Red Bull Motorsports
MotoGP
72 hours with Brad Binder: MotoGP’s most chilled-out rider
We caught up with Brad Binder at the San Marino Grand Prix to learn about his path to the premier class and how he's become the master of self-control both on and off the bike.
There’s one rider on the MotoGP grid who is seldom seen letting the pressure get to him. Never seen to give his crew a grilling, dishing out frustrated gestures at other riders on track, or lobbing controversial statements in the media. He just goes with the flow.
By contrast, his moves on the track are at this point legendary. He rides his motorcycle like it’s a videogame, forcing it to do things it shouldn’t be able to do. His overtakes are even more notorious, so much so that even eight-time World Champion Marc Márquez has been caught on camera disclosing how he feels more tense with this particular rider closing in on him.
He took the Moto3™ World Championship back in 2016, narrowly missed out on the Moto2™ title in 2019 but shocked the entire sport when he claimed his first MotoGP™ win in only his third race, KTM’s first victory in the premier class. In 2023 he’s poised to claim at least a top-four finish in the Championship overall and has cemented himself as one of the next giants of motorcycle racing.
Looking relaxed before the race gets underway
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Even as he came and sat down to chat for this very article, he practically floated towards the table so laid back he could have fallen over.
But let me tell you, Brad Binder is no Jekyll & Hyde. He has simply become a master of self-control through years of relentless hard graft and in this piece, you’ll see exactly how.
From a small town in South Africa near Potchefstroom, it was a simple life growing up for Brad and his younger brother Darryn who also competes on the world stage of motorcycling.
“We went to school, came back, worked on motorbikes, played with motorbikes. I didn’t really want to go to school but I had to anyway.” A classic line from professional racers the world over.
“But I think where it’s different to most people is me, my dad and my brother, we’ve always run our own bikes and done everything ourselves. If we wanted new tyres or needed to change a piston, we did it.”
Binder during his days competing in the Rookies Cup in 2011
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
He admits he isn’t a mechanical whizz and he’s fortunate that his dad was more savvy with the spanners, but he didn’t get let off easy by any means: “The old man was pretty strict, you had to look after your shit, clean your bikes and don’t mess them up!”
Those early lessons in work ethic certainly came in handy as the racing started to get more serious. Brad’s rise through the ranks from the Red Bull MotoGP™ Rookies Cup is well covered in his ‘Becoming 33’ documentary. But before that period is a story that perfectly encapsulates an impression I get from Brad about his talent: hard work ratio.
As Brad devoured the junior series on home soil, the Binders sought tougher competition elsewhere and swiftly found themselves heading to the UK to try their hand in a little-known series called the Aprilia Superteens, where legends of the sport like Casey Stoner got their first crack at the whip in European racing.
I think I’ve got better as I’ve got older. As a kid, especially at the beginning of Moto3™, I wasn’t very good
“How the story actually went was we got to Brands Hatch and I crashed the bike in the first or second session, pretty much destroyed the thing,” he explained.
“My dad got it fixed for the last session. The next morning I qualified fifth. In the races I finished second in the first heat, in the second heat I remember riding into somebody and going off track and finished sixth or something. And then the next morning in the warm-up session, my bike seized and I woke up in hospital!”
Enough raw speed was shown to continue pursuing the dream abroad, but Brad’s rise through the ranks is probably more akin to the Superteens saga than it is a straight path to success.
Binder has two MotoGP™ race wins to his name... so far
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Some athletes have talent, some have great work ethic, and the best have both. Brad’s pretty sure about where he lies: “I think I’ve got better as I’ve got older. As a kid, especially at the beginning of the Rookies Cup and Moto3™, I wasn’t very good.
“But my old man always taught me that if you’re going to do something, do it properly. If not, don’t do it at all.”
This is clear to see in everything Brad does. From the substantial number of media commitments on Thursdays, carried out with grace and good manners, to some of the more intense moments, like walking from his private room in the team truck suited and booted to the pit box, yet still finding time to greet some important team guests.
His team also embody this mantra. A multi-national crew of Brits, Czech, Finnish, German, Spanish and so on. If there’s one set of mechanics and engineers in this paddock where I can actually believe them when they say they are like family, it’s this one. No matter what the result, the atmosphere in the box remains constant.
The mechanics get to work on Binder's bike
© Matt Dunn
I asked Brad later on about his dad’s philosophy, as well as things I’d noticed in his documentary, and while strict, he didn’t seem like the motocross dad stereotype. He answered: “My dad never gave me a hard time, unless I deserved it!”
He continued: “If he saw I was giving my best, that was enough. But if he saw any time that I was being soft or that you weren’t doing what you could have on the day, he’d let you know about it. I think it’s been the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”
He certainly needed that dogged spirit and stubbornness to always bring the best of himself in his early years of Moto3™. Uncompetitive machinery left him substantially undergunned in his debut years, and even though he showed enough talent to earn himself a spot on the best bike in the best team in 2015, that wasn’t plain sailing either.
“I thought hey, here we go, now you’re set. But the reality was when I got there I wasn’t up for it.
Concentration time ahead of the race
© Matt Dunn
I can live my dream which is to be a MotoGP™ rider. But my dream is to win and I’ve not quite got that right… yet.
"I would crash quite a lot, I’d panic in certain situations and make a mess of things. I was my own worst enemy because I wanted to win every single race from the beginning.”
But luckily there’s one man we’ve met before in this series, who was another instrumental part of Brad’s development, Aki Ajo.
“He taught me how to control things, how to work on different situations, always try and stay calm regardless and get on with your job.”
The extreme demonstration of this self-control Brad had to develop came six years later at the 2021 Austrian Grand Prix, where Brad took victory at KTM’s home race in the pouring rain, while riding on slicks (bald tyres to the uninitiated). A race that has to be seen to be believed.
Binder celebrates his victory at the Austrian Grand Prix
© GEPA pictures/Red Bull Content Pool
Brad believes his lack of success in his early years and making the choice to dig in and get on with the job is the reason why he’s able to embrace the pressures today of being a factory rider fighting for the number one spot in the sport.
“A lot of kids are super talented, they go fast on anything, they come and dominate and get these struggles - that I had earlier on - later on in their career where everything is a lot more cutthroat.
"If you’re already one of the top riders and you’re not performing then it’s goodbye.“
He admits his first year at world level was also a case of "perform, or don’t come back", which I’ve found to be a common story throughout this series with similar scenarios befalling Jorge Martín, Pedro Acosta and Tony Arbolino. The ability to rise to the challenge when it’s as simple as ‘this is it…’ can be what separates the good from the great.
This doesn’t mean that he’s faultless, however. This could have been the last of this interview series as Brad had promised me if he got the Sprint and Grand Prix wins like Martín did when we followed him in Germany, he’d hire me.
Alas, there was no such fairytale for Brad here at the San Marino Grand Prix. He was fifth in Saturday’s sprint race, and on Sunday he crashed while chasing the podium. But like his dad taught him many years ago, you do it properly or not at all. That’s why he picked his bike back up and fought back through the field from 23rd to finish 14th with two points in the bag.
And no, he wasn’t ‘chill’ about it. He did, however, remain in control. Hence why he finished the job and saw that chequered flag.
Binder showed plenty of fighting spirit in San Marino
© Matt Dunn
As the team rallied around him in the box, I’m reminded of what he said on Thursday: “F*ck, racing can be the best day ever followed by being in the gutter and things just aren’t happening. It makes you appreciate what you do more.
"I enjoy the process of riding and analysing what I can do better and even when things are going terribly, I like being able to always tell myself that I can make this situation different and I’m better than the problems we have at the moment.”
There’s nothing laid back about that approach, as he stresses that the most important part of that process is at the end of it, finishing as the rider with his name inscribed on the Tower of Champions at the end of the season.
“Anyone that has worked with me knows I’m not chill. When it comes to what I want to achieve, I give my best and I expect the same from everyone else.
“I can live my dream which is to be a MotoGP™ rider. But my dream is to win and I’ve not quite got that right… yet.”
