At Le Mans, Acosta showed his skill once more, leading the KTM team. He quickly moved up from seventh place to fifth at the start of the race. However, things went wrong for the 19-year-old when he lost control of his GasGas-branded RC16 bike at Turn 8 while trying to catch up to Aleix Espargaro and Fabio di Giannantonio, who were battling ahead.
Many people are calling this Acosta’s first big mistake of 2024. He had impressed everyone with his performances in the first four races of the year. Acosta’s failure to finish the race was a setback for KTM. The team also saw Jack Miller retire after crashing and Brad Binder only managed eighth place after starting from the back of the grid.
Despite the disappointment, Acosta believes that the RC16 bike performed exceptionally well at Circuit Bugatti last weekend. He said, “It was a good day. [It was] the first day in the whole season that the bike was really competitive to fight for something big.”
However, Acosta’s race ended abruptly when he tried to pass Di Giannantonio’s Ducati at Turn 8. Although he succeeded in overtaking him, he lost control of his bike and crashed out of the race. Acosta explained that he wanted to avoid hitting Espargaro ahead of him and disrupting the race for everyone. He tried to brake hard but ended up locking the front wheel and crashing.
He said, “At the end, I didn’t want to hit Aleix and destroy the race of all the guys. I tried to stop the bike and then I locked the front.”
