‘Quite strange’ - Pedro Acosta pinpoints Marc Marquez’s Hungary MotoGP advantage

Pedro Acosta says Hungary MotoGP sprint winner Marc Marquez had grip levels “on another world”, which is “quite strange to understand”.

Ducati’s Marc Marquez pipped the KTM rider to pole on Saturday morning at the Hungarian Grand Prix, before converting that to a dominant victory in the sprint.

Marquez led from pole and instantly pulled clear of Pedro Acosta, who was 1.5s behind him at the chequered flag - though this gap was over two seconds at one stage.

The reigning champion’s best lap was also 0.431s quicker than Acosta’s, with Marquez posting that on the second tour.

Acosta noted that Marquez’s Ducati had a clear grip advantage over the rest of the field, which helped him to his dominant victory.

“You only have to see how fast he went out of Turn 4 in the first lap already, and then you understand that the grip level was on another world compared to [other] bikes,” Acosta said on Saturday in Hungary.

“But it was a good one; back on the podium.”

He added: “Quite strange to understand.

“He was directly really fast.

“I took some laps to go fast again, and then it looks like it happened the same to [Marco] Bezzecchi behind with the Aprilia, who took some laps to go fast and then the pace was quite stable.

“For this, it’s quite difficult to understand why we were taking time [to get up to speed].”

Acosta also doesn’t believe the race would have had a different outcome had he been able to jump Marquez at the start.

“No, I think for how fast he was in the last sector and going out of Turn 4, he would have had a big opportunity to pass me. For this, today, O2 was OK,” he said.

“I mean, I was not making a great start.

“Then it’s true that everyone was struggling today, for how tricky Turn 1 was. Yeah, everyone was more careful.”

Chasing a maiden grand prix win on Sunday, Acosta declined to offer a firm stance when asked if he is able to make a step forward to challenge Marquez.

“We hope,” he said. “We have to check everything on the data and then try to improve. That’s it.”