but he got back on his bike and into the race and quickly put wildcard Álvaro Bautista – 19th – under the microscope… for a short time. The spaniard even finished the race soon afterwards and there were three Aprilia riders out of four who retred in total.

With the race officially halfway over, Bastianini led by 1s over A. Márquez, with the top five unchanged. Among the non-Ducati bikes, Jack Miller was still ahead of Quartararo, who was threatening to move up to sixth at any moment.

About a minute later, KTM suffered a setback: Quartararo beat Miller and Brad Binder crashed at turn 12.

The race was in a tricky phase, with some riders making crucial mistakes: now it was Takaaki Nakagami who crashed.

With six laps to go, 1.336s was the gap between Bastianini and Márquez. With the top four separated by 6.025s, eyes focussed on one of the “new” battles on track, with Bezzecchi having 0.4s on Quartararo, who quickly brought the gap down to 0.1s.

Quartararo had climbed into the top five: the French Yamaha rider was also joined by Franco Morbidelli, ninth, in the top ten.

Four laps to go and the feeling was that little could change: Bastianini was 1.412s ahead of A. Márquez, while Bagnaia was 1.807s ahead of Martín.

Confirmation was soon forthcoming and Bastianini was back to great results in MotoGP: it was the Italian’s first win as a factory rider.

As for the championship battle, there are now 14 points between Bagnaia and Martín.

O conteúdo Blood, sweat and tears at Sepang! The nightmare is over and Enea Bastianini is back to wins at MotoGP aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Brad Binder closed in on the top five today at Sepang in the Sprint race and at the end of the race he admitted that he had suffered a lot from tyre problems. Unhappy with his team, he hopes to see luck smile on him tomorrow in this respect.

Analysing his race, the south african recalled qualifying and how his race went in general terms: ‘Today was a bit tricky. In the qualifying I was struggling more than I wanted to, I had a lot of front chatter and it was a bit difficult to manage but I think we figured out why so there’s no big issue. Going to the race everything felt good. I had good pace all weekend, felt really good and unfortunately on the first part of the race for some reason my rear tyre on the left hand side was shocking, that was a bit disappointing for sure because I was losing so much on the track, on that side. Anyway I tried my best, luckily there wasn’t many laps and that helped a lot. In general I did my best, fought until the end and I’m excited to see what we can do tomorrow’.

With tomorrow already in sight, the KTM rider hopes to reverse his fortunes tomorrow: ‘This weekend we had a lot of tyres, some are better than the others and I was a bit unlucky by getting a shit one in the race but hopefully the one we get tomorrow is the best of the weekend’.

With the issue of tyre pressure very much on the table lately, the rider spoke about managing that part:

– My front tyre was quite chaotic. I was missing a lot of grip on the left, specially when braking into nine, I don’t have the help from the rear tyre so I was rellying a lot on the front end. When the pressure went through the roof it was really hard to manage but as soon as I got a little bit of clean air and passed Jack [Miller] it cooled off a bit again and came into working range again. It felt a lot better and you can do your job again but you get into a stage you feel you are getting so much risk even pushing. It’s really… I know it’s the rules but it just makes it a lot difficult.

O conteúdo Brad Binder regrets tyre problems in the race: ‘I was a bit unlucky by getting a shit tyre but did my best’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Brad Binder and Red Bull KTM have yet to secure victories in the 2023 MotoGP season with three rounds remaining. The next one is this weekend at the Malaysian GP.

The South African was asked in a press conference if Sepang represents a good chance to achieve that triumph. In response, Binder stated:

– If I look back at my last two races, I felt like Australia I messed up myself and then last weekend I really wanted to give it a go, but I put myself on the green. I haven’t really been able to put it together. I feel like we’ve been fast at most of last tracks, especially the last five or six. And I’d love nothing more than to finally get a win for my team because I feel like they really deserve it. Yeah, we’ve won two Sprints, but to get the main race is the goal.

O conteúdo ‘We’ve won two Sprints, but to get the main race is the goal’ – Brad Binder aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Brad Binder may not have won the MotoGP Thai Grand Prix, but the overtaking move that briefly put him in the lead was voted by fans as the best of the Buriram round.

The South African rider from Red Bull KTM moved ahead of Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) on the inside of turn eight and then managed to close the door, preventing his rival from reacting.

However, Binder eventually lost the position and went into the final lap battling to make another overtake on Martín – without success, as he ended up exceeding track limits and also lost position to Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati).

Watch Binder’s overtaking move on Martín in the video below.

O conteúdo Video: Brad Binder made the best overtake of the Thai GP aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Brad Binder led the MotoGP Thailand Grand Prix for a brief moment after overtaking Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati). However, he lost the position but continued to fight for the victory.

The South African rider from Red Bull KTM explained in a press conference that after the overtake, he encountered some difficulties in controlling the bike, eventually entering «survival mode»:

– Actually the biggest thing I noticed was the lap I passed him it was fine. It was the next one: as soon as I came to over to the left side of the tyre, I would start pumping on the straights. I also a had big vibration on the rear tyre, so I realised that it was probably due to the base rubber. And from then on was just to survive and fight with whatever I had.

O conteúdo ‘It was just to survive and fight with whatever I had’ – Brad Binder aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Brad Binder was the second rider to cross the finish line in the last race of theThailand GP but, given a penalty, the south african was demoted in one position finishing then as third on sunday. A result that Francesco Guidotti considered to be ‘strong’ in a day that luck didn’t stick with his rider. As for Jack Miller, the team might have missed on what it gave to the rider.

The Team Manager of Red Bull KTM started of by analysing the #33’s sunday race: ‘An amazing race, and an amazing race for the win by Brad with a strong result. Unluckily he touched the green zone on the last lap so he had to drop one position but he did so well to push all the way inside the top three. We really enjoyed it. We’re already looking forward to the next race with a lot of confidence’.

As for Miller, who finished outisde of the points, the italian added: ‘A different story with Jack as we just couldn’t give him the setting he needed with the special tire allocation here. For sure there is still work to do’.

O conteúdo Francesco Guidotti analysed KTM results in Thailand: ‘Binder had an amazing race; We couldn’t give Miller the settings he needed’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

In the final lap of the MotoGP Thailand Grand Prix, Brad Binder briefly lost control of his motorcycle in turn four and was unable to avoid going onto the green part of the track – thus violating track limits and incurring a one-place penalty.

The rider from Red Bull KTM explained the situation speaking at the press conference: ‘I tried to brake late and roll through there. I think first I had the brake on, and when I cracked the gas, I think I just pulled the weight off the front tyre. I tried to square it up, but it touched the green’.

Despite being aware of the infraction, Binder did not give up in the battle with Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati), as he emphasized: ‘It’s not ideal, of course, but at the end of the day I tried to fight anyway, I tried to get past, so at least if I’ve could got past, it would be [demoted] from first to second and not from second to third’.

O conteúdo Brad Binder didn’t give up after touching the green: ‘If I’ve passed I would be demoted from first to second’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.