Pedro Acosta isn't winning. Pedro Acosta is too arrogant for what he's achieved in MotoGP. Pedro Acosta should do more to quieten the Ducati rumours. Pedro Acosta should be nicer to KTM.
Pedro Acosta is 55 points clear of the next-best KTM rider.
Much of the conversation around Acosta's 'disappointing' second season exists, it feels like, in a separate dimension to what has actually been happening on track.
Your mileage may vary on how he's handled himself with the media and towards KTM - "there's been a lot of fire around", he's admitted, and he acknowledged his "hard character" has not been making it easy on his crew.
But his biggest crimes on track this season have been a smattering of DNFs and the occasional defeat at the hands of Maverick Vinales, a year-11 veteran who is also very obviously one of the most naturally gifted riders on the grid.
Acosta's mentioned multiple times now since the arm pump surgery after Jerez that he's been the KTM rider putting up by far the most points, and while it sounded a bit defensive at first - and certainly sounded like he's aware of the criticism - it's just fact now.
Of the many problems KTM is facing in MotoGP right now, Acosta's performance is not one.
His team-mate's performance? That is one.
Points in 2025
Pedro Acosta - 124
Maverick Vinales - 69
Brad Binder - 68
Enea Bastianini - 49
Top-five finishes (sprints and GPs)
Pedro Acosta - 6
Maverick Vinales - 5
Enea Bastianini - 1
Brad Binder - 0
Average placement in The Race's rider rankings
Pedro Acosta - 8.4
Maverick Vinales - 8.8
Brad Binder - 13.3
Enea Bastianini - 15.3
Brad Binder, KTM's Mr Reliable between 2021 and 2024 with championship finishes of sixth, sixth, fourth and fifth, has just looked a bit wrong all year.
He hasn't always been the steady hand you want him to be but far more alarming is the fact the speed has not been there.
It doesn't really pop off on the results because Binder will often scratch and claw for those results, digging out a sixth here, a seventh there, moving up four-to-five places on the opening lap then hammering the brakes until those behind him give up on their hopes and dreams of overtaking him.
But he is starting from so far back every time, both in terms of pace and specifically in terms of grid position.
Acosta is now 32-0 against his team-mates in MotoGP in qualifying head-to-head. 20 of those 'wins' were against an out-of-sorts Augusto Fernandez at Tech3 last year, but now he's outqualified Binder 12 times in a row.
This says good things about Acosta, yes, but Vinales has proven this year the KTM talisman is not untouchable in qualifying. Yet for Binder, he has been.
In very Binder fashion, he has sought to keep the optimism up, at least in front of the media, through this ordeal. He's sounded a whole lot like Pecco Bagnaia over at Ducati: willing to hold his hands up on a bad day but insistent that slow and steady progress is happening behind the scenes.
"I think we're slowly starting to - even though it doesn't look like it - figure it out a bit," he said after a fairly dismal Czech Grand Prix, five years after he'd won the previous edition of that race.
"It hasn't been an easy start, for sure. However, I always enjoy the second half of the year much more."
Fact-checking that kind of statement almost feels like a personal insult but, because I can't help myself, Binder across his career has scored 31.1% of the available points in the first half of the season, and 31.2% of the available points in the second. If there is a trend there, it does not leap off the page.
Like Bagnaia, Binder has felt fundamentally hamstrung by changes to his bike between last season and this one. In the KTM's case, he feels like the bike has stopped tolerating the exact kind of riding that he's best at - it doesn't want to be hustled, it doesn't want him to slide the rear.
"I'm not a smooth rider, I'm not silky clean, silky smooth. I've tried to be like that, it doesn't work," he lamented earlier this season.
But the opposite doesn't work for the bike, not right now. As Binder put it, it's not "super important to brake in the grandstands, because if you kill the speed it doesn't come back".
"The thing is, it's really easy to upset the bike. And I feel like I'm upsetting the bike almost every corner. I am making my life a lot harder for myself, but it's difficult to know how to do it any other way."
He can still dig out solid results, but it feels like a hard cap has been placed on what's available to Binder even if he executes a clean weekend - or perhaps because of what he needs to do to execute this clean weekend.
Binder's laps spent in top four on Sunday
2020: 30
2021: 9
2022: 87
2023: 207
2024: 81
2025 (ongoing): 0
Two years ago, between Binder and the RC16 it felt like the RC16 wasn't pulling its weight. It feels like the opposite now - but KTM motorsport boss Pit Beirer didn't describe it in such terms when asked about Binder's situation by The Race in Germany.
"We are definitely not happy with the performance we are having together, Brad and ourselves," Beirer said.
"He struggles more [than others] to get this package to work - and that's now our job to give him confidence back. The class is so dynamic, every year the bike gets faster and faster and you also need to adapt your riding style.
"You do steps to the bike which are absolutely maybe not fitting to one rider. And that's what we're facing with Brad. He's just not getting the feeling he needs.
"We had nobody really happy and performing - through Maverick, we managed to get him happy and performing, then with that we could get Pedro there, also to find a way now to use the package, and he's super strong lately.
"We didn't give up on the other two boys. It's up to us to give them the tools to feel comfortable - in this class, without confidence you cannot compete. So we know clearly we need to give Brad a hand and he will bring us a step."
Of "the other two boys", Enea Bastianini - though he crashed in the end - produced a proper proof-of-concept weekend at Brno. But Binder's form book remains pretty dire.
Would KTM be ruthless in deciding his future, given Binder is maybe the most important rider in the MotoGP project's history? (Note - this is probably Pol Espargaro erasure but then Binder is at least a close second.)
The good thing is, neither him nor KTM will be finding out any time soon, because - even with its future looking a lot brighter than six months ago - KTM is in no position to make any 'ruthless' decision about its line-up, and probably has an upcoming losing battle on its hands in keeping hold of Acosta beyond 2026.
That should buy Binder time. But he will be 30 by the time MotoGP goes back racing later this month. If he's to achieve his premier-class ambitions, his next contract must be a winning contract. And on current form, that will not happen.
And there's real urgency for Binder to ensure his current form doesn't completely change perceptions and become simply the new norm in how MotoGP employers, either current or prospective, view him.
