A possible future Ducati rider visited Borgo Panigale to see Casey Stoner’s bike

Pedro Acosta took a scenic detour to Borgo Panigale just after the Mugello weekend.

After finishing eighth at the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, Acosta found himself in an unusual place, wandering around Museo Ducati in Bologna.

The Spaniard, who now races at Red Bull KTM Factory Racing in his second year at MotoGP, admitted that he was visiting to see Casey Stoner’s bike in the museum.

"I like to see museums and if they are motorcycles, even better. Every time I go to Japan I like to visit the Honda one. I had a pretty good time,” Acosta said to Spanish outlet Marca.

"On Monday I was in museums. I was in the Lamborghini and also in the Ducati.

“The Ducati museum was not bad at all. I knew Casey's bike was there and I wanted to see that bike.

“It's not very big, but I was very interested in seeing Casey's bike, because I saw the 2011 bike in Japan. It was quite nice to see the museum.”

Stoner won the 2007 MotoGP title on a Ducati, an achievement which looks better with hindsight because the manufacturer then needed 15 years to win again.

Seeing Stoner’s bike from the past gives the 21 years old racer from Mazzaron an overview how times changed the size of MotoGP bikes, which he admits looked smaller and simpler back then.

"You see motorcycles that were very small compared to ours. They should have put limitations before, because you see how simple they were before, they were bikes and ours, which affects you so much, as in Formula 1, the bikes are affecting the results of riders a lot.

“Everything was better in the old days, maybe,” he added.

Is Pedro Acosta a future Ducati rider?

This visit comes at a very interesting time as the rumour mills wonder if Pedro Acosta is on Ducati’s radar, especially VR46 where the team boss, Valentino Rossi, is a big fan of the young Spaniard.

But, Acosta insisted that he didn’t see anyone from Ducati’s MotoGP team when he took on the role of a tourist at the museum.

"There was no one there when I was there. It was 9:30 a.m. on a Monday,” he insisted.

“I only saw the bikes and enjoyed it.”

A recent Sky Italia report confirmed the mutual interest from Acosta and Ducati in joining forces.

However, it admitted that an agreement with KTM was not close.

Acosta is locked into a contract with KTM which runs until the end of 2026. That means he must wait until 2027 to assess the market, unless a rival wants to negotiate him out of the deal somehow.

By then, the new MotoGP regulations will come into effect and the pecking order might change.