Next year, Pedro Acosta makes the leap to MotoGP after being the Moto2 and Moto3 world champion. Joining KTM under GasGas Tech3, he hopes to continue evolving, avoiding unnecessary comparisons and pressures.
In an interview with Marca, the Spanish rider assured that he didn’t feel pressured in the 2023 season: ‘In fact, I didn’t feel pressure; everything that existed was put there by me. I think that after a tough year, in quotes, in my first year in Moto2, I learned not to pay too much attention to what was said from the outside. I listened to what I had to say inside the box, and that’s what mattered to me. I tried to distance myself a bit. I arrived at the races, had a good time, I was clear that I wanted to win on weekends, I tried to focus on doing things and being competitive. Ultimately, we were fighting for something much more important. When you are so close to achieving something, you want to conquer it. It was teamwork; we shared great moments with them in these last three years. We won the rider’s championship, the team championship, got more poles, more victories, more front rows’.
Having been with KTM bikes for several years, Acosta has no doubt that he will have competitive material in 2024 after testing in Valencia: ‘I’ve been on a KTM since I was 14, it’s almost seven years. I have to be more than happy. The bike is very competitive, and it will be even more competitive because KTM’s MotoGP project is one of the biggest. I have no doubt that the bike will be competitive, however, there are things to improve, details, but we are happy with that test’.
Then, Acosta further stated: ‘I agree with what Marc Márquez said because that’s the reality. We have to see how many years KTM has been in the World Championship and how quickly it evolved. The project is six or seven years old. It’s very little time for the level at which the bike is. It has a huge factory behind it; they are investing a lot of money and have many people involved. I was in Austria a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t imagine the number of people involved. They are clear that they want to be the best, what to do to achieve that goal. KTM’s project will be one of the biggest evolutions within MotoGP teams. I said it in May, in August, and I still say the same: my goal is to continue with KTM, due to the years we’ve been together, the relationship we have because the bike is being very competitive. My goal is to achieve good results with KTM’.
Regarding the comparisons with Marc Márquez, the Tiburón de Mazarrón [«The Shark from Mazarrón»] commented: ‘It’s very difficult to speak of a reality when you’re 19 years old and have been on the bike only once. It’s similar to people comparing me to Marc Márquez. You can compare, but neither the season is the same, nor are the bikes the same, nor is the number of people similar. It’s MotoGP, the league where the greatest are. It’s an honor to race with people like Marc Márquez, Bagnaia, Jorge Martín, riders who, in some way, have already made history. But it has to be taken calmly. The worst thing that can happen is expectations. On the contrary, it’s an honor when they say I’m the new Marc Márquez, but Marc Márquez is Marc Márquez, and I am Pedro Acosta. There’s nothing more to it, and that doesn’t hurt me. On the contrary, it’s a source of pride. Just like they said Marc was the new Valentino Rossi, and Rossi was said to be the new [Mick] Doohan. It’s a snowball that keeps getting bigger’.