Bruising Austrian MotoGP “most difficult of the season” for Pedro Acosta’s Tech3

Pedro Acosta, Augusto Fernandez and Tech3 boss reflect on Austria struggles

20 Aug 2024

Tech3 GASGAS boss Nicolas Goyon described the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix as the team’s “most difficult weekend of the season”.

While the sister factory KTM stable showed well at the Red Bull Ring, with Brad Binder fifth and Jack Miller running in sixth when he crashed, Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernandez struggled outside of the top 10.

Acosta endured a bruising weekend as his Friday was blighted by crashes, with the Spaniard then failing to get out of Q1 and qualifying 14th.

In the grand prix Acosta could do no more than 13th, taking the chequered flag 33.736s away from the win, while Fernandez was a few seconds further behind in 15th.

“Difficult to say something,” Acosta said.

“We were having some problems that we were not expecting, and to be honest I was not really knowing where it was arriving from.

“Anyway, let’s see what we can do to improve. Now the test team has two days in Misano and then arrives Aragon with a new surface for everyone. Let’s see where we can arrive.”

Goyon added: “Probably the most difficult weekend of the season for us and we knew it could be tricky when we were not able to make Q2.

“Thinking about the top five becomes much tougher.

“Pedro did not have the speed he wanted at this GP and we have to focus on our weak points at the moment to get strong again.

“Augusto showed some fighting spirit and was in P14 until the last corner. We’ll take it positively and build on it for the future.”

Fernandez says rear tyre management made his a race of “survival” but was happy to have found some pace for the grand prix having struggled for much of the weekend.

“A tough one. You have to manage the rear tyre very well here and it almost becomes like a ‘survival’ race,” he said.

“In the end I’m happy with the point. We had been struggling all weekend and we were still quite far but I’m happy with the pace we made at least.

“I think we did our maximum possible today. Let’s move on and build some confidence for the rest of the season.”