until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Works KTM duo Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira endured another tough MotoGP weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix, as issues in making the bike turn continue to harass them.
Now it’s starting to worry that might become the norm for a 2022 season that had started so well with Binder’s near-victory in Qatar and Oliveira’s wet-weather triumph in Indonesia.
Last weekend was not the first time that we’ve heard the pair complain about the cornering weakness of the RC16, but it’s a problem perhaps more amplified at Jerez – a tight and twisty circuit with little room to make up the difference with their well-behaved engine – than anywhere else visited in 2022 so far.
“It’s difficult to walk away with 10th place because it’s a track that I think my whole career I’ve been really fast at so I expected a hell of a lot more,” said Binder.
“All weekend we were just missing a little bit of speed compared to the rest of the guys and in the race I had big vibrations coming from the back side of the bike.
“It’s disappointing because it put a big damper on our race. In general it is a top 10, with some points. It’s a horrible feeling to finish there but it is what it is.
“In the race it was clear we were missing a little bit of turning and braking – I couldn’t brake any harder because I didn’t have any rear contact and the front was collapsing.
“It’s so difficult to ride like that because it is so difficult to trust the front to really push and with the lack of turning you’re always too late on the throttle.”
Oliveira charged from 21st on the grid to 12th after his rear holeshot device stopped working during his Q1 run, meaning he was forced to lock the device in place for the remainder of the session.
“Starting 21st and finishing P12 is not good,” Oliveira said, “but we brought some points. That’s important and I cannot say I am happy with 12th but starting so far back at this track, I feel it is all we could do.
“What we were missing here is turning. We don’t have the bike turning in the same space as others which of course makes our life harder.
“We have to use a lot more of the tyres and when it is this hot we suffer more because we don’t have as much grip and we have to use more tyres which should be saved for critical moments, so it becomes easier to crash. That is our main issue.
“It has stopped us from racing. We arrive at the race, we fight the first few laps and that’s it.
“If we get close, everything gets too hot and sometimes there is margin and we can go faster, but then we are just too far behind and repeat the same lap times.
“It is a yo-yo effect, we cannot race competitively. We are just surviving, trying not to crash.”
And with that disappointment is coming the first hints at frustration from the riders, too, with Binder speaking out after the race about the need to find a solution sooner rather than later – something that he admitted he had hoped would happen at Monday’s post-race test but which didn’t seem to be the case.
“It’s funny because we had the first test in Sepang which was like what most races have been like lately,” he said after the race, “and then we had Indonesia and Qatar which were outstanding.
“I was hoping that the Sepang test was the odd one out, but it seems that at the moment our difficulties from there are showing up more and more.
“It’s a bit frustrating but the big thing is that we’re learning and we’ve got some differences on the bike.
“We understand what the negatives are and it’s time to solve them.”
