Brad Binder believes Red Bull KTM Factory Racing adopted an overly cautious setup direction for the Japanese Grand Prix because the team expected the centre of the hard rear tyre to be vulnerable. The decision came in unusual circumstances: no rider had used the tyre before Sunday’s Warm Up, leaving teams with very little practical information before the race. Binder eventually finished 11th at Motegi.

The hard tyre had initially been included as a backup for Motegi’s new surface. Its construction was the more heat-resistant version used in Austria, while its compound came from the soft option. The Sprint then exposed a problem with that soft rear tyre, as blistering caused sections of the centre to break away in some cases. The soft tyre was therefore removed from Sunday’s allocation, and riders were advised to use the hard option for the full-distance race.

Riders had almost no time to understand the hard tyre’s behaviour. Sunday’s extended Warm Up lasted 20 minutes, which was not enough for anyone to get close to a full race distance on it. Even so, the first impression was positive enough for all 22 riders to select the tyre for the Grand Prix. Setup decisions consequently had to be made without a proper long-run picture of its durability.

Binder said he realised almost immediately, while leaving the pits for Warm Up, that the tyre was not as vulnerable as the team had anticipated. KTM had backed off several setup parameters to protect its centre, but Binder later estimated that the rear could have survived three race distances. He regarded the approach as a mistake and also identified his Q1 crash as an earlier setback that made the rest of his weekend more difficult. The result was 11th place in a race where the tyre proved far less fragile than expected.