Pedro Acosta dominates Hungary MotoGP Practice, Pecco Bagnaia in Q1
KTM’s Pedro Acosta dominated afternoon practice at the Hungarian MotoGP
KTM MotoGP rider Pedro Acosta led Practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix, as Pecco Bagnaia failed to secure a place in Q2 after finishing 14th.
The KTM was quick at Balaton Park last year, with Pedro Acosta carrying that form into Friday for this season’s edition of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Acosta took over top spot with just over half an hour remaining in the session, and would progressively improve the reference lap time to a 1m36.827s late on.
That proved to be a crushing lap for the Spaniard, who was 0.413s clear of the field, with VR46 Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio his nearest challenger.
Raul Fernandez led the Aprilia charge in third on the Trackhouse-run RS-GP, while championship leader Marco Bezzecchi was sixth ahead of Marc Marquez.
Marquez’s Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia was knocked out of the top 10 in the dying stages and will face Q1 on Saturday morning in qualifying.
Jorge Martin narrowly held onto a place in the top 10 on the sister factory team Aprilia.
After 10 minutes of running, Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer led the way on his 2025-spec Ducati with a 1m38.162s.
That stood as the benchmark until Acosta posted a 1m37.741s with 35 minutes to go in the hour session, the KTM rider going for an early time attack on fresh soft rubber.
With 10 minutes to go, Acosta improved to a 1m37.401s, before finding the first 1m36s lap of the weekend on his final flying lap.
Acosta ended up the only KTM inside the top 10, some 1.1s clear of his nearest stablemate - Enea Bastianini in 15th.
Di Giannantonio improved to second late on to end the day as top Ducati from Fernandez and Aldeguer, while Ai Ogura was fifth on the sister Trackhouse bike.
Bezzecchi was sixth, 0.675s off the pace, with Marc Marquez shadowing him in seventh from lead Honda Diogo Moreira, Martin and Yamaha’s leading light Jack Miller.
Miller clung onto a place in Q2 despite a late threat from stablemates Fabio Quartararo and Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Bagnaia was ultimately 1.1s off the pace in 14th, while Gresini stand-in Iker Lecuona finished 17th having been inside the top 10 on several occasions.
KTM rider Brad Binder’s hopes of a Q2 place were dashed by a late crash.
In this article
