Brad Binder finished the MotoGP tests in Sepang with the seventh time on the last day this Thursday. He was 0.625s behind the fastest, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), with a time of 1m57.307s.
The #33 of Red Bull KTM said he was satisfied with this Thursday, where he already started reducing the range of options for the bike and finding a path to follow: ‘It was a really good last day, it was a good test overall. I tested a lot of things. This morning we were also trying all the different things and throughout the day we started narrowing down what was working or not, and what we liked and didn’t like. This afternoon we started to find a little more direction for the future, I believe, and right now, everything is fine. I think things are much better than they seem on the timesheet. I think we have some potential when we put it all together’.
Asked if the KTM RC16 that finished these tests is already close to the final version for the start of the season, Binder replied: ‘I don’t know exactly, to be honest. It’s hard to say because we tried so many different things and we needed to start putting them all together because some things were good, some were not, and we tried them all at different times. To be honest, we could have done two more days of testing just to try to narrow everything down. But I would say that the way we finished this afternoon is not far off. It’s true that some things will change, but overall we can be happy because we have a much better idea of what works’.
Regarding the approach – or not – to Ducati, the South African analyzed: ‘I think in the last test here last year I was 14th or 15th and did 1m58.9s or something like that. We made a good step in a year, so if we can keep this kind of progress, I think we can be good’.
