Pedro Acosta’s injury update after avoiding surgery on damaged shoulder

Pedro Acosta rode on Friday in practice for the Thailand MotoGP, days after being ruled out of the grand prix in Australia.

The Tech3 GASGAS rider fell in Saturday’s sprint in Australia and injured a shoulder, forcing him to withdraw from the feature race.

But in Buriram he has returned swiftly, and has avoided surgery on the damage.

Acosta described his condition after returning to the bike: “Good. I was taking time to warm up. I don’t normally warm up before the session…

“It took me three, four, five laps to warm up again.

“After I warmed up, I was okay, it was not painful.

“The pain is there but it’s not crazy, so we need to be happy.”

Acosta was seventh-fastest on Friday. Only Maverick Vinales (fifth) was a faster non-Ducati rider.

The sensational rookie insists the pain in his shoulder did not prohibit his riding too much.

“No. In FP1 we needed to adjust the bike a bit, we opened the handlebars and made it more wide,” he explained.

“On one side, you can hold the bike better with your legs.

“You see normally when I brake I always hold out my leg, but today I tried to hold the bike more with my legs.

“For me, this is the most stressful session of the whole weekend.”

Acosta said about his shoulder: “It’s not broken enough to have surgery!

“It’s fine. The pain will go away in weeks. We need physiotherapy.”

His attention turns to Saturday in Thailand.

“We need to improve a lot of things,” Acosta said. “Today was a decision day, to decide which fairing to take from now until the end of the season.

“I tried both in FP1. They have positives and negatives.

“They may bring us another way of riding the bike. But they also have negatives.”