Resilient Binder rides the storm at Phillip Island to rediscover some of his spark

Brad Binder’s resilience shone once more under the grey Australian skies, where the ocean winds of Phillip Island carried the roar of his RC16 into another hard-fought result — and a renewed sense of clarity about what needs to change before the season ends.

From a modest 13th-place start, the Red Bull KTM rider carved his way through the field with characteristic grit, finishing eighth to collect a valuable haul of points.

While Ducati — led by Marc Marquez — has dominated much of the season, with the sibling rivalry between Marc and Alex Marquez adding extra intrigue, Binder and his Red Bull KTM side of the garage have endured a campaign marked by inconsistency.

Yet, the second half of the season has brought renewed optimism, with the South African finishing three of the last four races inside the top ten despite failing to advance to Q2 in any of them. Phillip Island proved another demanding but productive outing — one that required a calculated approach. Binder admitted that managing tyre wear was critical to his performance.

“The race was a little bit tricky,” Binder said after the race. 

“I had a really good start and got in the mix. You really had to protect the rear tyre because it was easy to mess up the edge.”

The 30-year-old, like much of the grid, had to be cautious in the early stages to preserve tyre life. Although his pace dropped slightly toward the end, he believes the team now has a clear idea of what needs improving ahead of this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

“I tried to be clever with that and was riding very clean, but it still dropped a lot at the end. I was really clear about what we need to improve to go faster. Otherwise, I cannot complain too much — 16th to 8th and decent pace,” he added.

Binder currently sits 12th in the championship standings on 126 points, with three races remaining this season.

Team manager Aki Ajo praised the team’s overall performance but echoed Binder’s concerns about the late-race drop-off, saying the team must analyse what went wrong before the next round.

“Generally, we should be happy with all four riders in the top 10 — this is a positive point — but honestly, we are not happy about the race today, and we have to understand why our performance suffered in the second half,” Ajo said.

“Life was a bit worse than we expected.

"The weekend started as challenging on Friday and turned more positive with the Sprint on Saturday, and then we came back to reality a bit today. To have a rider in fifth and all in the top 10 is positive, but we need to learn more from the conditions we found for the race.”