KTM's Motorsport Director, Pit Beirer, stirred the MotoGP paddock in Barcelona with his ambiguous response about Brad Binder's future with the Red Bull KTM team. This unexpected statement left room for speculation about the South African rider’s placement for the 2025 season, despite Binder's contract extension until 2026, announced in August last year.
Since joining KTM in 2015 and progressing to its Red Bull-backed factory MotoGP team in 2020, Binder has been a cornerstone of KTM's racing efforts. His commitment to the team was celebrated by Beirer during the contract renewal, expressing pride in Binder’s decision to continue riding the RC16 in the iconic orange livery. "We couldn’t be happier to put that #33 bike in the box for a few more years to come," Beirer stated at the time.
However, the ongoing 2025 MotoGP "silly season," characterized by uncertainty and potential shifts among top riders like Jorge Martin and Marc Marquez, prompted Dorna's Jack Appleyard to probe Beirer about rumours of Binder possibly switching from KTM's orange to GASGAS's red.
Beirer’s response was anything but definitive as he said, "This I really cannot tell you. Because we see the project as, in our group, we have four MotoGP places. And at this stage, we cannot say who is in which position, which side. So we just look generally at the four places, and try to make the best out of it.”
What did Brad Binder’s manager say?
Despite the ambiguity from KTM's management, Binder's manager, Bob Moore, provided a more straightforward clarification to Crash.net, affirming that "Brad has a contract with Factory Red Bull KTM." Meanwhile, Binder, who achieved KTM's best-ever MotoGP championship result with a fourth-place finish last year, currently sits eighth in the standings.
He is trailing GASGAS rookie Pedro Acosta by two places and eight points. Meanwhile, Binder's Red Bull KTM teammate, Jack Miller, ranks 15th, and Acosta's GASGAS teammate, Augusto Fernandez, is in 17th place. KTM, striving for its first dry grand prix victory since Catalunya 2022, is engaged in a fierce battle with Aprilia for second place in the manufacturer standings, trailing the dominant Ducati.