ACOSTA BACKS APRILIA AS INDONESIAN GP FAVORITES

Pedro Acosta arrived in Indonesia hoping to put a disappointing Motegi weekend behind him, welcomed by the enthusiastic crowds on Lombok. The KTM rider said he usually feels quick at the circuit from the opening day, but was still searching for an explanation for the tyre problems that affected him in Japan.

Acosta said he and his team still did not understand how Enea Bastianini had managed to make his tyre work so well in Sunday’s race while Acosta struggled. After a run of strong events, he accepted that a poor weekend was bound to come eventually: “The fact is, I simply wasn’t fast enough.”

For the Indonesian Grand Prix, Acosta sees Aprilia as the benchmark. He recalled Marco Bezzecchi’s formidable pace at the track a year earlier, saying the Italian should have won by a huge margin, while Jorge Martin and Ai Ogura were injured. With four Aprilias now on the grid, Acosta’s assessment was clear: “At the moment, Aprilia is the clear favourite.”

The Spaniard also criticised aspects of MotoGP’s planned 2027 weekend format. The schedule will lose its dedicated warm-up session and add sprint qualifying. Acosta said riders had little say in the changes, despite the demands of a calendar featuring 22 rounds and 22 sprints. With commitments starting as early as Wednesday and riders repeatedly expected to take risks, he questioned whether sprint qualifying involving the whole field on Friday was sensible. “You can’t imagine how much stress a rider is under,” he said, warning that injuries could become commonplace at such a sustained intensity.

Acosta was also uneasy about replacing the warm-up with only a few sighting laps shortly before the race. He questioned the value of riding so briefly before the start, particularly if a crash caused damage, and said the issue deserved further discussion even if a race weekend was not the right time to debate it.

His alternative would be to hold sprints at only half the events, choosing circuits where the format produces plenty of overtaking. Some sprint races, he argued, offer little passing, while riders are already taking significant risks and seeing their careers shortened. “We already risk too much,” he said.

Acosta was fourth in the championship heading into Indonesia, 41 points behind Bezzecchi and six ahead of Trackhouse Aprilia’s Ogura.