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Acosta speaks like he rides: he’s direct, outspoken, no-nonsense, and tremendously effective. He has no filters and goes straight to the point, without letting it go to his head much, like after his first day in a MotoGP Grand Prix: 3rd, both in dry and wet conditions.
“I’m super happy, I have to be, because I improved, compared to the tests, in places where I lost a lot due to silly things and, on the wet, I really progressed,” he said as he analyzed the day. “I struggled in the rain last year. Now it’s better. This bike is more powerful than the Moto2, very different. Even in Sepang, in those conditions, I felt good, even if I fell almost immediately.”
How has it improved? “In the tests, I wasn’t exiting the corners easily but, above all, I improved with the sensations. It’s also true that I had some parts here the official team had tested. I had used them in Malaysia. And the bike is more stable, it runs a little better,” he said.
He then thought about tomorrow, the first qualifications that await him. The hard part is yet to come.
“I had a good winter. We were good, but not even the official riders can say if they can expect to be in front,” he stated. “When, at the end of the day, the first sixteen are in half a second, what can you expect? It only takes a tenth of a second to be out. I think we have to be happy, live day by day, because things like this don’t happen every day.”
To make them happen, however, you have to commit, and Pedro has been doing it for a long time, not only since this winter.
“I think it’s because of how I’ve been taught to rider over the past few years. I took the information I needed, took it home and trained,” he explained. “I didn’t care if I was slower. I didn’t care if they beat me. I didn’t care about anything. I just wanted to be the best. I think that was what KTM somewhat tried to do, soften everything a bit, because maybe I had become a bit too aggressive. I was good at some stages of the year, but not at others. I remember the first year, when I was winning five races and, at Silverstone, I was fifteenth, or something like that. On circuits that require a smooth ride, such as Assen, Silverstone, Sepang, we fixed the problem a bit. Also, the first thing I was told when I arrived in the MotoGP was that the slower I would do things, the better it would be. Little by little, I’m understanding it, so that it comes more naturally to me, because it’s not easy to change things overnight.”
Tomorrow he thinks he’ll have a little help that will come from the FP3 time.
“For me, it’ll be better to have practices in the morning, because I don’t have the same experience as others in night races. And, in the Moto2 and the Moto3, when the sun went down, it was always a little more difficult for me,” he said. “This will help me a bit, but it won’t be enough. We’ll see in tomorrow’s tests, because we all know how the MotoGP riders behave. They ride with a soft tire and set the track record.”
Lastly, we had to ask him about the rescue. Skill or luck? Acosta doesn’t like obvious answers.
“I think the credit goes to KTM. I’ve been riding a KTM since I was thirteen. I’m about to turn twenty, so I’m seven. After all, that’s the DNA of the bike. It hasn’t changed. They know how to make winning bikes. I think I still have to get used to many things, because changing teams isn’t easy. But, little by little, we move forward,” he concluded.
