Why Marc Marquez is right to consider Pedro Acosta a real MotoGP title threat

There’s little doubt that Pedro Acosta should have won a MotoGP race before the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix. But if there was ever a time to break his duck, Acosta picked the perfect one, as he scored his maiden victory in his final appearance on KTM’s home soil with the brand he has called home since stepping into the grand prix paddock in 2021.

There can’t not be a tinge of sadness for KTM, though. Brand CEO Gottfried Neumeister was in attendance last weekend and told the media that, ultimately, there was nothing it could do to persuade Acosta to stay for 2027: he wanted to go up against Marc Marquez on equal machinery, and so Ducati had something KTM simply couldn’t offer.

That said, KTM isn’t totally blameless in losing Acosta. Fundamentally, had it put a better bike underneath him last year and carried that into the start of this campaign, he may well have been convinced otherwise.

The opportunity to actually win a grand prix has been rare for Acosta. His speed has been unquestionable, but the RC16 hasn’t often been in a position to match his ambitions.

That finally came together last weekend, 56 races into his premier class career. But it has seemed since the summer break that this was always coming. He cracked KTM skulls over the summer break, asking the team to keep digging deeper and give him what he needed from the bike each weekend.

He scored podiums at Aragon and Misano in the wake of this. And now comes his maiden victory.

From the off in free practice at the Red Bull Ring, Acosta looked like the favourite. But his win came about the hard way. He was set to score a dominant sprint victory on Saturday, but crashed at the Turn 2 chicane with three laps to go as he took his eye off the ball while checking his dashboard.

He held his hands up to that error, while crew chief Paul Trevathan noted that it only weighed on him “for an hour” before he moved on. But then he fell right at the end of warm-up, leaving his team - with some help from Tech3 - to rebuild his motorcycle with just hours until lights out. It’s no wonder, then, that Acosta said after the race that he was “shitting myself” at the prospect of a hat-trick of mistakes.

It took him until lap nine of the grand prix to take the lead, doing so after outdragging Aprilia’s Jorge Martin on the exit of Turn 1. His pace was clearly better, but not as dominant as perhaps was forecasted. He was just over a second up the road at the chequered flag, but that’s all it needed to be.

Martin quipped afterwards: “I think today Pedro was fighting for something more than just a victory.” In other words, to try to beat Acosta last Sunday would be to go well above and beyond what was reasonable for someone trying to extend a championship lead. Clearly, Acosta had a score to settle after Saturday, as his post-race celebration, where he threw his KTM down on the asphalt at Turn 2, demonstrated.

KTM has always been big on celebrations when it has won a grand prix. But it wasn’t difficult to tell just how special last Sunday was. Not only was it the end of a barren run dating back to 2022, but it came in the wake of KTM, as Acosta’s crew chief put it, going “to hell and back” last year in the wake of a financial crisis.

For Acosta to end that wait, in front of KTM top management, as well as majority owner Bajaj Auto’s chief, was a poignant moment. KTM has arguably never brought a better rider through its grand prix ranks than Acosta; understandably, he saw it as “closing the circle” between himself and the manufacturer.

But there is every chance this relationship could still end with something even bigger over the next seven (at least that’s how many are scheduled) rounds.

Acosta cannot be ruled out of title contention just yet

It’s true that victory in the sprint would have strengthened his case more. But Acosta is 72 points from new championship leader Jorge Martin. That’s a hefty margin, for sure, but there are still 259 points on the board, pending what happens with Qatar.

Erstwhile championship leader Marc Marquez, who was second in the sprint and fifth in the grand prix after encountering a brake issue on his Ducati, was quite blunt on Friday in Austria about how he viewed Acosta in the title picture.

“He’s in the championship…I was 102 behind seven races ago. So, he’s in the championship.”

Such has been the nature of this year’s world championship, where mistakes have been punished pretty heavily for those in the title battle, Marquez is not wrong to rule out Acosta entirely. After the Austrian Grand Prix, he doubled down.

“Top four guys are ready to fight for the championship,” he said. “As we see with Pedro, for example, since Silverstone, KTM has opened the engines and has good power again. They are ready to fight for the championship.”

He’s referring to KTM being given permission to unseal its homologated engines to rectify an issue that was causing numerous breakdowns in the middle of the season. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that the KTM was right at the sharp end of the power charts at the Red Bull Ring.

With Acosta not battling a speed deficit, he could take greater profit from his class-leading braking ability at the stop-and-go Red Bull Ring. All weekend, Acosta was creaming his rivals in the first sector, which comprised the hard stop into Turn 1 and the hard stop into the Turn 2 chicane.

Coming up next on the calendar is Motegi, which, like Red Bull Ring, mandates the use of Brembo’s biggest brake discs. Acosta was on pole at Motegi in 2024 and could have won both races had he not crashed. Last year, he was third in the sprint.

Marquez has already branded Acosta as “favourite” to win the Japanese Grand Prix. And for the first time in Acosta’s MotoGP career, he goes to the next round having actually won a race. Win it or bin it isn’t necessarily a mentality he needs to take now, because he knows definitively that he is more than capable of breaching the top step of the podium.

It’s likely that Ducati will pose a stiffer challenge at Motegi to Acosta than it did last weekend at the Red Bull Ring, given the return to the standard tyre casing. But, just as he did in Austria, he has a useful advantage on his side in that his 72-point deficit in the standings will likely prompt Marquez to think twice before engaging in a battle with the 22-year-old.

Beyond the Japanese Grand Prix comes MotoGP’s now annual visit to Mandalika in Indonesia. And that will see the return of Michelin’s stiffer rear tyre casing, which was used last weekend in Austria. It’s a tyre the KTM likes and the Ducati doesn’t. Acosta was second at Mandalika last year, and was runner-up again the year before. Ironically, Indonesia 2023 was the last grand prix he won on his way to the Moto2 crown, before his Austria success.

Acosta’s title situation is not enviable. One mistake in the next two rounds will kill it dead. But everything is lining up for the Japan/Indonesia double-header to work in his favour, making it easily the most important stretch of the season for the KTM rider.

Has Austria shifted the championship battle back in Aprilia’s favour?

As expected, Aprilia enjoyed a strong weekend in Austria. The stiffer rear tyre carcass suited it in Thailand and Brazil, where Marco Bezzecchi took dominant victories. At the Red Bull Ring, Jorge Martin looked back to his best form on the RS-GP.

He claimed pole and celebrated a 20th sprint win after Acosta’s crash on Saturday, though his recovery from eighth after the first few corners following a hard move from Marquez was exceptional. In the grand prix, he fended off team-mate Bezzecchi’s late charge to secure second.

It’s given him a 12-point lead in the championship going to Japan and 42 points over third-placed Bezzecchi, while he revealed last Sunday that he will not need immediate arm pump surgery now. On a difficult weekend for Ducati, Martin made it count.

“I feel quite competitive, but there are some times when I struggle,” he said when asked about who the favourite in the championship is now. “So, at the end of the day, I see Marc, he’s so, so strong. You can see not only his speed but his hunger. This is always important. Let’s see our potential in the difficult races, but we will try to the end. I think that’s the situation.”

Motegi hasn’t been the happiest of hunting grounds for Aprilia over the years. And Marquez does go to Japan, for the first time this season, angry with the performance Ducati displayed over the Austria weekend.

He was furious after not having the pace to fight with Acosta, and Martin especially, in the sprint. And then a front brake issue struck him in the grand prix, which meant he could do no more than fifth when he felt he had the pace to fight for second.

Martin and Aprilia have to brace themselves for retaliation. Marquez will be especially keen to make Motegi a 37-point weekend if he can, with his bogey track - and bogey tyre - in Mandalika coming up the week after.