Pedro Acosta: KTM is close to MotoGP points leader Marc Marquez “if he doesn’t want to push”

KTM’s Pedro Acosta says the brand approaches the MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix with “feet on the ground” and believes Marc Marquez is only beatable “if he doesn’t want to push”.

The 21-year-old comes to KTM’s home round off the back of a double podium finish last time out at the Czech Grand Prix, marking his first and the marque’s first of the season.

On the run-up to the summer break, Pedro Acosta and KTM have grown into more consistent top five challengers, which it will hope to strengthen this weekend with a raft of upgrades for its RC16.

Though Ducati and Marc Marquez won at the Czech Grand Prix, it marked the first time this season that the Italian brand didn’t have total control of the weekend.

But Acosta cautioned expectations of a growing challenge to Marquez in the second half of the season, pointing to the fact that he was only able to lead him in the Brno sprint due to the Ducati rider backing off to rectify a tyre pressure issue.

“In our case, the start of the season was even more difficult,” he said on Thursday at the Red Bull Ring.

“But, one moment arrived where we arrived in this negative cycle that is difficult to go away from.

“Now it looks like we are more calm, we are thinking more in a positive way and we are just trying to get the maximum from our bike every weekend.

“At the end, you could see in Brno sprint we are closer to Marc if he doesn’t want to push. 

“Now, we have to get the confidence back after the summer break, try these upgrades from KTM, see where they are working and where not because everything that is new has a dark side that you never know about and have the feet on the ground in the second half of this season.”

Hope for KTM upgrades but “no targets”

Acosta has pushed KTM hard publicly to bring more updates to its bike at various points this season as his frustrations boiled over.

Now that those have arrived for the Austrian Grand Prix, Acosta is taking a more pragmatic stance and says there are no targets for the rest of the season other than to continue KTM’s upward trend.

“Let’s see how we start this weekend,” he said.

“I think we don’t have to have any targets for the rest of the season.

“Let’s try to be as competitive as we can, try to be in this top five constantly which will be ok for how far away we were at the beginning of the season.

“For this, now it’s time to have the feet on the ground, don’t fly so much from the podium we had at Brno and start every weekend from zero.

“At the end, we know how Aprilia has improved and how Ducati is strong in the turning point.

“At the end, it’s normally since KTM arrived in the championship where we are struggling the most. For this, let’s see what is going on.

“It’s true that we are riding quite ok now, we arrived at quite a good set-up base and now we don’t have to really change the bike up and down every session.

“Now it’s time to be quite calm, see if these upgrades will help us or not and take a decision for Saturday.”