The MotoGP Catalan GP seemed promising for Brad Binder, but the Red Bull KTM rider ended up abandoning the Sprint race, and in yesterday’s main race in Barcelona, he only finished eighth – unable to fight for the top positions until the end.
The Red Bull KTM man explained that he tried to manage well the rear tyre, but it was the front tyre that gave him problems from very early on, affecting his entire race:
– I knew it would be a race of management, so I started the race and just tried to nurse the rear tyre the whole way. Something really strange happened: on the lap six my front tyre was dead already and I couldn’t carry any entry speed, I couldn’t brake late at all. And of course when you enter so slow and you have to really manage the rear tyre to get to the end as well, the pace was just too slow, I was unable to push at all. Each time I tried a little bit, I had big moments with the front, just locking. It was pretty much trying to get the bike home. There’s not too much to say.
After the incident in the Sprint race, Binder had to make a decision in light of the problems he faced, as he said: ‘To be honest, on Saturday I had a big lock on the front, it was the first one that I had and I crashed. And on Sunday I had a couple of them and it was a good warning because it was coming again. So I had to decide whether I wanted to finish like I did on Saturday or to bring it home’.
The South African then explained: ‘It seems like when we’re rolling on corner entry, the moment you try to get the full lean angle, it just overpowers the front tyre a little bit. I had a few locks in that situation and I said: «Okay, I didn’t listen to this warning on Saturday, so I should probably to wake up a bit». And if you can’t push to that extend, you ride slowly and that’s what we did’.
When asked if these problems are due to aspects like setup, bike balance, or weight distribution, Binder replied: ‘I’m not too sure exactly what we need, to be honest, because when we have rear grip it works fine. But as soon as the rear grip starts to drop and we rely solely on the front tyre, we struggle a lot’.