At the age of 16, Pedro Acosta took the Moto3 World Championship by storm when he won the 2021 Doha Grand Prix after a pitlane start. The Spanish phenom continued to dominate the first half of the Moto3 season before securing the title at just 17 years old.
The hype surrounding the young Red Bull KTM Ajo rider reached a fever pitch following the 2022 Moto2 pre-season tests. However, Acosta stumbled out of the blocks, only recording three point-scoring finishes in the first eight races.
Number 51 turned his season around at the Italian Grand Prix, though, becoming the youngest rider to win a Moto2 race at just 18 years and 4 days. We followed up that record-breaking performance with a top-six finish at the Catalan GP and as runner-up at the German GP.
Just when Acosta found his form, however, the Moto2 rookie hit a new snag when he crashed his motocross bike while training on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. The reigning Moto3 champ will undergo surgery on his broken left femur today, June 22, 2022, and miss this week’s Assen TT round on June 24-26, 2022.
There is a silver lining, though. The Dutch round marks the end of the first half of the 2022 MotoGP season. Riders will enjoy a five-week summer holiday following the race, which Acosta will use to nurse his injuries before the latter half of the year. Even with those extra weeks of recovery, the rider’s team hasn’t released a timetable for Acosta’s return.
Number 51 currently sits at 8th place in the Moto2 rider’s championship standings with 75 points. Missing the Dutch TT won’t get Acosta any closer to current title leader Celestino Vietti has 133 points, but the incident will go down as another learning experience in the rider’s rollercoaster rookie season.
