Brad Binder has been a part of the KTM family since his 2015 Moto3 season, but he is enduring a difficult 2025 MotoGP campaign and might no longer be their ‘golden boy’.
The South African has risen through the ranks with KTM since he joined the Ajo outfit for his fourth full season in the lightweight class. Binder also won the 2016 Moto3 title for KTM Ajo before moving to Moto2 with them in 2017 and to MotoGP in the factory KTM crew in 2020.
Binder even became the first KTM rider to win a premier class Grand Prix with his triumph in the 2020 Czech GP at Brno on just his third race on the RC16. But the 29-year-old has since enjoyed just one more victory at the 2021 Austrian GP and nine Grand Prix podiums thus far.
KTM have also only seen Binder score 68 points over the first 12 rounds of the 2025 MotoGP season to rank 12th in the standings. He is also just the third-highest-scoring KTM rider, with Pedro Acosta sitting in seventh with 124 points and Maverick Vinales of Tech3 in 11th on 69.
Photo by Hazrin Yeob Men Shah/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesMat Oxley thinks the Michelin front tyre is why Brad Binder is not KTM’s ‘golden boy’
Binder lamented his braking problem in the 2025 Czech GP after the KTM rider only finished eighth on MotoGP’s first race at Brno since 2020. Likewise, Binder bemoaned problems with his front brake in the 2025 Italian GP as it made attacking ‘absolutely impossible’ at Mugello.
Yet Mat Oxley thinks the rear tyre that Michelin introduced during the 2024 MotoGP season and the problems that Binder has continued to have adapting to it are the root causes of his issues at KTM this term. The KTM RC16 has never suited Michelin’s super-grippy rear tyre.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Brad Binder from career stats to wife
Before Michelin introduced the rear tyre currently in use, KTM could rival the likes of Ducati for at least podium finishes. But the RC16 has forever struggled to utilise the extra grip, with Binder et al often facing chatter problems, vibrations or the rear-end pushing the front-end.
Oxley said on the Oxley Bom MotoGP Podcast: “It’s so weird because if you think a couple of years ago, Binder was just KTM’s golden boy. He was the first guy to win a MotoGP race on a KTM with that very strange Czech Grand Prix in 2020, when the track was like it was wet.
“[He is a] massive talent, super guy, but he just hasn’t been able to adapt. And, to me, it’s this rear tyre that came in last year. A lot of riders haven’t been able to adapt to that.
“Him and Acosta all through last year [were] saying it’s the old rear pushing the front again. Just lose the front, lose the front, lose the front, lose the front [and] lose the front.
“Eventually, that is going to gnaw away at your self-confidence, and I think that’s where Binder is now. He’s still crashing a lot. He’s up there in the crashes list [with 13]. So, there you go. That perfectly describes [it].”
Brad Binder needs to find a ‘Plan B or C’ as the KTM rider lacks creativity
Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images
Binder would sit sixth in the standings without any Ducati bikes on the 2025 MotoGP grid on 149 points, with works KTM teammate Acosta second with 241 points to Marco Bezzecchi of Aprilia on 271. Tech3’s Vinales would be fifth with 154 points if there were no Desmosedicis.
But the Ducati GP25 on which works ace Marc Marquez leads the actual standings with 381 points and the GP24 on which Gresini racer Alex Marquez sits second on 261 can still utilise the Michelin rear tyre more than the KTM RC16. So, Peter Bom feels Binder needs a ‘Plan B’.
Binder continues to impress with his bravery, which has never been in question. But Bom is adamant that Binder needs to find an alternative solution to improve his results, having so far finished at best P6 in the Spanish GP and P7 in the Argentine GP during rounds five and two.
Bom added: “Brad is not afraid to push. The determination is there. [He probably thinks] when we line up, ‘I’m probably going to win this one. Why not?’ Even when he was dead last in qualifying, I love that. He has balls. What he lacks is being creative.
“He has one way of riding the bike. If the bike likes that, you won’t ever see him back. He will be under the shower when you finish second. But when the bike doesn’t like that, he doesn’t have a Plan B or C.”