Pedro Acosta managed to finish on the podium once again but today may have had the “help” of some crashes in front of him, which naturally does not take away from what he did, especially being a rookie in the class. The weather conditions played an important role in how the Sprint race unfolded, with the mixed conditions being… ‘a pain in the ass,’ as the rider considers.
After the race, the Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 rider spoke to the press about the matter: ‘It was tough. For a rider, if it’s dry, it’s all good, if it’s wet, it’s all good, but when it’s mixed it’s a pain in the ass. It was tough because in turns 8 and 9 I could see the [wet] areas, but in turn 5, which is a bit uphill, you don’t really know and, so when I passed Enea [Bastianini] for the first time, and he passed me back because I was almost having an accident, then I passed him again in turn 6, I was in 13th and there I touched the [wet] areas again, went wide and lost time’.
The rookie was satisfied with his overall performance: ‘It was quite complicated and critical for us to know where the sticky spots were. After all, it was a good race considering that we were very fast on the first lap, where we usually struggle, and the start was quite pleasant’.
And he continued, talking about how the wet parts of the track played an important role: ‘When you are behind someone, you can manage more or less because you are not 100% behind, the problem is that you go more to the outside or to the inside, something like that. When Álex [Márquez] crashed, Brad [Binder] and Enea also crashed. It’s critical when we lose Marc [Márquez] and [Jorge] Martín, because in the end, if you have someone, if they pass the corner, you pass. It was critical the way we couldn’t see the patches. In some corners it was much wetter and no one crashed because they could see’.
He believes that the Jerez circuit is not the best when it comes to draining water: ‘Maybe this track is not draining all the water in the best way, because when you come here in February with Moto2, the track is wet in the morning. We also have to think that today is not the hottest day, compared to yesterday and it was raining until 11 o’clock. So, it was quite difficult and in turn 5 we have the mountain and maybe the sun is not heating up […]’
