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It was not a quiet Saturday experienced in Jerez by Brad Binder. Having started from the second row after coming through Q1, the South African of the official KTM team entered the fight for the podium right from the start, but his race did not go according to plan and ended with a crash in Turn 5 on lap 9 of the contest.
"Today was a challenging day for me, having to go through both Q1 and Q2. Anyway, I felt pretty good with the mixed conditions this morning, I got through Q2 and it's always nice to be able to qualify fourth ," said Brad, drawing the balance of his day. " The race was okay. I got a good start and tried to push right from the start, but at the end of the backstretch I realized there were a lot more wet patches than I had seen on the grid lap. It took me two or three laps to find my pace and as soon as I found a decent rhythm I felt pretty good in the saddle. When Alex crashed in front of me I got scared for a moment and in getting the bike back up I touched a wet patch and that's how I ended up on the ground as well."
More than the denouement of his race, however, what ended up in the spotlight was the aggressive entry made by Binder in Turn 1, in an attempt to overtake both Marco Bezzecchi and Francesco Bagnaia, which led to the defending champion's fall.
"I followed the normal line on the entry. Looking at the video, for sure, I was tighter than usual when I got to the middle of the corner, but coming out of the last corner, the two of them split going one to my left and the other to my right. I thought there was going to be a little bit of chaos because the bike further in seemed to me to be going straight, to be honest I thought they were both going to go straight, so I kept my usual line and it seemed to me that then they got sandwiched together and touched," Brad explained.
Although the incident caused quite a bit of discussion, no penalty was given to the South African for Pecco's crash, and the KTM rider himself did not expect any action against him, as he did not even notice the incident .
"I didn't know anything had happened. There had been a little contact with Pecco, but I didn't know that anyone had crashed, or that anything had happened ," he admitted, " I went on with my race and then the team told me about it when I came back.
However, on this bad day for its flag bearer, the Austrian manufacturer was able to celebrate a double podium with Pedro Acosta and Dani Pedrosa. A result that puts pressure on the 28-year-old?
"Pressure is not the right word. I was doing a good job to be there with them, but unfortunately it didn't go well for me today. We were competitive this weekend and I'm very happy to see Dani on the podium. That's cool, especially considering where he was starting from. At least they took care of it and made the KTM flag fly," noted Binder, who is convinced he can aim for redemption as early as tomorrow's GP.
"There are a couple of little things I would like to change for tomorrow, but they are small details. The bike is working well, I was just a little too tense at the beginning when I took some risks on the wet patches and that's why I tried to avoid them. Maybe it would have been better if I had kept at it for a few more laps. Anyway, that's how it went, but we have a good pace. Tomorrow we'll keep our heads down and it will be fine," said Brad, who is not certain, however, about making the podium: "I think it was within reach today if I hadn't crashed. We'll see tomorrow."
Automatic Translation by DeepL
