Pedro Acosta’s surprising choice for “my best race so far” in MotoGP

Pedro Acosta has finished runner-up in MotoGP eight times since joining the premier class, most recently at Aragon.

The KTM rider’s total of 14 Sunday podiums makes him, officially, the most successful rider in history without a MotoGP victory.

However, from his 54 premier-class grand prix starts, Acosta - winner of this year’s Buriram Sprint - rates his best race yet as the previous British Grand Prix, despite finishing only fifth.

Acosta explained: “I will say Silverstone two weeks ago. Normally I struggle a lot at flowing tracks, and it was the first time I arrived at the end of the race being quite competitive on a track like that, with [high] tyre degradation. For this, I think Silverstone was my best race so far.”

The 22-year-old Spaniard, who will join Ducati as Marc Marquez’s team-mate for 2027, cited changes to his riding style for improving tyre consumption.

“Normally I am the one that always goes more tight inside the corners and uses more tyre than everyone else,” he said.

“Now I’m trying to change a bit my style. If I want to be ready when my moment arrives, I need to start to see all the options and see all the ways of racing.”

Marquez, who held off Acosta by 1.754s at Aragon, said Sunday’s performance wasn't a surprise.

“I already knew before the race that Pedro would be one of the riders that would fight for victory,” Marquez said. “Especially with all my [ride height device problems] in turns 2 and 3, I think it helped him to overtake riders because he’s super smart and aggressive.

“Already yesterday in the last laps of the sprint race he was the fastest. Today in the warm-up with the used rear tyre he was second. So I knew that Pedro was one of the guys.”

"A long way to go to be a legend"

Crew chief Paul Trevathan called Acosta - who took the chequered flag a massive 24 seconds ahead of the next-best KTM rider, Enea Bastianini, in eighth - “a legend” after the race.

“It’s a long way to go to be a legend,” Acosta responded. “I think we are doing the correct things.

“With all the mistakes that we did with the reliability during the first part of the year, it was quite difficult to see that the third place in the championship was running away from us.

“Looks like it’s working [now]. We are making good races. It’s true that we are still far from winning a race, but in the other hand we are taking a lot of consistency inside the top five.”

Acosta now has nine more opportunities, eight if Qatar is removed, to claim a premier-class grand prix victory with KTM before joining Ducati.

“I’m missing a lot in the shorter distance, especially in qualifying,” Acosta said of what he still needs to improve.

“I struggle to be in that first row that normally gives you a bit of advantage at the beginning of the races.

“I want to be focused on the things that can make me win a race and not the ones that I don’t have.”

Acosta is sixth in the world championship, 67 points behind title leader Jorge Martin, but only five behind the injured Ai Ogura.