Before even starting the offseason, Brad Binder said KTM would be a title contender. A prediction that the reality of the Great Qatar has strongly contradicted. It remains to be seen whether Losail is a special case or will be a general trend. Next weekend, the South African will do it again with his RC16 on the same track for the Doha Grand Prix. So you will have to be patient.
Brad Binder came in 14th place at the opening of MotoGP in Doha and quite soberly analyzed the situation at KTM in terms of tire wear. The factory driver Red Bull KTM, like the rest of the orange family Qatar was far from the stated ambitions. The problems had already appeared at the start of the weekend. Like his colleagues in the brand, the 25-year-old driver experienced huge problems with the front tire.
The Brno 2020 winner finished 2,6 seconds behind his Portuguese teammate Miguel Oliveira. " Overall it was good that we finished the first race of the year. But we are far from where we wanted to be. The whole team and I expected a lot more » declares the eldest Binder.
Brad Binder: “we must accept reality”
« This is how ! We must accept reality. We still have work to do on this track, that's for sure! I felt really good at first. At first I thought I could be competitive. Unfortunately, shortly after the halfway point of the race, my front tire was completely destroyed ».
Binder admits on speedweek : " there were only two options. I tried to get the bike to the finish line in one piece and keep my pace that way. But if I had tried harder, I would definitely have crashed as soon as I put more pressure. It was quite difficult. But we now have all the data from this first race. We can move on and look to the future ". Friday, he will return to combat, on the same Losail route.
MotoGP Qatar 1 J3: classification
Credit rankings: MotoGP.com
