Now Pedro Acosta has also remained without points in a sprint or Grand Prix for the first time in his young MotoGP career. At Le Mans, the rookie made his first serious driving mistake when he crashed in the ‘Garage Vert’ corner and almost dragged his competitors Aleix Espargaro and Fabio Di Giannantonio into the gravel with him. Particularly bitter for Acosta: After his GasGas team made some changes to the bike for race Sunday, he had high hopes of a top result.
But first things first: First of all, the fifth Grand Prix weekend of the season started off very positively, almost befitting the status. Acosta was able to assert himself at the front in Le Mans on Friday and confidently moved into the second qualifying in third place. However, there was a small setback there on Saturday. Acosta didn’t get past seventh on the grid. In the sprint he couldn’t keep up with the top drivers either; after 13 laps of the race, he was sixth and lost almost ten seconds to the winner Jorge Martin.
Pedro Acosta: Best RC16 I’ve driven
On Sunday, he and his crew were able to fix some problems on the MotoGP machine, which was immediately noticeable. The 19-year-old secured the best time in the warm-up. “The bike has taken a big step from yesterday to today,” explained Acosta on Sunday evening at Le Mans. “My team worked for a long time last night and actually gave me a completely new motorcycle. That was the best RC16 I’ve ridden so far.”
The shooting star then started the MotoGP race in the afternoon with correspondingly high expectations. In front of almost 120,000 French fans at the Tech3 team’s home game, he wanted to equal or even surpass his best GP result to date of second place in Austin. In the first laps, Acosta was able to immediately confirm the impression from the warm-up, he was in fifth place after two laps. However, just one lap later there was a crash that ended his French Grand Prix early.
He then blamed only himself for the accident. “I was actually approaching the passage well, but I realized that I braked far too late and that I was much faster than the others. I wanted it [Di Giannantonio und Espargaro] “I couldn’t take myself out of the race, so I had to completely overbrake the front,” said Acosta, describing the accident. It was very lucky that he didn’t hit either of them. It was only centimeters away.
Pedro Acosta: Had pace for MotoGP victory
“It was really close, but luckily I fell alone. But that’s just how it is in our sport when you’re constantly at the limit.” But he still mourns the gravel-buried chances of another top result. “Sorry Tech3, today we had the bike and the pace to win,” Acosta then wrote on his Instagram channel. “It’s a real shame that we couldn’t implement the progress from the warm-up in the race. But we will Try Barcelona again!”
Personally, this is the third time in a row that Acosta has had a zero result at Le Mans. In the last two years he had to accept a retirement in Moto2 in the north-west of France. In the World Championship he is in sixth place with 73 points before the next race of the season in Barcelona (May 24th to May 26th).