Pedro Acosta happy to be “competitive” at Aragon MotoGP "coming from where we were"

Pedro Acosta’s Aragon MotoGP was a positive one, as he took two podiums and displayed a degree of ability to rebound from a difficult weekend.

Acosta endured his worst weekend of the season in Austria, finishing 13th in the race, but was back on the podium in both races in Aragon.

The conditions in Aragon, which had been recently resurfaced, meant that Acosta was reluctant to take too much from his performance at MotorLand.

“Difficult to say,” Acosta told the post-race press conference. “It was special conditions, was not any moment that was stable. For this, it’s quite difficult to say.

“It’s true that we make a big step compared to the nightmare that were in in Austria. We need to see how we arrive to Misano, and also how we handle Misano 2 because will be the first track that I repeat on a MotoGP bike. Still we need to understand where we are.”

Although Acosta isn’t jumping to conclusions based solely on Aragon, he does at least feel that he has made a step forward this weekend.

“Coming from where we were in Austria that was the toughest race of the season, it was quite nice to be back being competitive and fight for something,” he said. “It’s true that today we were missing a bit the first part of the race that we were having yesterday to have a bit more gap, but it’s true that today, compared to our competitors, it was a bit difficult to manage the rear tyre.

“But anyway, we were just trying to be alive, and be even closer to Pecco [Bagnaia] and these guys. For this, we need to be happy, because coming from where we were last couple of weeks it’s a good step back.”

Part of the step forward for Acosta was found in returning to an older specification of the KTM RC16.

“At the end, we need to understand that our project is quite young,” he said. “Sometimes we are trying many things, and I was maybe thinking too much. It was a combination of many things, that sometimes it’s better to take a step back to come back to the front.

“We were also coming back to a bike that I know, and it’s true that maybe was not the fastest bike, but was better for consistency. We need to try in this way, because we see that it’s a good way to be competitive again.”