In the sprint race he gave as good as he got, coming through from 13th to eighth, despite making plenty of mistakes along the way, which was to be expected from a teenager contesting his first race in the midst of a pack of 220mph motorcycles, ridden by the world’s fiercest riders.

“Racing was a real question mark – everything was new, so I arrived at the first corner looking everywhere to see what people were doing!

“The sprint is a completely different mentality. You don’t have to think about the fuel, you don’t think about the tyres, you don’t think about anything – you just put your balls on and go!”

And he did exactly the same – but more so – in Sunday’s full-length GP. Like Rossi and Márquez before him, he’s super-bright, so he learns super-fast. Everything he learned on Saturday he used on Sunday.

“In 21 laps I only made one or two mistakes – yesterday I made many more mistakes in 11 laps.”

But Acosta knows there’s still a long, long way to go. “They say that you go 80% of the way with 20% of the effort, then you make the last 20% with 80% of the effort. That’s where we are, more or less.”

Incredibly Acosta was the fastest rider in the GP, setting the best lap on lap two. True, this was because he started all guns blazing, without thinking about looking after his tyres. The last riders to ride the fastest lap in their MotoGP debuts – without crashing out – were Márquez and Fabio Quartararo.

And anyway Acosta enjoyed smoking his rear Michelin, because he knows the fans love that kind of thing.

“I know my management of the tyre wasn’t the best – I was completely smoking out, but this was nice for the TV! We cannot be so serious! And we need to be happy to make these mistakes, because now we have more information to be more ready for Portimao (the weekend after next).”

What Acosta really enjoyed was being back on a fully prototype grand prix motorcycle for the first time since 2021. Moto2 bikes use street engines, so they don’t have the rigidity of a real GP bike.

“The feeling with the front tyre was super-nice. I’ve not been able to attack like that since I was in Moto3. You saw how much speed I was able to carry and then stop the bike in the last moment. That was completely amazing!”

And a completely amazing worry for his rivals too!

During the first few laps he dived past several riders to get himself into the lead group, right with Binder and the elder Márquez. Then the big moment of his race, getting ahead of the eight-time world champion, if only for a couple of laps.

“He braked later than me, so it was: ‘No, no, no, okay, now inside!’ It was super-nice to share a track with him and super-nice to have this small battle with him. For this, we need to be more than happy.

“I learned a lot of things. I saw what mentality they use. They were super-smooth, doing no crazy things, not burning their tyres, just waiting for the end, but they were riding fast. Maybe I burned my tyres too much in the beginning, so I didn’t have the pace to go with them to the end.”

Riders are usually more free when speaking their own language and this was certainly the case with Acosta when he spoke to the Spanish media about starting his first full MotoGP race at a fast pace, then fading.

“It’s like losing your virginity,” he told them. “Everything seems to be going well and then you screw up.”

Acosta’s MotoGP debut won’t be remembered for his ninth-place finish, it will be remembered for him slicing his way into the lead pack, with no bumping or barging – a golden, shining star of the future.

There was no bumping or barging at the front, either.

The first race of the 76th grand prix season was tense as hell but there were no great battles. Why? Aero and tyres, of course. Plus the fact that everyone had done two days of testing at the track two weeks earlier, so there were no shocks or surprises.

Pecco Bagnaia was at his precision best. His crew had set his front-tyre pressure to lead the race in clean air, so he knew he had to get to the front immediately, or have the tyre go over-pressure and lose grip.

The world champion’s race may not have been box-office entertainment, but his first few corners certainly were: from the second row into third place at the first corner, then past Brad Binder, with millimetres to spare, at Turns 2 and 3, then diving past Martin at Turn Four. Job done.

Bagnaia’s super-smooth riding belies his aggression and bravery. As Alex Baumgartel, who designed Bagnaia’s Moto2 title-winning Kalex chassis, says, “Pecco doesn’t look brave, but he is f**king brave.”

From there Bagnaia controlled the race perfectly, as usual making his speed in corner entry, so he didn’t need to overstress his rear Michelin on the corner exits.

“The potential was to go faster, the bike was able to do that, but that wouldn’t have been useful because laps like that could compromise everything,” he said. “I tried to be as consistent as possible. When I saw Brad gain two or three tenths, I dropped a few tenths to open the gap.”

Bagnaia had played his usual tactic, using the sprint as a dry run for the big race, learning how to better use the rear tyre to avoid the chatter that haunted several riders at this super grippy track.

Sprint winner Martin and sprint runner-up Binder had a tussle for several laps until Binder gained the upper hand, just. Then Martin found himself in that place where no rider wants to be: trying to attack Binder, while at the same time trying to defend from Márquez. Using lines that will help you attack opens you to attack, so it’s a tricky balancing act.

However, all three suffered from MotoGP’s yoyo effect. You work like hell to catch the rider in front, then when you’re right behind him, sizing up an attack, your front tyre increases in temperature and pressure, reducing grip, so you have to drop back to cool the tyre in cooler air, then go again and go through the whole rigmarole once more. It’s tiresome for the riders and tiresome for the fans.

Binder’s KTM was a rocket ship on Lusail’s 0.66 mile (1km) start/finish. Once the bikes reached sixth gear he could easily get alongside Martin’s Ducati, allowing him to get past into Turn 1.

The KTM’s speed proves that engine designer Kurt Trieb, KTM and Red Bull Advance Technologies (who design Red Bull’s F1’s aero) have done a great job. The RC16 now features huge Ducati-style ground-effect diffusers at the bottom of the fairing, but the upper section is slimmer, so they seem to have got the drag/downforce equation right.

Fastest bike of the race was Acosta’s KTM, at 356.2km/h (221.2mph). Fifth-placed Enea Bastianini had the fastest Ducati at 256km/h (221.1mph), Aleix Espargaró the best Aprilia at 355.5km/h (220.3mph), Joan Mir the quickest Honda at 353.7km/h (219.7mph) and Fabio Quartararo the fastest Yamaha at 352.2km/h (218.7mph). in other words, nothing has changed in the top-speed stakes.

Binder was both delighted and frustrated with his two second places behind two different Ducatis.

“Same as last year we are super-close, but we haven’t shown we can do it yet,” said the former Moto3 champ who won KTM’s last MotoGP race in 2021. “I feel I’m pushing at 100% all the time and they have a couple of percent in the pocket when they want to use it. I’m waiting for that last little bit of help and then we try again.”

While Bagnaia and Binder managed their tyres perfectly, Martin looked after his too well and his failure to go 100% on the first lap cost him dear.

“Without Pecco’s overtake it would’ve been a different race,” he said. “I made this mistake – hopefully next time I’ll be cleverer.

“With two laps to go I took a lot of risks to make the gap on Marc and I was thinking about a move on Brad, but it was too much. Anyway, this is the best start of my career in MotoGP, because I usually start the season really, really bad. We just need to grow – I couldn’t ride 100% because I was still struggling with the bike.”

Márquez’s super-hyped first Ducati outing went well. He didn’t make the podium, but he was close. His issue is that he is still trying to leave his Honda habits behind, which he can do when he’s riding alone, focusing on doing what the Ducati wants him to do, but as soon as he’s in a battle the adrenaline kicks in and he reverts to old habits, which only slow him down.

“A solid race, but I need to improve my riding style because I’m still not riding well,” said the former Honda rider who ran out of front tyre in the last few laps.

After the sprint, Márquez had predicted Espargaró would win the GP. The Spanish veteran was crazy-fast in the later stages of the shorter race, suggesting that he and his Aprilia RS-GP were saving their tyres the best.

“In the first five laps everyone was using a lot of torque and I couldn’t catch them, but when the tyre grip dropped they dropped a lot and I maintained my pace,” said the 34-year-old after the sprint.

The RS-GP’s downforce and ground-effect aero is at its best on fast, smooth corners, like the super-quick trio of rights towards the end of the Lusail lap.

“The Aprilia at the apex of the corner is unbelievable, like F1! The speed I could carry through Turns 12, 13 and 14 was crazy. Our weak point is the engine.”

Sunday should’ve been a dream for Espargaró, who started from the front row between Martin and Bastianini. Instead it was a nightmare.

“From the warm-up lap my rear tyre was like ice. It was a nightmare, embarrassing. I was very angry all race and I was lucky to finish in the top ten.”

And what of Honda and Yamaha? Paddock cynics now call their race the Japanese championship. For what it’s worth, Quartararo won that race, in 11th, just ahead of LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco and Repsol Honda’s Joan Mir, all of them lapping around eighth-tenths slower than the winner.

“We have improved but we are further behind than ever,” said Quartararo.

This was the fourth time since Germany last year that no Japanese machines finished in the top ten. The last time that happened before the 2023 German GP was in 1969.