Sunday’s long race in Indonesia had many points of interest, some for good reasons, others not so much. In Brad Binder’s case, he was under the watchful eye of the race direction not once, but twice, for colliding first with Luca Marini and then with Miguel Oliveira.
In the debrief, Brad Binder started by mentioning that he felt good and had a good pace, and that initially everything seemed better than in the Sprint:
– Yes, I think it was a tough race for us. I was fast with new tires in all sessions, but I only managed to find a good pace in the race, mainly today. Yesterday I had some difficulties at the beginning and today I felt a little better. I didn’t have a bad start, everything was fine, I was just trying to get into my rhythm and understand the medium tire, because I hadn’t used it since Friday, so I was trying to figure out where the grip was and how much I could push it.
The South African KTM pilot explained afterwards what happened when he collided with Luca Marini, stating that there was little more he could do:
– Unfortunately I had a little shake in turn 8 and when I went to grab the brakes, the lever got stuck to my fingers and I started to panic because I had two riders on the outside. And when you only have 5 bar of pressure, you don’t stop very well, so I just stepped on the rear brake and tried to go around the riders, and I’m sorry because I ended up hitting Luca, ruining his race. I apologize to him and the team, for destroying what could have been a great day for them.
Binder would then suffer a long lap penalty, something that would be repeated a few laps later after colliding with Miguel Oliveira, something that #33 admits was a “miscalculation”:
– After that, of course I was pushing hard to try to catch the pack and when I had the moment with Miguel, I was a bit hot and had to dive inside at the last moment and I hit him too. I really deserve the two long laps and I apologize to both riders and their teams. (…) I had some advantage over them in braking because I was using the medium, and I think they were already pushing the limit with the soft front. So the braking point I was using in turn two was a bit later than his (Miguel Oliveira) and I didn’t expect that, so I didn’t anticipate. When I grabbed the brakes I started going towards his rear and decided to go inside to try to avoid him, but unfortunately I hit him on the side.
