After the chain drama in the Misano race, Pedro Acosta made a strong comeback on Monday with the fastest test time and praised the work of the KTM crew in the pits.
After his bitter retirement from the MotoGP race at Misano, Pedro Acosta made an impressive comeback just one day later. The KTM rider set the fastest time in Monday’s collective test and worked intensively on the setup of his RC16.
Sunday had been disappointing for the Spaniard. In the middle of a strong comeback, the chain on his KTM came off, bringing his race to an abrupt end. “Basically, I rode over the curb, shifted gears, and the chain jumped off. That’s all there is to it,” Acosta explained.
“No reason to get upset about the chain”
Even though he gave his bike the finger in his initial reaction, his anger had subsided by Monday: “It’s not worth getting upset about.”
“What would that have solved? Nothing. From now on, it shouldn’t happen as easily as it did at the weekend. We have a great spirit in the pits, we are all very self-critical, and that helps us to improve. Today, we’ve put the issue behind us.”
More chain trouble for @KTM_Racing
And @37_pedroacosta is LIVID! SanMarinoGP pic.twitter.com/VT60NspDx2
— MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) September 14, 2025
KTM reacted immediately and brought an additional chain guard to the test to prevent similar incidents in the future. “Today they brought a protector, call it what you will, and it worked. You can’t be clairvoyant until it happens. But other brands already had it. I could feel that the chain was no longer jumping off. That was it. Problem, solution, move on.“
Fastest time on test day a ”nice” bonus
With a fastest time of 1:30.374 minutes, Acosta was three tenths faster in the afternoon than Alex Marquez, who had led the morning test session, and came close to Marco Bezzecchi’s pole time on Saturday. “It’s just a test, but it’s better to get the job done,” he commented.
“Of course, the others were more tired than me today because I didn’t do so many laps yesterday. Still, it was nice to come back after yesterday’s really sad afternoon, show some speed, and be competitive.”
Focus on setup rather than new parts
While KTM test rider Dani Pedrosa and the Tech3 satellite team tried out new parts, Acosta concentrated on fine-tuning his own machine.
“I focused entirely on optimizing my best setup. The KTM feels much more natural now than it did at the start of the season. I don’t have to think so much when riding anymore. Today I worked on the fast corners because that’s where we suffer the most, not just here but in general. We’ve made really good progress there,” said the 20-year-old Spaniard.
However, Acosta knows that a Monday test cannot be transferred one-to-one to race conditions: “You can’t be fooled because the grip is always huge on Mondays. Misano alone offers a lot of grip, but after a race weekend it’s even greater. Nevertheless, we were very consistent today.“
Acosta dismissed speculation that the test was already about 2026: ”I have to focus on the rest of this season. There are still many races, many opportunities that we can take advantage of. KTM can think about next year after Valencia. I just have to ride faster for the rest of the season.”
