Brad Binder: “It’s better to crash out of first place than ride around in 15th”
Brad Binder’s crashing woes continue in Catalunya after falling from the lead of the sprint race.
After a double fall at turn two on Friday, Brad Binder suffered the same fate but this time at turn five as he threw away a potential MotoGP sprint win.
Binder took over the lead shortly after Raul Fernandez also crashed out from the lead, when he overtook Pedro Acosta.
But the factory KTM rider, who has been very fast all weekend despite his previous crashes, saw the front-end of his RC16 wash out at turn five.
Speaking after the race, Binder remained upbeat despite a third fall in two days: “Today’s qualy was pretty good. Super happy to have qualified fourth. It’s always great to be right up front from the start.
“The start was pretty good but unfortunately I hit the limiter in first gear and then couldn’t get the bike to go into second, but it was still a great start. I had a little bit of a mishap there.
“Apart from that everything else was great. I had a really good feeling in the race, the bike is working really well here, but unfortunately in turn five the front just washed out.
“I didn’t get any warning. I was maybe a bit straighter than the lap before and that was my race all done. It is what it is.
“It’s never cool to crash out of first, but it’s better to crash out of first place than to ride around in 15th like last week.”
Surprisingly, Binder admitted his mistake came when riding with more caution than normal.
The South African said: “I was trying to ride clean and I probably shouldn’t have done that because I was backing it in a lot less than I’m used to and obviously it put the weight in a little bit of a different place and I washed the front.”
Binder, who was fighting hard with fellow KTM rider Acosta for much of the race before his mistake, was back at the sharp end of a MotoGP race and able to fight against the Ducatis.
Asked where he sees their advantages over the Ducati bikes, Binder added: “I think there are many tracks where we have advantages, maybe not as many as them but this is a track that’s really good for us.
“From FP1 all the KTM’s were fast and it didn’t matter what we did set-up-wise, we were all good.
“But the big test is tomorrow. Let’s see how we end up in the race.”
