Pedro Acosta Is Searching for Rhythm but Hoping for a Wild Card: “I Hope It Rains a Lot”

Eighth place, direct access to Q2, and race pace that bodes well. Pedro Acosta wraps up Friday at the Australian GP with a more positive assessment than the standings suggest and, surprisingly, is hoping for rain.

The KTM rider makes no secret of it: he doesn’t think victory is within reach, but the podium is. All this in a weekend when Aprilia has put four bikes in the top five.

At one point during pre-qualifying, Acosta even found himself at the top of the timesheets. With around 20 minutes to go before the chequered flag, he set a time of 1:27.208 on a new set of soft tyres. Several rivals passed him in the closing stages, and he finished just behind fellow KTM rider Enea Bastianini, who placed seventh and was the top KTM rider. Earlier that morning, FP1 had gone to Marc Marquez, as we reported in MotoGP Australia, FP1 standings: Marquez strikes, Fernandez tops the Aprilias.

"To be honest, it wasn’t bad. I’m happy; it went better than expected," Acosta explained, in comments reported by Motosan. "The baseline was pretty good. The first fast lap went quite well." His second attempt was not quite as impressive, but he still achieved his goal of securing direct entry to Q2.

The RC16 is not perfect, though. "I’m struggling a lot to keep the bike stable, especially in sector three. But it wasn’t a disaster," the Spanish rider admitted. Acosta matched the lap time he thought he could manage, around 1:26.9 or 1:27.0, but is still 0.3 seconds off the pace. That leaves him feeling there is room for improvement: "A dry race is usually long, and the pace was working quite well."

That brings us to the line that sums up his Friday: "We have more potential than we showed. Maybe not enough to fight for the win, but enough to stay close to the podium."

The forecast calls for rain on both Saturday and Sunday, and Acosta isn’t worried. Quite the opposite. While some of his fellow riders are hoping for dry conditions, he made his preference clear: "Fingers crossed, and I hope it rains heavily tonight." Acosta, who will race for Ducati alongside Marc Marquez from 2027, has already made it clear that he’ll focus solely on his own results in his final races with KTM. Phillip Island, making its final appearance on the calendar before the move to Adelaide, could give him the perfect opportunity if the weather shakes things up.

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