Next year, David Da Costa will drive for the Snipers team in Moto3But before preparing to join the Grand Prix circuit, the Frenchman honed his skills on the French championship tracks. Crowned national champion in 2023 in the OGP category, the Lyon native then continued his development in the ETC, the Red Bull Rookies Cup, and JuniorGP. For PaddockGP, he reflects on the lessons learned from his season and the challenges that now await him.
Hello David, congratulations on your promotion to Moto3 We've already discussed your career on PaddockGP (link) here), you You notably built your career in the French championship. What did this stage bring you?
Le FSBKIt's a good school. When I was there, there were some good riders and we had some great battles. However, I think there's a bit of a lack of skill today, especially in the lower categories. You can see it when riders who race internationally come to do guest appearances.
What difference did you feel when you moved to international competitions?
This has nothing to do with Spain. In France, you could lose a second in a corner by attempting a slightly risky overtake, without it necessarily changing the race, because you stayed in the leading group. In ETC or Spain, if you overtake and lose two tenths of a second, the leading group can already pull far ahead. Everything is much closer.
If we refer to our last interview in Cartagena , at the start of the season, you were aiming for regular top 10 finishes in JuniorGP. What is your assessment of your year?
The first tests were quite complicated. I thought it would take me a really long time to adapt to the bike. The team and I were even starting to talk about three weekends of adaptation before we could get any results. At the beginning of the season, during the first session, we still weren't getting it right. We tried a completely different setup, the opposite of what we'd been using until then. I also had to push myself a bit. I'd been told that with the Honda, if you don't push it hard enough, it doesn't work: it's unstable and that creates problems. That's exactly how I felt. I told myself, "I'm switching off. If I crash, I crash, but I'm going to try." In the end, it went well. I immediately gained two or three seconds per lap. We found a good baseline setup, and then, the next day, we qualified directly for Q2. We finished the weekend with a tenth and a thirteenth place. It was a good start.
Were you then able to maintain this momentum?
We were always in the points, except at Magny-Cours, where I crashed. Yet, it was my best weekend: I was in the top three during practice, then seventh in qualifying. It was good to finish in the points, between the top 15 and top 10, but with the speed I had, we were aiming for a podium. In free practice, I was on top of the world: first, second, or third. But as soon as qualifying started, I plummeted and found myself between seventh and fourteenth place.
Have you been working on your pressure management?
After Magny-Cours, we had a month-long break before racing four weekends in a row. I added a coach to my program who works on mental preparation and sports psychology. It worked pretty well: I started leading races and found myself on the front row at Jerez and Misano in the Rookies Cup. Yes, things were improving, but not yet the results we were hoping for. There were some unfavorable circumstances, engine failures… Then the injury happened, and that made things a bit more complicated.
Regarding the Rookies Cup, between your first and second season, in which area did you progress the most?
At first, I was a little apprehensive about the battles. Before that, I'd had two difficult years, with a lot of injuries from collisions with other drivers. I was always afraid someone would miss their braking point and hit me, even if I closed the door. That fear has faded somewhat. Now, I mainly need to learn to assert myself more and overtake intelligently: gain a position without losing two behind. That's what cost me this year.
At what point did you realize that an arrival in the world Moto3 became possible?
To be continued…
