Brad Binder is back at the top of the timesheet after the first day’s work at Motegi ended with the KTM rider posting the fastest time and then fulfilling one of the first goals.
With a lap in Practice of 01:43.436s, Binder secured a place in Q2 straight away, and admitted in his analysis of his performance that everything went smoothly: ‘Very happy to have been fastest in Practice (the practice session that directly qualifies for Q2). We started very well and, to be honest, this morning I felt quite reasonable from the first laps and everything worked well. We had a little problem at the start of Practice and I had to go for the brakes because I had a huge vibration in the bike but after that we went out again, I needed to figure a few things out and I did a few laps and as soon as I put the (new) tires on I felt very, very good’.
Happy, Binder explained what the plan will be for tomorrow: ‘I think our bike is working very well here. We’ll try to work on race pace tomorrow and I hope we can be strong’.
There’s still a bit more testing to do to be sure, but Binder is excited: ‘The medium tire to be honest was very good, in the morning it was good but in the first part I used the new soft and it was worse than the medium, and I put two new ones on and it was a whole new world. I need to confirm that to be honest. Everything is going well so far. We skated a bit on the straight but I’m sure it will get better’.
Finishing, the South African added: ‘It’s clear that this track works well for us, as it has done in the past. I’ll try to get the most out of it, we’ll see’.