Pedro Acosta struggles with himself: “I don’t consider myself successful”

– “I do not consider myself successful at all.” This remarkable sentence is said by KTM rider Pedro Acosta in an interview with Autosport, a sister platform of Motorsport-Total.com.

Read more Why Lando Norris isn’t thinking about the championship after two wins

This sounds contradictory at first given two world championship titles in Moto3 and Moto2, a rookie title in MotoGP, and fourth place in the world championship the following year. But Acosta does not primarily measure success by what has already been achieved. For him, the decisive piece is still missing: a MotoGP win.

“I actually achieved a lot at the beginning of my career,” he admits. “Everything happened very quickly.” He was already racing MotoGP in his fourth world championship season. But the rapid rise through the world championship classes also brought a problem: Acosta got used to being able to achieve goals immediately.

In his first Moto2 season, he had in mind that he had to become world champion. In Moto3, on the other hand, he was much more sober: “There I just thought about collecting points,” Acosta looks back on his beginnings.

Acosta always blamed himself

In MotoGP, he had to relearn this way of thinking. The past season was particularly difficult for Acosta. His own demands left little room for external factors.

“Last year it was not easy to deal with,” he says. “Especially because I kept thinking it was my fault when I didn’t win.” That exactly increased the pressure. When a rider believes he causes every problem himself, sporting ambition quickly turns into a mental burden.

A way to deal with it was finally shown to him by his coach Carmelo Morales. “The person who helped me the most to understand that the problem probably wasn’t with me was Carmelo Morales,” Acosta says.

Photo series: The career highlights of Pedro Acosta

Morales has a different perspective on racing. And this perspective led Acosta to an unpleasant but important realization. “The problem was that I demanded much more from the motorcycle than it could give, and every time I did that, I crashed,” explains the Spaniard.

For him, a crucial learning process: instead of trying to compensate for a technical weakness with even more risk, he has accepted that sometimes less is more.

Read more FIA publishes new ADUO ranking: This is the result

New approach: Top 5 instead of all or nothing

Acosta describes his new approach surprisingly simply: “A top-5 result is not so bad.” For a rider who has been programmed for wins since his youth, this is a big step. It is not about becoming less ambitious. It is about recognizing the maximum achievable result and not trying to compensate for every weakness of the motorcycle by force.

“If we are competitive, we will be able to fight for a podium,” says Acosta. And exactly this patience has made him significantly more competitive in 2026.

Despite the technical problems at KTM in the first half of the season, the 22-year-old was regularly near the top 3. But a fight for the lead recently was, according to Acosta, like a “miracle.” The crucial thing: he no longer interprets these limitations as personal failure.

Acosta: “I have made a huge step in maturity”

His attitude has also changed with the enormous pressure of expectations. Since Moto3, he has been compared to the greatest talents of his generation. However, Acosta says that the headlines never really occupied him.

“I am not someone who reads too much about himself,” he explains. He also has people around him who are honest with him and tell him things directly to his face.

Acosta therefore sees his actual development less in greater self-confidence than in greater maturity. Between Moto2 and MotoGP, he made a “huge step in maturity.” This development could prove crucial for the next phase of his career.

Because Acosta no longer has to prove that he is fast. The bigger task is to convert his pace into results over an entire season. The 22-year-old now seems to be developing a different understanding for this.

Read more MG ZS vs. Dacia Duster: SUV comparison under 30,000 Euros