Pedro Acosta delivers verdict on "strange" highside in Hungarian MotoGP practice

Pedro Acosta ended Friday practice for the Hungarian MotoGP fastest of all, despite suffering a late highside at turn two of the Balaton Park circuit.

The Red Bull KTM star, who has been on the podium in three of the last four races, edged Ducati’s world championship leader Marc Marquez by just 0.006s with a time of 1m 37.747s.

More importantly, Acosta escaped without injury from the fall, which he likened to his Phillip Island crash last year that left him with a dislocated shoulder.

“Quite strange,” Acosta told MotoGP.com, when quizzed about the off-throttle highside.

“I also had one of these strange crashes in Phillip Island. It’s not really normal that kind of crash and today was exactly the same as in Australia.

“For this, let's see what is going on. Thankfully, I landed quite OK. Let’s see [how I feel] tomorrow how I wake up.”

Pedro Acosta: 'Maybe Balaton Park matches my style'

Acosta began the day third on the timesheets in FP1, then carried that momentum into the afternoon hour.

After impressing on used medium-soft tyres, Acosta delivered the fastest time of the day with new rubber on his third of four runs.

“On the first lap of FP1, I was not managing to make any of the chicanes,” he smiled. “But the team worked super hard during the day to match a lot the set-up and everything was working quite OK.

“Maybe this track is matching my style, braking points type corner and all these things. But it's also true that it's an unusual track for us, on a MotoGP bike it feels quite small.

“I’m quite happy with the day, sad to finish with the crash, but it’s part of the game.”

The concern for Acosta and the rest of the field heading into Saturday is that, before the time attacks, Marquez posted a 1m 37.753 on medium tyres (front and rear) that had done 17 laps.

Acosta’s used rubber best was 1m 38.012s, set with medium front and soft rear tyres that had done 15 laps. He plans to try the medium rear tomorrow morning.

“It’s true that Ducati is still quite fast in their sectors, and also they have the advantage that they came here to ride some weeks ago,” said Acosta.

Marquez was fastest in the 1st and 4th sectors, with the RC16s of Acosta and Pol Espargaro setting the pace in the 2nd and 3rd sectors, respectively.

Friday’s top six contained four Ducatis and two KTMs, with Tech3’s Enea Bastianini the next best RC16 behind Acosta in fifth.

Factory team-mate Brad Binder was 0.815s slower than Acosta in 15th, meaning another trip to Qualifying 1.