KTM seems… ready to race, as the motto of the brand and even Brad Binder assured today before the start of the last tests of the pre-season in MotoGP. The south african address again the bike’s potential and where the team is in terms of preparation, saying that there are still some things to test.
Speaking to the journalists in Qatar, the rider start to speak about the last tests in Malaysia: ‘For me the position or time [done in Sepang] was not a reflection at all of our speed. I had my quickest lap time in the morning with the ride height device on, and then in the afternoon it was a different story: the track was greasy, it was hot, it wasn’t the same and I improved my lap time. There is definitely potential there I would say. These two days will be much the same every year for us. Tomorrow there is zero need to do time attack, we have to try to put things together to get and idea where we are, we have to put everything together in time for the GP’.
As if he has an idea what works with what, the south african was clear: ‘Of course we left Sepang with a better understanding about our different combos and what not, but for sure there is still a lot to try and that is what tomorow is really for, and the next day we can play with smaller things, find something more setup based and get more comfortable rather than throw parts’, before continuing:
– For us the work will be with different combinations, I think we have tried all of them, everything we are trying now but, you know, when you link different things together it changes completely, so we need to see where we are firstly and then let’s see where we are speedwise on tuesday.
As for the timeframe to test everything, Binder seems happy: ‘We are actually ok. I might be ok to say that we are happy actually, because we are normally the last ones on track until the last minute trying to squash things in, and we were a little in Sepang to be honest, but we came here what to try and much better understanding’.