Diggia-Acosta rivalry continues in Catalunya: 'If you want it again, let's play on track'

18:30, 14 May

Andrew McLarney is a MotoGP reporter for GPBlog. With four years experience as a professional writer across the sports and video game industries, his experience as a K1 Premier League competitor evolved into a fascination with all forms of combat sport and eventually motorsport — with MotoGP becoming his primary focus. On top of that he is also an avid follower of MXGP and AMA Supercross as well as F1 and GT racing.

VR46's Fabio Di Giannantonio appears to be looking forward to continuing his rivalry with KTM's Pedro Acosta in Catalonia, while the young Spaniard was less impressed with what happened between the pair in Le Mans.

Acosta and Di Giannantonio are currently battling for third in the championship and are separated by just a single point heading to Barcelona. Diggia currently holds the advantage over Acosta, but 'The Shark' took it personally when he was passed in what he pervieved to be a disrespectful manner on the final lap of the French Grand Prix last weekend. After the race, he vowed to get payback on Diggia in Catalonia, saying "I’ll remember it for the next race. No one passes me while staring."

While the pair do share a mutual respect for one another, they definitely have a different attitude heading into this weekend's race. While Acosta had a more serious expression and tried to dismiss the incident, Diggia seemed to enjoy the battle and revel in pushing Pedro's buttons.

When asked about the incident ahead of this weekend's race in Barcelona, Acosta was keen to move on from the incident:

"I'm not thinking anymore about this," He said, "It's not clever to discuss it when we were fighting for fourth position, you know? It's not where I want to be fighting."

However, Diggia had a more playful attitude towards the battle: "If you want to do that again, okay, let's play on track. For me, it's not a problem. For sure I respect him as a rider. He's a great, great rider, super talented, but for me he's just like another one [on track]. For sure I would do it [to anyone] to try to keep position. It was a great move for the last lap, last corner, and also for the championship at this time. And then I just tried to see if he was gonna catch me back. Then the whole story... It's fun, it's racing. Actually, I'm enjoying these kinds of things."

When asked about his personal feelings toward Diggia, "We have a professional relationship, let's say." said Acosta bluntly.

However the VR46 rider was a bit more complementary of his Spanish opponent: "I respect him a lot as a rider, he's doing great things since he joined MotoGP but also in Moto2 and Moto3, so he's a great rider for sure."

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Diggia-Acosta rivalry continues in Catalunya: 'If you want it again, let's play on track'

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