• Team: Red Bull KTM (factory)
• Bike: RC16
• Wins: 1
• Podiums: 1
• Best Qualifying: 6
• Fastest Lap: 0
• DNFs: 1
• Championship position: 6th

A brilliant, brave ride on slick tyres, as the leaders pitted for wets in a late-r🐼ace downpour, saw Brad Binder win this year's Austrian MotoGP.

It was the clear high🤪light in an often frustrating second premier-class season for the So💖uth African, who finished as the top KTM in the world championship but celebrated just one podium.

Indeed, without the chaos created by th🌜e Red Bull Ring storm, Binder would probably h🌳ave finished the year without a rostrum.

It's no secret that the RC16 faltered in its first season without technical concessions, but the bike did hit a br༺ief sweet spot with a triple podium run in the hands of 🦄team-mate Miguel Oliveira.

The Portuguese scored 65 out of 75 points in the M🎉ugello-Catalunya-Sachsenring events, but Binder couldn't take advantage of what proved the bike's best dry races, managing only 32 points.

Nonetheless, when Oliveira's results evaporated over the second half of the championship, Binder stepped up as top KTM in the last nine races, consistency taking him to sixth overall (after 🍌Marc Marquez's withdraw).

That’s a clear improvement on last year's eleventh, de🧜spite facing some of the circuits for the first time as a MotoGP rider.

Qualifying again proved troublesome with only four 💦top-ten starts, but Binder - who made history with KTM's first MotoGP win at Brno last season - did iron-out his rookie errors to take the chequered flag in all but one race.

In conclusion, the slow-burning opening half of the season - when Binder finished as top KTM ju𒈔st twice in nine rounds - combinedꦦ with an absence of Oliveira's occasional dry podium form, means we’ve kept Binder in the same ninth place as on the 2020 countdown.

This time, however, he is the💯 only KTM rider to ♑feature in our top ten.