Acosta, Binder star in Catalunya MotoGP practice: “KTMs are fast here”

Friday practice for the Catalan MotoGP ended with KTM riders Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder both in the top three.

Acosta edged out 2025 winner Alex Marquez by just 0.018s while Binder enjoyed his best session of the season with a lap time just 0.070s from the top.

“Still many things to improve,” Pedro Acosta told MotoGP.com afterwards.

“But quite happy to see that many KTM bikes are riding fast here.

“Chassis-wise, the bike is working quite fine. We now have to analyse the data with the team and try to improve for tomorrow.”

Acosta, who lost third in the world championship to Fabio di Giannantonio after a last lap pass at Le Mans, added:

“I need to work out tomorrow with the medium. Last year, I decided to race with the soft-rear tyre and it was not the correct choice. For this, I will try to work a bit more with the medium.”

Brad Binder explained that last weekend’s promising set-up had transferred well to the low-grip Barcelona track.

“It's been a decent day,” he said. “I had a little spill this morning in Turn 2, but other than that, it's been good.

“The base that we found in Le Mans translated over here really quite well. I think we improved on that setting slightly here already so I feel like we're heading in a good direction.

“Everything's working a little bit better and I'm really happy to be in the top three.

“The main improvement we made is definitely just the front stays on the ground a bit more, a little bit more planted. And as for the rear, I can just roll a bit more corner speed.

“So happy with that, think we made a good step and yeah, looking forward to trying my best again tomorrow and see where we end up.”

Both are guaranteed places in Qualifying 2, while Tech3 riders Enea Bastianini and Maverick Vinales will need to take part in Qualifying 1.

Bastianini was just 0.349s from Acosta, in eleventh, with Vinales +1.001s on his return from injury.