Fresh off his second-best finish this year in Moto2, motorcycle racer Brad Binder is eyeing a top-five finish at today's championship race at Silverstone.
Binder, 22, was born in Potchefstroom, North West, but was raised in Krugersdorp on the West Rand.
Binder qualified badly in 18th place at the previous round at Spielberg in Austria earlier this month, but pulled off a cracking start, gaining an inside line at turn one to push into sixth spot.
"In the race I decided to go with the soft compound tyre, so I could really take advantage and try to get past a lot of the guys at the beginning," Binder said this week.
"I had quite a good start and got up into sixth position but once my tyre dropped off after five laps I struggled a bit more compared to the rest of the guys, but I still managed to come home in seventh position."
Last year Binder dominated the pack throughout, clinching the Moto3 World Championship. His road to victory included a win in the Moto3 race at Silverstone, where he has had mixed results.
"It's definitely a cool track," he said. "The biggest downfall is the weather in England. So far the forecast is looking good for us and I am hoping it stays dry all weekend."
Binder says his bike is better than ever heading into the British GP after a successful test session, also at Spielberg.
"The test was good, we tried quite a few different setups on the bike and different brakes, different settings on the suspension and found things that worked quite well," he said. "We definitely have a bit of a better base setting coming in this weekend."
The key to getting into the top five at Silverstone will be whether Binder can get up to pace before qualifying on Saturday.
"Each time it has taken me the whole of Friday and Saturday [free practice and qualifying] to find my feet and on Sunday morning I am one step faster, but I need to make that step on Saturday already before qualifying," he said. "The goal this weekend is to try and learn the track as fast as possible and be close to the front from the beginning."
The start of Binder's rookie year in the middleweight MotoGP class riding a KTM for Ajo Motorsport has been troubled.
He missed three races to have a set of surgeries to fix his right and left arms, injured in crashes - but the young South African has bounced back with determination, netting himself three top-10 finishes.
"The beginning of the year was really hard," he admitted. "I had three surgeries on my left arm at the beginning of the year and then a fourth one on my right arm. Things have been tough but it's been going good.
"I knew it was going to be hard from the beginning but the last few races... each weekend it seems to get a little bit better, you find a way to run closer to the front and everything just seems to go a little easier each weekend.
"I just want to carry on trying to build into it every weekend and hopefully by the time we get to the end of the year, we should be in a much better place."..