Was Acosta Bagnaia’s “anger” the secret weapon of Barcelona MotoGP?

Was Pedro Acosta, reigning champion, Pecco Bagnaia, the secret weapon of the Catalan Grand Prix?

The rookie star followed a spirited but futile exit from the French Grand Prix with a more spirited but slightly less futile race at the Catalan Grand Prix, crashing out on lap 11 while chasing down leader Jorge Martin.

He came back to recover three points for 13th place, while Martin, after having successfully resisted Acosta's attacks, was then powerless to resist Bagnaia in the final laps of the race on the Barcelona circuit, which eats the tires.

So how much did Acosta win the race for Bagnaia – and should he have won it for himself?

The crash

Acosta was one of four riders in the field to choose the soft rear tire – theoretically faster but less durable – rather than the preferred medium rear tire, and his pace conveyed a sense of urgency.

But he insisted after the race that he wasn't trying to rush into the lead, and Marc Marquez's charge from 14th to third on the softs was at least proof that the tire was capable of hold up reasonably well.

“Maybe Marquez overheated a little, maybe because he was at the back of his leading group, let's say, he lost more time than yesterday to overtake the guys. But for me [the soft] was the tire to win,” Acosta said.

“I won't say I was going to beat Pecco and Martin, but to be honest with the pace we had and the gap I had – between, say, Pecco who was third and Marc at the back of the group. – let's say that in the worst case I am P3.”

This is obviously correct, because even just subtracting the time Acosta lost in the accident from his race time puts him roughly third, without accounting for the time lost in fighting his way through the bottom of the pack. .

And although Acosta was hesitant to suggest he could have won – indicating that doing so would be disrespectful to Bagnaia – he clearly didn't think it was a lost cause.

That was part of what bothered him so much about the accident. The other part was its uncertain origin.

“We had a problem with the front part of the bike, it's not very clear at the moment, it's difficult to say why,” explained Acosta, without providing any real details beyond the fact that it was not related to the tires.

“Again, the bike was a bike to get on the podium. For that, I'm pretty angry because I don't really like to trash a podium. But the bike was competitive as hell.”

In Gas Gas' post-race press release, no mention was made of a problem, and team manager Nico Goyon simply said “we know it's easy to crash here”.

Bagnaïa advantages

But by this point, Acosta had already done his job for Bagnaia – which is not just a superficial reading of the race, but something that Martin himself has also admitted as a likely explanation.

Martin wanted to lead, so pressure from Acosta forced the championship leader to increase the pace early after the two passed Bagnaia.

Martin's first lap in the lead was lap five, but his first lap in the 1:40 range rather than the 1:39 range was lap 11. In contrast, Bagnaia was heading into the 1:40 range from laps five to eight, slower than Martin on all laps. but one of their nine corresponding flying laps until Acosta fell.

But while Martin's pace then showed a linear decline, Bagnaia kept his in roughly the same range until he moved back up and overtook his rival.

“Maybe with Pedro behind I pushed a little too much,” Martin admitted during the MotoGP session. After the flag to show.

“Because I wanted to stay in the lead and he was very close.

“And when Pecco caught me, I had nothing else to fight with. I had one last shot with another one. [engine] card, but that was the end of my race. I destroyed the rear tire, and from then on I had no front or rear.”

“I just decided to stay as consistent as possible and not attack at the start like Martin and Pedro,” Bagnaia said on the same program.

“It was very difficult. When they overtook me, I just tried to do a lap pushing a little more, but I saw that for the tires it was a disaster.

“And after 10 laps, I started to see that my strategy was working. I was a little scared [to begin with]but it worked.”

How crucial was Acosta?

It's also fair to wonder, though, whether Martin using too much rubber to keep Acosta at bay wasn't just a different path to the more likely outcome.

If he had let Acosta pass – and therefore raced closer to Bagnaia at that point in the race – or if he had simply stayed behind Bagnaia at the start, it would have allowed him to save more tires but would have made him lose valuable track position. Martin's comments suggest that the expectation and intention was to lead the race, so the front tire pressures were probably set accordingly – and riding in traffic might have been untenable anyway.

But also, a tire-chewing race like this isn't really Martin's strong suit, historically. It’s Bagnaia’s. He seemed to have a slightly higher race pace than Martin for much of the weekend, particularly in the sprint, so he was always going to be favored in a mano a mano duel on Sunday.

Martin has his own tricks up his sleeve and, in the end, he still left Barcelona having scored more than Bagnaia, with his defeat in Sunday's duel a 10-point swing that should be pretty easy to digest.

“When I saw we had eight to nine seconds left [to third place], it didn't make sense to try to fight,” Martin said. “I could do it. I could crash. So it’s a better second position, 20 points.”

He is right. And he remains in a good position to win this year's championship because of it.