After it made its race debut at the San Marino GP with wildcard Dani Pedrosa, KTM has brought its new carbon fibre chassis to Japan for factory riders Binder and Jack Miller.
With the new chassis offering better rear grip on the RC16, Binder used this to maximum effect on the soft rear tyre at the end the second practice to go fastest of all with a 1m43.489s, beating the eight-year-old lap record set by Jorge Lorenzo.
Binder headed championship leader Francesco Bagnaia by 0.029 seconds, while Aleix Espargaro completed the top three for Aprilia, the top three all surpassing Lorenzo's 2015 benchmark.
The Q1 session in qualifying will feature all three previous champions prior to Bagnaia in 2022, as crashes for Yamaha’s Quartararo and Honda’s Marquez left both outside of the top 10.
Joan Mir will also join that trio having been unable to replicate his top five form from FP1 in the afternoon.
The early pace was set by the sister factory Aprilia of Maverick Vinales, who got the ball rolling with a 1m45.837s before improving to a 1m45.219s.
Binder then hit the top of the times 1m45.060s, before Pramac’s Jorge Martin took over with a 1m44.724s inside the first 10 minutes of the 75-minute session.
This stood as the benchmark until just under half an hour to go, when Miguel Oliveira on the RNF Aprilia went top with a 1m44.498s.
Source: Autosport