Pedro Acosta delivers bleak KTM MotoGP assessment: "We have to survive"

Unable to fight at the front of the field during the Mugello MotoGP Sprint, Pedro Acosta says KTM needs to “survive” Sunday’s race.

Acosta finished the 11-lap race as the top KTM, after Enea Bastianini suffered a fast crash at turn ten whilst battling with Acosta.

But the factory KTM star was unable to make much progress as the sprint went on, as he instead fell into the clutches of Francesco Bagnaia and Ai Ogura.

Acosta lost places to both riders in the closing stages, resulting in a ninth place finish at the flag.

Speaking afterwards, Acosta said: “We knew that we were going to suffer in Mugello, but we were not expecting this much compared with how fast Enea [Bastianini] was yesterday. 

“But it looks like when Ducati and Aprilia make the step up we are still in the same step as Friday. 

“Even Enea, who was really fast yesterday compared to myself; it looks like I could make the step to his level, but we are both stuck then. 

“This is something we have to understand why the bike was so competitive in Barcelona and we are struggling this much here.”

When asked what he hopes to achieve during Sunday’s grand prix, the outlook from Acosta was pretty bleak. 

The Spaniard simply said “survive! It’s so difficult to know what tyre we will race. We have to survive.”

One of the issues that Acosta was having in the race was shaking coming out of corners, which he believed was a problem just on his RC16 machine. But when he followed Bastianini, he realised that the Italian had a similar issue.

Speaking about the problem, Acosta added: “I was thinking that it was only my one but when I was behind Enea after going wide in turn one, it looked like he had the same problem. It’s something that KTM should check in the next hour.”