Brad Binder: Brake leak, amazing start, holeshot stuck - “What a day!”
“It was a bit of a disastrous day but if things can go wrong, hopefully I got them all out the way.”
Brad Binder hopes he got all his bad luck out of the way in a single day at the Indonesian MotoGP on Saturday.
“What a day!” said Binder. “Free practice was OK. We were having a load of problems in Sector 2 yesterday and I made some good steps there, so that was great.”
But the Red Bull KTM rider’s woes began in qualifying.
After a moment on his opening run, a ‘broken rear brake protector’ on his next outing denied the South African a chance to improve, leaving him just 19th on the grid.
“Unfortunately, I had some small technical issue and I lost my rear brake. It was obviously leaking, so it went on the rear tyre,” Binder said. “I came in, swapped bikes, went out again and got the flag. So that was my qualifying.”
Binder then had an ‘amazing start’ in the Sprint race, but was unable to brake hard enough to release the holeshot device at Turn 1, or Turn 2...
“I had so many people around that I never got to hammer the front brake, so I didn't get unclipped in [turn] 1. I didn't get it unclipped in [turn] 2 because there was so many people around, so couldn't brake hard!” Binder explained.
“I did all the other corners until turn 10 and when I went to unclip it there, I had no brakes from all the shaking. So I went straight at turn 10, unclipped in turn 11 and then had to try and go from there. But by that time, the guy in front of me was about 3 seconds in front.
“It was a bit of a disastrous day, but if things can go wrong, hopefully I got them all out the way. And if there's anything left, may it still happen today, so we wake up fresh tomorrow!”
Binder took the chequered flag in 13th place, having set his fastest lap time of 1m 30.723s (+0.534s) on the 13th and final lap.
“The last lap I did my quickest lap of the race and I wasn't far. So I think we could have had a decent race today. But it is what it is. Sometimes things just don't go your way and I'm looking forward to turning it around.”
Pedro Acosta was the top KTM rider in sixth with Binder’s team-mate Jack Miller in 13th.
Binder starts Sunday’s grand prix just six points ahead of future team-mate Acosta in a battle for fifth and top non-Ducati in the world championship.
