Brad Binder: ‘We are super close but we haven’t shown we can beat Ducati’

Brad Binder’s performance in the opening round of the season was brilliant, as he finished highest of the non-Ducati riders in both the sprint and Qatar MotoGP.

But the KTM rider was unable to grab top spot on both occasions as Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia did just enough to hold off the South African. 

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Speaking about what he learned from the sprint prior to the 21-lap grand prix, where he was even stronger, Binder said: “I think the sprint gave us a lesson because we went quite hard.

“I burnt my rear tyre quite badly at the beginning and when you double the distance you have to be smarter.

“The goal was to use less throttle and more brake and try not to burn the tyre.”

KTM and Aprilia have been Ducati’s main challengers in the last two seasons.

Binder has been a big reason as to why KTM are consistently seen as a potential threat to win, however, the 28-year-old still feels as though Ducati hold the same advantage over KTM as last season.

Binder said: “I think it’s the same as last year. We are super close but we haven’t shown that we can do it. 

“For me, I’m pushing at 100% all the time and I feel like they have a couple of percent in their pocket when they want to use it. I’m waiting for this last little bit of help to come.”

The scorer of 29 points, two less than series leader Bagnaia, Binder had the perfect weekend while team-mate Jack Miller was scoreless.

Miller crashed on lap two of the sprint and finished last of the completed runners.

“Not how I wanted to start the season but those are the cards we were dealt today,” said Miller.

“The guys went a bit deep into Turn 1 and I tried to hold a tighter line and the front went away.

“I picked the bike up and was pushing afterwards but I was missing something today.

“I could not run close to the pace we needed. A head scratcher. We will try to work out what went wrong and try to fix it for Portimao.”