Darryn Binder felt no pressure in much-debated MotoGP step at Jerez

The younger brother of double MotoGP winner Brad Binder will make his MotoGP debut next year aboard a year-old Yamaha with the new RNF Racing team, which has taken over from the departing Petronas Sepang Racing Team.

Binder’s MotoGP step has come under fire in recent weeks when he was involved in a controversial incident in Portugal which helped decide the Moto3 world championship in favour of KTM’s Pedro Acosta.

It is understood Binder’s appointment to the second RNF seat alongside Andrea Dovizioso is down to the substantial backing he can bring to the team.

He finished last week’s two-day Jerez test last on the timesheets and 3.069 seconds off the pace, though did make a gain of 1.8s from the first day.

When asked by Autosport if he felt any pressure coming to the test given how much his MotoGP step has been in the spotlight recent, Binder responded: “Not at all. The team’s been really helpful for that.

“Everybody’s been super calm, they’re just here to take this first shakedown test as just going out and riding the bike, and we’ll start working next year.

“We’ve got the rookie shakedown test in Malaysia, and then when the real test starts in Malaysia we can start to work.

“Until then it’s just build up slowly, learn what I need to do to ride this bike, learn as much as I can about everything and slowly start to put it together.

Darryn Binder, RNF Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“There’s no rush, there’s no point. Like the end of today [Friday], if I was doing a 1m39s or got to a 1m38s, it’s still two seconds off – it doesn’t make a difference.”

Binder’s second day was interrupted by a highside in the afternoon, which he felt stunted his progress somewhat as it stopped him from being able to utilise the best of the conditions.

“At the beginning of today we were just putting tyres and fuel and going, and I was getting faster and faster,” Binder said after Friday’s session.

“And just as we started to dive into the ride height device and stuff like that, unfortunately coming up to about lunch time I had quite a big crash.

“That really slowed down the progress unfortunately. So, I spent about a good hour or so on the floor of the truck just stretching out.

“In the afternoon we managed to get back out and we kind of started again just building up into it because I didn’t feel my best.

“But in the end we tried some stuff with the electronics and the ride height device and stuff like that, and I was still improving.

“We tried the medium and soft tyres, just figuring things out.

“I feel like we could have made a bigger step had I not crashed because we lost a lot of valuable time in the good temperatures.”