The MotoGP rookie who promises a golden future for KTM

A bit of history was made last Sunday when the lights went out at Jerez at the start of the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix. For the first time since Shane Norval in 2000, a South African rider took part in a premier class race. And this particular South African is a bit special.

Brad Binder has been one of KTM's golden geese since he joined the Austrian manufacturer's ranks in Moto3 in 2015. That came after a stint on the unfancied Mahindra where he shone, getting the bike to the podium twice in 2014.

In 2016, Binder sailed to the lightweight class crown by way of some stunning performances - including a famous outing at Jerez, where he came from last on the grid after being disqualified from qualifying for a technical infringement to win by over three seconds.

Moving up to Moto2 the following year on the fledgling KTM chassis, he scored his first top 10 finish while riding with a broken arm, finishing ninth in Argentina. Come the end of the campaign, he scored three podiums in the last three races. Two wins followed in 2018, and he came just three points short of last year's title having been the only rider in the early part of the campaign to extract any decent performance from the weak KTM frame.

Already signed up to KTM with Tech3 for 2020, Johann Zarco's departure from the factory squad left a hole that needed to be plugged. When Miguel Oliveira turned down the offer, the candidate to fill the void was pretty obvious.

There is a reason why KTM committed to Binder for 2021 to effectively lead its charge alongside Oliveira when Pol Espargaro heads for Honda before he'd even turned a wheel in anger this year.

Binder was quietly impressive in the pre-season, ending the Qatar test in ninth, and showed flashes of that speed again across the Jerez weekend pre-race.

Being quick over one lap is one thing. Hooking it up in a race for 25 laps in punishing heat, inches away from other bikes, is quite another.

He ended his debut in 13th after an off in the early stages while running inside the top 10, but taking Binder's end result at face value hides the fact that - without that moment - he was staring at a potential debut podium.

"I believe now looking at everything afterwards that I stood a good chance of finishing in the top five with my rhythm" Brad Binder

From his off on lap seven, Binder immediately got back into the same low 1m39s, high 1m38s pace that race leader and eventual winner Fabio Quartararo was circulating in on the Petronas SRT Yamaha. On the penultimate lap, Binder was a second quicker than Quartararo (a 1m39.957s vs a 1m38.951s) with a laptime almost identical to his best of the race set on lap 11 when his rear soft tyre was in a much better state.

Relative to second-placed Maverick Vinales on the other works Yamaha, all but two of Binder's laps in the last 10 tours were quicker, and all but four were quicker than third-placed Andrea Dovizioso on the factory Ducati.

There are, of course, the caveats that Quartararo will have eased off in the latter stages as his win was assured, and Vinales was struggling pretty badly with a worn soft front tyre while Dovizioso was getting his hands dirty in battle. And Binder himself cautioned that those laptimes will have been easier to achieve while he was on his own.

"I had great pace when I was riding around on my own, it's when you're behind the guys, it's in dirty air as well," Binder said when Autosport asked him about his podium pace on Sunday.

"And it's quite different because also, it's not just having slipstream on the straight, but also when you brake, that pulls you in, you get sucked into it when there's someone in front of you breaking the air. So, it's a little bit different for sure. But, I believe now looking at everything afterwards that I stood a good chance of finishing in the top five with my rhythm.

"And that would have been fantastic, but it's not the reality. So when you're up in that position, things are always different. And of course, there's a lot more pressure on you when you're racing up front with the top guys than when you're 20 seconds behind the guy in second to last place and you can just chip away at it and do your own job."

But this doesn't devalue the job Binder did, and even more impressively is that it came after battling issues in the braking zone early in the weekend. Where that would usually be enough to send a rookie chasing their tail, Binder was able to work through that and had the problem more or less solved come qualifying - where he missed a Q2 place by just 0.138 seconds. Clearly, Binder is already providing clear feedback to his mechanics, which is a key skill a rider set to become a team leader in under a year's time will need to have in his arsenal.

"We just pretty much made the front a little bit harder," he said on Saturday when detailing his braking fix. "And it solved a lot of issues. Basically, what I was looking for was a bit of margin in the braking zones because once I had that little bit of extra space with the front fork, I wasn't so in the limit in all the braking.

"So, it definitely helps me out a lot. And the main thing... I didn't really change much when you go for fastest lap, but when it comes down to making sure you get the bike stopped every single time, I felt a good improvement."

With Marc Marquez ruled out of this weekend's Andalusian GP - also at Jerez - through injury, a repeat of the frantic battle seen last weekend is likely once again if Yamaha duo Quartararo and Vinales remain a step ahead of the rest.

Armed with a weekend's worth of data and experience, Binder will almost certainly take a step forward. But, once again, he is keeping his feet on the ground - displaying the ominous ego-free down-to-earth approach Marquez and Quartararo displayed in their sensational rookie MotoGP years.

"If I look at my rhythm in the race, it was my rhythm from FP1," he added. "So, I think coming back again next week, it's not going to change a whole lot.

"I'll make some small changes on the back to make it a little bit better. The great thing about doing a full race and then coming back is you get so much information in a race.

"Obviously, when you push over 25 laps, you get to see things with other people on track and see how your feeling is on the bike, where you need to improve, what your strong points are. And I've a clear idea of what I would like to try going into next week."

Binder's race has - especially at this early stage - brightened the horizon for KTM as it prepares for life after Espargaro

Wherever Binder has gone, there has always been a real buzz around him. And the same excitement Marquez and Quartararo generated early on in their MotoGP debuts is very much radiating from the South African.

Armed with a Dani Pedrosa-developed bike that, at least at Jerez, was quicker than the Ducatis and not a million miles away from the Yamahas, Binder is facing a similarly breakout campaign.

When Autosport first revealed Espargaro's departure to Honda for 2021, this appeared to be a potentially disastrous move for KTM. Espargaro has very much been the driving force behind its climb up the grid, and putting its faith in youth - albeit exceptionally gifted youth - looked to be a major gamble.

Miguel Oliveira's run to eighth for Tech3 - matching his best MotoGP result straight out of the blocks - went some way to dispersing those fears. But it was Binder's race that has - especially at this early stage - brightened the horizon for KTM.

Perhaps KTM won't end up missing Espargaro in 2021 quite as much first thought...