2024 Portuguese MotoGP

Halfway through Sunday’s Portimao GP, the race had turned into one of those ugly 800cc parades — a follow-my-leader procession, with no one able to get their teeth into the rider ahead.

Then Pedro Acosta arrived, gate-crashing a tedious cheese-and-wine party and transforming it into a banging rave. From, “Red or white? And what do you do into a living?” to “You can’t behave like that in public!”, “You can’t overtake there!” and “What the hell do you think you are doing – you need to treat your elders with more respect!”.

For the second race in a row the Spanish rookie was MotoGP’s saviour, dazzling fans with his supernatural skills aboard his RC16, just like Marc Márquez and Valentino Rossi dazzled when they arrived in the premier class – breaking all the rules of what you can and cannot do on a big GP bike.