This Sunday, February 13, 2022, Darryn Binder answered questions from journalists from the Mandalika circuit in Indonesia, at the end of the three days of IRTA testing on this new circuit located on the island of Lombok.
We went to listen (via teleconferencing software) to the words of the South African driver, who finished these last official tests in 24th place.
As usual, we report here the words of Darryn Binder without the slightest formatting.
Darryn, you faced a real challenge during this preseason: making the transition from a Moto3 machine to a MotoGP machine. Do you think you will be able to stand out among the other experienced drivers, or will it take you more time to close the gap?
It's something difficult to say. This Sunday I would have appreciated going out on the track to be able to do a time attack to be able to situate myself more precisely. But yesterday we finished the day with still a lot of work to do on the settings. So this morning we focused on different settings to determine the base on which I am most comfortable. It's hard to know where I stand. But we must not lose sight of the fact that lap speed is very different from race pace.
I hope I can progress with the other guys in Qatar, but if that's not the case I'll just keep working to get there. We'll have to see what happens on a race weekend, I think I have a good base for Qatar, and I'm looking forward to it. I already have a good idea of what I like and what I don't like about the bike. If I can have a clean race weekend, I should be able to race among the other drivers.
“I have a good idea of what I like and what I don’t like about the bike”
Was the race simulation you did on Sunday the very first one you have done?
I had already done more or less long runs during the shakedown in Malaysia. I remember covering a dozen laps, and on Sunday I was able to do about twenty in Mandalika. The length of the race is not yet set, but it should be between 24 and 27 laps. Today I had already completed around forty laps before noon, so when I started my race simulation I can tell you that I was no longer very fresh...
But it was something good for me to understand how the bike behaves, and I have to say that I started to struggle from the 15th lap, but I had several possibilities in front of me, like playing on the mapping, or changing the way I rode the bike. It was something positive.
In the future I'm going to have to put a post-it on the dashboard to remember all the settings I can use to make my life easier. I am very happy with this. When I got back on the trail around 15 p.m. it was hotter than ever, and I finished my session completely soaked. But it was an interesting experience, and we will have to deal with these conditions anyway if they ever arise again during the season.
“I finished the session completely soaked”
Overall do you think you can be competitive this season?
Overall I'm happy. What is really positive is that I really have the feeling that I still have a good margin of improvement. Today I was able to clock a 1'33.0 around 11 a.m., as the temperatures began to rise, and I subsequently managed to repeat this type of time. The only thing is that I didn't manage to solder everything well, but that's all due to my learning. There are several little things that I haven't been able to do until now but where I have improved, but I just can't put together a clean lap where everything works well. I'm only half a second behind the others, but that's where every tenth becomes really very difficult to get, because at that moment everything depends on the details. I have the feeling that I could have been faster but the fact is that was not the case. It's frustrating but sometimes I tell myself that I come from Moto3 and that I really do the splits, so you have to be patient.
“When you're down to half a second, that's when every tenth becomes hard to get.”
You said you now know what you like and don't like about motorcycling. Can you be more precise ?
I was mainly talking about settings. For example, if I have to ride a motorcycle that is stable, that's a good thing in itself, but it actually ends up much more rigid and it's much more difficult to change direction quickly. In this sense I like stability as such, but I don't like the heaviness in driving that that implies.
I think I prefer the bike to be more agile, because even if in this case the bike is less stable, we can try to manage this using electronics, with softer mapping for example, or by slightly reducing the power. I don't particularly like it when there's too much power, because I feel like I'm not able to drive the way I want. I find it too aggressive and I make too many mistakes. But I think now everyone in the garage is starting to understand what my expectations are, and I should only go faster from now on.
Who did you try to follow on the trail?
Since Mandalika is a rather small track, I actually had the opportunity to follow a few guys. But it wasn't really a good idea to stay behind someone because we got hit with a lot of stones and it wasn't really great. At one point I found myself behind Brad, and I said to myself that this was the perfect opportunity to take his wheel. But I saw that we had different trajectories: in some places I am faster and in others he is the fastest.
But in idea I prefer to follow a Yamaha because there I can really compare, or someone who has a gentle riding style, because when this is the case you tend to reproduce this type of riding and it is preferable for a rookie. It's important in my learning phase to try to follow other drivers because if I do that during the first GP I think it will be a shock. I still have a lot to learn.
