Pedro Acosta turned anger into a podium. After a frustrating Friday and Saturday at Misano, the young Spaniard bounced back to finish third at the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday (8/9/2025).
Frustration Caught on Camera
Throughout the sprint race, Acosta struggled to stop his bike. He could only manage sixth, losing over half a second per lap to winner Marc Marquez. The braking issues caught him by surprise, and his frustration was clearly captured on TV cameras.
“I don't usually get very upset, but on Saturday I was, because we didn't understand why certain things were happening,” Acosta said. “There were a lot of doubts on the grid about whether I could finish on the podium.”
A Complete Overnight Change
But Sunday was a different story. Starting from ninth, Acosta surged forward to fourth behind Alex Marquez. After Jorge Martin dropped from first to fifth, Acosta even became an outside contender for victory, closing to within a second of the Marquez brothers.
Although he eventually backed out of the fight after locking up at Turn 7, he comfortably held on to third. His fifth podium of the season.
“I'm happy because it looks like we improved the bike from yesterday,” Acosta said. “We changed the whole complete bike. We were quite lost the whole weekend, and it was quite strange because normally here I'm quite fast. The team did a good job last night.”
Reverting to Friday's Setup
Acosta didn't offer a full explanation about the technical fix, but he revealed that KTM reverted to the setup he had used in Friday practice. “We went back a bit to Friday's bike set-up, and it seems to have worked more or less. I could brake hard and attack, knowing we're lacking a bit of performance under acceleration.”
With the engine issues that caused reliability concerns in the first half of the season now addressed, KTM can switch its attention back to performance. Acosta said the Mattighofen-based marque is working “super hard” and willing to embrace “new ideas” to improve the RC16 in the final year of MotoGP's 1000cc era.
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