Brad Binder “clear” on what KTM are missing after Australian MotoGP

Brad Binder’s impressive progress from 16th on the Australian MotoGP grid stalled when - like the other KTM riders - he began struggling with tyre wear.

Like frontrunning team-mate Pedro Acosta, Binder was able to set competitive lap times until around ten laps to go, then experienced a further big drop in the closing stages.

Acosta faded from second to fifth place, while Binder remained in eighth.

“Honestly, we are not happy about the race today and we have to understand why our performance suffered in the second half,” said KTM team manager Aki Ajo. “Tyre life was a bit worse than we expected.”

Binder stressed that he had been nursing the medium rear tyre throughout.

“The main thing was to protect the rear tyre because we know at Phillip Island you can really do yourself damage if you toast the thing with two laps to go, you can drop like hell,” he said.

“I got to the end in decent shape, but I had a drop with three laps to go. Anyway, it is what it is.”

The South African added: “It’s weird because the way I was riding, I don’t feel like we should have used the rubber the way we did.

“So, it’s clear to me we are missing a lot of edge grip on the rear. You start spinning off the edge, and you use too much rubber all the way through the drive area.

“If we can improve that, it will be a lot better.”

Binder finished directly ahead of Tech3 KTM riders Enea Bastianini and Pol Espargaro.