As the curtain twitches in readiness for it being brought down on another season of MotoGP action, even with two rounds remaining it certainly isn’t premature to brand Pedro Acosta’s rookie campaign a roaring success.
It’s a statement that could justly hang on the strength of results alone, his five trips to the grand prix podium, four sprint top-three finishes and Japanese GP pole position at the very least ensuring some TV time for those sponsors that didn’t default to Ducati - thoughts and prayers to the others that sided with Honda and Yamaha.
More than that though, while he may be the only fresh face on the grid this year, in some ways, it feels as though he has been around for much longer.
Granted this could be a trick of the mind permeated by that fresh face having received plenty of attention prior to his MotoGP graduation or because it’s easy to mistake his GasGas KTM Tech3 machine for a Ducati from a certain distance, but it’s also primarily a measure of how at home he has appeared in MotoGP since day one. Indeed, some quick turns out of the box in pre-season testing were enough for Acosta to skip the recipe instructions and get stuck into the mix.
The same was on show in Thailand where, in his first fully wet MotoGP race, Acosta learnt on the job to power to the podium only behind title fighters Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin.
“I was struggling a lot to warm up the brake disks and, I don’t know why but since I am in MotoGP, it is taking me a bit more time compared to, for example, Jack and Brad,” Acosta said after the race. “Also I was not having the best feeling with the rear tyre, out of Turns 5 and 6 I was spinning a lot and it was like riding on ice. It was quite tough to analyse in my head.
“I started to push to take out everything and it was quite tough at the beginning, also I ran wide at Turn 3 and Turn 1, but it is true that with five or six laps to go it was like I pulled a switch and I started to go fast. It is difficult to understand, but we were in the right direction.”
It’s therefore little wonder Acosta will graduate to full factory orange for 2025 as part of KTM’s line-up alongside Brad Binder, though the jury is perhaps still out on whether the promotion is more symbolic than reward in performance terms.
At the very least, Acosta’s switch will give KTM pride - and possibly a touch of smugness - at seeing the fruits of its investment in the youngster reap rewards, not least because it puts some faith back into the firm’s esteemed junior development after misfiring with Remy Gardner, Raul Fernandez and Augusto Fernandez in recent seasons. But next season will see a turning of the tables that will shift the onus back towards KTM to reward Acosta with his investment in the manufacturer for taking him onto the next step, or more accurately the top step of the podium.
While KTM has provided the platform to get Acosta to MotoGP, it is now up to the manufacturer to springboard him towards race victories he is evidently capable of achieving
Acosta has also conceded he has to “bite my tongue” and bank finishes in order to gain race data and experience with an eye on the future – having crashed out of the Thailand sprint race to go alongside his two grands prix crashes at each Misano round, the Japanese GP main race and the Australian GP sprint which ruled him out of the next day’s full-distance event.
“I have to focus on finishing races even if I have to bite my tongue and finish fifth,” Acosta said after crashing out of the Thailand sprint on Saturday. “Many times we are at a point where we push and we don't crash because that's the way it goes, and many other days we push to be with them [Ducati] and we crash. Now the goal is to finish races, which will be important to start well next year.”
It’s by no means a foregone conclusion either. While KTM has readily earmarked itself as a familiar frontrunner ever since its breakthrough season in 2020, it hasn’t been matched with so much race-winning silverware.
Miguel Oliveira brought about its most recent win at the 2022 Thailand GP, this weekend marking an unhappy two-year anniversary, and while he achieved four of KTM’s six victories to date, his form elsewhere was patchy. Binder on the other hand - winner of the other two - has established himself as a steadfast racer rather than an out-and-out contender for victories each weekend.
Of greater concern however is that while KTM has avoided the slump in competitiveness experienced by Honda and Yamaha, it has made only modest progress over the past four seasons amid a deluge of well-proven Ducati bikes.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed, of course, with the big axe being wielded at a senior level to remove Francesco Guidotti a year before his contract expires. In his place comes Aki Ajo, a shrewd choice with impressive credentials cultivated by his eponymous team’s success in Moto2 and Moto3. More importantly, however, he is someone who shared KTM’s vision for Acosta long before he reached the heady heights of MotoGP.
Even so, while KTM has provided the platform to get Acosta to MotoGP, it is now up to the manufacturer to springboard him towards race victories he is evidently capable of achieving.
This brings us to another more engaging trait of Acosta’s: His ambition. Indeed, for all of his confident swagger on track, Acosta exerts similarly bolshie determination off it.
For a manufacturer not adverse to the odd contractual bungle, credit then to Acosta for being the one to issue the ultimatum of a guaranteed KTM seat in 2024 or he’d head elsewhere. While KTM sensibly bowed to his demand, it’s indicative of the issues it may face in the future in retaining him if it can’t find those precious few tenths that will make the difference between victory and making up the numbers in MotoGP.
For the most part though, KTM isn’t prepared to rest on its laurels for 2025. In addition to Ajo’s appointment, there is talk Dani Pedrosa will assume a more senior management role in addition to continuing to provide his invaluable development intel.
Plus, while Tech3’s new line-up of Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini is at odds with KTM’s desire to promote young talent, their experience and success with other manufacturers ensures the Austrian firm has arguably the most intriguing rider line-up among its four riders.
No rider is bigger than the team it races for but in this case, KTM is very aware of the potential it has racing with Acosta.
As for whether KTM has the ability to realise Acosta’s full potential? That remains the lingering question mark…
