KTM showed excellent pace from the first day in Australia, with the riders of the official team and GasGas managing to occupy top positions on the timesheets early on. Today, in the morning, Brad Binder even managed to qualify in 2nd, in a qualifying dominated by Jorge Martin.
Already in the race, Binder would end up finishing in 4th position, after a huge fight in the final laps. Speaking after the race, the South African rider said he was somewhat disappointed to have the feeling that he could have done a little more:
– Today everything went very well until three laps from the end. I think I had a great qualifying, the best I’ve had in MotoGP, so I was happy to be on the front row. It’s really cool not to have anyone in front of you, you don’t get that very often. That was fantastic. As for the race I felt good, I was really trying to keep the tyre as much as possible. When I realised that Di Giannantonio could pass me, I started to defend too much, especially in the last sector, so when I started to follow him and realised how fast I could be without putting too much more effort on the tyre, I took a step again. I could see Jorge (Martin) coming back to us, so I was a bit excited and focused on that, I wasn’t necessarily thinking I had 4 riders behind me. Then when Zarco passed me, I lifted the bike a little and it was enough for them to pass me and then I couldn’t compose myself to pass someone until the end. So it was a bit tricky at the end, but 4th is 4th, it’s good points and a good finish, but I’m sorry for my team because we could have done a little bit more today.
Brad Binder also said that he was surprised by Jorge Martin’s pace on the soft tyre, and was pleased with the evolution of his KTM and the proximity to the Ducati:
– As soon as we got on the grid I saw the white line on (Martin’s) tyre and I realised that he had chosen the soft, so I knew it was going to be almost impossible to keep up with him at the start. I had to let him go. He kept up an insane pace until there were probably 10 laps to go. It was the first time I saw that it was stabilizing. He did an excellent job of keeping the tyre soft for such a long duration, because I think we were going to lose a lot sooner. Today I loved racing, especially in good conditions like today. We’ll see tomorrow. (…) I don’t think we’re too far away, we’re too close. For me, clearly at the end they had more grip than us (Ducati riders), even though I noticed that on my tyre all the time, they had something extra there. Anyway I think it was to be expected because we are always a bit more aggressive with the tyres than some of our opponents, so overall I think it was a positive day. Last year there was nothing left of the tyre and today I came to the most competitive finish.
