Marco Bezzecchi
Francesco Bagnaia has been deeply reflecting on his first half of the 2025 MotoGP season. The Italian is not enjoying the same success on this year’s Ducati compared to its predecessor.
The Desmosedici GP24 guided Bagnaia to 11 wins out of 20 races in 2024. However, stepping up to the GP25 this season, the two-time MotoGP champion has not been as comfortable.
He has constantly complained about the bike and a lack of feeling, particularly with the front and in braking. The GP25 has been a regression from the GP24, but Franco Morbidelli disagrees with Bagnaia’s complaints, having found no differences after testing the new engine.
Bagnaia’s results have not been terrible by any means, having claimed one win and seven podiums. However, he has been destroyed by the Marquez brothers, with Gresini rider Alex sitting second, 48 points ahead of him on last year’s GP24.
Ducati teammate Marc Marquez leads the championship by 120 points, having claimed eight Grand Prix wins and 11 Sprint victories. Bagnaia’s performances in comparison to the Spaniard have left the Borgo Panigale outfit scrambling to help improve his feeling on the 2025 machine
Francesco Bagnaia concludes that he does not suit Ducati’s 2025 bike after ‘thinking and thinking’ over the summer
Ducati have tried many changes to help Bagnaia, including using new brake discs. But while this has slightly improved his feeling, he has got no closer to Marquez.
Luigi Dall’Igna ’emphasised’ minimal differences between the GP24 and GP25 before the season, but it has not turned out that way for Bagnaia. Ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, he has concluded that the new bike does not suit his riding style.
“Thinking and thinking, I’ve come to the conclusion that this bike doesn’t suit my riding style, so I’ll have to find a way to work differently to give myself a little more feeling,” he said via Motorsport Italia.
Ultimately, the difficulties are the same as they were at the beginning of the year, even though we’ve changed a lot of things, so we need to find new solutions and work on them to try to get back to working well.
“I’ve watched a lot of past races in this period, from 2021 to this year, and I’ve seen that I’ve always ridden in one way, always being efficient and very fast. This year I see a different Pecco; you can see that I don’t have any confidence at all. We need to work on this to try to get back to riding well.”
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Francesco Bagnaia admits he has ‘no ideas’ left about how to adapt to the GP25
Bagnaia was visibly furious with Ducati before the summer break, having suffered an electronic issue at Brno. His dashboard wrongly told him that he had a tyre pressure issue, causing him to fall down the order after starting on pole.
He will need to keep his cool if he wants to salvage a strong end to the season. However, his problem is that he is out of ideas about how to adapt to the GP25.
He added: “I have no ideas, because in the end we’ve tried everything we had, but we need to change our approach and find other solutions.
“So tomorrow I’ll hit the track giving it my all as always and we’ll try to find other solutions with the two bikes. The first goal is to find my speed again, because then the results will come.
“But first and foremost, I need to feel comfortable on my bike and not fight with it. The problem, however, is that the DNA of this year’s Ducati has changed compared to the ones I knew from 2019.”
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