Alarm at KTM, Pedro Acosta: "We've lost one of our strengths"

For Acosta and KTM, it was a tough weekend in Brazil, and now they’re eager to bounce back: will the former MotoGP World Championship leader be a podium contender in the United States?

He arrived in Goiânia at the top of the standings and left in third place, after a weekend in which he wasn’t as competitive as in Buriram. Considering the disastrous results of the other KTM riders, you could say he worked a minor miracle with his RC16. Now MotoGP heads to Austin, and it will be interesting to see the level of the two-time world champion, always ready to put up a fight if his bike allows it.

The Spanish rider doesn’t know what to expect from the weekend at COTA, but he believes he should be more competitive than at the Autódromo Internacional de Goiânia: "I don’t have any special expectations. There are two long straights," he told Motosan, "and we know that top speed is no longer our strong suit like it used to be, but I’m fairly optimistic. The bike behaves much better in the corners than last year. Also, I think the tires will help us get that front-end grip we were missing in the last GP."

Acosta explained what didn’t work in the last Grand Prix and sounded fairly confident regarding the upcoming MotoGP rounds in Europe: "The problem in Brazil was that we couldn’t improve the bike throughout the entire weekend. From FP1 to the race, the performance level stayed more or less the same, and that didn’t help us. I need to arrive in Europe in relatively good shape and then try to push harder on the tracks we know better. It will be easier to improve the bike over the course of the weekend. Also, there are fewer straights, except at Mugello: that could help us."

Despite the engine development freeze (with the exception of Yamaha, which still enjoys D-grade concessions), the KTM RC16 has been less competitive on the straights compared to 2025. Clearly, it’s not just about the engine. Acosta pointed out that two rivals have done a better job optimizing their technical package: "It seems that one of our strong points, straight-line speed, has disappeared. The other manufacturers have worked hard, because Ducati is clearly still at the top. And then Aprilia has made a massive leap."

Aerodynamics is a decisive factor, and perhaps KTM has focused more on making the bike more effective in the corners, an area where Pedro sees progress. Improving in one area may have caused a setback in another. We’ll see if the RC16 also struggles on Austin’s long straight compared to Ducati and Aprilia.

The article with the original interview in Spanish on Motosan.es