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Having left behind the difficulties of Qatar, Jack Miller had a solid weekend on the Portimão circuit, finishing 5th in both the Grand Prix and the Sprint Race. It was a good performance, and the Australian rider secured his first championship points with it. But he was overshadowed by another splendid performance: that of rookie Pedro Acosta.
With a great comeback from a 7th place on the grid, the 19-year-old Spanish rider went on to conquer his first podium in the MotoGP without any reverential fear of Francesco Bagnaia, Marc Marquez, and of the two official KTM riders, who both finished behind the Red Bull GasGas Tech3 team's RC16 #31.
"I didn't really have a chance against him," Jack admitted at the end of the race, as was reported by our colleagues at Motorsport.com. "Pedro rode fantastic. Once he got past Brad, he kind of just put the hammer down. Brad and I both had our tongues hanging out trying to chase him down, but we couldn't do anything about it. He looked good on the bike."
What struck Miller wasn't only Acosta's ease in riding but also the unique style of the reigning Moto2 champion.
"He's not really on the bike. He's often out with his body a lot. These guys are touching everything on the ground. It looked like his head was about to touch the ground at some point. The style is impressive, especially when you look behind. I can only wish to ride like that. I'm a little less stylish, maybe," Jack noted. "He's riding well. He can put the bike where he wants to. That's a positive thing."
Although the KTM rider has steadily modified his riding style over the years, he's convinced that he still has a lot to learn and is ready to learn as much as possible from the newcomer.
"We've improved this KTM an incredible amount in the last 12 months. He's taking full advantage of it. Now we need to use him as a target and try to understand what he's doing differently and learn from him. I'm twenty-nine, but I'm still learning in every race," he said. "If you look at my style back in 2016, to what it is now, my style has changed quite a lot. But, obviously, not enough. I need to keep working on it. I'll go back and do some more pilates."
