What people don’t realize or understand is that they think, ‘Oh, those MotoGP guys have traction control on their bikes’. But to go as fast as we possibly can we run the lowest TC we can.
You get to point where you just spin and if you spin too much you don’t go forward. So, we try to have the tire driving, rather than going absolutely flat-out with the throttle and going over that crest and into the TC, because then you’re not going anywhere.
The goal is to use the TC as little as possible, because, even with the TC, if you really break traction on the edge of the tire it won’t stop spinning. Whereas if you keep traction on the edge you can pick up the bike, get onto that bigger contact patch and get the benefit of the drive.
It’s funny because when I first rode the MotoGP bike I used to think, ‘F**k I’ve got to try turning this stuff off and give it a go without’. You can ride the bike like that and you can go almost too but you end up absolutely frying your rear tire, so you don’t get any advantage.
Binder riding an RC16 on the road in South Africa, August 2022
red bull
After that you modulate with the throttle and rear brake to reduce wheelies?
I use the rear brake in the wheelie zones too, because I prefer to use the rear brake than roll off the gas.
Tell us about braking with the leg dangle…
You can do it with or without the dangle. But I find, especially in places where you’re not really straight-braking, or you’re braking coming out from the center of the track and then you need to get into the next corner, that if I chuck my leg out it makes the bike falls over a bit quicker, because I have to lean more on my inside hand, which gives me more leverage to counter-steer. It just helps me to flick the bike into the corner and get it onto the good part of the tyre.
What about turning once you’re in the corner – do you use the rear brake? Because mid-corner turning seems to be the most important thing for the lap time now…
Where some riders win a lot at the moment, especially when they fit a new rear tyre [i.e. in qualifying], they have more grip, so they can roll with a lot more corner speed. That’s where we don’t win a lot at the moment – we don’t add much corner speed when we put on new tires, so that’s one place that’s hurting us a bit.
I think you’re so limited now by the performance of the rear tire on acceleration, because everyone takes it to its peak, so the only place to really gain is having a bit more grip on the entry, so it literally drags you a bit better and helps you stop a bit faster. Then when you turn in, if you have that extra edge grip that keeps the bike planted, you can keep a couple of kays extra corner speed.
A V4 turning with corner speed, more than point and squirt. Downforce aerodynamics is changing everything in MotoGP!
KTM
So you’re turning with corner speed?
Yeah, with the extra grip you can use a bit more angle and do everything a bit more aggressively.
Downforce aerodynamics is MotoGP’s big thing right now, so how do you ride to take advantage of that?
More than anything it becomes your bike. Before you add the aero the bike wheelies a bit more and whatnot, then you add the aero and it wheelies a lot less, but it’s a lot harder to move around.
“We’re playing with such small margins. If you brake directly behind a group you just get pulled in”
Also, it’s more critical when you have people around you because if you don’t have the force over your wings the whole bike is a bit out of balance.
Is that one reason there’s less overtaking now?
I just think it’s so tight at the moment. The bikes are so evenly matched that even in the slipstream you can barely get next to the guy in front, so whenever you’re trying to overtake you’re coming from quite far back. The days of seeing a guy get completely next to another rider while braking are gone. I’m sure it may have a bit to do with the aero, but more than anything it’s just how competitive and how even the field is at the moment.
Do you try to keep away from other riders?
If you’ve got a group in front of you it’s better to be half a meter on the inside and have clean air, or half a meter on the outside and have clean air, rather than be directly behind somebody, because if you brake directly It’s like when you sit up on the highway doing 160 kays and the bike slows, while if you sit up at the same speed behind a truck nothing happens. We’re playing with such small margins that we need that air resistance.
So, using the clean air isn’t only to keep your bike stable, it’s also to stop getting pulled in when you’re in the vacuum behind another bike.
Binder with KTM racing boss Pit Beirer (left) and MotoGP project leader Sebastian Risse
red bull
And you’re also trying to keep the front from overheating?
Once the front tire starts to overheat the first thing that goes is your stopping. Stopping gets harder, then after that the front tire wants to close [tuck] when you’re on the edge of the tyre.
I remember you talking about tucking the front in the fast rights behind the paddock at Jerez [Turns 11 and 12] because KTM went so big on the aero this year. Tucking the front there must be pretty scary…