KTM ‘not happy, really far, Binder surprised, Miller slow’

The four KTM riders were left towards the tail of the timesheets for much of last weekend’s test, with only an ‘insane’ lap by Brad Binder pushing the South African into ninth.

Meanwhile, new team-mate Jack Miller was 17th (+0.941s), followed by the GASGAS bikes of Pol Espargaro (18th) and rookie Augusto Fernandez (22nd).

In an interview with MotoGP.com, Guidotti said: “We are not happy. Of course we are not where we [want to be]…. We face some unexpected issues. So we really have to understand this strange behaviour and solve it quickly because we really are far.

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“We know we couldn’t close the gap in one winter, but then we miss maybe more and we have to understand better," continued Guidotti.

“The rider feeling from Miller’s side is not too bad, but is still slow. He’s getting confidence and speed run-by-run but of course it’s still not enough.

“For Brad, it’s a big surprise for him because it’s not the bike he was used to riding and the feeling is completely different.

“We don’t have enough time to maybe solve everything, but for sure we have to solve something and give the riders a better package [for the first race].”

While former Ducati race winner Miller insisted he is getting more comfortable on the KTM with each day, Binder felt that improvements to the turning of the RC16 have resulted in rear grip issues.

"My feeling with this bike has been the same since I rode it for the first time at Valencia," he said at Portimao. "We’ve tried a lot of set ups and different things. Some things have helped me have a bit of a better feeling but I have one issue: we need rear grip.

"The bike is spinning a lot and when we brake we don’t have a lot of contact. It’s something that has been quite difficult to solve at the moment.

"The guys did a great job finding some of the things we’re looking for [for 2023]. The bike’s lighter, it turns a little bit more. but it came at the expense of a lot of rear grip."

As he prepared to leave Portimao, Binder suggested a solution to the rear grip woes won't come from set-up changes alone: "It needs hardware"

The 2023 season-opener takes place at the same Portuguese circuit next weekend.