Pedro Acosta (5th): “Nothing to gain at the front, nothing to lose at the back”

In wet qualifying, Pedro Acosta set a time of 1:36.5 minutes, which was enough for seventh on the grid. In the sprint, the Spaniard squeezed every last bit of performance out of his KTM and crossed the finish line in fifth place. On a track that was dry at the time of the sprint, that was the best he could manage.

Acosta got off to a strong start, but then lost his rhythm

Red Bull rider Pedro Acosta got off to a good start, leaving Jack Miller (Yamaha) and Raul Fernandez (Aprilia) behind him on the first lap. At times he was in 4th place and was locked in battles with Johann Zarco (Honda) and Alex Marquez (Ducati). Then Fabio Di Giannanto (Ducati) and Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) overtook him. He owed his fifth-place finish in the end partly to the retirements of Johann Zarco and Jorge Martin.

“I got off to a good start and put in some strong opening laps,” said Acosta, looking back on the early stages of the race. “At the start, I tried to push the tyres harder to stay with the leaders. After that, I didn’t really slow down – the others were simply quicker.” In the final third of the race, he let the group led by “Diggia” and Bezzecchi pull away. “With three laps to go, there was nothing left to gain in front of me and nothing to lose behind me. So I just coasted to the finish. You just have to get the bike home.”

Willkommen auf Phillip Island

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Marc Márquez

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Fans

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Aprilia

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Brad Binder

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Diogo Moreira

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Jorge Martin

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Fabio Di Giannantonio

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Ai Ogura

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Pecco Bagnaia

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Pedro Acosta

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Fans

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Brad Binder

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Jorge Martin

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Johann Zarco

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Marco Bezzecchi

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Start des Sprint-Rennens

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Alex Márquez

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Jack Miller

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Sprint-Rennen

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Marco Bezzecchi

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Jorge Martin und Marc Márquez

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Marc Márquez

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Alex Márquez, Marc Márquez, Fabio Di Giannantonio

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Sprint-Sieger Marc Márquez

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Alex Márquez

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Willkommen auf Phillip Island

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It soon became clear why he couldn’t attack again at the end: the KTM’s chassis was unstable in the fast corners. He lost a lot of time in the final corner and on the straight. “I tried a lot of things, but the problem just got worse and worse.”

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MotoGP World Championship

25.10.2026 - 00:35

In the wet FP2 session, the bike had still been working well, but as the track dried out, things got worse. “That’s something we know: we have problems on a dry track.” In the World Championship, Acosta is now level on points with Ai Ogura in fourth place on 263 points.