Brad Binder could win a MotoGP championship. Last season may have disabused you of such a notion, but I believe that to categorically state otherwise is to ignore the evidence of his past four championship finishes: sixth (third non-Ducati rider), sixth (third non-Ducati rider), fourth (best non-Ducati rider), fifth (best non-Ducati rider).
What 2024 and the rise of Pedro Acosta did suggest was that Brad Binder probably can't win a championship as the difference maker. For you can split MotoGP title wins into two categories: the ones where the manufacturer's next-best rider (or best realistic replacement) could've also done it, and the ones where it was either 'win with this guy' or 'lose'.
A championship in the latter category - say, Fabio Quartararo in 2021 or Marc Marquez in most of his Honda years - is probably beyond Binder's ultimate potential. Which is also a reflection of what increasingly feels like a genuine 'Binder paradox'.
"We have to follow and look at what Pedro Acosta is doing," Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal told The Race in Argentina. "He's the benchmark in our factory - clearly on time attack and on race pace he's showing us the way."
I think this is an accurate assessment - and yet, coming out of Argentina, Brad Binder is still the lead KTM rider. He has been the top KTM finisher in both grands prix so far in 2025.
He has looked slower than Acosta and has underperformed in qualifying, and it has not mattered for the points tally. As usual, he has been the right combination of incisive and ruthless in the early laps and then defensively stubborn over the rest of the distance to ensure respectability.
"I just focused on getting the maximum out of the package, what we could," Binder said after the Argentine GP. "In the end, OK, seventh place is not what we want by any means - but I feel like I did my best. I can't leave here unhappy."
The paradox is that he remains the ultimate 'floor-raiser'. He is the rider you want when the project is struggling.
On the early evidence of 2025 so far, the latest RC16 looks somewhere between par-for-the-course and a genuine misstep. The KTMs have had nothing to offer against the Ducatis; the gap doesn't seem to have shrunk all the much.
The vibration issues are still there. The new riders are struggling. The single-lap pace doesn't inspire. The bike is chewing the tyres. The big visible technical innovation - the large 'box' behind the seat - seems to have been put to the side.
When it's like this, Brad Binder is the guy you want. He will get you a top-10 finish. He will get you the points you need to be able to show the shareholders the standings without wincing.
And he'll always do it just about the same way - qualify so-so, make up a ton of ground at the start through a combination of fantastic launch and on-the-limit-of-penalties riding, then hammer the brakes all race to make sure whatever faster rider or bike is behind gives up or gets into front tyre pressure trouble.
"I lost so much time, so much time there - Binder is a really tough rider to pass," VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio lamented on Sunday at Termas.
"It's like this. We know that with these tyres, with these regulations of tyre pressure, once you're on the back of a strong braker, your race is almost done. You have to wait for a mistake from them."
Di Giannantonio did get a small error from Binder - "if not, I would've ended the race behind him, 100%" - but a seventh-place finish was still an overperformance. And it's telling that four riders ended the race within two seconds of Binder, while he himself had seven seconds of clean air in front of him.
Acosta's arm pump skewed the picture at Termas, and Acosta's crash skewed the picture at Buriram. But that's the thing. When you need a rider to finish in the top 10 - not to win, but to guarantee a top 10 - you choose Binder every time.
With the best bike on the grid, maybe that wouldn't be such a valuable skill. With where KTM is right now though, 2025 so far has been another reminder for why Binder has had no issue getting contract extensions.
Respectability is worth a whole lot.
