‘The plan is working’ - Pedro Acosta labels Misano MotoGP pace “promising”

Pedro Acosta says “the plan is working” in regard to KTM’s more aggressive MotoGP set-up approach, after a “promising” Friday at the San Marino Grand Prix.

The factory KTM rider noted at the British Grand Prix that he asked the Austrian brand to take more risks with the bike in the second half of the season.

That has translated into strong results at Silverstone and Aragon, including at the latter.

On Friday at Misano, he brushed off a crash in FP1 to end the day sixth overall and just 0.344s off the best pace set by Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi.

“At the end, the crash of this morning took us a bit of time away, but quite happy also,” he said.

“Pace was quite good. Tyres, feeling was quite good.

“Missing a bit in time attack, but it's not our strong point. P6, not so far. 1m30.4s, it was my qualifying time last year. Promising.”

Asked about what risks he has taken with bike set-up recently, he added: “Well, at the end, for example, last GP I was racing with a really short bike, and now I'm racing with a really long bike.

“I'm normally not a guy who changes the bike so much. But it looks like it's working.

“The bike was improved from FP1 to PR. The plan is working.”

On his FP1 crash, Pedro Acosta said it came as a “surprise” and was the result of an electronics issue.

“I was having some problems,” he explained.

“I was not feeling so great with electronics. It surprised me a bit because it was a lap that I was not pushing.

“Anyway, things happen. In the last two races, I was crashing in FP1 and was not affecting races on Sundays. Let's hope that this becomes the same.”

Acosta did most of his work on Friday afternoon on the soft rear tyre and believes it could be an option for the race, though he will test the medium on Saturday morning.

“Yeah, let's see,” he replied about racing the soft.

“I have to try tomorrow the medium. It was not a bad choice, to be honest, but I was quite surprised how fast the people on medium were.

“Bezzecchi was in 30.9, Alex Marquez, [Diogo] Moreira also.

“There were many guys quite fast at the beginning for this. Tomorrow I think we should try it, but soft looks like it's not a bad choice.”