Leaving Sachsenring with a 22nd place in the Sprint and 7th in the German Grand Prix, Pedro Acosta is ready to touch base with the world of KTM, taking advantage of the weeks of vacation that separate the MotoGP riders from the next round at Silverstone, scheduled for early August, to travel to Austria to discover the factory of the Mattighofen-based manufacturer.
"I have a one-way ticket, but not a return ticket.We'll see how many days and weeks I stay there," the young Spaniard explained at the end of the German weekend, explaining the motivation behind his trip to the heart of KTM: "It's always better to communicate things face to face. Even though I will be there for a week, or however long it takes, every day there are new questions, new things to do and people to meet. Although I have been wearing orange for a long time, even though I am now in red, there are only three people in the Moto3 team and in Moto2 we had a Kalex, so I don't know all the people who are working on the project. It's good to know them and to know who I can exploit at certain times and why. I will go there with my chief technician Paul Trevathan and 'Oli,' the suspension technician."
Just over the weekend in Germany came the news of the separation between KTM and its technical manager Fabiano Sterlacchini, which Acosta himself also commented on.
"What happened this weekend would have happened with or without him. The conclusion I came to is that the management of the Racing part in KTM was a bit strange, because Fabiano did not come to all the races. I only saw him in three events," he noted, "One of the reasons I wanted to go to Austria was just to sit down with him and have him explain a lot of things that maybe for another rider may be very normal, but that I don't understand, and I couldn't find anyone to explain to me. That's why I wanted to talk to him, but in the end, Rome was not built in a day. I don't know if our tower will be like Pisa's, but we will try to make it straight."
Clear intentions then for the two-time World Champion, who wants to make sure of KTM's internal organization and the workings of the factory, to make sure that all the prerequisites are in place for him to receive what he needs to perform at his best.
"The first thing I will do is meet people and see what is going on and how everything works. When I go to sleep on the first day, I will understand all the roles, who is in charge where and why things are done. Because now it is very easy to criticize or ask for things that I don't even know how they are done at the moment. I prefer to inform myself first and see why things are or are not done, or who gives power to one and takes it away from another, so I can figure out which way to go," he explained.
Asked then about the gap between the Austrian manufacturer and its Ducati rivals, Acosta responded philosophically, "Rome was not built in a day. You have to get into the problem to see it. I knew I wanted to be here and I still do. No one put me in the lion's den and now it's up to me to open it up a little bit and get out."
The GasGas Tech3 team rider is aiming high, which is also why he rated his performance in the first part of the season somewhat harshly.
"I would give myself a 4.5 out of 10, not 5," he said, "We have to be realistic and recognize that we could have done a lot worse and a lot better. Mistakes on my part? The crashes in Le Mans, Barcelona and last week in Assen. I don't know how many points I could have scored, but we lost a lot. This Austrian mentality that I grew up with in the World Championship, that 'we are better than what we are doing,' makes me realize that you can always improve. I' m not looking for excuses."