Marco Bezzecchi
Francesco Bagnaia has revealed how his crash during practice at the Spanish Grand Prix ruined his chances of testing a new upgrade that Ducati had been planning over the break.
Ahead of the race weekend in Jerez, Bagnaia shared his optimism for a new upgrade that Ducati had brought to Spain in order to solve the woes he has been experiencing atop the 2026-spec GP26.
Francesco Bagnaia crashed just two minutes into practice at Jerez – Will his braking problems end before he joins Aprilia?
However, disaster struck after just two minutes had elapsed on the timing boards. The Ducati star crashed out at turn one and was forced to return to the pits and jump onto his spare machine.
Cameras around the circuit quickly cut to Ducati boss Davide Tardozzi with his head in his hands on the Bologna Bullets’ pit wall, with it largely remaining a mystery as to why Bagnaia’s rear tyre looked so jittery in the braking zone.
- READ MORE: Francesco Bagnaia has ‘completely changed’ his braking as the GP26 has his 2025 Ducati’s DNA
Francesco Bagnaia explains how he was trying something that ‘could have helped’ Ducati before crash
Following the fall of the chequered flag at the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday afternoon, Bagnaia gave his thoughts on his early crash in the final practice session of the day to the media inside the MotoGP paddock.
The Italian detailed how the off scuppered his chances of testing Ducati’s new upgrade, one that he had been optimistic about in the lead up to the race weekend.
He told journalists, via Motorsport Italia, “This afternoon we were trying a little thing that could have helped us a lot, but I crashed right away. Alex [Marquez] is going really fast using it, so we’ll try it again tomorrow.
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“It was definitely very important to be in the top ten, and in any case we’re very close all the way to second. Alex made a big difference.”
He was then asked to explain the crash from his perspective, to which he replied, “I wanted to go after Alex, because I thought he would help me.
“But at that moment he was taking things a little more step by step, while I immediately came in aggressively to get closer, and I had to brake a little more. At that point, the front closed up, but that can happen.”
All in all, the crash didn’t turn out to be too disastrous for the Italian rider. He still secured a slot in Q2 for tomorrow and will duke it out against his rivals for a spot on the front row of the grid.
- READ MORE: Francesco Bagnaia reckons he would win ‘without any problems’ if he had a Ducati GP24 in 2026
He added, “I was pretty calm today, because I knew I’d made a mistake. If you get nervous, you can’t get anything done.
“More than anything, on the bike we had left in the garage, we didn’t have the modification we wanted to try, but in terms of pace and feeling, we weren’t that bad. We managed to work and understand the direction a bit, so I think we’ll be fine tomorrow.”
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