Explained: The big reason KTM went for Jack Miller

A highlight of the 2023 MotoGP rider line-up will be Miller partnering Brad Binder for Red Bull KTM, who launched their new livery on January 26.

Ex-Honda and Ducati veteran Miller is a four-time race winner in the premier class and can lend his expertise inside the garage too, KTM team manager Francesco Guidotti said.

“Jack and Brad is a special combo and the team will be very strong because there are two special personalities,” he explained. 

“Maybe everybody knows Jack more because he has a very friendly open character but Brad can also be very special. Jack…as you can see on track, he’s also like this in normal life. 

“An episode, for sure, is Argentina 2018 when he took pole position on a patchy track and started on the grid quite far ahead of everyone else! That showed how he is. 

“From a technical point of view it was important for us to have a rider with some different experience because one of our ‘limits’ last year was that all four riders only had experience with our bike and to develop was a bit tricky. 

“It is a new project and we had some open questions that we could only close with different riders with different experiences in MotoGP.”

Binder has won two races in his three seasons in MotoGP so far, and Guidotti said: “He’s pretty easy. He is very direct, very polite and very determined. His commitment to the Sunday race was incredible. 

“He could be really focused on the target of the race, regardless of the position on the grid. He was really focused to get the maximum from the race on a Sunday. He showed us that anything is possible and with a little bit of help from the bike – just a little step – he can really achieve something important every race.”

Guidotti, in his first year as KTM boss, led them to runners-up in the teams championship: “It was a good achievement but it was not our main goal. For sure it is something to take and to get a starting point for the future. 

“It’s important because it means the team works well together and the atmosphere in the team is great. Both of the riders helped a lot to get this result, it was not only one, and both achieved their podiums and wins. It was quite important…but not our main goal, which is the riders title and that’s what we are looking for this year. 

“The main goal is made from small steps. There will be 21 Grands Prix and it will be important to be competitive and in the top five every single race and then we also have the Sprint races. 

“We are a factory team and the only goal we can have, the only target, is the title. It is easy to say and not easy to get! But this is the main goal. 

“Every session, every race, every qualifying will be important and to start from a good grid position. It will help for the Sprint race because it is a very short race and it will be very helpful – as we saw last year – for the main race on Sunday.”

Guidotti said about the revised RC16: “We were not too far from the top last year so we did not make anything dramatically different. We developed each area; from the suspension to the engine to the different chassis which we somehow tested during the Valencia race last year. 

“We need to make an improvement which is a bit bigger than the others to finally close the gap. Of course, we cannot expect that all the changes we have made will be perfect…but we need that slightly bigger step to be in the chase every race.

“We had to explore different solutions with aerodynamics and ride height devices because of the rules themselves. We have limitations with the quantity of engines and many things in the last years, like electronics and so on. 

“We have been forced to explore different technologies but that is also part of the game. In the last years aerodynamics was not so important, well, it was important but just related to top speed. 

“In the last four-five years we have explored this technology and discovered that it was important also for the rideability of the bike. It is something where we need to move the limit with the current rules and [also] make some limits for the engine and mechanical performance.”