Michael Scott | January 14, 2017
Moto3 is the closest, toughest road-racing championship in the world. Normally the domain of Italy and Spain, this year it was utterly ruled by a young man from the Rainbow Nation, South Africa.
Brad Binder, the first South African World Champion since Jon Ekerold in 1980, dominated the closest class in GP racing—Moto3—almost all season long. On the podium for the first three rounds, his win at round four at Jerez—from a penalized back-of-the-grid start—became his signature. He won six more races, securing the crown at Aragon with four races to spare.
He made it look easy. But, of course, it wasn’t.
“I think the good thing is we managed to limit the bad days and we took advantage on the good days,” he says. “Obviously I’ve been really lucky, with regard to [the fact that] I haven’t been taken out. I haven’t had any big issues.”
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With massive close groups and record close finishes, it’s surprising there are so few multiple crashes in Moto3. Until the late rounds, in Australia and Malaysia, “because people are getting desperate. It’s the end of the season and every guy is looking for that one great result. If I look at my season, I’ve been in first position for a lot more laps than anyone else. And when you’re in first you have no problems. When you’re in the group, that’s when the accidents happen.
“I’m not going to say their names, but there’s two or three guys that you know are going to do something stupid. It’s not if, it’s when. It’s important to know your competitors.”
Binder, who turned 21 during the season, grew up far away from the action in Krugersdorp outside Johannesburg, South Africa, where a free and easy lifestyle in a bike-mad family meant dirt bikes on the weekend and road bikes from his early teens. “When I was 14 I used to jump on my GSX-R600 and go to school, which was quite funny. You can’t do that many places, but in South Africa if you got caught it’s not the end of the world. I didn’t have a licence, no number plates. I’d drive past the cops, and they don’t even stress.”
Binder started racing before he turned 10, on four wheels, becoming South African 50cc Karting Champion before telling his father he’d rather race bikes. His talent was obvious, and by the age of 13 his father, Trevor, a successful businessman in the mining industry, understood he needed a bigger stage.
“We arrived in Britain on a Tuesday, bought a bike [for the Aprilia Superteen Series] on Wednesday, and started racing at Brands Hatch on Friday. From the first time I was there, I was fastest in a few of the sessions so that was pretty good. In the race, I was second.”
The Red Bull Rookies Cup came next, with three years in the series, and in 2012 he was in GPs, in Moto3. It took some time before he could make an impact. By 2014 he was getting used to running up front, but that Jerez win in 2016 was his first. He had to learn how to calm down, and ride with his head as well as his heart.
“My biggest downfall, the last couple of years, is I always used to stress myself out, and basically just get in a tizz. My team boss [revered Red Bull team chief Aki Ajo] called me ‘Panical.’ Not ‘Radical,’ ‘Panical.’ I used to come in, look at the time sheets, and if I wasn’t up there, I’d shit myself. Now I keep everything more under control, go out there and do my work for myself. That’s something the team and myself have worked really hard to get out of the way.”
The effect was obvious in 2016; when he was not only fast but also stable, with the best tire control and the best tactics.
Things changed with his first wins, at Jerez and the next two races. “After that—okay, I couldn’t get away at some tracks, but I had a lot more pace. I felt I was riding around at 80 percent; in a way, and any time I needed to turn it up, I could.”
“That gave me a lot of confidence, because it put me in a position that I could play my race out. I could try and position myself perfectly to come first, and if I couldn’t come first I was in the top three every time.
“I have great feeling with the bike and a lot of experience in Moto3, as well, and it’s also a lot to do with having a great team behind me.”
His worst moments of the year were at Assen, where he ran off the track while in the lead pack, finishing 12th, and at Brno, with one of only two non-finishes, crashing in the wet while miles in the lead. The other was in Malaysia, also from the lead, after hitting oil.
“Midseason, everyone was saying: ‘You’re in it for the championship. You need to take it easy and get points.’ And I don’t believe that so much. I believe if you go out there and do your job the way you know how to, and the way you have been doing in the past, it’s the only way to carry on getting the results.
“At Brno I felt comfortable. Everything was going perfectly. The only thing I’m really angry about is that I saw it was raining more and I didn’t do anything about it. I just felt so good, and it was just a bit more water. Then I had an aquaplaning moment, and that was me. All done.”
The best moment was winning the title at Aragon, “even though we came second, and I was bleeped because of that, I looked over to the left and saw my whole team hanging over the pit wall going crazy. And then I realized it was all done. We’d won the World Championship.”
“After I won it I really struggled. I don’t know how to explain it. I haven’t tried to explain it to anybody. But it’s a feeling: ‘Now what?’ I expected everything to change, and nothing did.
“Every morning since December the previous year I’d been waking up and I’d go and train my ass off with the goal to be World Champion. And all of a sudden, after winning it, you realize nothing changes. It’s just a title. I expected this huge awesome thing, but at the end of the day, once it’s done—afterwards I realized it’s not the title you enjoy. It’s all the races getting to the title. The good days, when things go well; the horrible days when they aren’t going well and you dig deep—those are the things that make the title special.”
Binder’s next move is to Moto2, taking the place of departing champion Johann Zarco, staying with the Ajo team. He is keeping his expectations in proportion.
“For every Rins or Vinales [winning races in their first Moto2 seasons] there are guys like Alex Marquez or Danny Kent, who won Moto3 and then struggled in Moto2. I’m not setting any goals. My priority is just to do my best, whether it is top 20 in the first race or the top five.”
He has two years with Ajo in Moto2, but turned aside rumors of an option of MotoGP with KTM. Likewise any notion that he should have followed Jack Miller straight up to MotoGP, confident that Moto2 is the correct training path.
“Moto3 is a class where you learn how to fight and how to get good racecraft, but at the end of the day anybody can go fast on a Moto3 bike. Well, not anybody, but if you go to a track with a long straight and you sit behind a guy you are going to stay behind the guy, whereas in Moto2 you don’t have that same effect. If you look how consistent the guys are in Moto2, that’s where the biggest difference is. They have super rhythm, and it’s the same guys every weekend.”
The day after this interview, Binder won his final race at Valencia—another landmark ride—though after a slip dropped him out of the top 20. Barely a week later, his Moto2 career started badly, with a crash in testing that broke his arm and wrist.
The South African has a winter break to get over it. Then we shall see. CN