Pedro Acosta makes his debut this year in MotoGP, first and foremost having to adapt to a category that is very different and more demanding than Moto2. Red Bull GasGas Tech3 will give the rookie time to develop, aware that the adaptation process is lengthy.
Nicolas Goyon, the team manager, told the press: ‘Learning and understanding all the tools to be fast on a MotoGP bike takes almost a year. You need to learn the electronics, you need to learn all the devices, you need to learn the tires. So, it’s a very arduous task, especially with the current MotoGP bikes that have so many different components. Now, as we can see, aerodynamics is another important issue. And you need to learn how to play with all these tools. It takes a long time. And even if you have a competitive rookie, you can see that it takes some time. So, we will give him some time, work properly, calmly, and then we will see what position we can achieve’.
Acosta’s first contact with the KTM RC16 was at the Valencia test in November last year, leaving a good impression: ‘It is certain that we saw that in just one day, at the end of the day, his riding style was already very natural, and this was something surprising. For a newcomer to be immediately at this level, to have this – let’s say – MotoGP style after one day was very surprising. The next thing was that, checking the data, we could see that, for example, the brake pressure – something very new for a rookie, you have carbon brakes, the way of braking the bike is very different, so it takes some time to understand. But right after one day, the form was not bad and the braking points were already at a good level. We clearly said: ‘This is already here, it’s already a good aspect, and let’s see in Sepang what the next phase will be’. But it was already a starting point’.
En cuanto al trabajo que Acosta tuvo que hacer en casa este invierno, el francés explicó que se centró principalmente en la preparación física: ‘Es cierto que todo lo relacionado con la moto en sí solo se puede aprender en la pista. No puedes imprimir un papel, todo esto debe ser aprendido pilotando la moto. Lo principal que puedes desarrollar por ti mismo es la condición física. El MotoGP es muy exigente, por lo que si comienzas las pruebas de Sepang con una buena condición física, ya es un buen aspecto. Y puedo decir que estas pruebas son realmente exigentes. Este año tendremos que pilotar durante seis días. Es mucho. El año pasado, por ejemplo, solo tuvimos seis días aquí, es un día menos, pero cuenta. Seis días es muy complicado. Y después de estos días sabremos un poco mejor cuál es el potencial y cuál es el próximo paso a aprender. No será fácil, pero es el objetivo’.
