RiderTua.com – After finishing in 8th place in the sprint race in Qatar, Pedro Acosta was unable to hide his happiness. This means that the GasGas Tech3 team rookie was able to score the first points in his MotoGP debut. “I’m happy. For me the sprint is just a ‘question mark’. Everything is new to me. In the first corner, first I have to orient myself, what are the other riders doing around me?” Acosta said.
The 19-year-old rider lost several positions for a short time, but quickly regained them. “The feeling on the bike is good. This was visible in the morning when I was able to qualify straight into Q2 and then finished in 8th position on the grid. I was behind Alex Marquez for a long time in the race. And it felt strange, was it because of the bike “or air vortices in the slipstream? The front tires might also be a little hot,” added Acosta.
Pedro Acosta: Overtaking Vinales was the first maneuver in my MotoGP career
Even though Pedro Acosta was able to carry out overtaking maneuvers at the start of the race. According to him, this was also caused by RC16. “I think we had the advantage on the brakes. The overtaking maneuver against Maverick Vinales was the first in my MotoGP career! It was fun!” he explained.
And in the process, Augusto Fernandez’s new teammate found a weakness when racing behind another rider. “With this aerodynamics, we have to be very careful not to hit the bike in front of us from behind,” said Acosta.
Even though Saturday was very busy (FP2 on Friday was postponed to Saturday due to heavy rain), the MotoGP riders had to complete a total of 4 sessions today. But Pedro Acosta was able to enjoy his day. During the sprint race he could see the front group of riders well. “In the middle there was an orange bike. So it was clear to me that I deserved to be at the front. But for a start, 4 seconds behind Brad (Binder) was acceptable. I could be happy with that in the first race,” he said, referring to the time he managed to overtake the second orange bike driven by Jack Miller.
The ‘Shark from Mazarron’ added, “Ducati races on a different racing line than us and uses power differently. But maybe I should concentrate on my own race rather than seeing what makes a Ducati rider fast.”
Acosta lowered his expectations for Sunday’s main race. According to him, Sunday’s race will be a long race, there will be many opportunities to make mistakes. “Let’s see how I perform. Today I lost time in the first few laps. From the middle of the sprint, I was as fast as the other riders,” said the rider from Spain.
“The next race in Portimao will be a very different matter. I have an advantage here because we can test it first. To be fair, we have to take that into account,” concluded Pedro Acosta.
