Red Bull KTM rider Brad Binder won his second sprint race of the MotoGP season when he stunned his team mate Jack Miller with an audacious overtake on the penultimate lap to take victory at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday.
The sprint was initially red-flagged in the opening lap when Marco Bezzecchi, Franco Morbidelli and Alex Marquez were involved in a triple crash at turn two, with championship leader Bezzecchi flung off his bike and into the gravel.
The sprint was restarted with original grid positions for 11 laps with all riders eligible for the restart and Binder rocketed off the line to take the lead heading into turn one.
“Today was a tough one with the with the red flag at the beginning, so I made sure I got a better start the second time around,” Binder said.
“I went straight to the front, but just had to take it a bit easy to try and bring the tyres up. They felt a little bit sketchy.”
While Binder surged ahead, the battle for second initially had Jorge Martin, Miller, Francesco Bagnaia and Aleix Espargaro fighting it out.
But Marquez crashed once again while pole sitter Espargaro took a tumble on his Aprilia with six laps to go.
It was the KTMs and Ducati’s Bagnaia who fought for podium places, with the Ducati eventually splitting the two KTM riders after Binder nearly lost his front tyre while overtaking Miller on turn six.
“As I started to get comfortable, I tried to stay super close to Jack. He had a great pace and… to be able to fight till the end, push it through and come out with the wind is incredible,” Binder added.
“Massive thank you to my team. It’s fantastic to have both of us up on the podium. They’ve been working so incredibly hard and it’s paying off, so I can’t tell them how much I appreciate it.”
Dani Pedrosa, who received a wildcard entry for the Grand Prix – his first since a solitary race in 2021 – was taking part in his first sprint and the 37-year-old finished a creditable sixth on the KTM.
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