Pedro Acosta Sánchez (Puerto de Mazarrón, Murcia; 19 years old) has needed only three seasons in the World Championship to become two-time world champion and make the jump to MotoGP. The new Moto2 champion, who was crowned with his second position in the Malaysian GP, his fourteenth podium of the year, arrives in the premier class with the same phenomenon label that in the past accompanied Marc Márquez, Valentino Rossi and other greats champions. The dominance exhibited by this eloquent and friendly Murcian since his appearance in the competition is unusual. He already has 16 victories and 27 podiums in 54 races. His star could already be sensed in his second World Cup race.
It started from pit lane, At the age of 16, under the lights of Doha (Qatar), and that boy rose from last to first position, beating a small group of eight opponents. “It wasn’t because he won, but because of how he won. That is his true value, then and today, how he does it! ”He states in conversation with EL PAÍS Jaime Alguersuari, former pilot, journalist and author of the pilot’s biography. In 2021, Acosta wrote his own chapter in the record book by becoming the first and only rookie to chain four consecutive podiums – a second and three victories – in his first four races in Moto3. For just one day, as fate would have it, he did not beat Loris Capirossi as the youngest champion in history.
“He’s a different driver, that’s clear,” said Aki Ajo, a former Finnish driver and team manager who has been a mentor to several champions, including Marc Márquez, at the time. “They are similar in some ways, although they are different,” said his team leader. “Pedro is very mathematical. He manages very well and is colder,” Alguersuari points out. “There is only one Márquez, and for me comparisons are hateful. Each one is unique, and there is only one Pedro,” Pedro Acosta Sr. explains to this newspaper. His son has admitted to paying a lot of attention to the style of the eight-time world champion, which he has peppered with details of Casey Stoner and Kevin Schwantz, his mother’s idol, on his path to glory.
Only an injury training on the dirt bike stopped Acosta in his first year in Moto2. In the second he has swept and won promotion next year to MotoGP with the GasGas team, the satellite team of the Austrian KTM. This season he has won seven events in 18 stops on the calendar and has been on the podium seven other times. His natural talent explains part of it, but his true gift has been and is piecework. “He has a very cold mind, and when it comes to working he only thinks about improving himself. He has always been obsessed,” highlights Paco Mármol, his coach and right-hand man until about a year ago. “As a child, the most impressive thing was his attitude and character. He never let up, and he always asked for one more lap when the other kids were thinking about stopping so they could drink water,” he recalls.
The spell began with a Chinese motorcycle that his father bought him and some runs on the Cartagena circuit. Of humble origins, Acosta’s training was funded by the money from the ‘Peretujo’, her family’s boat. The brotherhood, friends and the occasional scholarship from the Cuna de Campeones in Valencia also contributed. “There were people here who didn’t even know what motorcycles were, and now there are old women who stop making food to watch my son’s races,” says Pedro, the father, proudly. In Puerto de Mazarrón, a small town of 10,000 inhabitants, they live fascinated with their champion. Remember, of course, the case of Cervera with Márquez or Tavullia with Rossi.
The parallels between Acosta and talents who later made history are not few. “It’s the age, it’s the facts and their consequences. They are exceptional,” says Alguersuari. “What were you doing when you were 19?” Acosta would respond that he simply dedicates himself to training. “If he can’t be on the track, he goes on a bicycle, goes to the gym, does trial, ‘dirt-track’, it even seems excessive. Since he was little he has been very focused on his career and is always looking for what he can improve,” says his parent. This season, the family asked his son to at least take Sundays off without racing, of the little that he has given the kid.
Another characteristic that makes the new champion stand out is his attitude contrary to the goodism that prevails right now in the premier category. He does not know friends on the circuits, and when he watches the races on television he misses volcanic duels like those that some of his idols starred in in their day. “Now they are all friends, they all have a good relationship, but people want to see fights like Pedrosa and Lorenzo, Rossi and Márquez… people want this, battles, celebrations,” he said in a recent appearance on the podcast Last on the Brakes. The Murcian talent does not mince his words, and always says what he thinks. “The good thing about my son is that he is transparent, sometimes too much so. He doesn’t think about being correct, he is like that in his daily life. It’s his personality. He has no filters, he is not a good thing,” the father acknowledges.
The arrival of the Mazarrón Shark to MotoGP provides an element in danger of extinction in the category. “He is an old school guy, one of the last cowboys,” Ajo summarizes. “We don’t come here to make friends,” says the man from Murcia. Now, already crowned as the youngest champion of the Moto2 era, he is counting the days until he gets on his new beast during the Valencia MotoGP tests, at the end of the month, after the last race of the year, on November 26.
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