Mat Oxley thinks he knows the real reason Francesco Bagnaia has lost his way at Ducati in 2025

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Francesco Bagnaia is running out of solutions for his poor performance with Ducati during the 2025 MotoGP season.

The Italian rider desperately needs to find something if he wants to stand a chance of competing with teammate Marc Marquez in the future.

Otherwise, the six-time champion will have arrived at Ducati and managed to make him look a little silly in a short period of time.

Setup-wise, Bagnaia has tried just about everything in the book with his engineers. The only possible explanation can be a difference that lies somewhere between the GP24 and GP25 bikes.

After suffering at the Czech Grand Prix, Bagnaia was visibly furious with Ducati, and, understandably, his patience is starting to wear thin.

Bagnaia doesn’t think Ducati will fix a critical issue, leaving him to wait until the winter to find a fix for his woes. The next 10 events could be quite tough for him.

READ MORE: ‘Frustrated’ Francesco Bagnaia ‘didn’t expect’ one MotoGP rival to fly past him in Czech Sprint, claims Carlos Checa

Mat Oxley blames engine crank casing for Francesco Bagnaia’s Ducati downfall in 2025

Bagnaia may have realised his reality against Marquez, but it won’t make accepting his fate any easier as the season drags on.

He’s currently on the longest run without a victory since he claimed his first for Ducati back in 2021. It would have been even longer without his teammate’s mistake at COTA.

However, Mat Oxley has offered an explanation for his lack of pace so far, and points to one specific area of the GP25 which changed over the winter.

“For next year, there’s all these rumours about him going to Yamaha or Pramac or whatever or whoever else. Maybe he will,” he said. “I’m not good on the contract rumour thing, it doesn’t really excite me, because it’s all b——- until somebody has actually signed, it’s all nonsense.

“If I was Bagnaia, I would stay where I am because next year, they will be able to change, they will be able to go back to, like I say, I don’t know what it can be, but for Bagnaia not to be able to go back to where he was last year, to me, it has to be the engine crank casing.”

READ MORE: Why Ducati insiders now think Francesco Bagnaia is ‘no match’ for Marc Marquez this season, ‘massive differences…’

Why Francesco Bagnaia will be under pressure to perform for Ducati in 2026

Judging by his complaints with the bike this season, if everything is addressed over the winter and Bagnaia is able to close the gap to Marquez, he will be under some considerable pressure.

For the first time in a year and a half, he would be capable of fighting for victories every week, and without much wheel-to-wheel racing practice, he will have to beat his teammate.

It’s a contract year too, which means that Ducati may snub him for the new regulations in 2027 if they don’t like what they see from him.

Effectively, he has to work hard to earn a new deal, or risk having to look for a ride at a team with many unknowns.

Davide Tardozzi’s worrying assessment of Bagnaia in Germany summed his season up. Nobody quite knows why he lacks pace, but an answer needs to come soon.