The celebrations did not last too long Sunday night in Jerez as Red Bull KTM Factory Racing – Spanish Sprint winners and double Grand Prix podium finishers – eagerly got back to work for 2023 testing through another hot and sunny day in Andalucía. Brad Binder was 8th fastest while Jack Miller ranked 14th on the final time sheet.
Only hours after their milestone achievement of placing both works KTM RC16s into the top three at round four of twenty in 2023 MotoGP, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing were again rounding the Circuit de Jerez – Angel Nieto layout. Testing duties for the full day consisted of further set-up investigation to maximize the potential of the current race bike for both the South African and the Australian but also evaluating new aerodynamic solutions.
Binder and Miller ran through a number of short and longer track runs, with test rider and hit wildcard racer in Jerez, Dani Pedrosa also back in the saddle and helping the cause for the rest of the season as well as putting the knowledge gleaned from his 7th place finish on Sunday to strong use for his own testing agenda.
Binder racked-up 73 laps and was 8th quickest from the full MotoGP troupe of racers and testing staff at Jerez. Miller was busy for 67 circulations and finished the day 14th in the official testing chrono. Data and information from Circuit de Jerez – Angel Nieto outing could be put into place as early as round five; occurring on May 13th-14th in Le Mans for the SHARK Grand Prix de France.
Brad Binder, 8th: “I’m happy with how the day panned-out. We got through our full test plan, which doesn’t always happen. We used our time wisely and now the guys can go back and look through the data to help us improve. We had some new aero to try and, as is always the case, you can gain a little bit in some areas and lose in others. It means you really change the balance of the bike as well and it can be complicated to know immediately when you test back-to-back. It takes some fine-tuning. Le Mans next. It is a bit of a special track and you never know what weather you’ll find there!”
Jack Miller, 14th: “A busy day and a progressive one. It’s fantastic when you work with a factory that is pushing so much. We had a lot of items to test and now we just need to analyse the data to know what was better and what is maybe not so necessary. We tried some aero options but we’ll wait and see what we use next. The bike is really good but we are also doing a really good job as a team. There are no specific weak points but we still have some areas that we’d like to improve. We made some steps today even though, as always on a Monday, there was a lot of rubber down and the track was fast. Our acceleration is really good and now we just want to understand what we’ll take to Le Mans.”
Francesco Guidotti, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team Manager: “We had a special weekend and today was another day of work: a bit more relaxed but still very busy. We were testing some items and settings that we did not have time for during the race weekend and we were able to understand some of our options better.
Sebastian Risse, Red Bull KTM Technical Manager MotoGP: “We’ve had a very intense test day after a successful weekend and there are not many days like this during the season where you can work on things outside of the homologation, so we had a lot to do. We did a lot of test runs and gathered a lot of information and for that we’re happy with the outcome. We worked a lot on the aero side because there is a second homologation open. We also worked on chassis, electronics, torque delivery and we found some interesting aspects that we hope we can improve in the next races and take the benefit.”
Circuit de Jerez – Angel Nieto Official Test final combined times
1. Marco Bezzecchi (ITA) Ducati 1:36.574
2. Luca Marini (ITA) Ducati +0.104
3. Fabio Quartararo (FRA) Yamaha +0.151
8. Brad Binder (RSA) Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +0.494
14. Jack Miller (AUS) Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +0.857
