Pedro Acosta: Pecco Bagnaia “a super gentleman” during battle for podium

Pedro Acosta has applauded Francesco Bagnaia’s sportsmanship during their battle for third in MotoGP’s Aragon Grand Prix.

Motorland’s low grip track surface helped KTM mask some of the deficiencies of its RC16 bike this weekend. Both Acosta and Brad Binder on the factory machines, as well as Tech3’s Maverick Viñales, mixed within the top 10 throughout, with Acosta threatening a repeat of last year’s podium finish at the Aragon circuit.

After a strong sprint race which saw Acosta emerge in a bullish fifth place, the Spaniard went one better in the main race to finish fourth. For a longer period, it looked like he could even snatch the last place on the podium from Bagnaia, but the two-time MotoGP champion managed to put just enough space between himself and the orange bike.

Still, Acosta thoroughly enjoyed his dice with the Ducati factory rider. “The fight was unbelievable, ‘Pecco’ is a super gentleman,” he said. “He is quite clean on the track. I think it was a good battle even when I was trying to force him to go a little bit wide, he was forcing me at the last corner to go a little bit wide. I really enjoyed [the battle] with him!”

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Acosta was noteworthy on the grid for being the only rider to pick the hard tyre compound on the front of his KTM. He maintained it was the right decision.

“It was the correct choice,” said Acosta. “I was having a lot of locking problems yesterday. To be honest, I didn’t want it to happen again, more than everything. Because you need to understand that I’m a guy that maybe needs more the front tyre, maybe more like Brad’s style, to go fast – and yesterday [the braking] was making me handicapped, you know? For this, I go for the hard, it’s true that it takes one or two laps to warm up to feel quite ok, but the tyre after that was fantastic. I’m super happy about my choice.”

Binder had a less successful day than his team-mate, occupying fifth position and also looking like a threat for the podium when he went down and retired from the race. However, he was still relatively happy about the bike’s performance.

“I didn’t spin off the line,” began Binder. “Everything was going normal, according to plan and I just lost the front in Turn 3, and when I lost it I thought ‘what the hell happened?’.

“When I got back to the box, I looked at the data: I had less speed, less brake and less front load on the front tyre – so it’s a little bit tricky, because every time I take good confidence with the front, I feel like it is more or less there, it tends to give up on me a little bit. Not ideal for sure.

“I need to take the positives from the weekend. Every time when I felt good and I was able to put a lap time together, I was more or less in the mix. If we can hold the performance from this weekend going forward, things can only get better.”