The MotoGP pre-season has come to an end, and now Pedro Acosta will only return to the track in a competitive context in his first season in the premier class. This week he achieved the 15th fastest time in the Qatar tests.
The Red Bull GasGas Tech3 rider leaves Losail satisfied, after having done an encouraging race simulation: ‘I’m happy because we did the first race simulation and it was good. It’s true that in two or three laps I made huge mistakes because I locked up in turn 1 and turn 16 and went wide. And I crashed on the fourth lap, and that’s why I said, “I can’t crash again.” But the overall pace in these 22 laps was good. We were also working with fuel consumption maps to be ready to understand these things. It was good.’
As for the lap time, Acosta admitted it could have been better: ‘We lost a little bit of time because we started attacking the clock too late. But anyway, we improved by about half a second. It’s true that maybe we could have improved a little bit more, but we’re there. We’re not far off at the moment.’
Despite not being as well positioned in the time table as in Sepang, the rookie assured that he is satisfied with the work done and admitted that he is far from the level of experience of the other riders:
Well, if I could choose, I would prefer to be further ahead, but it’s not possible to choose. But anyway, I’m happy because we have improved the pace a lot, we have improved a lot inside the garage, we have improved the lap time a lot. It’s true that it could be better, it could be worse, but we are where we are. We know that we have done eight days of testing, but it’s not enough compared to the experience that these drivers have. I saw myself in fifth place halfway through the day. And then when we started doing lap times, it was “boom”. They know how to do it and they know what to do. It’s true that I have learned many things, but there is still 90 percent missing. It’s still a long, long, long way to go, in terms of management, in terms of how to speak in the garage. I think we have to be happy, but not happy enough.
