‘I’m not surprised by Pedro Acosta; he is very calm and confident’ – Sebastian Risse

Pedro Acosta has impressed in MotoGP since his debut in March at the Qatar GP. He already has two podium finishes in the main races and is in the top five of the championship after four rounds. The Red Bull GasGas Tech3 rider may come as a surprise to many, but not to KTM and technical director Sebastian Risse.

The engineer told the championship’s official website that Acosta’s performance is no surprise: ‘To be honest, I’m not really surprised, but I am very impressed. During the other lessons you have already seen how quickly this man learns, how adaptive he is. But of course with many riders you have seen switch to MotoGP it is a different game, it can go either way‘.

On the track, Acosta has shown no fear or hesitation in direct duels against experienced and high-quality rivals such as Marc Márquez (Gresini/Ducati). And even in his off-track approach, the rookie shows a high level of calm and confidence, according to Risse:

– Most of the time you almost have to force a rookie to stay calm, keep the bike tuned, don’t rock it and learn instead. And Pedro is completely the opposite of that, because he is so satisfied with the bike and what he has. He wants so badly to get the most out of it, focused on what he can do before reacting to the technical side. He is very calm and very confident.