The 2024 Grand Prix campaign landed in Lombok for the first of five overseas events in six weeks and Red Bull KTM Factory Racing had to deal with relentless heat for the opening chapter of the Indonesian fixture. Jack Miller scored 11th place in the Sprint at Mandalika with Brad Binder taking his KTM RC16 to 13th position. The former earned the best qualification spot with 16th on the grid after the morning Q1/Q2 dice.
MotoGP first raced in Indonesia in 1996 but the impressive and relatively new expanses of the Mandalika facility brough the series back to Lombok Island for the third year in a row. The track is flat and situated at sea level with 17 corners of varying speed and technical challenges. The surface was reasonably grippy and became faster and less slick with every passing session.
Both Binder and Miller worked on set-up configuration on Friday and to maximize turning capability as the MotoGP lap times dipped under the lap record. Eighteen riders were separated by less than one second as the first two rows of the provisional grid on Friday lapped at a pace quicker than the 2023 Pole Position effort.
The South African and Australian went into Q1 Saturday morning and Miller placed 6th while Binder was unlucky to suffer a broken rear brake protector that limited his time to set a ‘flyer’ and he was 19th. Getting away from the sixth and seventh rows, Jack made bright progress right away to lunge into the top ten. He almost kept the spot, right on the fridge of Sprint points, until Jorge Martin passed him on the last lap. Brad was also very proactive and was busy in traffic to gather data for the longer race distance on Sunday. He crossed the line in 13th for a Sprint race that was already more than eight seconds faster than 2023.
Jack Miller, 16th in qualification, 11th in the Sprint: “A solid second day here in Mandalika. The bike was working pretty good, I’m happy enough. I was able to do a decent enough race today from not a great qualifying position. Just lacking performance through the faster corners and everything I’m making up in sectors 1, 3 and 4 I lose there. We have some homework to do to sort that out and hopefully the medium tire will help us tomorrow.”
Brad Binder, 19th in qualification, 13th in the Sprint: “Practice was going OK and qualifying really good until a technical problem that put me 19th on the grid. I got an insane start today, so good, but the ride height device didn’t unclip until Turn 11. I lost time but then my lap-times were not bad. We sacrificed too much ground on that first lap. I’ll try and be a bit smarter tomorrow and I think we can achieve a lot more.”
Francesco Guidotti, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team Manager: “The Sprint result is not what we expected. Brad could not give everything he wanted in Q1 because of a problem with the rear brake. Anyway, let’s see tomorrow. The long race will be tough for everyone and there might be more possibilities to recover from the back, as we saw with Jack’s good start today. He was in the top ten for a long time and until the last lap. P11 is not our target but we have to accept the circumstances and try to go faster tomorrow.”
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