A star is born: Brad Binder exploded in Brno to be the brightest in the KTM constellation

2023 Author: Nicholas Abramson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 02:44

The 2020 Czech Republic Grand Prix is already motorcycling history. It will forever be remembered as one of the most influential races of all time. The day KTM won for the first time. And is that what we saw in Brno is the most unpredictable, unexpected and awe-inspiring of the last decade of MotoGP, As minimum. More than when Jack Miller won in the Assen rain.

Because in Brno the KTM constellation saw the birth of the much-needed star. Brad binder It has come to stay, and those who think that it has been a flower of a day are very wrong. The heart of Africa is already in MotoGP, albeit in the form of a soft boy with a strange smile and a champion mentality.

Binder, the heart of Africa who left her country at the age of 12 to pursue a dream

Those who know him say that Binder is a hieratic person. He does not spend an extra second celebrating a victory or lamenting a loss. Just keep working to make it better next weekend. Nevertheless, Binder's undaunted face seemed to be on the verge of dropping a tear. It was his great victory.

A triumph that has taken everyone by surprise, but some less than others. With the times table in hand, Binder has already amazed locals and strangers in Jerez. But it was not on TV, at least for negative things. In the first one he left alone in the first laps, and in the second he did it at the start, taking his future teammate, Miguel Oliveira, ahead.

But in both races, when he was last solo, Binder began to impose a crushing pace. Many said that with that rhythm the day he did not fail at the beginning he could win. But of course, the question was whether the nerves were going to allow him to go as fast rolling in the lead. Now We already know that Binder does not know what that nerves are.

Because we must remember that we are talking about a pilot who is a rookie. It is in its first season. He had only been two MotoGP races before sipping champagne in the third. His adaptation has been unsuspected. You just have to see that Álex Márquez, who won the Moto2 World Championship last season, suffers to score points with the Honda.

And it is that Binder is not a rookie to use. He has arrived at MotoGP at the age of 24, and tomorrow he will be 25. Far from the 19 with whom other stars such as Fabio Quartararo or Marc Márquez appeared. Binder has arrived mature of mind and of piloting to the premier class, and it is expressing it from the beginning.

His path to get here has been unique. At the age of 12 he came to Spain with his mother Sharon, separating from his brother Darryn, now in Moto3, and from his father Trevor. He was able to compete in some races from the last year of 125cc, 2011, before the conversion to Moto3. But he had years of trouble fighting a Mahindra. Until KTM made him their star.

In his second year dressed in orange Binder swept the competition in Moto3, being world champion by far. He made the leap to Moto2, where if he was not champion last season it was due to the internal instability of KTM. He finished just three points behind Márquez with a final stretch of the Aúpa championship.

In Brno he became the first rider to win a race in MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3 and the Rookies Cup. But much more important is that he won in the premier class in his third participation, like Jorge Lorenzo. Marc Márquez did it to the second, Dani Pedrosa to the fourth and Valentino Rossi to the ninth. But none of them did it with a motorcycle that, until then, had never won.

Now the doubt is evident, Can Brad Binder aspire to the 2020 MotoGP World Championship? Yes, to many it will seem very hasty, but you have to remember two things. The first, that Márquez is not present at the moment, and the second that Binder already had the rhythm to be on the podiums in Jerez. If you stop rookie mistakes, you have to keep that in mind. He is fifth overall.

And the Austrian double arrives. One circuit, the Red Bull Ring, which is not only owned by KTM's title sponsor, but is the brand's hub of operations. Dani Pedrosa was testing there a few weeks ago, as in Brno. And the KTM should do very well on its straights, enough to be able to take advantage of Ducati's low hours and the absence of Márquez at Honda. There are global.

The triumph of Binder, and that of many other people, starting with Dani Pedrosa

It is not advisable for the outbreak of the star Binder to overshadow its entire constellation. Brno's triumph has been that of many more people besides Binder. It was KTM's first, and arguably the first of many. Four years after they took the MotoGP leap into the void at that Valencia Grand Prix, they are already in a position to win.

Because it wasn't just Binder. Pol Espargaró was on his way to the podium also if it were not for that controversial touch with Johann Zarco. In Jerez, a circuit that should be the opposite, the KTMs were already very good. In Brno they have won, and let no one lose sight of them at the Red Bull Ring. We can see a lot of orange on the next podiums.

Binder's victory is also that of the tubular chassis, although this year it is less so than in previous bikes. And of course it is a triumph for Dani Pedrosa, who according to Honda was too young to be a tester But it only took a season and a half to deliver a winning motorcycle to the starting riders.

For him problems can come from Austria. If KTM wins any of the two races again, or if they get two podiums, one of them being a second place, they will cease to be a brand with concessions. They will reach 6 points, so Pedrosa will be left without much work. In that scenario, going 'wild card' in 2021 would make more sense than ever.

When in Mattighofen they decided to get into a world so alien to what they dominated in the competition, nobody knew how it was going to come out. Yes, logically the intentions were the best and the maximum illusion, but to win in MotoGP you need to have too many things set up. It took KTM three years and a short time, 60 races, to fine-tune its team enough to win in MotoGP. It has been 17 years, since Ducati, that a new brand had not won in MotoGP.

KTM has started to win at the best possible moment. With developments frozen by the coronavirus, many feared that this would put a brake on the aspirations of the Austrian brand. And to top it all, possibly for that very reason, Pol Espargaró is leaving them. With what Nobody counted on it was that in Brad Binder a star has been born.

Repsol Honda is already penultimate in the team world championship and things promise to get worse

But moving away from those who are the great protagonists of Brno, there was much more to talk about. Probably the podium formed by Binder, Franco Morbidelli and Johann Zarco is the strangest in a dry race in MotoGP history. It was the South African's first victory, but also the first podium for Morbidelli and for the Avintia team, now called Esponsorama.

MotoGP 2020 is being everyone's party except Honda. Even Aprilia shone in the top positions for a time with Aleix Espargaró, and Ducati in the absence of an official team is pulling the courage of Zarco and Pecco Bagnaia, now absent. But at Honda there is nothing to hold on to beyond the hope that Marc Márquez will return soon.

Repsol Honda took the last two positions on the starting grid in Brno. In the race Álex Márquez could score at least one point, but that does not prevent him from Repsol Honda is second to last in the team standings, just two points ahead of Aprilia. Without Espargaró's crashes in Jerez, the champions would have been the last.

Thanks to the LCR, the satellite team, Honda maintains a little more dignity in the brand classification. They are fourth, but probably fifth out of Austria, because Suzuki is only three points away and Álex Rins is already healthy. The worst thing is that the distance with Yamaha starts to be too high even for when Marc Márquez returns. What good would a motorcycle developer like Dani Pedrosa do now?