‘Rookies can be fast and wild’
We’ve seen it before, when rookies arrive in MotoGP there is so much hype, but when it comes to it they can’t do it. Don’t get me wrong all of them are unbelievably fast, but I just don’t see it that when we get to the racing Acosta is going to be on the podium. Look I’d honestly love to be proved wrong, because that’s what we all want to see, but he ain’t beating the likes of Bagnaia, Martin, Binder etc…
Rookies can be fast, wild and turbo people and ruffle feathers which is box office, but with the exception of Marc Marquez, can they win the title… I don’t think so.
Testing is testing, we’ve seen riders put in some incredible laps, but when it comes to the racing they get smoked. The top guys come out of the woodwork and turn them all over.
It’s one thing do a single fast lap, but in the race you’ve got to do 22 of them and make no mistakes.
But look I’m not trying to kick
Acosta in the shins – he’s gone from a 765cc Triumph with 150bhp to a factory MotoGP bike with 300bhp. Things will be coming at him at a million mph and he’s also got new tyres, electronics and carbon brakes to deal with.
But racers like him are built for it, it’s like they’ve been designed to ride bikes like these. It’s like his crew chief and data engineer tell him how to ride it, tell him what to do and he can just go out there and do it. In some ways he’s like a clean sheet of paper learning how to ride a MotoGP bike, which is probably better than having loads of experience on different types of bike. I’m not saying it’s easy, but he’ll have someone telling him “right at this point you need to open the throttle to 100%”.
At times of my career I’ve been ‘told’ how to do it and it’s been hard because I’ve been doing it a long time and I’ve ridden twostrokes with throttle cables and treaded tyres through to big bhp factory Superbikes on slicks with fly-by-wire.
Acosta has no curve balls, he’s not got to worry about how he’s going to pay his electric. He’s in racing la la land, living the dream, which is where we all want to be!
‘Acosta’s gone from 150bhp to 300bhp’