Why chain issues hampered KTM's MotoGP San Marino GP weekend

Brad Binder believes that striking Misano’s high kerbs at the wrong moment may have caused the unusual chain failures that struck both him and KTM MotoGP team-mate Pedro Acosta over the San Marino Grand Prix weekend.

KTM endured one of its worst-performing weekends of the 2025 MotoGP season at Misano, with Binder ending up as the only rider from its four-strong stable to finish the race and score points.

The South African’s preparations for the grand prix were severely compromised after the chain on his RC16 snapped twice during practice, first on Friday and then again on Saturday morning.

Then the same issue forced Acosta out of Sunday’s race on lap 8, just after he had charged from from ninth on the grid to grab fourth place behind Gresini's Alex Marquez.

Binder admitted he was surprised to see the chain falling off the bike multiple times over the weekend, but stressed that it did not point to an underlying fundamental flaw with the RC16.

“We've never ever lost a chain. Ever.” Binder said. “And coming out of Turn 6, there are those massive double kerbs where you run onto with a lot of lean angle. 

“So more than anything, it's just maybe the timing of when we drop the ride height device, shift gear and [hit] those really thick fat kerbs. 

“When you get right up on top, that's somehow just vibrating and the chain is somehow coming off. 

“So I don't think we have a problem anywhere else, but of course, it's a bit difficult or a bit shit that it happened three times.”

Acosta was visibly agitated following his retirement in the San Marino GP,  parking his stricken KTM at the side of the track before giving the bike his middle finger in frustration.

The Spaniard admitted that it was hard to control his emotions in the heat of the moment, having come so close to salvaging what was turning out to be an incredibly tough weekend for the Mattighofen-based marque.

“After a really tough weekend for every KTM, we were able to more or less turn around and come back from ninth position - that is never easy - to be more or less competitive until the end,” Acosta said.

“It doesn’t matter that you become hot because we were coming from many, many [strong] races. From the summer break, we were doing good races. 

“On Saturday, we saved the race again. And today we were honestly doing a really good race too. I will not say [to] finish on the podium, but maybe come back [to] where Alex [Marquez] was because I saw the race and he was dropping a bit. 

“Don't get this wrong, but I think we were having potential for more. When you are coming back from a really hard weekend, making good passes, making good speed, it's difficult to understand that things like this can happen. It's a mechanical sport.”

Asked if KTM had offered him an explanation for the chain issues, he said: “They have to improve the bike. It's not a thing that usually happens. In the one-year-and-a-half that I've been in MotoGP, it never happened to me before. 

“It's also a bit disappointing that it happened on the day of the race. I was having enough speed to make a minimum of fourth position. 

“I was coming back from a really hard weekend of work. This is important. Now we are finding consistency in these top five.”

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont