Pedro Acosta felt as though his MotoGP GasGas KTM bike was “the most competitive KTM bike we had in the whole season” at the French Grand Prix, despite his race ending abruptly after a tumble on the second lap.
The rookie sensation was KTM’s best rider across the weekend, qualifying in seventh place for the race.
His GP ended abruptly early on at Turn 8 while trying to catch up to Aleix Espargaro and Fabio Di Giannantonio in front, with the Spaniard collecting the first MotoGP retirement of his short career thus far.
KTM’s other riders didn’t fare much better, with Jack Miller crashing out later in the race, although his team-mate Brad Binder finished eighth after starting in last whilst Augusto Fernandez finished 13th aboard the second GasGas entry.
Despite these manufacturer struggles, Acosta felt extremely good on the bike and believes the RC16 could have achieved a strong finish during the race.
“It was a good day. The first day in the whole season that the bike was really competitive to fight for something big,” he said (via Autosport).
“The potential was high, really high.
“We were fast in FP1, we were fast in Practice, we were fast in qualifying, we were fast in FP3. In the sprint, we managed to take points.
“The biggest step was in warm-up. For me, I say again it was the most competitive KTM bike we had in the whole season.
“It’s a mess to make this type of mistake, but anyway, we are on the way.”
Acosta’s retirement was due to an overly-optimistic opportunity to try and overtake Di Giannantonio into Turn 8.
While he was able to squeeze past the VR46 Ducati rider, he fell off his bike and ended his race immediately.
Acosta explained post-race that he tried to avoid crashing into the back of third-placed Espargaro, but due to him locking the front he was unable to control and stop the bike in time which put him out of podium contention.
Espargaro thankfully wasn’t collected in the crash and Acosta stated he made sure not to hit his fellow countryman.
“Diggia and Aleix were having a battle in front of me, at Turn 7,” he said. “Maybe it was coming to T8 they were doing [staying at] the right, and they braked quite early to let’s say to go to the left.
“And when they realised that they were quite slow, they started to release [the brakes] and it was at the moment that I was coming so fast.
“At the end, I didn’t want to hit Aleix and destroy the race of all the guys. I tried to stop the bike and then I locked the front.”
