Acosta’s long road to his maiden MotoGP win

There has never been much doubt about Pedro Acosta’s quality or talent, but since making his MotoGP debut three years ago, he had been waiting for KTM to give him a bike to challenge for a grand prix win.

That wait finally ended at the Red Bull Ring, KTM’s home circuit, where Acosta was first across the finish line on Sunday. 

The Spaniard made his MotoGP debut in 2024 with KTM’s satellite team Tech3 and immediately provided glimpses of his quality, scoring five podiums in his rookie season without managing to win a race.

The following year followed a similar pattern after he moved to the factory KTM team, with the RC16 still struggling for performance compared with its rivals. Acosta again finished on the podium five times in 2025.

This year, he had already added another five podiums from the opening 14 rounds, taking his overall tally to 15: eight runner-up finishes and seven third places. Acosta’s previous closest calls came at Austin and Indonesia in 2024, Hungary, Indonesia and Malaysia in 2025, and Thailand, Hungary and Aragon this season.

Those eight second-place finishes had repeatedly left him just short of victory and made him the rider with the most MotoGP podiums without a win. That unwanted record finally came to an end on Sunday, with Acosta doing so at the Red Bull Ring in front of KTM’s home crowd and the fans of its orange colours.

The victory was Acosta’s first in MotoGP but the 17th of his world championship career, following six wins in Moto3 and 11 in Moto2, where he also secured the world title.

Winning in MotoGP this year had become an important target for Acosta, both to end his wait for a premier-class victory and to give KTM a win before he leaves the manufacturer at the end of the season.

Acosta will join Ducati next year, where he will hope to find a more regular path to victory, although he will arrive at a factory team whose other rider, Marc Marquez, has won more MotoGP races than anyone else.

For KTM, Acosta’s victory also ended a long wait for a MotoGP win. The manufacturer had not won in the premier class since the 2022 Thai Grand Prix, when Miguel Oliveira took victory in a race held in wet conditions.

Acosta is the 17th Spanish rider to win a race in the premier class. Alex Marquez, Fermin Aldeguer and Raul Fernandez all joined the list for the first time last year. He is also the first non-Aprilia/Ducati rider to win a grand prix this year, ending the duopoly of the Italian manufacturers.

KTM’s competitive struggles, financial issues and the recent engine saga largely restricted his ability to fight for wins, but the Mattighofen-based squad was able to put all its problems behind after the summer break, putting Acosta closer than ever to victory at Aragon and San Marino before he finally broke through in Austria.

Over the years, Acosta also made some unforced errors, most notably in Japan in his rookie season after qualifying on pole. He also threw away a certain win in the sprint race just this weekend on Saturday.

However, aside from the crash in the sprint race, the 22-year-old has largely appeared to be a finished product as he prepares to join Ducati in 2027.

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– The Autosport.com Team