KTM\u2019s Pedro Acosta admits he is \u201cstruggling much more\u201d under braking at Motegi compared to last year after Friday practice at the 2025 MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
The factory KTM<\/a> rider scored a maiden – and so far only – MotoGP pole at Motegi last year in his rookie season, though crashed out of both races while in contention for victory.<\/p>\n Having found improved pace in recent rounds, Pedro Acosta<\/a> maintained that on Friday in Japan as he ended the day second fastest behind Aprilia\u2019s Marco Bezzecchi<\/a>.<\/p>\n He did have a big crash at the end of the afternoon session, though walked away unscathed.<\/p>\n Speaking to TNT Sport on Friday afternoon, Acosta says he hasn\u2019t been able to carry anything over from the Misano test to help him at Motegi, while noting that he is weaker in the braking areas on the 2025 RC16 compared to 12 months ago.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, happy about the day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we improved a lot. It\u2019s true that I think it was a difficult day for everyone, because we saw many crashes.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything was quite tricky. But we managed it in the best way.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s true that a crash in the end was not in the plan, but thankfully we are ok.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s see if the bike is ok, also. But I think generally, given how tough the day was, we have to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked if he was using any new solutions from the Misano test, he replied: \u201cNot at all. It\u2019s true that last year we were competitive here.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year it looks like also. It\u2019s true that we are struggling much more than last year in the braking points.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s time to work. Like I said, the track was quite tricky until the end of PR. Let\u2019s see what\u2019s going on tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n While heading into Saturday as one of the favourites to fight for pole, Acosta is wary of a \u201creally difficult\u201d qualifying due to the pace of those around him.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cWe see that Marco is super-fast with the Aprilia here,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see that Honda is making a big step. We see that also Marc [Marquez] and Pecco [Bagnaia] are in Q2. For this, it\u2019s going to be a really difficult Q2.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KTM\u2019s Pedro Acosta admits he is \u201cstruggling much more\u201d under braking at Motegi compared to last year after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,6399,806,805,803,804,10734,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-170127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ktm","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-pedro-acosta","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}