Is Pedro Acosta the rookie that MotoGP has been waiting for?

On a cold Saturday in December, traveling to Liverpool first thing in the morning isn't the most exciting prospect. The MotoGP season has just ended and everyone wants only one thing: to rest. Pedro Acosta is no exception, he has just completed his third season in the world championship, but he must respect the protocol and officially recover his Moto2 world champion trophy at the FIM Gala Awards.

Yet the young Spaniard shows no sign of tiredness when he joins us at the Hope Street Hotel for a planned interview. He could be forgiven for having his head in the clouds a bit, having ridden a MotoGP for the first time just four days earlier. Do you feel like a full-fledged MotoGP rider after the first 70 laps aboard the Tech3 team's KTM RC16? “Not at the moment, it was just a day,” he replies to Motorsport.com's first question. But many didn't wait too long to predict a very high destiny for him.

He may only be 19 years old, but Pedro Acosta is already the spearhead of the KTM group and his arrival in MotoGP was planned for a long time. In three years, he has become the one everyone is waiting to see in action against the top riders of the premier class, with a path characterized by great successes: the victory in his second race in the world championship, in 2021, the Moto3 title the same year. His immediate move to Moto2 with other successes in the first season and finally the title in the intermediate class, the second in three years, with a record of precociousness.

Jorge Lorenzo, “speechless after what Pedro Acosta has done in these last three years”, already sees him as “predestined to become MotoGP world champion”, as he explained to DAZN Spain. Marc Marquez himself, to whom the rookie is compared, has given his approval. “Acosta is part of that series of riders who will represent a big name in MotoGP and his time will come,” he predicted. “In the past there were Doohan, Rossi, Lorenzo, Stoner, me… And today no one seems to be able to win many grands prix in a row, but this could be Acosta. He is very young and will have his moment in MotoGP, I'm 100% sure of it.”

To what his results announce, we add all the positive things that the people around him say. Aki Ajo, who was responsible for training him in the team, sees him as an “old school” driver due to his way of approaching racing. Hervé Poncharal, owner of the Tech 3 team, praises his calm and methodical approach.

“It was very intelligent, which I appreciate,” the Frenchman tells Motorsport.com, surprised but admiring by the Spaniard's reaction once his arrival in MotoGP was confirmed. “We told him that we lacked a minimum amount of information and he replied 'let me win the championship, then I'll be totally with you. I don't want any distractions at the moment.' Considering how young he still is, for me it is proof of maturity, intelligence and commitment in what he does.”

In fact, since the beginning of his career, Pedro Acosta has tried to keep his feet on the ground. Upon his arrival in the world championship, this was a necessity. “Imagine a 16-year-old boy who has 8,000 followers on Instagram when he arrives in Qatar in 2021 and when he leaves Doha he has 180,000,” he explains. “I remember my phone breaking because it wouldn't stop ringing. It never turned back on! But I said 'guys, this isn't for me'. I want to be a normal boy. The only thing that differentiates me from another person is that I race a motorcycle in the world championship. But it's my job, that's it. I want to remain the same boy as always.”

“After that race I changed my number because everyone, including people I had never seen in my life, wrote to me on WhatsApp. I don't want this in my life, I even removed Instagram from my phone because it put too much pressure”, continues the Spaniard, who would like to keep his distance from what people say about him. “The media talks, you read. If you see an article that says 'Pedro Acosta blah, blah, blah, you read it. Even if you don't feel like it, you do it. This world here is not for me. What I want is to get on the track, hit the gas and have fun. That's what I've tried to do since my first day in the championship.”

Today Acosta has 408 thousand followers on Instagram and uses his account to interact with fans and promote. The pressure that immediately weighed on him was a shock for him, but he quickly learned to put on a show, celebrating his victories with style, inherited from Valentino Rossi. He is perfectly aware of what the public expects, but staging a pizza delivery in parc fermé or throwing some of his equipment into the stands are things that come naturally to him.

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Acosta “knows what the people want” from a MotoGP rider

“I'll try,” he replies when we ask him if he considers himself as much a showman as a pilot. “But first of all, I like to have fun, because it comes naturally to me. It's true that when I arrived in the world championship I was very shy. But the team helped me let out all this energy. If one day I don't laugh, I don't make jokes or I don't do stupid things, let's say, I have the impression of going to sleep with too much energy!”.

“I need to burn this fire inside me! You have to think that not too long ago I was a fan. I know what people want to see. It's something that comes easily to me because I like to see people laugh, I love to make jokes and things that are normal for a 19 year old boy. Because, I repeat, I want to be normal.”

“I don't want to live inside a bubble. I just want to be a normal guy. When I go to a party, for example, I never talk about racing. I never take reservations using my name or other things. I go with others and have fun. The only difference between me and the other kids is that if I go to a club, you'll know I went. But, guys, you have to have fun!”.

When Brand asked Álex Crivillé for his opinion on Pedro Acosta, the 500cc world champion in 1999, he underlined the attitude of his young compatriot, very ambitious but also calm: “Behind the results there are sacrifices, suffering, determination, talent, more determination and training, a lot of training. A champion is not born out of nowhere, everyone knows that. But his personality, humility, spontaneity, his desire to learn and the fact that he knows how to keep his feet on the ground in all circumstances have led him to achieve what he has achieved. The greatest thing is that he will accomplish everything he sets out to do because there is only one Acosta.”

Franco Morbidelli goes further and believes that Acosta is capable of filling the gaps in MotoGP communication. Maybe it's this desire to live normally, but Pedro Acosta has accepted his notoriety and knows that all the enthusiasm that surrounds him puts him in a position to increase the popularity of MotoGP. He has an important role, given that the championship tries to experiment with solutions aimed at satisfying the public and attracting a greater number of spectators, an example of which is the Sprint introduced in 2023. However, he makes a reflection that shows how much, in his opinion, there there is still a long way to go in this sense.

Photo by: GasGas Factory Racing

Acosta considers the pressure on him as “a game”

“I think we need it to show MotoGP to the kids,” he claims in reference to social media. “If you go down the street and ask any person, really at random, who Valentino Rossi is, they will be able to answer you. Even without ever having seen a race in his life, he will know it. This applies to Messi, Ronaldo, Jordan, Hamilton, because they are part of mass culture. They are kids who know they are sportsmen, but they go beyond sports.”

“We need these things. Because now, if you go on the street and ask who Marc Marquez is, people know him but it will be much more difficult than Valentino Rossi. For me, among the guys who have been good in the past are Scott Redding, who no one will know. Then Alvaro Bautista, same thing, Danilo Petrucci, Andrea Dovizioso… We need the overall show to be watchable. Whether in the media or elsewhere, MotoGP needs to be a beautiful sight to see. It's something we need right now.”

There is no doubt that Pedro Acosta has the ability to combine the dose of showmanship that MotoGP perhaps lacks with top-level results, judging by his pure talent and his journey to date. But how to manage all the attention he attracts?

“As far as pressure, when I was 16, there was a camera with me 24/7. I understood things like 'you're the next Marc Marquez, you're going to make history, break records, don't we've never seen something like this, you'll go straight to MotoGP…' This put a lot of pressure on me. Today it's like a game.”

Photo by: GasGas Factory Racing

Acosta has no targets for his rookie season but to learn. That won't stop the hype, though

Speaking with Pedro Acosta we better understand all the good things that various team managers have been able to say about him in recent years. He has incredible maturity for a 19-year-old and, intelligently, understands what is expected of him on the track while knowing that half the work is what happens off the track. One cannot exist without the other.

MotoGP has always seen a continuous flow of rookies arrive, some of very high levels capable of immediately winning in the category. But there have been rare riders who possessed all the qualities that are contained in Pedro Acosta. Especially able to show them since their debut. KTM has secured a gem and Acosta is the best possible advertisement for its young talent development program. But it is above all MotoGP that could come out on top, as the Spaniard has great riding qualities and a real sensitivity towards marketing. This could provide the good boost the league needs.