{"id":525077,"date":"2026-03-07T17:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T17:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/525077\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T17:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T17:28:11","slug":"brad-binder-would-like-a-hell-of-a-lot-more-after-thai-motogp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/525077\/","title":{"rendered":"Brad Binder would \u201clike a hell of a lot more\u201d after Thai MotoGP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brad Binder admitted he wanted \u201ca hell of a lot more than seventh\u201d after the Thai MotoGP season opener.<\/p>\n<p>The South African saw his record as KTM&#8217;s most recent winner end with team-mate Pedro Acosta&#8217;s Sprint victory on the Saturday, where he took the chequered flag in sixth.<\/p>\n<p>Binder again finished as the second-best <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/red-bull-ktm-factory-racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">KTM <\/a>rider in the grand prix, crossing the line 11.8 seconds behind runner-up Acosta, an average of 0.455s per lap.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday was alright,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/939427\/brad-binder\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Binder <\/a>said. \u201cI&#8217;m glad to have started the year by getting into Q2 and having two decent finishes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like a hell of a lot more than a seventh, but at the end of the day, that&#8217;s my pace at the moment. It&#8217;s a good starting point, I&#8217;d say.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to keep building, keep pushing forward, and I feel like I have a lot more in the tank. Let&#8217;s keep working and try to find that extra pace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ktm-lap-times-thai-motogp.png\"   type=\"image\/png\" alt=\"KTM lap times during the 2026 Thai MotoGP vs Aprilia race winner Marco Bezzecchi.\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.76\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>KTM lap times during the 2026 Thai MotoGP vs Aprilia race winner Marco Bezzecchi.<\/p>\n<p> \u00a9\u00a0Peter McLaren<\/p>\n<p>Binder was eleventh with six laps remaining, but retirements for Marc Marquez, Alex Marquez and Joan Mir combined with a pass on Francesco Bagnaia moved him up the order.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old said tyre management, previously a KTM weakness, was the main gain over last year&#8217;s RC16.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could feel we were spinning quite a lot,&#8221; said Binder.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I made sure to try to be clever and get the rear tyre to the end, which I was happy about because we managed to make a good step compared to last season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEspecially the way we looked after the rear tyre, the centre, had a lot less spin, so there&#8217;s positive to take out this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMainly, I just need to find a bit more pace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Binder &#8211; who took a pair of eighth places in last year&#8217;s Buriram round &#8211; left Thailand sixth in the championship standings, while Acosta heads to round two in Brazil as the early <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MotoGP<\/a> title leader.<\/p>\n<p>Tech3 KTM riders Enea Bastianini and Maverick Vinales finished the season opener in twelfth and 16th places, respectively.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Buriram was Binder&#8217;s first MotoGP event with new crew chief Phil Marron. Former crew chief Andres Madrid is now alongside Bastianini.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brad Binder admitted he wanted \u201ca hell of a lot more than seventh\u201d after the Thai MotoGP season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,13844,6399,806,805,803,804,10670,85],"class_list":["post-525077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brad-binder","tag-ktm","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-red-bull-ktm-factory-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}