Once again, Brad Binder impressed at Misano last weekend as the South African rider placed his Mahindra bike higher than any other in the race.
Riding for Ambrogio Racing, Binder is at the helm of one of several customer Mahindra bikes in the Moto3™ field this year. Having raised more than a few eyebrows after finishing second to championship leader Jack Miller in Germany, on this occasion Binder ended his Misano afternoon in a strong sixth place from tenth on the grid. He has now broken into the top ten of the lightweight class standings.
“The biggest problem I had was right at the very beginning,” recalled the 19-year-old from Potchefstroom in the North West province of South Africa. “I was really stuck in traffic, but I was able to notice that my pace was much better than those around me. So I really got my head down to catch those in front of me. I also realized that my real strength was in the fast corners, which I used to my advantage to catch them up (Isaac Viñales and Enea Bastianini). I pushed right until the end and was a bit disappointed I couldn’t reach fourth place but, even so, it is still a strong sixth place.”
“We improved a lot between Saturday and the Sunday Warm-Up and ended the race with the best possible result,” added Ambrogio Team Principal Fiorenzo Caponera. “Maybe we could have grabbed one more position, but that is not the point. The bike worked very well and Brad felt invigorated because after Silverstone he hadn’t been too happy. We leave Misano satisfied.”
It remains to be seen for which team Binder will compete in the 2014 season. As for his current outfit, they have already announced that Italian Alessandro Tonucci will be part of the line-up from the start of next season.