Who?
If you’re the kind of fan who supports one rider in MotoGP and that’s about the extent of your knowledge then you may have missed the new Moto3 Spanish sensation Pedro Acosta.
In his rookie season in Moto3 Pedro is already leading the championship having won five races – including a perplexing race at Doha when he sensationally won despite starting from the pitlane. Acosta has done all this despite a face that has been universally fact checked as being ‘quite punchable’.
What has he done?
After bursting onto the Moto3 scene some brilliant footage emerged of the 4 stone Italian riding motorcycles around his local Mercadona car park.
However not all of Acosta’s past is quite as positive as this week a worrying photo has emerged of Pedro seemingly flouting the decency laws by smiling whilst knowingly harbouring a criminal hairstyle. Not just a bad haircut, say like what Mick Doohan owned, but one that would offend an inbred southern American with an uneven number of toes who’d struggle to alphabetise a bag of M&Ms.
Hard to look at. The young Spaniard looks at ease with his lifestyle choice that also includes a t-shirt that could have been from the set of Weekend at Bernie’s
These kinds of photos can wreck a career and it’s known that Dorna are looking very carefully into the validity of the image before releasing any statements.
Should he be penalised?
Yes he should
Like it or not all riders are in the public spotlight. Acosta’s outrageous actions, whether he chose them or not, will always filter down to the younger generations. It’s just the way things are.
One minute a young Spaniard is seeing this photo and deeming it acceptable the next he’s selling illegal tapas on the street corner to fat men in suits. It’s a proven slippery, often greasy, slope down that afflicts too many infant bull-stabbers.
But crucially it’s worth remembering that Pedro leads the MotoGP championship by 42 points with just four races remaining. Just as we saw Bagnaia let off last weekend for jumping the start to allow the championship to be made artificially more exciting Acosta, as the championship leader, should be docked a few points to string things out a bit.
No he shouldn’t
In a time of drug-filled raves and harrowing shell suits we can all still remember Loris Capirossi’s overly offensive haircut of the 90s and the desolate shadow it cast over our sport. Understandably the Italian miniature hero was apologetic for his part in the scandal claiming he regretted his actions insisting he was young and foolish.
Luckily for Capirossi this atrocious haircut didn’t ultimately count against him when securing his role as MotoGP’s safety officer – nor did the time he purposely rammed off Tetsuya Harada to win the championship or the time he caused a monumental pile up at Catalunya.
The point is that surely it’s unfair to penalise Acosta for actions he did before becoming a rider? Sure not all Moto3 riders can be as clean cut as say Danny Kent but Pedro’s offensive haircut was long gone before he started racing.