Brad Binder revealed that he remarked ‘f***, please don’t let that be the last lap’ while witnessing the replay of him going off track on the final lap at Assen.
The factory KTM racer put on an impressive display to battle Ducati duo Francesco Bagnaia and Marco Bezzecchi throughout the Dutch TT – despite opting for the less durable soft compound rear tyre – to eventually take the chequered flag in third.
The South African’s initial joy would soon turn to disappointment for the second time in as many days as he was relegated off the rostrum to fourth behind Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro post-race after it was found he had crossed the green outer part of the track at Turn 10 on the final tour – the very same transgression that cost him third in Saturday’s sprint race to Yamaha pilot Fabio Quartararo.
Binder said he felt “really sorry” for his KTM team having made the same mistake two days in a row, the two-time premier class winner kicking himself because he didn’t “know what I was doing.”
“To be honest I can deal with it from my side but I feel really sorry for the team because they did an incredible job all weekend and gave me a bike I could qualify really well on,” said Binder.
“My start was insane and somehow we managed to make the front tyre work until the end, and we would have got two podiums.
“I don’t know what I was doing because I didn’t realise I’d touched it again, but then I saw the replay and was like ‘f***, please don’t let that be the last lap’ but it is what it is and I’m really sorry to my team.
“I’ll go away and have a look at it and the positive is that I was strong all weekend, and we’ll try again at Silverstone.”
Binder added that he was “shocked” at how slippery the Assen track surface was in the early laps of the 26-tour contest due to the extreme 51 degrees Celsius asphalt temperature, though he started to feel more comfortable once some rubber had been laid down onto the racing line during the opening phase of the encounter.
“I was pretty deep on the brakes at Turn 1 to get past everybody but it worked good, but it was super slick out there and for the first couple laps I was quite shocked because it was so slippery,” continued Binder.
“After we started to get some rubber down I started to feel more comfortable, and I knew the most important thing for today was protect the right edge of my tyres, and I think I did well the whole race but didn’t quite finish it off properly due to touching the green on the last lap.
“A fifth and a fourth is not terrible, a pair of podiums would have been nicer, but we’ll try to do better next time.”
