Pedro Acosta: “It’s a shock for everyone”, “tough to accept” for KTM

Pedro Acosta had already faded from second to sixth place when a braking issue sent him into the Turn 1 gravel during Sunday’s Japanese MotoGP.

Tyre wear was a KTM concern heading into the grand prix, but there was also optimism after Acosta had managed the soft rear to third in the Sprint.

Joining the rest of the grid on the medium for the full 24-lap grand prix distance, Acosta quickly settled into second and “wasn’t pushing”.

“I knew it would be a tough race with the tyre but I did not expect it to be that tough!” said Acosta. “I tried to pass for the lead in Turns 3 and 5 but couldn’t and then when I saw the rhythm I thought ‘OK, do your race and save the tyre’. I wasn’t pushing, which is hard for me!”

Acosta’s pace began to fade just before mid-distance, and he was passed in quick succession by Marc Marquez, Joan Mir, Marco Bezzecchi and Franco Morbidelli.

Worse was to follow when he couldn’t stop his RC16 into Turn 1 on lap 19, ran the through the gravel and rejoined in last place, eventually finishing 17th.

“I don’t know if the pads opened or whatever but, yeah, strange to explain,” Acosta said of the braking issue. “I ran wide and then the rest [of the race] was fine. I imagine it was for movement [shaking] or whatever.”

That left Tech3’s Enea Bastianini as the lead KTM in just eleventh place, followed by Brad Binder in 12th and Maverick Vinales in 16th.

After being frequent podium contenders in the recent European rounds, such form came as something of a ‘shock’.

“We were coming from a really good European season that was not super-hot,” Acosta said. “Here the tyre gets high temperature and was softer compared to the tyre that we normally use, etc.

“I think we believed we could come to a better moment than what was real.

“And it’s a shock for everyone, but we have to be positive. I was fast in qualifying. I was fast yesterday in the Sprint with less laps. Today we went in a hole that was impossible to [get out of].”

“This is a strange world,” reflected Bastianini. “Sometimes, at some tracks, nothing works like what you want. I think we need to understand why and try to be competitive in every track. I hope to see us like 3-4 races in the past: competitive."

Acosta’s team-mate Brad Binder battled chatter and tyre wear.

“I had a really good start but we had a lot of chatter from the beginning which made it difficult to ride the bike. The wheelspin when we were upright also finished the tyre," said the South African.

Vinales, still recovering from mid-summer shoulder surgery, concluded: “What I feel is that there is now a lot of work to do again on the bike because we are not pushing the tyres in the correct way.”

“Tough to accept”

Team manager Aki Ajo pledged a deep analysis of the Motegi weekend, and a reset for Mandalika.

“Aside from the Sprint podium finish it has been a disappointing weekend for us. Our performance is not at the level that we want and not as expected.

“We knew from 2024 that we could have a tyre wear challenge here in Motegi but even in the race today with the harder option it was worse than we anticipated.

“It was tough to accept, especially when we were in a position at the start of the race to be on the podium.

“We need to deeply analyse why things happened this way for these grip conditions and for this track. In any case we have to look positively to Indonesia because five-six races ago we were making progress.

“We will reset and go again at Mandalika and focus again on the podium there.”