Good start for Brad Binder on opening day in Qatar

The wait finally came to an end for Brad Binder and teammate Jorge Martin, as on Friday the pair kicked off a brand new season in the Moto2 World Championship at the Losail International Circuit. The Red Bull KTM Ajo duo carried over their good feeling from the test into the opening two Free Practice sessions of the year, improving their lap times from FP1 to FP2.

Brad took advantage of the warm track temperatures during FP1 to continue fine tuning the setup of KTM’s Moto2. The South African rider began the session amongst the frontrunners and eventually finished 6 tenths off the top spot, in 12th place.

Once the floodlights were turned on for FP2, the Red Bull KTM Ajo Moto2 pair improved their times early on. Brad was eighth both in the session and on the combined timesheets with a 1:59.059.

These results would place both riders provisionally Saturday’s Q2 session, with one more practice to go. Saturday sees the new Moto2 qualifying procedure run for the first time from -18:25pm local time.

#41 BRAD BINDER
“It has been a tricky day for us but I’m happy, since we found the right path to follow. We had some issues in the test but now I feel more comfortable and we’ve gained a lot of confidence. In FP2 we took a step forward and we found out several things, which is very positive. I can’t wait for tomorrow; we will try to apply everything we have learned so far. We’re going to push very hard to get a good spot on the grid.