Brad Binder was the best KTM rider in the MotoGP test that took place yesterday in Jerez. There were no significant developments in the RC16, but there was a lot of work from the Red Bull KTM rider, who was 0.234s slower than the leader, Fabio Di Giannantonio (Pertamina Enduro VR46/Ducati).
The South African summarized the day in Jerez: ‘It was pretty good. I started the morning basically where we left off in the race. We didn’t have many things to be honest – we had a full aerodynamic set, which was very good. As always with aerodynamic things, it was just to gather as much information as possible to then try to bring the next updates. There are some parts that are good with the new one, in others we are missing a bit – we are having a bit more wheelie‘.
According to Binder, there were important improvements in a particular area: ‘A good improvement we made in this test was fine-tuning things with the rear shock absorber, we managed to have the bike a bit more stable, which is good‘.
Regarding the rear section of the bike with more aerodynamic elements than other KTM riders used, #33 stated: ‘Honestly, I don’t know. We had an update for Portimão and everyone has been using the one with more. But maybe they made a direct comparison. It changes your feeling a bit in the braking zones, as well as the amount of rear contact you have, that’s where that area touches. But of course when you’re accelerating it’s the opposite. So, it’s always a bit of a compromise‘.
As for the vibrations on the front of the bike, Binder explained that this aspect was not a priority in this test: ‘Especially on Sunday we had a lot of vibrations in the race. And in the test when we had more laps, we also had them. But we were so busy in other areas that it was not our main priority. We tried something at the end that seems to help us a bit. As always, it’s just about gathering as much information as possible, and then people can go home and bring the next step’.
