MotoGP Sprint Spielberg: Why Ducati Struggled and Acosta Lost the Win

• Jorge Martin wins after running eighth on the opening lap and leads the championship with 286 points ahead of Marc Marquez (283).
• Pedro Acosta crashes out of the lead three laps from the end after glancing at his dashboard and missing his braking point.
• Ducati riders blame a stiffer Michelin rear tyre carcass for their lack of pace.

The sprint at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, had several twists. First Marc Marquez pushed his title rival Jorge Martin wide at the chicane. Then Pedro Acosta pulled clear of the field on the KTM, only to crash shortly before the finish. In the end Martin stood on the top step. More revealing than the race itself were the explanations that followed: Acosta took full responsibility, KTM was left puzzled, Marquez defended his tactics, and at Ducati several riders pointed to the rear tyre as the reason for their missing speed.

How did Jorge Martin win the sprint at Spielberg?

Jorge Martin won the 14-lap sprint by one second from Marc Marquez after dropping as low as eighth place on the opening lap. Marco Bezzecchi completed the podium in third, around 0.6 seconds behind Marquez.

Martin had started from pole position and led into the first corner. On the exit, however, he ran wide and crossed the painted run-off area. Marquez seized the chance and outbraked him on the inside at the chicane. Martin lost a lot of momentum and several positions as a result. Marquez only held the lead for one corner, because Pedro Acosta slipped past at Turn 3.

While Acosta pulled away, Martin worked his way forward rider by rider. On lap eight he also passed Marquez at Turn 1, forcing his rival to take to the run-off area. Even so, Martin could not close the gap to Acosta. The decision came only on lap twelve, when the KTM rider crashed at the chicane. For Martin it was the 20th sprint win of his career.

Why did Pedro Acosta crash while leading?

Pedro Acosta missed his braking point at the chicane because he had glanced at his dashboard moments earlier to check the remaining laps and his fuel consumption. At that point he had been up to almost three seconds clear of Martin and looked set for his second sprint win.

The Spaniard took the blame entirely on himself after the race: “I was riding in a good mood, the pace was very good. I had just checked the remaining laps on the dash to see whether there was still enough fuel. And then I messed it up. That was it. I missed the braking point.”

That glance at the display was a deliberate decision. Acosta wanted to ease off in the closing stages and bring the race home safely: “Three laps to go, three seconds ahead. That is exactly the moment when I would normally back off a little so as not to take any more risk.” That was precisely when he lost concentration. Should he find himself in the same position in the grand prix, he says he will no longer back off.

Cutting through the chicane would not have been an option, according to Acosta. He was going so fast that he would barely have been able to make the corner even that way. After the crash he rode on for a while, but then parked the damaged KTM in the garage. He was outside the points, he was slow and would have had to bring the tyres back up to temperature, he explained. Taking any further risk was therefore unnecessary.

What do KTM and his rivals say about Acosta’s mistake?

KTM motorsport director Pit Beirer rejected the suggestion by TV pundit Stefan Bradl that Acosta had been distracted by a message on his display. “No, he would have told us straight away,” Beirer made clear. After the crash, Acosta had said little more than “sorry boys”. For KTM, going out at their home race hurt all the more: “It is bitter when that kind of performance is there, when you have match point and you do not convert it. That is really bitter.”

Sympathy came from KTM test rider Pol Espargaro, who is again standing in for Maverick Vinales at Tech3 this weekend: “At the speed Pedro is carrying this weekend, it is completely understandable that something like this happens.” Honda rider Luca Marini sees it in a similar way. He points out that Acosta was braking very late and that it was only a small error. The problem, he says, is the extremely high level in MotoGP, where a single centimetre too much is enough to cause a crash.

Marc Marquez also defended his future Ducati team-mate: “We are all riding at the limit and a mistake happens damned quickly. Pedro was leading, but he was also under pressure because we were pushing from behind. That is racing.”

How do Martin and Marquez rate their first-lap duel?

Both riders see the incident at the chicane as hard but normal racing. Martin has no complaints about Marquez, while Marquez describes his move as one he had planned well in advance.

Martin had been expecting the attack. “I knew he would try it, the way he always does,” he said. He braked extremely hard at the chicane to hold the position and was able to keep his line. On the change of direction, however, he almost crashed. That is exactly where he lost all those positions. For the grand prix he intends to be smarter about choosing where to overtake. The accounts of the first corner differ slightly: Martin says he got Turn 1 right. The race footage, however, shows him running wide on the exit, which is what left him vulnerable.

Marquez had deliberately decided against attacking at Turn 1, unlike in Aragon and Misano recently: “I had already thought that an attack at Turn 1 would not be a good idea. You can use the run-off area there, and I told myself: if I attack, they will go into the run-off area and it will all have been for nothing.” Using the green run-off area is permitted on the opening lap. Marquez paid the price for his move immediately. Because he had attacked at the chicane, he came out of it very slowly, braked too late for Turn 3 and lost the lead to Acosta.

Was Martin’s overtake a payback?

No, Martin denies that his hard move on lap eight was revenge. He says he had to be that decisive because otherwise Marquez would strike straight back.

“The thing is simply this: if you pass Marc like you would any other rider, he counters you straight away. So you have to brake the bike a bit harder and make sure you get a good exit,” Martin explained. He used the same technique on Alex Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi. Asked by Jorge Lorenzo whether anger about the first lap had driven him on, he waved it off. He had worked on his pace all weekend and completed a lot of long runs on his own. That is why, even from eighth place, he knew he could come through. He had not expected to catch Marquez, though. Lap after lap he realised he could brake late and carry a lot of corner speed.

Marquez did not fight back when Martin came. “In the laps before I could already see that he was 0.4 seconds behind me, then only 0.1 seconds. With seven laps still to run it would not have been very smart to defend hard,” he explained. His plan for the sprint was clear anyway. He wanted to finish directly behind Martin and, above all, to have no other rider between himself and his title rival. Originally he had even set himself a target of third place, because he had already seen in practice that Acosta and Martin were quicker. That is why he rated second place like a win in his interview.

Martin, for his part, openly admitted that the crash helped him: “Of course I had some luck with Pedro’s crash, otherwise I would have finished second.” Whether he could have beaten Acosta with a clean opening lap, he leaves open. Acosta had been extremely strong.

Why is Ducati slower than Aprilia and KTM at the Red Bull Ring?

According to the Ducati riders, their deficit comes down to a stiffer carcass on the Michelin rear tyre. The carcass is the load-bearing structure of the tyre. Michelin uses this construction on only a handful of circuits because of the higher loads involved, namely Buriram, Goiânia, Spielberg and Mandalika.

Marquez was the only Ducati rider on the podium. His brother Alex Marquez was the next-best Ducati in fifth. After two one-two finishes in a row at Aragon and Misano, the world champion was clearly lacking pace at Spielberg. Following Martin, he said, he lost a little bit everywhere. He puts the cause down entirely to the tyre: “The tyres work well, but we need to understand exactly how to get on better with this carcass. In Thailand every Ducati rider, myself included, suffered enormously. It is happening again here. So we have to keep working on it.” Very little had changed on the bike compared with the last races. Since the first free practice session, all the Ducatis have had more trouble than usual.

Alex Marquez describes the weekend with the word “suffering”. The feeling is similar to the season opener in Thailand, where the same tyres were used. The Aprilia puts the power down better on this carcass, he explains: “Our bike works better in stop-and-go sections, but for that we need more grip at the rear. They (the Aprilia) can carry more speed at the apex. They are also smoother on the throttle.”

What has Ducati changed on the bike?

Ducati worked on setup and aerodynamics ahead of the sprint. That helped, but it did not solve the underlying problem.

Alex Marquez reports that his team made a lot of changes before the sprint and even swapped the aerodynamics package. That is not normally done ahead of a sprint. It worked better, but not well enough, because the rear grip is still missing. He is pushing for a quick solution: “It would be good to find a solution, because we will have this tyre carcass in Indonesia as well.”

Francesco Bagnaia, who has been struggling badly of late, was noticeably happier after finishing sixth. Following 18th place in Friday’s time attack, his team tried a different setup on Saturday morning. “The changes to the setup brought an improvement. It was not the complete step, but today I was able to steer the bike into the corner better,” he said. He was able to brake better and use the rear wheel to help turn the bike. According to him, what was changed was something that had been tested before, this time implemented slightly differently. The idea came from a comment by Dani Pedrosa, who recommended simply riding more laps on the bike without constantly changing things. Bagnaia called that good advice. Because every Ducati rider is complaining about the same problem, he hopes a solution will be easier to find.

How does the MotoGP championship stand after the Spielberg sprint?

Jorge Martin leads the championship outright again with 286 points, three clear of Marc Marquez. Before the weekend the two were level on 274 points each, with Marquez ahead on count-back thanks to his greater number of wins.

Marco Bezzecchi remains third on 248 points and is now 38 behind Martin. The Italian openly admitted that third place was a gift: “I was not as fast as the top guys. In the end I got lucky with Pedro’s mistake, but I was in the right place at the right time.” For Acosta, the gap to the championship leader grew to 77 points. Before the weekend, Marquez had still insisted that Acosta was in the title fight. Asked whether Acosta’s crash had cost him more because it gave Martin an extra point, Marquez joked that it might turn out to matter in Valencia. For now, though, it is not about risking everything but about always being up at the front.

Behind the top three, Ai Ogura, Alex Marquez, Francesco Bagnaia, Johann Zarco, Fermin Aldeguer and Brad Binder scored points. Ogura came home fourth on his return from a motocross injury. By his own account he had expected something more like eleventh or twelfth. Zarco was the best Honda rider in seventh. Apart from Acosta, only Franco Morbidelli failed to finish, also crashing at the chicane.

Martin also gave the all-clear on his arm pump. The symptoms that had held him back at Misano are much better. He wants to decide on Sunday whether to have surgery, but it looks as though the operation can be avoided. To that end he is doing around two hours of physiotherapy and further treatment every day.

What awaits the riders in Sunday’s grand prix?

The Austrian Grand Prix starts on Sunday at 2 pm and runs over 28 laps, twice the sprint distance. Tyre management and fuel consumption are expected to play a far bigger role than in the sprint.

At the Red Bull Ring every manufacturer has to run a leaner fuel mixture. Acosta therefore expects a different picture from Saturday: “Austria is typically one of those tracks where the picture can flip completely from the sprint to the main race. Tyre management and fuel consumption will play a decisive role this year.” He does not intend to change his approach. He has nothing to lose and is consistently fast at the moment. For KTM it is the last chance of a home win with Acosta, who moves to Ducati alongside Marc Marquez in 2027.

Martin expects a determined opponent: “I think he will go all out tomorrow to take his first win, that much is certain.” Marquez compares the race to the one in Thailand. When the rear tyre drops off, the bike changes a lot. Alongside Acosta and Martin, he names Bezzecchi and Ogura as rivals with a similar pace to his own. Whether a medium rear tyre or setup changes will help, he wants to wait and see. Bagnaia was one of the few riders who deliberately ran the medium rear in the sprint already, in order to prepare for the longer distance. For the title fight in the 2026 MotoGP season, Spielberg is therefore an important test: for the second time after the season opener in Thailand, it is clear that the stiffer carcass shifts the balance of power in favour of Aprilia and KTM.

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