What Acosta was missing in Aragon GP fight with Marquez

Pedro Acosta says he would have had no tyre performance left if he had kept up with Marc Marquez in their fight for victory at the Aragon Grand Prix. 

The factory KTM rider produced one of the performances of the season at MotorLand Aragon, finishing just 1.7s behind his Ducati counterpart Marquez in second.

After jumping from sixth to third early on, he pulled off a brilliant pass on Bezzecchi at the end of the back straight on lap 6, before hounding Marquez for the lead.

Despite his RC16 clearly not being a match to the GP26, Acosta kept the pressure up on Marquez for the next phase of the race, preventing his countryman from running away at the front.

It was only on lap 13 when Marquez picked up his pace and started lapping in the 1m46s bracket that Acosta was forced to concede defeat, his valiant effort ultimately only good enough for second.

Speaking afterwards, the 22-year-old admitted he gave his all in pursuit of a maiden MotoGP win, but felt he risked using up his tyres by trying to stay in touch with his 2027 team-mate. 

“We’ve got the most out of what we had. The start was a bit better than yesterday’s, the first few laps were very good and I managed to latch onto Marc. We can be happy because I’m getting 100% out of what I’ve got; for now, there’s nothing more we can do,” he said.

“The intention to catch Marc was there, but the potential we had was another matter. I knew that if I pushed too hard halfway through the race, I’d run out of tyres at the end.”

Tyre wear has long been a weakness of the KTM, but the Austrian manufacturer has made tangible progress in the last 18 months to give its riders a better chance in Sunday races.

Acosta revealed that he has even begun to change his riding style to preserve tyre life: “Normally, I’m the one that always goes more tight inside the corners and uses more tyres than everyone else. And now I’m trying to change my style a bit.

“At the end, if I want to be ready when my moment arrives, I need to start to see all the options and see all the ways of racing.”

Qualifying weakness

Acosta believes KTM’s one-lap pace is holding him back, with the Spaniard often having to start from further down the grid compared to his Aprilia and Ducati rivals.

In the opening 13 rounds, Acosta has qualified on the front row just three times, with his average starting position being sixth place.

Asked what he is missing on the bike to score a MotoGP win, he said: “It’s missing many things, but at the moment, I want to concentrate on the ones that I have.

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team, Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Photo by: Qian Jun / MB Media / Getty Images

“In the end, I’m missing a lot in the short distance, especially in qualifying. Normally, I struggle to be in that first row that normally gives you a bit of advantage at the beginning of the races.

“But at the moment I wanted to be focused on the things that can make me win a race and not the ones that I don’t have.”

Engine boost?

Heading into Aragon, KTM finally received permission from other manufacturers to unseal its engine and make changes to fix the reliability issues that had plagued its earlier in the season.

This was expected to allow KTM to run its engines at full power again, having turned them down earlier in the season, but Acosta said earlier in the weekend that he couldn’t notice any difference in performance.

While the Aragon podium followed immediately after the engine changes, Acosta insisted there was no link between the two.

“The KTM has always performed quite well here,” he said. “In my first year in MotoGP, I secured two podium finishes. Last year, during a difficult spell, I finished fourth on Sunday.

“Now we need to see how we get on at the circuits that went our way last season. That will give us a better idea of where we stand.”

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– The Autosport.com Team