As the curtain twitches in readiness for it being brought down on another season of MotoGP action, even with two rounds remaining it certainly isn’t premature to brand Pedro Acosta’s rookie campaign a roaring success.
It’s a statement that could justly hang on the strength of results alone, his five trips to the grand prix podium, four sprint top-three finishes and Japanese GP pole position at the very least ensuring some TV time for those sponsors that didn’t default to Ducati – thoughts and prayers to the others that sided with Honda and Yamaha.
More than that though, while he may be the only fresh face on the grid this year, in some ways, it feels as though he has been around for much longer.
Granted this could be a trick of the mind permeated by that fresh face having received plenty of attention prior to his MotoGP graduation or because it’s easy to mistake his GasGas KTM Tech3 machine for a Ducati from a certain distance, but it’s also primarily a measure of how at home he has appeared in MotoGP since day one. Indeed, some quick turns out of the box in pre-season testing were enough for Acosta to skip the recipe instructions and get stuck into the mix.
The same was on show in Thailand where, in his first fully wet MotoGP race, Acosta learnt on the job to power to the podium only behind title fighters Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin.
“I was struggling a lot to warm up the brake disks and, I don’t know why but since I am in MotoGP, it is taking me a bit more time compared to, for example, Jack and Brad,” Acosta said after the race. “Also I was not having the best feeling with the rear tyre, out of Turns 5 and 6 I was spinning a lot and it was like riding on ice. It was quite tough to analyse in my head.
Acosta’s late-race charge in Thailand saw him return to the podium
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“I started to push to take out everything and it was quite tough at the beginning, also I ran wide at Turn 3 and Turn 1, but it is true that with five or six laps to go it was like I pulled a switch and I started to go fast. It is difficult to understand, but we were in the right direction.”
It’s therefore little wonder Acosta will graduate to full factory orange for 2025 as part of KTM’s line-up alongside Brad Binder, though the jury is perhaps still out on whether the promotion is more symbolic than reward in performance terms.
At the very least, Acosta’s switch will…
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