Brilliant Brno. Red Bull KTM had cause to plant another MotoGP milestone at the Grand Prix of Czechia with Pedro Acosta racing to 3rd place in front of 95,700 fans wedged into the famous Automotodrom. The result marks the first GP podium for the KTM RC16 in 2025. The Spaniard followed up his P2 in the Saturday Sprint at the twelfth meeting of the season with a strong blast to P3 on Sunday. Meanwhile, the KTM GP Academy made it to the top of the Moto3 rostrum once more thanks to Jose Antonio Rueda’s seventh win of the year with the Red Bull KTM Ajo KTM RC4.
The sun shone on a resurrected Automotodrom Brno as both MotoGP and the crowds returned for the first time in five years. In 2020 the world championship rounded the 5.4km layout and Brad Binder flew to KTM’s very first premier class victory. Expectations were lofty after a bright Saturday in 2025 where Pedro Acosta led the Sprint and classified P2 by less than a second and Enea Bastianini surged to P3: Red Bull KTM’s maiden Prosecco bottles this term.
Sunday’s Grand Prix lasted for 21 laps. Acosta started from P7 on the grid, Bastianini in P11 and Pol Espargaro and Brad Binder had work to do from P14 and P19 respectively. Acosta and Bastianini swung into action near the front of the field. Pedro hunted the rear wheel of Marco Bezzecchi for P2 for long stages and then had to defend 3rd place in the final two laps with tire wear increasing. Enea’s charge to P4 was short-lived as he lost control entering Turn 3 on lap seven and went into the gravel. Despite the DNF, the Italian emerged unharmed and encouraged by his most competitive weekend of the season to-date.
Further back Binder and Espargaro both rode brightly and proactively to log 8th and 9th positions.
In the wake of two double headers in five weeks, MotoGP will now break for a summer hiatus. Round 13 will take place at the Red Bull Ring for the Grand Prix of Austria and home turf for the Red Bull KTM crews on August 15-17.
Pedro Acosta, 3rd and 7th in the championship standings:“The last time I was on the podium was in Thailand last year and it’s been a long journey to come back here. I want to thank all my orange crew: it was not easy for them, also to handle me when we had tough moments! We’ll keep going. We’ll have a break now and try for more at Red Bull Ring.”
Brad Binder, 9th and 12th in the championship standings: “I managed to get from 19th to 8th in the end so, yeah, I still never had the pace I was looking for but somehow we were a little better today. I found a way to be better in mid-corner and exit but I was losing a lot of time in braking and entry. This is something we have to work on and find the combination, if we can do that then it can be very positive. We tried something completely different with the bike, a little bit with the engine character and it helped a bit with the edge grip and the drive. It just seemed to be a more controllable in my hand, so I was really happy about that and by no means am I happy with 8th position but – even though it doesn’t look like it – we are slowly starting to figure it out. The really good thing is that both Pedro and Enea were super-fast this weekend so I have some good things to check and figure out how they are doing it.”
