Brad Binder has worked out why he’s so far behind ‘incredible’ KTM teammate Pedro Acosta

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Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta have been involved in one of the most one-sided teammate battles of 2025 at KTM. But the former thinks he knows why.

With four rounds to go, Acosta has maintained a perfect record against Binder in qualifying – a feat only Marco Bezzecchi (vs Jorge Martin) and Johann Zarco (vs Somkiat Chantra) have managed. He’s also beaten him in 19 of the 23 races where both have been classified.

Acosta sits fifth in the championship ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, while Binder is outside the top 10. Last year, the South African outscored the rookie by two points in the fight for P5.

In Binder’s defence, Acosta is also dominating the satellite riders at Tech3. Enea Bastianini is 14th in the standings, with the injury-affected Maverick Vinales 16th.

Brad Binder says KTM experiments have hurt him relative to Pedro Acosta

Speaking to Motorsport.com, Binder said that the intra-KTM tussle was more competitive at the beginning of the year. Acosta initially struggled, crashing out of two of the first three races and failing to finish in the top six on a Sunday until round six in France.

Binder outraced his teammate in Thailand, Argentina and Spain, while Vinales thought he’d scored a podium in Qatar before he was penalised for a tyre-pressure breach.

But ‘there was a moment’ where Acosta reverted back to his 2024 set-up, which has enabled him to become ‘super consistent’. Meanwhile, Binder has pursued a series of failed experiments.

Still, the two-time premier-class winner doesn’t want to take anything away from his partner, who has had a ‘very impressive’ season.

He said: “At the beginning of the year, there was a little bit more of ‘one weekend, one rider, one weekend the other’, and then there was a moment where Pedro really made everything on his bike really similar to how we were last season.

“He stuck to a much more normal chassis and that type of stuff, and from then on he’s really been super consistent and just building at it.

“In that time, we’ve also been playing with a lot of areas which haven’t been working at all, and we get to some tracks where it doesn’t work from lap one and we couldn’t really do anything for the rest of the weekend, so a little bit tricky.

“But of course, he’s been doing an incredible job and it’s very impressive to see how well he rides.”

KTM boss hints they’ve made an ‘incredible’ breakthrough

Binder has refused to disclose technical details about his KTM bike, so it’s difficult to know exactly what he’s been ‘playing with’. He delivered his best result of the season with fourth in Indonesia, and he’ll hope that heralds a breakthrough – even if it was an outlier weekend in many respects.

Michelin’s rear-tyre casing hobbled the Ducati factory team, opening up opportunities for their rivals that don’t normally exist. Fermin Aldeguer won his first Grand Prix, while Raul Fernandez bagged Trackhouse’s first podium of 2025 in the Sprint.

KTM didn’t expect to encounter chatter problems this year, but Pit Beirer hopes they made an ‘incredible’ breakthrough at the Misano test.

The Austrian outfit are the top non-Ducati squad in the teams’ standings, though they currently trail Aprilia in the constructors’.