Brad Binder says he “almost crashed” while struggling with the front tyre on his KTM during the Styrian Grand Prix, admitting the RC16 lacks “support” with the current rubber.
Binder once again suffered in qualifying as the South African could manage just 16th on the grid for Sunday’s encounter, behind KTM team-mate’s Miguel Oliveira and the wild-carding Dani Pedrosa.
The one-time premier class race winner staged one of his now customary fight-backs in the race though, carving through the field to snatch fourth on the final lap-passing both Johann Zarco and Takaaki Nakagami on the last tour after crossing the for the penultimate time in sixth.
Binder conceded though that his recovery was made all the tougher as he struggled with high front tyre temperature that meant he had to “really try and stay under the limit to not crash”, leaving him keen to find a fix for the problem ahead of this weekend’s second Red Bull Ring contest.
“The front tyre is way too weak for us, we don’t have enough support in any of the braking zones or corner entries, so the limits are set so low for us that the moment you cross it the tyres overheat and then you can’t stop the bike and you lose the front,” explained Binder.
“I had to really try and stay under the limit to not crash, and then towards the end when things were spread out more and there was less slipstream it cooled down and it got better.
“All in all I’m super happy to finish fourth, starting 16th is not OK and to at least come back and finish fourth tops off the first weekend well and hopefully we can find something to help qualify better because we just don’t have enough confidence with the front tyre to put a lap together, but over the race distance something is working well.”
Binder said he was bailed out to an extent thanks to the early red flag period that forced the race to be restarted from the beginning, having “nearly crashed” on the formation lap as his front tyre issues began to manifest before running wide and dropping back due to feeling like he was “riding in the wet.”
“It was a difficult start to the first race to be honest, I had some problems for some reason off the start and I’m not sure why but it felt like I had no front tyre temperature,” continued the 2016 Moto3 world champion.
“I almost crashed on the formation lap going to the grid and then I was really nervous on the first lap with the front, it felt like I was riding in the wet because I had no heat in the front tyre and ended going off track a little into the gravel and dropped to 21st.
“I passed a few guys and I was 16th a few laps later and then saw the incident, but after the red flag I was able to get a much better start but struggled a lot with the front end the whole way through.”
