Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Brad Binder is set to miss several upcoming races after suffering a further break to his left arm in Argentina.
The reigning Moto3 world champion broke his arm in a crash during testing in Valencia last year, and this seriously affected his preparations for his Moto2 debut. He participated in the pre-season tests this year, but rode in a considerable amount of discomfort.
Binder underwent x-rays on Sunday morning after his arm had swelled overnight, and they revealed the bone had re-broken and the plate inserted into his arm was moving. He contested the 23-lap race despite this, but admits surgery is needed.
“The biggest problem (this weekend) has been that overnight I had a lot of pain in my arm, and this morning it was very swollen,” the South African explained.
“I had some x-rays done; we saw that it was broken again and that the plate had moved, so I will have to undergo another operation and rehab it again.”
Binder started the race from 24th on the grid and sensationally battled through the pain of his injury to take the chequered flag in ninth spot.
Before this race, Binder confesses he had struggled to adapt to the 600cc Moto2 bike and had not felt at all comfortable. The reason as to why eludes him, but he was able to make a breakthrough in Sunday warm-up and this allowed him to ride more confidently in the race.
“Since I started riding with this new bike, I hadn’t felt comfortable. I was thinking and wondering why, since I had not had any big scares and things seemed to always be under control.
“Today I went out on track and I gave 110 percent from the first laps to the end. Something changed in the warm-up.”
Team-mate Miguel Oliveira capped off a strong day for KTM’s brand new Moto2 project with the Austrian marque’s first podium, after the Portuguese rider put on a late charge for second.
