It’s the home of the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix and perhaps the country’s most picturesque circuit that would rival some of the world’s most famous venues.
KTM factory rider Pedro Acosta has been to Phillip Island four times. This year marked the first opportunity to ride a fully-fledged MotoGP bike at the 4.4km seaside course.
So what does he think of the circuit?
“Scare,” Acosta replied when asked about his thoughts on the KTM Summer Grill.
“Phillip Island is the most difficult track in the whole season.
“It’s difficult to understand how fast we can go, even from the inside. Arriving at Turn 1, just take out one gear and go flat out at, I don’t know… 280 km/h.
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“For sure, it’s the most nice track in the whole season because you ride there on the main straight and you see the whole sea… but then it starts the nightmare when you go to Turn 1, 2, 3.
“It’s quite difficult also with the wind. But for sure, the nicest track of the whole season.”
Riding for the GasGas-branded Tech3 outfit, Acosta crashed in Saturday’s sprint race and was ruled out of Sunday’s grand prix due to injury.
Acosta finished his first season in the premier class as the top rookie, claiming sixth in the riders’ championship.
His first season included six podium finishes on the KTM RC16, despite the sheer strength of the Ducati Desmosedici fleet.
Acosta will step up to the factory KTM team in 2025 alongside Brad Binder where he said he will take a lot of learnings from his first year in MotoGP.
“At the end, like you say, it was a lot of expectation, but also I have my expectation,” said Acosta.
“It’s true that many times it was super close [to winning] but for any reason we didn’t finish the job.
“It’s true that in general we make a lot of mistakes from myself and some internal things that maybe was experience we were missing.
“It’s true that it’s a season that I learned the most, the one that I crashed the most also.
“I go out of this season like from the university with a lot of notes for next season to try and not crash again.”
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