MotoGP | Acosta: “Marc wasn’t the fastest, but the smartest”

The chaos experienced on Sunday in the MotoGP race at Misano was fruitful for some but affected many others, including Pedro Acosta, who fell just before a timid rain appeared, allowing him to come back up to two times to change bikes. Despite this, the GasGas team rider considered the weekend positive.

“Even though the race didn’t go well, this was the Grand Prix where I was more competitive overall. I was always in the top ten, in terms of pace I was consistently competitive, so we can’t say it was a negative weekend, it was very positive,” explained the rookie.

“I crashed and we didn’t finish the weekend as we wanted, but we were competitive, we had the chance to fight for the podium at the beginning, it was a good start to the race. Things improved compared to Saturday, I had a good start, so we already know what to improve for the next race,” he continued.

Acosta finished sixth on Saturday and said a poor start led to a gap to the front that was irreparable. On Sunday, the Spaniard was with the front runners for the opening laps until contact with Franco Morbidelli while they were battling for third blew the winglets off his bike, causing him to crash on the following lap.

“The start helps a lot, I didn’t make many meters, but I kept the gap. I studied Bastianini’s start last year and it helped me. I only had Morbidelli in front, I had a good pace and I managed to escape from the riders behind me. It would have been worth a lot,” said the Murcia rider.

“This weekend we were closer to what we need on the bike, which is positive. This translated into the speed I had until I crashed. When I was able to get back on the bike in the dry I still had the pace. For me, it was a positive weekend,” the Spaniard stressed.

This Sunday we saw two groups of riders, those who took advantage of the complicated situations and those who instead remained trapped. Acosta, at the moment, does not know which group he is in: “At the moment I do not put myself in any group. I fell and I saw Jorge Martin and Aleix Espargaro coming, I put myself behind them. It could only go well, I had already fallen, it could not go badly. When I was on the wet bike, I let a couple of laps pass so they could fix the dry bike for me and I went back to get it.”

Acosta, young rookie KTM, will try to make a step forward in this Monday’s test: “I still have to look at what I have to do in the test, there will be three or four motos in the garage and we will all have to get to work. At the moment I have no expectations for this test.”

Finally, Acosta was asked about Marc Marquez, author of another spectacular race that led him to victory: “He wasn’t the fastest, but he was the smartest. Many times the fastest doesn’t win. The race was also made of discards, Martin burned his options, Pecco in my opinion saw that Martin wasn’t there and thought that losing five points wasn’t a disaster. I repeat, Marc wasn’t the fastest of the weekend, but he was the smartest”.