Pedro Acosta owns up to qualifying “mess”, admits need to “cool down”

Pedro Acosta has been a little too enthusiastic chasing poles with KTM’s improved MotoGP bike – and he knows it

KTM’s leading MotoGP rider Pedro Acosta has admitted that he needs to throttle back his riding in qualifying after a promising Hungarian Grand Prix weekend was derailed by a violent crash.

While the KTM bike has taken a step forward over the last two race weekends, Acosta has arguably been guilty of over-riding in qualifying on both of them.

At Balaton Park, he was the only man who looked likely to challenge Marc Marquez for pole position, despite a crash on Friday. But his blunder on Saturday – which came before he had even set a ‘banker’ lap – saw him line up seventh.

That in turn put him in prime position to be caught up in the sprint race melee at the first corner. He also fell later in the race and ended up 17th.

On Sunday, however, he rode a clean first lap and slotted into fourth. He worked his way up to second by the end – but will wonder what might have been without the fearsome qualifying mishap.

But pushing beyond the limits now that the promise of poles and wins is real is something Acosta knows he must avoid going forward.

“Everything was feeling quite easy on Friday and then Saturday was really a disaster, you know,” said Acosta. “Sometimes I need to cool down a bit and try to save a normal result. Because I think at this track, qualifying far from the front row was more of a handicap than [anything else].

“The [weekend] was missing a bit of experience [on my part]. Like I said, on this Saturday [I should not have made] the mess that I created.

“[What’s missing on] my part is to be slightly calm.”

Pedro Acosta, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Acosta said he was pleased with the final result on Sunday, all things considered.

“I mean, we have to be happy after the mechanics had to [build] two new bikes from these two crashes that I was having on Friday and Saturday,” he said, “but you cannot always believe that a comeback will save the weekend.

“Anyway, I think we have to be happy about our weekend and how KTM is improving every race.

“The aero update they brought to [the last race in] Austria helped a lot. Now the bike is more calm. It’s slightly easier to ride, and for sure we have more space to make mistakes.

“The problem before was that if you made a slight mistake you were already on the floor. We are getting better on this.”

While Acosta continued to spend his share of time on the ground in Hungary, it sounds like the latest crashes have been a case of pushing too hard rather than a lack of feedback from the bike.

His first chance to see what the bike can achieve with slightly more cautious riding in qualifying will come at the Catalan Grand Prix in two weeks.