MotoGP | KTM suffering at Mugello: “By far the worst track”

The official KTM team scored just ten points in the Italian Grand Prix, the lowest tally this season together with the races in Spain and France. But, while these two weekends were characterized by riders’ crashes in the race, at Mugello Brad Binder and Jack Miller saw how their level in the races on Saturday and Sunday was very far from the positions they expected.

While Pedro Acosta took third place in the Sprint and fifth in the Sunday race, Binder had to settle for sixth place on Saturday and tenth the following day. The South African remained out of Q2 in free practice on Friday and did not go beyond 13th place on the grid. An excellent start in the Sprint allowed him to recover up to fourth position, but he was unable to take advantage of the crashes of Enea Bastianini and Jorge Martin in front of him, because he was overtaken by four riders, including his teammate. Spanish brand.

“Already in the warm-up lap I realized that something wasn’t working well and I went wide. I couldn’t keep up with the others, I was going wide, wide, wide…”, explained the South African at the end of the Sprint. “In the long race exactly the same thing happened to me, I don’t know exactly what the cause of the problem was, to be honest. We’ll have to look carefully. With new tyres, I managed to make one of my starts because I can push on the first lap, but as soon as the tire wears out a bit, you can’t force it and I can’t turn. We need to analyse, because we were running with a quite different set-up to what we had before and we suffer a bit in the Sprint.”

Binder expected “big improvements” on Sunday in Tuscany, but he didn’t get off to a good start. Not able to keep up with the pace of the leading riders, he had to settle for tenth position at the finish line, after overtaking Aleix Espargaro, who was equally in difficulty: “The start didn’t go as expected, but in any case I didn’t have any pace . No matter how I tried, I was a little slower than I should have been and had the riders in front of me close throughout the race. But I honestly saw that they managed to escape. When I tried to remount, I couldn’t. It was a very difficult day, I hadn’t felt this sensation of not having speed in a long time.”

Miller didn’t score a single point at Mugello. After qualifying 19th on Saturday, he recovered in the Sprint to 12th position, but had to settle for 16th place in the Sunday race. “I made a good start, but I had no pace, just like Brad,” explained the Australian, who will hand over his saddle to Acosta in 2025.

“I gained some positions at the start, but in the first eight laps I suffered a lot, the front was slipping. I did everything I could to try and move my body over the bike to make it work, but it wasn’t until the rear tire dropped that I felt it go a little in my favor. I started to have an acceptable race against Fanio Quartararo, I overtook him in the end, but with a lot of effort and without scoring any points. It’s disappointing. The boys are working very well, we have a lot of work to do. We spent the weekend transforming the bike from one shape to another,” explained the official KTM rider.

Jack Miller

Photo de: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Even though Acosta was able to finish both races in the top 5, despite not fighting for the win, KTM showed its limits at Mugello, according to Miller: “I think it was, with difference, the worst circuit for us. Jerez was quite bad, Le Mans a bit, but this was by far the worst.”

KTM continues to have the vibes with the 2024 bike

The succession of fast corners at Mugello looked like a big challenge for KTM, but the riders also had to deal with vibration problems, which have been common since the start of the season. But in this case they were of a different nature for Binder: “I don’t know what it is. The bike was vibrating in some corners throughout the weekend, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate to call them vibrations. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it was a little strange. It starts a little from the back, then the whole bike starts moving between the two tires. In my case, it happened a little bit in turns 4 and 6, I didn’t have it anywhere else. Another bit at Turn 12, but nothing too dramatic.”

For Jack Miller, these problems “have not disappeared”, but are mainly related to the tracks: “It just depends on the conditions of the track. At Montmelo, they just disappeared, because there’s no grip for things to work. We almost have rain settings to understand how to make the bike work. At Le Mans we had some vibrations, also at Jerez. It’s worse on some tracks than others, but in general we’ve had them all season.”

Jack Miller

Photo de: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

#43 looked for solutions to make the problem go away, but in vain. On Saturday, the intention was to load the rear more, in particular by modifying the wing, but this simply “moved” the problem: “The bike vibrates and doesn’t give me confidence to push on the front, make changes of direction or maintain speed,” he explained after the Sprint.

“We looked for a solution this weekend and we were able to move the vibrations from the front to the rear, then to the center of the bike,” Miller explained after Sunday’s race. “It starts a little bit at the back and then moves to the front. It was a disaster in Turn 2, particularly when the tire was new. He wasn’t able to brake on the line, I had to brake in front without bothering the bike. I wanted to attack more, but after three consecutive retirements and this feeling on the front, I knew that if I continued to attack and try I would end up on the ground. After the seventh lap it improved and I was able to ride with a little more calm,” he concluded.