Pit Beirer (KTM) after the Japanese GP: “Enea was able to push flat out, Pedro wasn’t”

Before setting off on the long overseas tour for the 2027 season, MotoGP witnessed a dominant Pedro Acosta. The KTM factory rider dominated in terms of speed and, despite his slip-up on Sprint Saturday, was celebrated as the glorious winner at his manufacturer’s home Grand Prix.

After qualifying for the premier class race at Motegi, things initially looked even better for the KTM project. Whilst Acosta narrowly missed out on the fastest time and was quicker than Marc Márquez, Jorge Martín and Marco Bezzecchi, Enea Bastianini was now also in the mix at the front in Japan. The Italian, riding the Tech3 bike, converted his fifth place in qualifying into a good seventh spot on the grid. Even more promising was Acosta, who had secured a front-row start on his RC16 on the soft tyres. Everything was set.

But when the boxes were packed up on Sunday, there were no trophies on board. Bastianini left Japan with two strong fourth-place finishes, but Pedro Acosta had not managed to finish higher than seventh in the Grand Prix. A good, but unexpected, outcome from KTM’s perspective.

KTM-Rennsportchef Pit Beirer

Foto: Gold and Goose

Head of Racing Pit Beirer summed up the Japanese Grand Prix to SPEEDWEEK.com as follows: “The team, of course, arrived in Japan with a lot of momentum behind them – not just Pedro. For Pedro, too, everything went perfectly for a long time. He had a good feel for the bike. He told us to make as few changes to the bike as possible. Consequently, he was in high spirits ahead of the races, not least because he’d secured an ideal position in Q2.”

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Acosta – too caught up in battles

Pit Beirer continued: “The crash in the sprint did have a negative effect – because being taken out after just a few metres is never a good feeling. On Sunday, the late switch to the harder tyres had a greater impact on him than it did on Enea. Pedro is generally aggressive in the first lap, but that only works if he’s got the feel for it. At the start of the race, that just wasn’t there.”

“Quite uncharacteristically for him, he had one or two minor moments of uncertainty early on – and by the time things improved, he was caught up in a battle with the Trackhouse lads. His lap times were astonishing at times; he was riding faster than the leaders – but the slow start, which was too slow for him, and the battles later on simply held him back more this time. Perhaps it would have been better to let Pedro ride on the medium tyres…”, reported the KTM Racing boss.

The situation was different in the Bastianini section of the Tech3 pit: “Enea was really strong. First and foremost, because he finally managed to get up front early on. He actually rides races like the one on Sunday at Motegi all the time – it’s just that when he’s out in P15 on Lap 1, nobody really notices. If we manage to get Enea up front on Friday, then we’ll see something like what happened in Japan. And – what was impressive was that, unlike Pedro, Enea was able to ride in attack mode on the hard tyre right from Lap 1. Enea was able to push flat out straight away, whereas Pedro couldn’t – that’s what made the difference in the end.”

Stark: Bastianini (KTM) jagte Bezzecchi (Aprilia)

Foto: Gold and Goose

The verdict from KTM’s chief: “Fourth and seventh – that was a good performance. We’re heading to Indonesia in very good spirits – not just because we’ll be racing on completely different tyres there again. We still won’t be touching Pedro’s bike,” said Beirer with a laugh.

With this solid team result and finishes in 4th, 7th, 11th and 14th places, the RC16 riders have closed the gap between them. The Upper Austrian manufacturer remains third in the constructors’ standings. Acosta and co. have opened up a 135-point lead over their closest rivals, Honda, but there is still plenty of ground to make up on the leaders. The battle for the constructors’ title will be decided amongst Italians in 2026.