The day couldn’t have gone much worse for Brad Binder who after not being able to put any fast lap on the qualifying had to start from the last row. On the race itself the problems continued, not with the tyre locking, which continued to prevent him from putting his best on the track.
‘The first session of the morning wasn’t too bad. Qualifying… I went out to the pits for my first run and I felt something was a little bit strange. Sometimes it happens and it kind of cleans up and everything comes right but I tried to do a lap to see it would work, tried to push but it wasn’t possible so I came into the pits and the team tried to sort things out, to made sure it would be fine on the next bike. We swapped over, went out the pits, went straight into first lap and yellow flag so… yeah. Starting last was not cool’, the south african began to say to the press.
He also explained what the issue was: ‘We had an eletronic glitch. Sometimes these things happen and unfortunately it was bad timing’.
And continue, saying that he at least got to understand more for this sunday:
– I had the whole row for myself which was quite nice I suppose, but yeah… other than that there isn’t much to say. I had a good start but never had pace to do anything after that. It was really tricky and the front lock was huge with the front tyre, the pressure was way over from lap three already and it was so hard just to try to stay on the track. It was tricky for sure but the positive thing is that we can figure out a little bit of what we need for tomorrow.
In the start Binder recovered eight positions, something he sees as normal with his RC16, which is very strong at that specific moment: ‘My bike is a rocket at the start. I know no matter were we start we are almost guaranteed a row, if you get a good start. I managed to get it carried a little bit, other than that there isn’t much to it to be honest: I had a good start and was expecting to carry on but yeah, I kept having moments. Went off track once, came back on, lost a few positions and the front kept locking. If is important, when you are 15th not to do what I did yesterday and fall off three times. I needed to bring the bike home and get data to understand what to do for tomorrow’.
Given his starting position there is to expect a troublesome day: ‘Well, f*cking get the same start would be great and then if we can be about three tenths quicker it will be fun. Honestly, I felt I could go a little bit faster but couldn’t make any progress because I wasn’t stopping well and not turning well after that because of the stopping I was not doing well and then of course we delay the pickup of the bike so you don’t get good drive either so you kind of fall into this bad circle’.