In the closing stages at Le Mans, Di Giannantonio humiliated Acosta with a bold move—the Spaniard was not amused and admitted his own mistake at the same time
Pedro Acosta (KTM) and Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46-Ducati) put on an entertaining duel in the final stages of the French Grand Prix. Acosta had held a podium position for a long time and was in second place after Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) crashed.
But Aprilia was also stronger than KTM at Le Mans. Acosta was first overtaken by Jorge Martin and then by Ai Ogura (Trackhouse). This left the Spaniard in fourth place, but he wouldn’t hold onto that result.
Because on the final lap, Acosta was overtaken by Di Giannantonio, which he didn’t like at all: “No one overtakes me and looks at me while doing it. I’ll remember that for next time.”
But fundamentally, Acosta is annoyed at his own mistake, which cost him that position: “I thought Di Giannantonio was closer than he actually was, and I focused too much on defense.”
“And that backfired because he ended up passing me.” Finishing fourth, Di Giannantonio was once again the best Ducati rider. He draws a parallel to Moto3 regarding this passing maneuver against Acosta.
“I wanted to pass him in Turn 9,” the Italian explains. “I set up the move there because I came out of Turn 8 really well on the previous lap. But on this lap, I came out very poorly.“
”After that, I told myself: Come up with something, and fast. I remembered one of my best overtaking maneuvers from 2018 in Moto3, which I had done right there.“
”I just tried to repeat it. It wasn’t that difficult, but of course it was still difficult for me.” Acosta hadn’t expected this maneuver in the first of the two right-hand turns of the final corner.
Acosta draws a comparison to Aprilia
“Clearly, we weren’t in a position to fight for the podium compared to the Aprilias,” the KTM rider concludes. “They set a pace that’s scary, especially Martin and Ogura, who were coming from behind.”
“You have to be realistic about where you stand and be satisfied, because it’s my best result at Le Mans since I’ve been in MotoGP. In the end, one position up or down wouldn’t have made much of a difference.”
“We have to keep going and better understand our potential. I’m still satisfied, though, because overall it was my best weekend at Le Mans, since I usually crash in one session or another.“
”In that regard, I’m pretty satisfied. I’m also satisfied because the start was pretty good, and the first ten to twelve laps were pretty good, too. Up to that point, the pace was fine.”
“I’m happy because the bike seems to be better than it was in Jerez.” Nevertheless, KTM is only the third-strongest team in the field, behind Aprilia and Ducati. Acosta sees a significant difference in how the rear tire is managed.
“I mean, it’s true that Aprilia has apparently found something. But I wouldn’t call tire management our biggest problem. We need to try to have a more stable bike when entering the corners.“
”It seems like Aprilia has found something extraordinary that allows them to enter the first corner so quickly—like Turn 1, Turn 6, Turn 7. It was insane watching them do that from behind. But we’re on the right track.”
After five race weekends, Acosta is fourth in the World Championship, one point behind Di Giannantonio. The second-best KTM rider at Le Mans was Enea Bastianini in seventh place. Brad Binder retired due to a crash. Substitute rider Jonas Folger finished 16th after crashing in the sprint.