Pedro Acosta offers surprisingly low rating of his Sepang MotoGP test
Pedro Acosta was happy with his Sepang test, but scored it surprisingly low
KTM’s Pedro Acosta says he knows what bike spec he wants to use going forward after the Sepang MotoGP test, but was surprisingly critical of his work.
The Austrian manufacturer has made a significant step forward with the development of its 2026 bike over the winter compared to last year, as it introduced a number of major upgrades.
Across the last three days, KTM riders have trialled a new chassis, as well as new aerodynamic solutions and swingarms.
The RC16 has generally factored highly on the timesheets at the end of each day, with Pedro Acosta eighth overall having set his best time of the test on Wednesday.
He said after Thursday’s running that he couldn’t maximise his time attack due to back-to-back chassis testing, but is “convinced” of the direction he wants to go in with the bike for the Thailand test.
“Quite happy,” he told the official MotoGP website on Thursday.
“I had to back-to-back check again two chassis in the morning, and this caused me to not be as fast as I wanted on new tyres.
“But anyway, I’m quite convinced what the bike is that I want for the Thailand test.
“Also, there were some long runs to see how we compare to other brands. For this, it was quite a productive day.”
Acosta also added that KTM appears to have ironed out its tyre wear problems from last year, though other issues have arisen that need work.
And despite being encouraged by KTM’s progress, he only rated his test a “six out of 10”.
“Looks like it’s coming better,” he said of the tyre wear.
“Everything becomes more stable, and you don’t have many surprises.
“It’s true that there are still things on the bike that we have to fix and understand where they are coming from.
“But, to be honest, it was a really positive three days of testing.”
“I would say a six out of 10 [rating for the test].”
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