Pedro Acosta continues to show signs of growth in the championship and today in Japan he once again had a great performance on the first day of practice for the Japanese GP. The rookie wants to ‘keep things simple’, as he explained, reiterating that he is happy to be closer to the most competitive riders.
Fourth on day 1 on the track at this Japanese GP, Acosta began by referring to one of the points that is not usually one of his strengths: ‘Seeing that the fastest lap is not my thing at all, we were far away with the problems I told you we had and we are mainly working on the speed with which I was able to get inside the PR without having done many laps in FP1, because as the conditions were, it was almost better not to ride. So, little by little we’re getting closer to the best’.
Not overthinking and keeping the focus on the simple things may well be the solution, as he explained, based on what he has been testing lately: ‘It’s something that, in the last races, I’ve been enjoying. Even in Indonesia, it seemed like it wasn’t going to work, I liked it and here it’s going quite well. So we’re going to keep things simple, without changing much. It was a shame because I wanted to try the fairing that [Jack] Miller has, the idea was to do it in the PR, but with the possibility of rain and without having done a lap, it didn’t make much sense to risk it, so it will have to wait for another race’.
Curiously, Motegi is one of the circuits where the difference between the premier class and the intermediate class is least noticeable, he assured:
– It’s one of the circuits where you notice it the least. Perhaps because even in Moto2 you already go fast here and in the end, as Moto2 is already a big bike that you have to brake really hard, that you have to force the bike to turn a little. It’s true that in terms of grip you notice it a lot. Changing from the hard one I was coming from to the Michelin changes quite a bit. How easy it is compared to how difficult it was for me in Moto2, that here we put on the soft tire and go out and the time comes. And there we would go out with the race tire and we would spend eight laps until the time decided to come and it would come. Those things are quite far apart in comparison, but the feeling of riding is quite similar.