Pedro Acosta: KTM “in a dramatic situation” with 2025 MotoGP bike
Factory KTM rider crashed in Thai GP
Pedro Acosta says his ride after crashing early in the MotoGP Thai Grand Prix exposed a “dramatic situation” the KTM has with tyre preservation.
The 20-year-old looked strong coming into the opening round of the season, but a podium charge never materialised.
After finishing a distant sixth in the sprint race, Acosta was in the battle for another top six result in Sunday’s grand prix before he crashed at Turn 1 on lap four of 26.
Acosta rejoined to finish 19th, later explaining that his fall was down to the rear of his bike unloading under braking.
“Well, we need to understand because it looks like this year it’s much easier to unload the rear,” he said.
“And I unloaded the rear behind [Marco] Bezzecchi, I was a little bit wide, sliding too much and then I lost the front.
“Quite a normal crash but we need to understand why it unloaded like this.
“We need to understand many things of how our bike is working because it’s something we are missing.”
When asked if this wasn’t simply the grippier rear pushing the front tyre, he added: “They are both things together because when you unload the rear, suddenly you slide, and when it comes back it pushes the front.
“It’s a combination of things, but I mean we need to understand because there’s many things around that we are missing to understand.
“And why one thing is working, why the other thing is not, and then we can start to be competitive. But we need to understand many things.”
Tyre wear problems exposed for KTM in Thai GP
After crashing, Acosta said he rejoined to use the remaining laps as a test, which revealed that KTM’s tyre wear problems from testing have persisted.
“For this reason I stayed in the race,” he said.
“The pace was not bad at all, at the end I lost 40 seconds when I crashed and then they put me in seventh.
“It was more or less to be in the top five, so for this it’s tough to say. But at the end, it is what it is.
“I hope that they can check something interesting in the data. It’s important to finish and see how the tyres were.
“We were in a dramatic situation, we need to understand why we have this degradation because it’s not normal.”
Top KTM honours went to Acosta’s team-mate Brad Binder, who was 19.9s off race winner Marc Marquez in eighth.
Quotes provided by Crash MotoGP Editor Peter McLaren
