Pedro Acosta fastest in Misano MotoGP test, fine-tunes KTM for flyaways

Pedro Acosta helped put the disappointment of Sunday’s chain malfunction behind him by leading Monday’s Misano MotoGP test.

Acosta had charged from ninth to fourth in the early stages of the San Marino Grand Prix when his RC16 shed its chain, an issue that struck KTM team-mate Brad Binder twice during practice.

A new chain guide was present for the test, where Acosta focused on set-up work to improve his fast corner performance with an eye on the upcoming flyaway rounds.

Fourth in the morning session, Acosta set the best time of the day, a 1m 30.374s, on his ninth lap of the afternoon to finish 0.387s ahead of Trackhouse Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez.

“Quite nice to come back after yesterday to show some speed,” Acosta said.

“I wanted to improve my best set-up to be faster in the fast corners because we will have these sectors in Japan, Indonesia and Phillip Island and T2 in Malaysia.

“It was interesting how we were able to make improvements.

“It's already a bike that I feel much more comfortable on than at the beginning of the year.

“Now I can ride very naturally and I wanted to improve, like I said, these fast corners, because they are the points that I was suffering the most, also last year.

“I'm happy because we made a really good step with the set-up.

“We still have many good opportunities left this season and we will have time after Valencia to think about next year. A good day.”

Meanwhile, asked about the modified chain guide, Acosta quipped that it worked “much better than yesterday!”.

Tech3’s Enea Bastianini was the next best KTM, in twelfth, on the combined timesheets with Maverick Vinales 13th and Brad Binder 14th.

Dani Pedrosa was also on track, setting the 21st best lap time. Pedrosa will remain at Misano for Tuesday’s Pirelli debut, featuring test riders from each MotoGP manufacturer.