Pedro Acosta loses important MotoGP chance with Alex Marquez Motegi clash
Pedro Acosta thinks he lost out on a chance to close in on third in the MotoGP standings thanks to his incident with Alex Marquez in the Japan Sprint.
Pedro Acosta feels he lost an important opportunity to make up points in the Japanese MotoGP Sprint having crashed on the first lap.
Acosta started quite poorly in the Motegi MotoGP Sprint, slipping to fourth behind Marco Bezzecchi at the first turn, and then coming under attack from Enea Bastianini at turn three.
But when he was being passed by Bastianini Acosta was also hit from behind by Alex Marquez, who misjudged an overtake on Fabio Di Giannantonio and took all three of them – himself, Di Giannantonio, and Acosta – out of the race, for which he received a double long lap penalty for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.
“[The Sprint] ended too soon,” Pedro Acosta said.
“Was a sore one, that’s for sure. Racing is like this, but it’s true that it was an early move and quite early for trying to get a podium.”
Acosta felt that he had a chance to be on the podium in the 12-lapper, meaning he lost an important chance to close down his points difference to third-placed Bezzecchi who was only sixth in the Sprint after choosing the medium-compound rear tyre.
“We had an opportunity to make the podium,” Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Acosta said.
“After seeing the pace that Marc [Marquez] was showing, maybe a victory was too enthusiastic, but anyway it was a good day for the podium.
“I think it was a good day to catch points back from Bezzecchi and in three corners we lost everything.”
Bezzecchi’s tyre choice was made based on his strong performance in FP2, where he was able to lap in the 1m43s consistently. In the Sprint itself he was only able to managed 1m44s.
The medium-compound rear tyre is likely to be the choice for most riders on Sunday given the extreme cases of centre wear experienced by riders such as Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia in the Sprint.
It’s a tyre that Acosta has felt good with, but he was surprised by Bezzecchi’s lack of pace with it over the 50 per cent distance.
“At the end, I was feeling quite good this morning [FP2] with the medium [compound rear tyre],” said Acosta.
“It’s true that also Marco [Bezzecchi] made really good laps this morning and it was a surprise for me, maybe, that he was struggling that much.
“For this, now maybe it’s a question mark, but if everyone puts the medium and everyone struggles it will be the same for everyone.”
Alex joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having covered consumer and racing motorcycle news at Visordown for two years.
