29 September, Mandalika, Indonesia – A drama-filled race weekend in Indonesia saw both KTM RC16s feature golden Mobil 1 logos to honour the brand’s 50th anniversary for the final time this season.
Heat was always going to be a challenge of MotoGP’s Indonesian round and it remained present for the 27-lap feature race on Sunday. The flat and twisty Mandalika International Circuit hosted 60,000 fans eagerly awaiting some epic racing.
Red Bull KTM riders, Brad Binder and Jack Miller, had work to do having been eliminated in Q1 and started from the sixth and seventh rows of the grid.
As the light went out, both riders got away well with Binder almost instantly threatening the fringes of the top 10 positions.
However, Miller wasn’t quite so fortunate. On the first lap heading through Turns 2 and 3, Miller was caught up by other riders causing himself to crash and meant his race was over almost before it began.
Binder’s strategy was to maintain the life in his tyres as much as gaining ground on the race leaders. In the end it was good enough for a top 8 finish.
Coming home in 8th place, Brad Binder said “A tricky one for us today. We made some changes this morning and tried something quite different but it was clear in the race that I didn’t quite have the margin to push.
“I was running wide a lot. I had to try to be clever with the front tyre pressure and tucked behind a rider. It’s been a long weekend and I’m looking forward to see how we’ll manage in Japan next week.”
With his race cut short, Jack Miller said: “I got away to a good start and threaded the needle in Turn 1 like I could but then for the change of direction into Turn 3 I had a load of bikes right ahead of me, and had to grab the brakes. It was the first time on the left-hand side of the tyre and it was a bit much on the first lap.
“It is just one of those things that can happen. I was in the middle of the group so a massive apology to the others that went down also. We have to look to Japan now. It’s been a good track for us in the past. We’ll see what we can do because yesterday here I felt our speed was decent.”
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing will be back in action next week at Motegi for the Japanese GP on the 6th of October.