Pedro Acosta plagued by “brutal” KTM vibrations in Americas MotoGP Sprint

This weekend’s MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas has been a weekend of continuation in many ways, with Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez finishing 1-2 in the Sprint, and Pedro Acosta lamenting the recurring vibration issues of his KTM RC16.

The Spanish rider qualified fourth on Saturday morning, beaten by the Ducatis of Marc Marquez, Fabio Di Giannantonio, and Alex Marquez, but ahead of those of Franco Mobidelli and Francesco Bagnaia.

As top-non-Ducati in qualifying, he looked poised to take up the role Johann Zarco had in Argentina, or that Ai Ogura had on-debut in Thailand.

But, in the Sprint, his pace fell away, and he finished a distant seventh, 1.4 seconds even behind the Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo.

As has often been the case for Acosta, the aforementioned rear vibration was a limiting factor to his performance.

“The level of vibrations at the rear is brutal,” he said after the Sprint, as reported by the Spanish edition of Motorsport.com.

“You can't ride like that. It's the topic of conversation every time I return to the garage.”

The two-time World Champion has his sights set on Jerez, where, after the Grand Prix on 27 April, there is a Monday test.

“I am in the acceptance phase,” he said, “but there is less and less time left for Jerez. There is less and less time left until that day.”

He added: “I'm putting a lot of hope in that Jerez test, hopefully KTM is as well. I'm putting a lot of impetus into it.”

The lack of performance in Saturday’s Americas Sprint left Acosta battling with the Honda of Joan Mir for much of the race, before the 2020 MotoGP Champion crashed out on lap five.

The Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider felt that, despite fighting over seventh place with Mir after qualifying fourth, he had strong speed.

“With [Joan] Mir, when you know you're not going to go forward, you fight for position,” Acosta said.

“But today I was very fast.”

He added that the KTM’s performance seems to be determined by track grip levels. With low grip, like Argentina, the RC16 suffers, but with higher grip it performs better.

In the context of Saturday in Austin, Acosta indicated that grip had gone away between Q2, when he was competitive, and the Sprint, in which he comparatively struggled.

“The bike, when there is grip, goes quite well,” he said.

“But when there is no grip, problems come from everywhere.

“We lack a lot of grip and we suffer that under braking.”

He continued: “With grip it is relatively easy for us to be ‘competitive’. But it's very difficult to understand the drop in performance between Q2 and the Sprint.”