“The guys ahead are in a league of their own” - Brad Binder demands more from KTM

Brad Binder believes a clear direction has been found for KTM heading into the MotoGP summer break.

Despite only finishing ninth in the German grand prix, Binder felt ‘much better’ aboard his RC16 following big changes to his bike from Saturday.

Binder was seventh heading into the final lap before an error in the final sector allowed Pedro Acosta to get ahead of him, which led to the rookie becoming the top KTM in the race.

“We made some big changes for today’s race, and the warm-up in particular,” said Binder. “The bike felt much better and it was much easier to handle. We made a big step for the race which gave us better turning.

“The bike was stopping a bit better but clearly we need to find something because the guys ahead of us were in a league of their own.

“It’s the same story of the last few races. We need to find more pace to go with the boys ahead.

“I think we got some valuable information and made some radical changes to figure out what direction we need to go in to try and keep the performance over a race especially.

“Everything was going quite average in the race and then on the last lap I lost the front going down the waterfall and lost two positions.

“Not ideal but I’d rather lose two positions than going into the summer break feeling beating up.”

Discussing his race, Acosta admitted it was tough as he suffered another difficult weekend overall.

Seventh was a good salvage job from the GASGAS rider, although it was another race where he and KTM had no answers for Ducati, not the Aprilia of Miguel Oliveira. 

Acosta added: "It was a tough race overall, after a weekend with a few issues, but somehow it was good to have these struggles before I head to the factory in Austria next week, as we will be able to work on these together.

“Overall we are happy with the first half of the season. We have been making progress round after round, but there is still a long way to go!"