Francesco Bagnaia’s poor MotoGP form doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon, as pressure mounts on his shoulders.
The two-time champion has failed to find a solution for Ducati’s GP25 bike this year, and may be regretting a pre-season decision to abandon a bike he won 11 races on last year.
Bagnaia is third in the standings, but there’s a risk that the ascending duo of Marco Bezzecchi and Pedro Acosta could overtake him before the end of the year.
In his current position, he’s set to finish lower than he ever has in the MotoGP championship for Ducati’s factory outfit, serving as a reminder of how difficult 2025 has been.
Bagnaia must ‘trust’ Ducati more if he wants to be able to beat teammate Marc Marquez. Under braking, he has been too weak.
After another difficult round in Hungary, Luigi Dall’Igna shared his ‘important’ verdict on Bagnaia. The team haven’t given up on him yet, but results must come soon.
READ MORE: Francesco Bagnaia insists he wants to ‘crush’ one Ducati rumour at the Hungarian Grand Prix
Photo by JURE MAKOVEC/AFP via Getty Images
The 28-year-old went through a bit of a tough time at Balaton Park. Bagnaia’s ‘main issue’ has just been exposed, but it might be a good thing.
He has eight more events this year to attack the root cause of his woes, and attempt to build some momentum heading into 2026. It will be a contract year for him.
Despite finishing a lowly ninth in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, The Race’s Simon Patterson says Bagnaia offered a happy verdict after the event.
“He got to his debrief and he was late. He was the last debrief, about an hour and a half after he was scheduled to turn up for it,” he said.
“Which is exactly what he did on Saturday and whenever he arrived on Saturday, he had like visibly been late because he had been shouting or screaming at someone or maybe not shouting and screaming, because that’s not Pecco. You could tell that the mood was not good.
“That there had been meetings and things were discussed, and everything was very serious. He called in dead last of the 21 scrums on Sunday afternoon. Popped himself up on the desk in the media centre and sung a little bit to himself while he waited on someone else to finish,” Patterson continued.
“Came over, popped himself down and was sunshine and rainbows, because he says they’ve fixed everything. They made changes to the bike between the disastrous qualifying and the awful sprint on Saturday, that he told us were measured in centimetres, not millimetres. That’s big changes on a MotoGP bike, that’s huge.”
READ MORE: Francesco Bagnaia causes a worrying realisation after the Ducati rider ‘blew it’ at Balaton Park
Why Francesco Bagnaia needs to find a solution to his Ducati problems urgently
Despite being happy after Hungary, Bagnaia has only completed a few sessions since making some radical changes. If they work on other tracks, he can begin to be happy.
The problem is that Ducati will ‘run out of patience’ waiting for him to rediscover the form which led him to two titles.
All the while Marquez is winning, it’s proving to them that their bike is more than capable of not just winning, but dominating, too.
Without a significant improvement in 2026, Ducati could opt against renewing Bagnaia’s deal. From there, somewhere like Yamaha might be his best option, forcing him to leave the team he wanted to retire with.