Pedro Acosta turned 20 today. And he celebrated it in the best way possible: with a podium in the Sprint of the Catalan Grand Prix. He had to work hard to win it, however, on a day that was once again about survival.
Everyone knew that Montmeló’s asphalt and its poor grip would pose a challenge for all riders, which led to crashes for Raúl Fernández, Brad Binder and Pecco Bagnaia when they were leading. The others tried to take advantage of it, like the “Shark of Mazarrón”, who however ended up paying for the high pace he maintained in the first half of the race. In the final part of the race, he was overtaken by Aleix Espargaro and Marc Marquez, ultimately having to settle for third place.
Acosta welcomed this achievement on his birthday, but admitted he could have done better. The problem is that he got too “hot” at the beginning: “It’s not a bad way to celebrate my birthday. It could have gone better, but I wouldn’t say we didn’t make it. I’m happy,” he began. “Like in Le Mans, it was another survival race. This time we did it. We gained experience, especially for tomorrow. In the end, it was one of the worst races I’ve had in this short MotoGP season, one of the most difficult we’ve done. The level of management that had to be done was very high.”
“Maybe I got a little overheated when Raul and Brad had a low 1’39” pace. I was pushing hard on the rear, smoke was coming out of the tire and I was saying to myself: ‘How long will this tire last’. In the end I warmed up a bit with him, with Brad, with Pecco, my front tire overheated and, when I saw that the bike started to not turn, I overheated the rear tire too. But we survived a race that promised to be very difficult”, he continued.
The number 31 doesn’t expect an easier Sunday, but quite the opposite, after Saturday’s crashes, which he didn’t consider “strange”: “Tomorrow will be the same, if not even more complicated than today. They said that Sunday would be It was the hottest day of the whole weekend. Today was already complicated, there were accidents and I don’t think they did anything strange, because they were very slow, let’s say, or we didn’t see any strange movements. We will try to survive tomorrow too “.
Acosta then explained his different driving style, adopted due to the circumstances, which will lead him not to go too fast at the start tomorrow: “The first laps we were more similar to Binder, but when he crashed and the tire was already overheating , then it was more a question of survival, to see what I could do to make the corners. Tomorrow we won’t have to warm up if someone has a higher pace at the start.”
Finally, the young man from GasGas Tech3 underlined his good start, the aspect he has the most difficulty with in MotoGP. “We practiced starts all week, focusing almost only on those, but also on other techniques, such as releasing the clutch with a different setting. I think it worked well today,” he added.
#MotoGP #Acosta #overheated
