Pedro Acosta’s verdict on Aki Ajo’s KTM appointment: ‘No one more prepared’

Pedro Acosta says there is ‘no one more prepared’ to take KTM to the MotoGP world title than “special character” Aki Ajo.

Following weeks of intense speculation, KTM confirmed after the Indonesian Grand Prix that Francesco Guidotti would be stepping down from his role as team manager at the end of 2024.

In his place will come Ajo, who has a long-standing association with the Austrian brand as its primary team in the Moto3 and Moto2 classes.

With Ajo, Acosta won the Moto3 title in his rookie season in 2021 and was Moto2 champion in 2023 with the Finn before making his MotoGP debut with Tech3 GASGAS this year.

Asked ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix for his thoughts on rekindling his working relationship with Ajo, Acosta said: “Well, super happy about that.

“I think there is no one around this paddock that can be prepared to take that one target to fight for the MotoGP world title.

“He’s a special character for sure, but a character that was helping me a lot in the past and I really liked how direct he is.

“I was talking to him this afternoon about this and I think we are going to make a good match together.”

Acosta comes to Motegi off the back of a second-place finish at last weekend’s Indonesian GP, after which he felt KTM was getting “close and closer” to winning again.

The RC16 has typically gone well at the stop-and-start Motegi layout, with Brad Binder on the podium in the sprint last year at the circuit and second in the grand prix in 2022.

This, coupled with the recent progress Acosta feels KTM has made with the bike, could allow him to be even closer to the victory than he was in Indonesia.

“It’s true that normally helps our bike a lot,” Acosta said.

“We see that last season Brad and Jack [Miller], not in the difficult race, were quite competitive.

“The previous season, Brad was on the podium. For this, we hope that the improvements that we made in the last couple of race and the way of working we are doing, we are able to be even closer than in Mandalika.

“Well, let’s see. We make many improvements in the last four, five races.

“It’s true that in Mandalika it was necessary for us to finish a race because even in both races in Misano where we were quite competitive, in both I crashed.

“It was necessary for us to bring some info in a long race distance. Hopefully we can continue in this way because we are becoming closer.”