Following an intense Friday with hot and humid weather and some heavy rain showers, Saturday at the Sepang International Circuit stayed mainly dry for the MotoGP. In the scorching conditions Darryn Binder managed to improve throughout the day, but suffered a crash as well.

Darryn had to regain confidence after he already suffered a fall in Friday’s FP1. Yet, he managed to make some decent steps in Free Practice three this morning to go 1.426 seconds faster than in yesterday’s only full dry session. After FP4, the South African was ready to step up, but unfortunately came off the track again in turn 11 in just his second flying lap. Luckily he managed to bring his bike back to the garage, but later on was unable to further improve due to yellow flags. He will start the Malaysian Grand Prix tomorrow at 15:00 local time (09:00 CET) from P24, the eighth row of the grid.

DARRYN BINDER

“Today started off alright. I felt pretty good in FP3, making nice steps forward. Unfortunately, at the end with a bit of drizzle around the circuit, on the last couple of laps I wasn’t confident enough to put in a time attack at the end. But overall, I was quite happy. In FP4 I felt like I had a good pace with the used tyres. I was really feeling good going into the Qualifying. On my flying lap I was feeling really, really good in the first two sectors and sadly, I was just pushing too hard in corner 11. I made a mistake and I crashed. I managed to get the bike back and go out again at the end, but unfortunately, both laps were yellow flagged, so I wasn’t able to do a lap. Starting from the back of the grid tomorrow, but I’ll do my best.”