Pedro Acosta (KTM) is also certain: “Aprilia is the clear favourite”

On Thursday, the MotoGP riders were once again greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm in the holiday and racing paradise of Lombok. For KTM factory rider Pedro Acosta, it was just the thing to help him put the disappointment of the Motegi weekend behind him a little. “It’s great to be back here. We’re usually quick here right from day one,” recalled the 22-year-old.

Nevertheless, there are still some question marks in the Spaniard’s pit: “Even today, we still don’t know why Enea (Bastianini) got the tyre to work so well at Motegi on Sunday whilst I had my problems with it. I’d had a run of good races in a row; it was clear it was only a matter of time before a bad weekend would come along. The fact is: I simply wasn’t fast enough.”

On the balance of power in Indonesia with regard to Aprilia, Acosta said: “Marco Bezzecchi had a pace here a year ago that was terrifying. He should have won Sunday’s race by a massive margin. Martin and Ogura were injured, after all. But Marco was incredibly fast in 2025. Now we have four Aprilias on the grid. At the moment, Aprilia is the clear favourite,” commented next year’s Ducati rider.

Acosta also had an opinion on the changes that have been decided: from 2027, there will no longer be a separate warm-up session, and a sprint qualifying session will be introduced. “We’ve got no choice, whatever we think! It’s going to be a tough year in any case. You can’t imagine how much stress you’re under as a rider. A weekend often starts as early as Wednesday with the schedule. We have lots of sessions where we have to risk everything. We have 22 race weekends, each with two races. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have a sprint qualifying session with all the riders as early as Friday. I’d understand it if we only had sprints at half the events. But we have 22 sprints. We’ll be under a very high level of stress very often, and it’ll be normal for drivers to get injured.”

The changes to the warm-up (which now consists only of a few reconnaissance laps) also rubs Acosta up the wrong way: “This warm-up so close to the race – I don’t know if that’s the best decision if someone crashes. You hardly even manage a full lap so close to the race. The risk of something going wrong is too great. That said, this isn’t really the right moment to be discussing such matters here during a race weekend – but it needs to be put back on the table!”

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Acosta puts forward his own suggestion: “I think it would be fine if we included sprints at half the events throughout the year – for example, only on those circuits where there’s a lot of overtaking in the sprint. There are also sprints that are boring and where there’s no overtaking. The riders’ careers are also getting shorter and shorter. We’re already taking too many risks.”

Pedro Acosta’s sporting position ahead of the Indonesian GP. The number 37 rider is fourth in the World Championship standings, 41 points behind Marco Bezzecchi, but just six points ahead of Trackhouse Aprilia rider Ai Ogura.