MotoGP moved from Asia to the Middle East and from Malaysia to Qatar for the second pre-season test of the 2024 campaign. Brad Binder logged the 9th fastest effort through the two seven-hour sessions across two days and Jack Miller was 11th quickest as Red Bull KTM registered almost 220 laps in their chase of the best set-up to enter the new calendar.
KTM swapped heat, humidity and a sticky Sepang International Circuit for the evening lights, strong breeze and sandy, abrasive asphalt of the Lusail International Circuit as Qatar hosted the second and final pre-season test of 2024 MotoGP. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing joined their peers for a two-day run at the 5.4km course north of Doha, and the last chance to try parts and ideas and homologate configurations of the KTM RC16 for the campaign ahead.
Brad Binder and Jack Miller took profit of a track that gradually became cleaner throughout use on Monday to re-try technical directions with aerodynamics and other mods discovered in Malaysia two weeks previously. The second day provided a final bout of confirmation before work also addressed set-up for the forthcoming Grand Prix (with a view towards the 11-lap Sprint and 22-lap full distance event). A time attack ‘blast’ resulted with Binder in 9th and Miller a slither of a second behind in 11th.
Only 17 days separate the last laps of the test in Lusail until the first circulations of the Grand Prix of Qatar and the opening round of 21 in the 2024 MotoGP season. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing will get fast again when it counts on Friday March 8th to launch their eighth term on the premier class grid.
Brad Binder, 9th: “Today was pretty cool. We managed to squash everything in and tried a few settings as well as a full race simulation. I was unlucky to have two yellow flags on my time attack lap but other than that I was happy! I think our bike is working really well and we made a step from last season: we’ll see where we really are when we go again in two weeks.”
Jack Miller, 11th: “Positive last day here and I’m pretty happy where we are with the bike. I made a few setup changes today and I think we are in the right ballpark to get the season underway. I feel good and looking forward to getting back here to do it all for real. We still have a few little tweaks to make: motorbike racers are never totally happy! The conditions were tricky away from the racing line; if you make a mistake then it’s hard to come back off the dirty stuff. All-in-all it’s been a good pre-season and the boys have done a fantastic job through the winter with the improvements and I believe we have a very competitive bike to go racing.”
Francesco Guidotti, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team Manager: “The riders were happy. We made a forward step compared to the last time we were here and that was clear with the lap-times. We still need a bit more though, but we are on the way. We are working and we can see the improvements. It’s been a good pre-season and the general pace has been under the lap record both times and we are also right there. We will be ready, and we have to deliver.”
Sebastian Risse, Red Bull KTM Technical Manager MotoGP: “We concluded our winter test program and we’re really happy with how it went. There was a lot of refining and confirming the conceptual work we did in Sepang. As usual here the conditions were tricky in the beginning because the track is dirty and the grip is low but having this test load in front of us was decent for us because we could keep calm and get through what we needed to. We are happy and confident with our package and then we had time to do some tuning and setup work with each rider and focus on race simulations and time attacks and so on. Looking back already, we had a good time here and we are confident for the first race now.”
- From KTM Factory Racing
