Last weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix marked something of a change from the usual order of things at the factory KTM team.
For the first time in 2022, it was Miguel Oliveira and not team-mate Brad Binder who looked to have an intra-team advantage all weekend long, handily in front of his Portuguese home crowd.
That was echoed in Sunday’s final results, too, with Oliveira coming home in fifth place, his best dry result since Assen almost a year ago, while Binder crashed out for the first time in over a year.
The fact that it’s gone so long since either of those things have happened highlights just how much of a changing of the order the weekend was.
Binder has outperformed Oliveira for the best part of two seasons now – something reflected in the fact that going into the race at the Portimao circuit, Binder was sixth in the standings and Oliveira ninth despite his dominant but anomalous wet win at Mandalika Bay.
Yet in Portugal, it was Oliveira who absolutely looked the faster of the two – something that can of course partly be pinned on the boost of racing on home soil.
He’s a rider who seems to rely on confidence to extract the maximum performance possible from the bike, and he admitted afterwards that the race – while still illustrating the bike’s problems – was exactly the foundation that he and KTM needed early in the year.
“I felt good from the beginning,” he said, “but very soon I was struggling to keep up with the pace.
“We need to be happy with the top five, but for sure the feeling is that we could have challenged for more.
“It’s a good result to build up the confidence for Jerez with a positive attitude and a good mindset.
“We feel like we could have challenged for more but we had a couple of difficulties during the race and I wasn’t too happy with our compound choice of the front tyre.
“So, to take top five on a day when I was not so comfortable on track: we’ll take it.”
In Binder’s defence, he was never really able to get going in the race – something that negated the typical Binder Sunday special attack and prevented us from really seeing what he could have been capable of even against his team-mate.
Boxed in from the start of the race and forced into an uncharacteristic mistake, he crashed out at the halfway point from 11th and highlighted just how important the opening laps of any MotoGP battle are these days.
“Unfortunately in the race I didn’t get a good start,” he admitted.
“I got a good launch but things really bunched up in Turn 1 and I didn’t find a clean route through.
“I got really boxed in and had to kill my speed on the inside kerb. I had people bombing me from both sides.
“After that I regrouped, got past a few riders and was trying to make some moves forward but I ended up losing the front at Turn 10 and going down.
“It’s the first mistake that I’ve made in a while, and I’m a bit disappointed because it was a bit of a silly thing and I don’t think I should have made it. I just went in a little bit too hot. But it is what it is.”
While Oliveira might have been left looking for more and Binder with disappointment at his DNF, there’s something to be positive about for both of the KTM riders.
Finally feeling like they’re getting closer to unlocking the secrets of the 2022 RC16, both had upbeat things to say about the bike and this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez – one of KTM’s most favoured tracks on the calendar.
“Actually, it was, surprisingly, really good in some places,” admitted Binder afterwards of the Portimao pace.
“Well, not surprisingly – it was really good in some places, like in the more flowing, fast corners, which is where we didn’t feel great last year.
“We’ve gained there, and our big issue was trying to stop the bike in a straight line.”
