Pedro Acosta: KTM fought “for nothing” in MotoGP 2025, “I want more”

KTM fought “for nothing” in the 2025 MotoGP season, says Pedro Acosta, who wants “more” in the premier class.

Acosta was running third for much of the second half of the season-ending Valencia MotoGP, but slipped to fourth at the end after a pass by Fabio Di Giannantonio on the penultimate lap.

The Spaniard did enough to secure fourth in the championship ahead of Francesco Bagnaia, who crashed on the first lap with Johann Zarco, but this was not what Acosta races in the premier class for.

“For how I started this championship that, before Jerez, I was 11th, was not a bad comeback [in the 2025 season], a lot of consistency inside the top-five,” Pedro Acosta said after the Valencia race.

“But it’s missing a lot. 

“I came here with a dream to try to fight for the championship and this is not what we got at the end. 

“It’s true that we get a really good result, really good consistency, but it’s not enough.”

Acosta feels he grew as a rider this year, but is clear that results must improve in 2026.

“I learnt a lot, I get much better as a rider, more consistency, I know what is my place,” he said.

“But now I want more. 

“I think now I’m giving everything on my part, I’m not crashing a lot, I’m not losing time, I’m not making many mistakes. 

“It’s quite difficult to manage everything because you cannot make a race perfectly. 

“Again, even making a race perfectly, our limit is the podium and even not [always] for this. We have to check it.”

Asked what he would score himself out of 10 for the year, Acosta responded: “Five”.

He continued: “We improved, but we fight for nothing. I said clear when I signed for KTM that I was wanting to fight for the championship and for what did we fight? For nothing.”

Lack of grip costs the podium

Speaking about the race itself, Acosta explained that his start – which looked worse than the one he made in the Sprint – was not as bad as it seemed regarding his own getaway, but ride height device issues cost him time early on.

“It was a mess also at the beginning of the race that I didn’t unlock the front device, then – I don’t know why – I un-booked the rear one and then I [...] tried to disengage everything – it was a bit a shame,” he said.

“Anyway, we tried our best, we know that every time the other manufacturers are improving and we struggle a lot to be on-point, let’s say, on Sunday’s.”

Regarding the start, he added: “Just Di Giannantonio was better than yesterday. If you check, I arrived fourth to the braking point, yesterday I arrived third. His start was not that good like this one. 

“But then, for example, I don’t know why the bike dropped the rear device in turn two, then I have to disengage in turn four, then Raul [Fernandez] passed me, and it was a bit of a mess.”

Later, the problem was about grip, and the podium position he held after passing Alex Marquez was lost to Di Giannantonio.

“The problem is that we start already with our grip level lower than our competitors, I would say,” the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider explained.

“Then, at the end, the rest is more or less the same, we have to manage maybe more the tyres but it’s not bad at all. 

“But the problem [is that] we struggle a lot to be fast at the beginning of the races because we miss a lot of rear grip.”