A positive start to the weekend was made for Binder and KTM, who were testing a new chassis throughout Friday practice.
The South African joined team-mate Miguel Oliveira in setting a very competitive lap towards the end of FP2 which was enough to squeeze into the top ten positions.
But while speed was there, Binder wasn’t totally impressed by the new chassis components, saying: “It had some positive points but some pretty big negatives as well. I was jumping between the two bikes today but tomorrow I think we can focus more on just one and figure out how far we can push it.
“The front-end feeling is quite different. It wasn’t completely new but there were some very small changes. It worked out quite okay and it seemed to help me a bit in the drive [area] but I lost a lot of feeling on the front and it felt more on the limit on the front-end.
“We need to make some changes for tomorrow to try and set it up a little bit, but other than that it was a positive day.”
Binder also achieved his top ten result without the full use of his ride-height device which didn’t activate properly in sector three on both his fast laps.
“I had a small issue and didn’t do something quite correct – I didn’t get my ride-height device all the way up in C3 [corner three] – twice,” said Binder. “Both of my time attacks were done in sector three with the ride-height device down so I lost a lot of time there but we weren’t far off.”
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Binder craving first MotoGP win of the season
The KTM rider, who is 30 points ahead of Oliveira in the MotoGP standings, has zero wins compared to the Portuguese rider’s two so far this season.
And given the fact Binder has won at least one race in all but one world championship season since 2016, the prospect of failing to add to that was described as ‘not good enough’ by the former Moto3 world champion.
“F*ck! It’s been eating [away] at me,” Binder stated. “It would be the first year in I don’t know how long that I haven’t won a race. It’s not good enough. Let’s make sure we can try and finish on a high.”
While Binder has his own battle to take care of in the championship come Sunday’s Grand Prix – the KTM man still has a chance of overhauling future team-mate Jack Miller for fifth – all eyes will be on title contenders Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo, a battle Binder is keen to not ‘get involved’ with.
“I think it would be great if they are more cautious and then hopefully they will be behind me,” said Binder. “I don’t know! I don’t want to get involved and you don’t want to change the outcome but at the end of the day it’s a race and we need to fight.”
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