Qualified 5th on the starting grid of Grand Prix MotoGP of Italy on the Mugello circuit, author of the 5th best time in the race and 5th at the finish, the level of performance of the young rookie Peter Acosta on the Italian circuit has been clearly established, as well as the points to improve to gain the 7 seconds that separated him from victory in the GP, after finishing 3rd in the Sprint the day before.
Having spoken at greater length on Sunday in Spanish than in English, it is this time this version of his remarks that we report here, collected by Manuel Pecino and formatted by Mario Bordonaba for our partner Motosan.es
As usual, we report his words here without the slightest formatting, even if it is translated from English.
Sector 4 made the difference: “In the end, we were hampered all weekend with sector 4 and the race was no less hampered. In the end it was losing in the 4th, recovering in the 1st, recovering in the 2nd, recovering in the 3rd and losing again. 1, 2, 3, lose, 1, 2, 3, lose. I held on like that for seven laps and when I did the eighth lap my brake pads opened up a little in the last corner. It's a little long and that's what made the difference. The gap wasn't huge, it was one or two tenths, but 1, 2, 3, then losing a lot. Particularly going into the finish line, I felt it more because I had the whole straight ahead of me, but it was a bit like sector 4 in general. We need to look at why this is happening and understand how to improve.”
Ducati traction and smoke from Marc Marquez's wheel: “I was behind the four drivers in front of me and they were pushing quite hard in the last corner. In the end, we were able to follow them to sector 3, but in the end I had to hold on and, sooner or later, they took me down. So the weekend is over and we saved it. As for Marc's smoke, I don't know if the wheel was touching the saddle or the wheel was touching the fender. I think today they lowered the rear of the bike a lot.”
First KTM and first non-Ducati: “It doesn't mean much because we are fifth, seven seconds behind the leader. It doesn't matter if I'm first or second if I'm seven seconds behind the leader. We have to look at the good things, we have to look at another consistent weekend. We finished the race, we scored points, we were a lot faster than last year's KTM, so, well, we have to optimize things.”
What worries him is being the youngest to win: “That would be really cool, but I'm currently more concerned about how we can close the gap to first than anything else. The problem is seeing the bikes so close and seeing that with each lap they are getting further away, further away, further away. Ultimately we will try to solve this problem, we have good circuits available to us like Assen and Sachsenring, and we will try again after the summer. They brought a lot of new things to try, so right now I don't know what I'm going to try or what I can expect. »
What the bike is missing: “I don't ask for a lot, you'd be surprised. But we need the bike to help us a little more out of corners, we need to have a little more downforce on both wheels to avoid sliding too much, then spinning, then losing speed. It's a bit like a snowball, it gets bigger and bigger. We must therefore improve this first contact a little to avoid many problems later. We need a little more grip.”
Results of the 2024 MotoGP Italian Grand Prix at Mugello:
Credit rankings: MotoGP.com
source: Motosan.es
