BRAD BINDER
11th 2020 MotoGP world championship 1 race win: Czech GP
Brad Binder’s victory at August’s Czech GP seemed to come out of nowhere. But in fact the South African rookie already had race-winning pace in his very first MotoGP race, at Jerez, where a mistake kept him off the podium. Binder’s speed was sensational, at some tracks. The 2016 Moto3 champion, who came within three points of winning the 2017 Moto2 title, looked like he’d been riding KTM’s RC16 for ages, especially when the lights went out on Sunday afternoons. “Brad is a Sunday man – he always has something extra in his pocket for the race, which is good,” says his crew chief Sergio Verbana. “He was the same in Moto2 and Moto3. Brad has a pure talent – he has a natural speed, so he can go fast, even when he’s at a track where he hasn’t ridden a MotoGP bike. “He is also a real hard worker who prepares for the race in a good way. Brad understands that he has to work with used tyres and on the electronics – he’s not always looking for the ultimate lap time.”
The 25-year-old South African has a real fighter’s mentality, so he does whatever it takes to get the best out of the bike on Sundays. But sometimes that’s not as much as he’d like, because Michelin’s MotoGP tyres have a very narrow operating range, so one weekend they work best with one type of bike, the next with another.
“It changes from track to track,” says Binder. “That’s one thing I’ve noticed in MotoGP – that when times are tough and things aren’t working you have to make the best of it. Sometimes you get to a track and the conditions suit your bike well or the tyres work well on your bike, so that’s why you see different manufacturers at the front and it’s always quite a clear picture – you can see exactly who’s strong and it’s quite easy to see why. I think we miss something when there’s a lot of grip, but when the grip isn’t so great I feel like I have more of an advantage.”
Next year Binder and KTM will surely take another step forward.
‘Brad is a Sunday man – he always has something extra for you’