Pedro Acosta told himself that another crash in Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix could see him reach the end of his third MotoGP season without a grand prix victory.
Having thrown away a certain win in the sprint race a day earlier, the pressure was high on Acosta to build on his practice pace and deliver KTM a victory on its home turf.
A nasty fall in the warm-up session had already complicated the day, with the KTM mechanics having to rebuild his bike in a short amount of time before the start of the race in the afternoon.
But despite a poor start, Acosta quickly chipped away at his rivals, seizing the lead on lap nine of 28. Maintaining an advantage of a second for the remainder of the race, the Spaniard held his nerve until the finish line, helping KTM end a winless streak stretching back to the 2022 Thai GP.
Speaking in the post-race press conference, Acosta said he knew this was his best shot of victory with his long-term backer KTM, ahead of his high-profile move to Ducati in 2027.
“I was quite scared [at the beginning of the race]. First of all, I made the most embarrassing mistake of my career yesterday, and then this morning, I just crashed because I did not want to make a mistake,” he said.
“It’s true that when I went out, I said, ‘okay, if we crash today, I was already three years [into my MotoGP career] without a victory. [This chance] will not happen, if it doesn’t happen today.”
With Sunday’s result, Acosta became the first non-Aprilia/Ducati rider to win a dry-weather grand prix since Alex Rins’s triumph on an LCR Honda in 2023.
The 22-year-old said Aprilia and Ducati’s duopoly in MotoGP leaves few opportunities for other manufacturers to fight for race wins.
“There arrived one moment where it was personal because I was having the capacity to do it, but I was not having many opportunities in these three years because Ducati and Aprilia are in another world compared to the other three manufacturers,” he said.
“In this kind of championship, you don’t have many chances to do it. Yesterday hurt a lot. It was quite hard to understand that I was just putting this opportunity in the bin, but today paid off.”
Acosta’s sprint crash was entirely of his own making, as he missed the braking point for Turn 2 while reading the fuel meter on his dashboard.
After Sunday’s victory, Acosta recreated his crash in slow motion on the cooldown lap, allowing the bike to fall onto the tarmac before dropping to the ground himself.
Asked about the cheeky celebration, Acosta said “There was no other way. After the most ridiculous f**k-up of my career, there was no other way [to celebrate].”
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