Brad Binder admitted he was in “win or bust” mode while battling Jorge Martin for victory in the Thai Grand Prix as he aimed to break a two-year win drought.

The factory KTM rider pushed eventual victor Martin for the entirety of the 26-lap Thai thriller, the South African enjoying more rear grip from his RC16 than the Spaniard could garner from his Pramac Ducati.

Having finally managed to pass Martin at Turn 9 with just four laps remaining, Binder tried to break away to secure supremacy – though he ultimately fell back into the clutches of the Thai sprint winner as the adhesion from his rear tyre suddenly fell away from him.

Having crossed the line just 0.114s from victory, Binder was then relegated to third due to exceeding track limits at Turn 4 on the final tour. Conceding that he knew he would have to drop a spot after running wide on the final lap, Binder explained that he had been in “win or bust” mode all race to try and finally snap his long winless streak.

“I saw South Africa won the (rugby) world cup today, so I was win or bust,” said Binder.  

“I did my best, but Jorge (Martin) did an unreal job as I tried to stay behind him and save my tyres for the whole race.

“I thought I did enough, but the moment I passed him I realised the grip dropped so it was tricky. On the last lap, I felt that I was close enough and thought if I could just put my wheel there I could make something happen, and then at Turn 4 I went in a little hotter than a lap before and washed out and touched the green.

“I knew from the previous laps that my best chance (to pass Martin) was in the third sector because that’s where I felt I had a bit extra. I tried my hardest, but it wasn’t meant to be today.

“I tried to brake late and roll through there (Turn 4). Initially, I had the brake on for a little longer, and then when I cranked the gas I think I pulled the weight off the front tyre and as soon as I picked it up it just went wide and touched the green.

“From that point, it was a case of just surviving and fighting with what I had.”  

The two-time premier class race winner added that he still tried to “push on” and pass Martin for the on-the-road win to try and at least salvage a second following his penalty. He was also left encouraged about some of his KTM’s “strong points” having gone toe-to-toe with the fastest machine currently in the field.  

“I tried to push on and get Jorge anyway because I knew it’d be a plus one position, so I could have still finished second rather than third,” continued Binder.

“It’s never cool to lose a spot, but at the end of the day, I’m still on the podium and gave it my all so I can’t complain.

 “The best thing is that even though everything wasn’t perfect in the race, we have some really strong points when I can exploit them. If we can make our weaker points a little stronger, I think we’ll be really good.”

Jorge Martin described his relentless defence of the lead in the Thai Grand Prix as “one of my best races” as he closed further on the MotoGP points lead.

The Pramac Ducati rider held the lead from pole off the start, though found himself under constant pressure from KTM’s Brad Binder, and later title rival Francesco Bagnaia, across the entirety of the 26-lap contest.

Binder in particular looked to have more rear grip in the latter stages at the Chang International Circuit, though he struggled to find a way past Martin as he continually nailed every braking zone in his defence of a fourth win of the season.

Binder eventually found a way through with just four laps remaining, though Martin remained close and managed to find a way back through with a bold move at Turn 2 on the penultimate lap – the Spaniard ultimately hanging on by just 0.114s to sweep the Thai weekend.  

Reducing his points deficit against Bagnaia to just 13 with three weekends remaining in 2023, Martin felt his Thai run was one of the “best races of my life” bearing in mind how “mentally difficult” it was to keep both Binder and his main title rival behind for so long.

“That was one of the best races of my life, that’s for sure,” explained Martin.

“When they caught me in the last part of the race I think they were a bit faster than me, I managed the tyre a lot but they were a bit stronger.

“Leading for 20 laps and having a tenth (of a second) advantage was really mentally difficult, but I was able to keep concentrated to the end and could win.

“I could hear his engine a lot out of Turn 7 so I knew he was going to try there, and I was a bit on the limit with the tyre there so I thought he had more grip than me.

“But as soon as he overtook me and in front I could see he was also on the limit with rear grip, so I tried to keep the distance for a lap and then take him back because I didn’t want my front tyre to get hot.”

Martin added that he was “relieved” to hang onto his potentially crucial fourth win of the year as he looks to secure a maiden premier class crown, and insisted that the mistakes which cost him wins in Indonesia and Australia have made him “stronger.”

“I was relieved to finish at the top because I’ve had a lot of mistakes recently, I didn’t even enjoy the win yesterday because I was so focussed on today. I haven’t slept for four days, but tonight I’ll sleep well,” continued Martin.

“I’m happy because the target was to recover points and we did it. To break the lap record, get pole position and then win both races is great. I can’t lie I’m starting to feel the pressure, but the main target is to recover points and we are achieving this.

“I think the mistakes from the other races were tough for me, but they made me stronger.”

Jorge Martin secured a potentially crucial Thai MotoGP victory after coming out on top of a breathless battle with Brad Binder and Francesco Bagnaia for supremacy.

The Pramac Ducati rider managed to hold the lead after suffering another poor start as he had in the Saturday sprint encounter, VR46’s Luca Marini again unable to make the Spaniard pay for a sluggish getaway.

From then on Martin instigated a slower pace to try and preserve his hard rear tyre, while Binder focussed on scything back through the pack having dropped as far back as fifth early on. By the time half-race distance had been completed, the KTM man was fixed to the rear of Martin’s machine.

Martin eventually began to try and escape from the rest as the race entered its final third, though Binder and title rival Bagnaia followed him every step of the way as they looked to steal away the leadership.

As the race entered its final laps, Martin seemingly began to struggle for grip and looked to be a sitting duck for the pressuring Binder.

Sure enough, after several laps of moving every which way to find an opening, Binder fired down the inside of Martin at Turn 9 to take the lead. The South African failed to pull clear of Martin though, the Saturday sprint victor remaining close enough for a possible lunge even despite his defending from Bagnaia.

Martin managed to get a run at Binder on the penultimate lap and dived back through to the lead at Turn 2, though Binder – keen to secure his first win in over two years – continued to push him as the final lap began.

He exacted as much pressure as he could on a defensive Martin, though he ultimately came up short as the leader struck back at every blow Binder could throw at him to take the chequered flag just 0.114s clear.

Binder’s day would get worse just moments later though as he was demoted to third after the flag for touching the green on the last lap, gifting Bagnaia second and a crucial four points for the championship. This sees Bagnaia head into the Malaysian GP weekend just 13 points clear of Martin.

Marco Bezzecchi looked after his rubber well to come through to fourth in the end on his VR46 Ducati machine, while Aleix Espargaro completed the top five for Aprilia having tussled for the lead in the early tours.

Fabio Quartararo claimed sixth for Yamaha having made progress late on, with Honda’s Marc Marquez securing a battling seventh ahead of Marini, who faded in the latter stages with rear grip woes.

Fabio Di Gianantonio fought back to bag a fourth-successive top ten result in ninth for Gresini, while Johann Zarco struggled in the heat of Thailand to complete the top ten on the sister Pramac entry.

Franco Morbidelli recovered well from 18^th on the grid to secure 11^th ahead of Joan Mir, while Enea Bastianini was 13^th on his factory Ducati ahead of the final two points scorers of LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagmai and RNF Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez.

It was a tough day for the three remaining KTM RC16 bikes in the field, as all failed to make the points positions.

Jack Miller led the trio home in 16^th, with GasGas pair Augusto Fernandez and Pol Espargaro rounding off the 18 men that reached the chequered flag.

Maverick Vinales and Miguel Oliveira both had to retire their Aprilia’s with mechanical problems, while Alex Marquez crashed his Gresini Ducati from third at mid-distance after losing the front mid-corner.

Jorge Martin dominated proceedings in the Thailand Grand Prix sprint race to secure his fifth successive short MotoGP race win, while Francesco Bagnaia struggled to seventh.  

The Pramac Ducati rider didn’t get the cleanest getaway from pole and was challenged into the first bend by VR46’s Luca Marini, though the Spaniard was having none of it and boldly swept around the outside to hold the leadership.

From then on Martin put in his usual sprint masterclass by building up a lead in the early stages to enjoy an advantage of over a second just prior to mid-distance, before then managing things across the closing tours.

Having established himself as somewhat of a Saturday expert, Martin eventually took the chequered flag just under a second clear of KTM’s Brad Binder to secure his fifth-straight sprint victory. His success also moves to just 18 points adrift of the series lead, after Bagnaia could manage only seventh.

Binder meanwhile spent most of the race staring at the back of Marini, who was struggling to hang onto Martin’s coattails. Bin tried and tried over the opening half of the encounter before finally finding a way past the Italian with an assured move at the final bend.

From then on he kept a narrow but consistent gap behind to claim the runners-up result, while Marini came home to complete the rostrum.

The battle for fourth between Aleix Espargaro and Marc Marquez came right down to the wire meanwhile. Espargaro looked to have the spot sewn up with a lap to go as he chased down the podium men, though a mistake at the start of the final lap dropped him back behind Marquez.

The Aprilia man dived through on the Honda pilot at Turn 7 in his attempt to regain the spot, though Marquez wouldn’t go down without a fight. He subsequently fired his RC213V to the inside of Espargaro at the final corner, the six-time premier class champion achieving just enough drive on the exit to cross the line fourth.

Marco Bezzecchi was sixth having struggled for energy in the latter stages with his collarbone injury, the VR46 man dropping behind Marquez before coming under pressure from a resurgent Bagnaia. The factory Ducati man was unable to do anything about his countryman though, and followed him home in seventh.

Bagnaia had dropped as low as ninth early on after making a poor start from sixth, and from thereon struggled to make much impact on the men ahead. An opportunistic move to claim seventh after the battling Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco ran wide was the only time he managed to clear another machine all race.

Gresini’s Alex Marquez ended up eighth, while Australian GP victor Johann Zarco claimed the final point for ninth ahead of KTM’s Jack Miller, who did well to move forward from 15^th on the grid.

Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo was the Aussie’s final victim in the closing laps as he was forced to make do with 11^th just ahead of Honda’s Joan Mir.

The other Yamaha of Franco Morbidelli struggled to move forward and ended up 15^th ahead of GasGas’ Pol Espargaro and RNF Aprilia’s Miguel Oliveira.

Maverick Vinales had a tough afternoon as he failed to recover from 18^th following a shocking start, the Aprilia racer’s woes compounded by a late long-lap penalty for a track limits infringement.

LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami was the final classified finisher in 19^th having remounted from a crash at Turn 12 early on, while Fabio Di Gianantonio and Augusto Fernandez also failed to make the end. Phillip Island podium finisher Di Gianantonio was forced to retire with a technical problem on his Ducati, while Fernandez binned his GasGas KTM RC16 at the final bend.

Jorge Martin put himself in the perfect position to eat into Francesco Bagnaia’s MotoGP points lead in Thailand as he streaked to pole position with his chief rival only sixth.  

The Pramac Ducati rider looked bang on the pace from the outset of the pole shootout as he led the way in the opening runs with a new lap record of the Chang International Circuit of 1:29.491s to put himself just under two-tenths-of-a-second clear of VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi.

Bagnaia meanwhile ended up sixth and just under eight-tenths adrift of Martin, the series leader struggling once more to match the provisional pole-man over a single lap.

Martin wasn’t home and dry yet though as Bezzecchi managed to squeak ahead of him with his final gambit of the session by just 0.008s, though he immediately posted a session-best indicator on his final tour.

He continued to find lap time across this circulation to eventually cross the line 0.196s faster than the Italian.

His 1:29.287s effort ultimately proved sufficient for Martin to score his fourth premier class pole of the year ahead of Luca Marini, who managed to slide up to second at the death just ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro.

Bezzecchi was therefore shuffled back to the head of the second row in fourth, the VR46 man just clear of KTM’s Brad Binder.

Bagnaia also improved towards the end of Q2, but his best attempt left him sixth and around a quarter-of-a-second down on Martin’s benchmark.

Alex Marquez managed to escape Q1 and qualify seventh for Gresini Ducati ahead of brother Marc Marquez, the Honda man having joined his younger sibling in progressing from the opening qualifying segment.

Maverick Vinales could manage only ninth on the sister factory Aprilia, while Fabio Quartararo was pushed back to tenth in the final reckoning having sat within the top five following the opening set of runs.

Australian GP winner Johann Zarco will start 11^th for Pramac, while Augusto Fernandez completed the Q2 combatants in 12^th.   

Fabio Di Gianantonio meanwhile saw his recent Q2 streak broken by team-mate Alex Marquez by a narrow margin, forcing the Italian to start 13^th just ahead of RNF Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez.

Jack Miller struggled to string together a decent lap and therefore could secure just 15^th on the grid ahead of LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami.

Franco Morbidelli struggled to replicate his Friday form on the other Yamaha en route to a lowly 18^th, while Joan Mir ended up 19^th on his factory Honda.

Defending Thai GP victor Miguel Oliveira was left with work to do from 20^th for the sprint and grand prix encounters, the Portuguese pilot lapping faster than only Enea Bastianini’s factory Ducati in 21^st.

Jorge Martin swept the practice sessions on Friday at the Chang International Circuit to lead the way into the pole shootout, while title rival Francesco Bagnaia was seventh.

The Pramac Ducati pilot continued his recent scintillating form as the MotoGP circus arrived in Thailand as he led the way in FP1 by a narrow margin over Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales, while Bagnaia lapped nearly a second adrift in tenth.

Martin continued to look the faster of the two Ducati riders on Friday afternoon as he continually found himself within the top five in the 60-minute session, although Alex Marquez led the way early on with a time a couple-tenths-of-a-second adrift of Martin’s FP1 effort.

Brad Binder was the first rider to dip below Martin’s morning benchmark of 1:30.520s, the KTM man banging in a 1:30.247s as the session raced towards its conclusion.

Vinales would then move back to the fore as he lapped underneath the 1:30 bracket for the first time, though Martin would get the last laugh. His 1:29.826s posted just moments later would ultimately be enough to keep him up top as the session ended, his chances improved due to a yellow flag he caused.

Keen to further extend his advantage out front, Martin kept pushing on his follow-up tour. He asked a little too much of his Ducati into the heavy braking zone of Turn 3 though and lost the front, sliding off into the gravel. The resulting yellow flags meant that most behind would end up losing their final attempts.

Vinales would thus finish up second, the Spaniard 0.098s away from Martin and only 0.062s clear of team-mate Aleix Espargaro in third.

Australian GP victor Johann Zarco ended the day fourth overall on the other Pramac entry, while Luca Marini rounded off the top five on his VR46-run Ducati.

The Italian’s team-mate Marco Bezzecchi was up next in sixth just ahead of Bagnaia, who managed to find a decent time improvement in the latter stages to end the day just 0.243s down on his championship rival.

Fabio Quartararo enjoyed an encouraging day to end up just two-and-a-half tenths away from the ultimate pace, while KTM’s Binder and GasGas’ Augusto Fernandez completed a top ten covered by just 0.304s.

Marc Marquez was the first man to miss out on an automatic Q2 berth, the Honda pilot lapping half-a-tenth away from Fernandez to end off the day 11^th just ahead of the other Yamaha of Franco Morbidelli.

Jack Miller was 13^th for KTM ahead of recent form-man Fabio Di Gianantonio. FP2 saw the field spread across a very narrow margin, with 18th-placed Alex Marquez just 0.541s away from Martin’s benchmark.

Alex Rins will miss the MotoGP Thailand Grand Prix having been faced with yet another setback with the recovery of the broken left leg he suffered at Mugello in June.

The LCR Honda rider spent nearly four months in rehab trying to recover from the injury he sustained as a result of a crash in the Italian GP sprint race, the Spaniard returning to action in practice at Motegi at the start of October.

Having been forced out of action in Japan due to pain from his leg, he made a full comeback for the Indonesian GP – in which he finished an impressive ninth. He then had to pull out of last weekend’s Australian GP after suffering pain once again in the healing leg.

After tests in Australia failed to show what was causing his latest bout of discomfort, Rins headed to Madrid for further examination of the appendage. It was subsequently found that a hernia had developed on his healing fibula.

Further surgery will now be undertaken to remedy the problem so that he can try and make his return for the final three races of the 2023 campaign. LCR won’t replace Rins for this weekend’s Thai GP due to the short turnaround time.

“Happy after our doctor’s appointment today , the injury keeps a positive evolution,” said Rins on social media after the source of his recent leg pain was found.  

“We’ve identified the cause of the pain and we’ll undergo a small surgery to ease it. We won’t be at the Thai GP but we keep working towards a full recovery.”

Rins’ absence from Thailand means Honda will have just three bikes on track at the Chang International Circuit. Marc Marquez and Joan Mir will be in action for the factory Repsol Honda outfit, while Takaaki Nakagami will fly LCR’s flag on the sole remaining RC213V run the by Italian team.

Fabio Di Gianantonio rued the fact that Gresini wasn’t “patient” enough with him following his debut rostrum at Phillip Island, remarking that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

The Italian was left without a berth in the premier class for 2024 after the Gresini squad elected to drop him amidst a tough sophomore campaign in the series, Di Gianantonio running as consistently the slowest of the Ducati-equipped pilots for the bulk of the year.

As Honda refugee Marc Marquez was confirmed to be taking over his ride within the Gresini team next season, Di Gianantonio made a key breakthrough with the setup on his machine. He secured points in both the sprint and grand prix races in the Japanese Grand Prix before scoring a best-ever result of fourth in Indonesia.  

Di Gianantonio managed one better to secure a debut podium finish in this weekend’s Australian GP having fought for victory throughout the contest. He admitted post-race that “sometimes you have to be in the right place at the right time”, and wished that Gresini had a “little more patience with me” before opting to drop him.  

“Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time, and everything happened so fast with Marc (Marquez) and things so if that hadn’t happened and the team had a little more patience with me things could have been easier,” explained Di Gianantonio.

“It’s only my second year in MotoGP, and other riders have done an incredible job from the start of their careers here but for me, it just took a little more time.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, so you have to work and understand against the best riders in the world and sometimes you just have to trust.

“It isn’t easy, but keeping up the hard work paid off in the end.”

Di Gianantonio added that he “took a little step back” in terms of aggression while fighting for victory in the closing laps with the likes of Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia as “they are fighting for the championship”.  Admitting the race felt “long”, he relished to fight the opportunity to fight up front and described the encounter as a “pure, fun race.”

“It was a long race for sure, as Pecco (Bagnaia) said we weren’t ready to do this long distance on Saturday, but it was a pure, fun race,” continued Di Gianantonio.

“I started well and was fast from the beginning, I tried to manage the rear tyre but I was also trying to push a little bit to not lose too much ground in the first laps.

“Then I caught Brad (Binder) and passed him, so I tried to make a little gap but it was not possible. Also, there was a little bit of wind, and when you were in front it was more difficult to push.

“The two in front were quite strong, and I wanted to overtake Pecco at Turn 4, but he did really well and I saw a little gap but I didn’t want to get into anything as they were fighting for the championship so I took a little step back.

“I knew I could have another opportunity to overtake Jorge later, so I tried to copy Pecco’s moves on me and it worked so it was a good race.”

This week’s edition begins with Formula 1 heading back Stateside. The Austin event was mixed up by the addition of the Sprint, but Max Verstappen ensured one constant remained at the Circuit of the Americas as he claimed another victory. Taylor Powling, Graham Harris and Phillip Horton report while James Moy snapped the images.

Next up, MotoGP went Down Under to Phillip Island for the Australian Grand Prix, where a Sunday forecast of extreme weather conditions brought the grand prix forward to Saturday at the expense of the Sprint. Kyle Francis reviews the four-wheeled action.

Elsewhere, the DTM campaign concluded at the Hockenheimring on Sunday as a new champion was crowned. Phil Oakley and Mo Rehman document the season finale.

On the feature side of things, this week’s Start Your Engines post sees Dan Lawrence look at why F1’s Sprint format failed to make the anticipated buzz on American soil.

Meanwhile, Taylor Powling looks back at Charles Leclerc’s most memorable moments in red as the Monegasque driver hit the century mark for F1 starts with Ferrari.

Finally, Nick Golding looks ahead to the upcoming Formula E season and the driver line-ups selected by the teams for 2023-24.

You can read our magazine below, or for a better reading experience, click here for a full screen version.

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MotoGP has elected to cancel the Australian Grand Prix sprint race due to extreme wind conditions at the Phillip Island on Sunday, which forced the Moto2 race to be shortened.

Series organisers Dorna announced on Friday that it was going to switch the sprint and grand prix encounters around on the schedule to avoid the extreme weather expected to hit the area on Sunday, with Johann Zarco securing a debut premier class win in the thrilling contest.

A further decision was then made on Saturday to move the Sunday action forward by an hour on the timetable to try and get in the Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP sprint race before the weather was expected to get worse in the afternoon.

While the Moto3 race was able to reach full distance, the intermediate class encounter was red-flagged and ultimately called after running ten of the scheduled 23 laps due to wind levels increasing beyond safe levels.

The decision was made to cancel the MotoGP sprint shortly before its expected start time as the weather forecast failed to show improvement.

The loss of the sprint spells bad news for Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin, who was looking to recover some of the points he lost to title rival Francesco Bagnaia after dropping to fifth in the Australian GP as a result of a gamble to run the soft compound rear tyre failing to pay off.

The Spaniard faces a 27-point deficit to recover across the remaining four events of the 2023 campaign, with the next stop on the calendar being the Buriram International Circuit for the Thailand GP next weekend.