Spanish GP 'a good lesson' for SA's Brad Binder after two crashes ends his race prematurely

• Brad Binder qualified for the Spanish Grand Prix, but endured a difficult race.

• The South African crashed twice in the race.

• Binder says he can only learn from the experience and improve.

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Red Bull KTM Factory Racing emerged from 25-laps of tense and sun-kissed MotoGP action at the Circuit de Jerez - Angel Nieto with three bikes in the points and Miguel Oliveira classifying 11th for the fourth round of the season.

For 35 years, the Circuit de Jerez – Angel Nieto has been one of the staple Grand Prix venues for motorcycling racing and a popular and useful layout for testing. The familiarity of the 4.4km layout delivered some close and fascinating action throughout practice and qualification, with often hundredths of a second splitting most of the grid.

The Gran Premio Red Bull de España began in sunny and warm conditions, but in significantly lower temperatures than the 40-degree 'burner' of 2020. Brad Binder made a reasonable start from 11th on the grid and the fourth row, but lost front-wheel traction into the second turn of the second lap and crashed. He was able to remount and tried to catch the pack to salvage some points, but another slow speed tumble at Turn 13 ended his day.

Miguel Oliveira had to withstand difficulty with grip and the trickiness of having to cut through from 16th on the grid to front the KTM quartet. The Portuguese was three seconds from the top ten by the end of the distance. MotoGP stays in Jerez for a one-day IRTA test on Monday and travels next to the historic Le Mans circuit for the Shark Grand Prix de France on May 16th.

Brad Binder

KTM Media

Team comments

Brad Binder said after his race: "I felt great in warm-up this morning (on Sunday) and then made a good start in the race, but unfortunately, going into Turn 2 on the second lap, it looks like I was a bit too relaxed, got on the brakes at the wrong moment and when I tipped into the corner the front just washed out. It's a good lesson for the future to ignore where you are in the pack and keep your marks.

"It's also disappointing because I had good pace all weekend, and I felt good. We could have done a decent job today. Sorry to the team because they worked well all through the GP, and they deserved a result."

Mike Leitner, Red Bull KTM Race Manager: "We cannot be happy with 11th position because we had some expectation after Brad's good qualification yesterday and consistency in the warm-up. We saw many crashes here, and unfortunately, Brad had one on the second lap, so his race was more or less over then. It was hard for Miguel to make much time from 16th on the grid, and he was in traffic for too long.

"We have to accept 11th, but we can see how high the competition is, and now we need to work on the test here tomorrow to find something extra with the bike. It was positive that three of our bikes finished in the points, even if it was not our goal to be part of the pack. The target now has to be better at Le Mans."

Brad Binder

KTM Media