The Catalunya MotoGP Grand Prix started with a promising KTM in the practice sessions. However, especially in the main race, the Austrian manufacturer was unable to fight for top positions as it seemed possible. The performance improved throughout the weekend, but it was surpassed by Ducati.
Their best rider was Brad Binder. In a race where he was running in the top four, not far from the podium, he lost momentum and finished in a modest eighth place.
The South African explained that this season there has been a trend of decreasing grip between the practice sessions and the main race: ‘It seems that for some reason this year we noticed that when we get to the Sunday race in particular, the track is the greenest it has been all weekend. FP1 has much better grip than the race‘.
In this scenario, KTM ends up losing performance, since according to Binder, low grip conditions cause more difficulties for the KTM RC16:
– One of our big problems is when grip is not there, we have a lot of difficulties to make our bike work as we struggle to get the transfer to work properly. I think we need to understand a bit what happens… I don’t know if it’s all the Moto2 rubber catching our rubber, or what happens, but the track becomes very green. So, in that situation it seems like we have more difficulties than the others.
