Pedro Acosta started his MotoGP season promisingly, achieving podiums in the opening rounds. However, as the year progressed, he experienced a dip in performance, returning to strong results in a later stage.
KTM restructured its racing department during the season, but the Red Bull GasGas Tech3 rookie explained to SPEEDWEEK.com that what truly impacted his work methodology was an admitted error in his approach that led him astray:
– I think we followed a direction in my side of the garage that wasn’t the right one – in terms of what we needed to be fast. We tried a lot of things – too many things, because in MotoGP, you don’t have much time to try many things over the weekends. I think that’s where we lost our way a bit. At one point, we turned back again. That was the wisest thing to do, no matter how painful it was, because no one likes to admit they were wrong.
Acosta then gave examples of that less successful work he carried out: ‘At Silverstone, for example, we compared the new exhaust with last year’s. In several races, we were still comparing the new aerodynamics with the setup from the start of the year, which is not normal. If something new comes into the garage, it’s probably because it has proven to be better. We were still busy figuring out what worked and what didn’t. I needed, or I need, more time than Brad [Binder] to understand if something is better or not. I assumed that what they brought in was systematically better. But that’s not always the case, which is why we kept testing’.
However, the Spaniard ultimately learned something, as he shared: ‘At a certain point, I realized you have to be selfish: if you are not sure and a new part means committing to it completely, sometimes it’s better to stop everything and say, «Look, I’m not going to do this, and we’ll test it again later»’.