Eighth row start for Darryn in the Grand Prix of The Americas

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Fresh mornings are marking the conditions during this Americas Grand Prix weekend. But with rising temperatures, the tension was also rising at the Circuit of the Americas on Saturday. Hot and windy weather greeted riders and teams for the all-important Qualifying sessions this afternoon.

Darryn Binder was learning a lot throughout Saturday. The premier class rookie faced some tough sessions, having ridden his last race at the COTA in the Moto3 class. Yet, he improved his fastest lap time from Friday by 0.383 seconds on Saturday morning and was on his way to go even quicker in Qualifying, but unfortunately went down in turn three. The South African will start his fourth MotoGP race from the eighth row of the grid.

The big final rodeo ride overseas, before the paddock returns to Europe will be kicked off Sunday at 13:00 local time (20:00 CET) with a demanding distance of 20 laps at the 5.5-kilometer circuit close to Austin, that is known as the live music capital of the world.

DARRYN BINDER

“It has been a bit tricky today. This morning, I felt alright in the middle run, I managed to set my fastest lap of the weekend so far and I felt fairly good. I decided to go out on the hard front, as I thought the temperature was high enough, but I think this was really on the limit and on my out lap I lost a bit of temperature and then I lost the front going into turn one. That was an unfortunate way to end FP3. In FP4, the temperature was a lot higher, we went out on used tyres, trying to get the soft close to race distance to see what it feels like. Overall, I felt alright. Unfortunately, in Qualifying on the first lap, I got right behind my brother and I was chasing him. But into turn three, I was too inside, rode over the curb and as I touched the curb, I lost the front. I ran back to jump on the other bike, but had only the soft front option available to go out and in the hotter temperatures after falling twice today, my front feeling was already a bit low and I struggled to get a good lap together at the end on the soft front. It’s unfortunate. I feel like I could have made a step in Qualifying, I knew where to improve, but I wasn’t able to do it. So, I’m a bit disappointed with myself.”