Australian Jack Miller has been credited for the increased competitiveness of KTM this MotoGP season by South African team-mate Brad Binder.

KTM has closed the gap to leading contenders Ducati as proven by Binder’s two MotoGP sprint race wins this season, although the Italian manufacturer continues to dominate the standings, holding the top three positions.

Second-best is KTM as Binder sits fourth following a podium result at Silverstone last time out, the Austrian marque’s second in a grand prix race following Miller’s third place in Spain earlier this year.

Binder paid tribute to Miller, who arrived from Ducati in the last off-season, for his hand in the development of this year’s RC16 as he builds a title challenge to the Bologna marque.

“He [Miller] pointed us in a very good direction of where we should be,” Binder said ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.

“We’ve seen the benefits. KTM has done an unreal job bringing small updates from last season.

“But the base of the bike is similar. Our performances have always been there or thereabouts. If we keep the level, with less mistakes, we can do really well in the second half.

“Barring some mistakes that I’ve made, it could be better. I’m fourth in the championship. I don’t want to be fourth, I want to be further up than that.

“I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Binder believes he and Miller will provide a bigger challenge to the Ducatis after the summer break as set-up advances continued to be made to the KTMs.

“We’ve always achieved, or been really close, to what we want,” said Binder.

“That’s the end goal. To get there, you’ve got to do everything correctly.

“You need to forget and just focus on what you can do on the day. We’ve been fighting the Ducatis every weekend. They have strong points but we have ours. Going into the second half of the year, we have points to work on.

“We can take the fight to them.”