Brad Binder explains what “needed to change” to top Barcelona MotoGP practice

Brad Binder has explained that he “needed to change” how he approached time attacks on the KTM, which helped him top Friday practice at the MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix.

For the first time since Japan last year, two-time race winner Brad Binder led an official MotoGP session.

He did so with a new lap record of 1m38.141s at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and led KTM team-mate Pedro Acosta by 0.104s in Practice.

This marks just his fifth Q2 appearance of the 2025 season, with his best qualifying to date a sixth at the Czech Grand Prix.

Never particularly a one-lap specialist, Binder says a change in how he approached every flying lap helped him be better prepared for his final run in Practice and feels this was improved by the recent updates to the RC16.

“Today was pretty good,” he said.

“From the first run this morning, I felt like everything was really working much better here than in the past.

“I think all the changes we’ve made of late, everything already came together in Hungary.

“I only woke up on Saturday morning there.

“So, from then on, I came here with an understanding that I could do a much better job and what I need to improve was the way I work and putting things together when it comes to the time attack.

“So, I managed to do that today. I’m happy with the job we did and tomorrow let’s try again.

“The biggest difference was I just tried to make every lap count, even if I fluffed a corner here or there, I just made sure to keep my head down and keep going.

“I think I was much more prepared when we put in the tyres. So, that’s something I realised I needed to change from the previous GPs. So, pretty happy.”

In terms of what the bike is offering him, he added: “The biggest difference for me is purely the front tyre has much more margin.

“I understand where I am with the front tyre and I can push a lot harder before it lets go. So, it gives me a lot of confidence and it was nice to be able to push a bit today.”