Since the 2021 season, when he took his first MotoGP victory, no rider has won more races than Bagnaia\u2019s 30; for the past four years, he\u2019s either finished runner-up (2021, 2024) in the world championship, or won it (2022, 2023). He\u2019s been Ducati\u2019s shining light, its most prolific rider in a six-year span that has seen Ducati sweep the constructors\u2019 championship since 2020, and the hero Italian fans have craved since his mentor, Valentino Rossi, retired at the end of 2021. <\/p>\n
Season 2025, though, has been brutal. <\/p>\n
After last weekend\u2019s San Marino Grand Prix, Bagnaia has won just once \u2013 in Austin when Marquez crashed out of a commanding lead<\/a> \u2013 in 32 starts across sprint races and Grands Prix. He\u2019s trailed Alex Marquez \u2013 who is riding a 2024-spec Ducati for the satellite Gresini Ducati team \u2013 in the standings for the entire season, the gap between second and third in the standings now a seemingly insurmountable 93 points. <\/p>\n With six rounds remaining, Bagnaia has already been mathematically eliminated from championship contention, a predicament that would have been barely believable when the season began in Thailand in March.<\/p>\n What\u2019s worse for Bagnaia is that compatriot Marco Bezzecchi \u2013 a close friend who has also grown up as a Rossi prot\u00e9g\u00e9 \u2013 is on the march. <\/p>\n MORE MOTOGP NEWS<\/p>\n NEW YAMAHA BREAKS COVER<\/a> Miller\u2019s verdict, and why he holds key to Quartararo call<\/p>\n TALKING POINTS<\/a> Marquez\u2019s Messi moment, Aussie\u2019s costly act of kindness<\/p>\n In his first year with Aprilia after crossing from Ducati last off-season and after he managed just 38 points in the opening six rounds, the 26-year-old has flown ever since he won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone<\/a> in late May. <\/p>\n In the past 10 rounds, Bezzecchi has outscored Bagnaia by 74 points and taken nine podiums to four, and now trails his decorated countryman by only eight points in the championship standings. <\/p>\n Last weekend at Misano in Italy \u2013 where Bagnaia has been downright dominant in previous years \u2013 he qualified eighth and failed to score a single point, fading to 13th in the sprint race before crashing out of the Grand Prix nine laps in. <\/p>\n Bezzecchi, on the other hand, qualified on pole, won the sprint and gave Marquez everything he could handle in Sunday\u2019s Grand Prix<\/a>, finishing just 0.568secs behind the Spanish great after 27 tense laps. The Misano crowd had a new darling, Bezzecchi revelling in the expectation and feeding off the adulation. <\/p>\n What\u2019s gone so right for Bezzecchi, and why has Bagnaia sunk deeper even when it feels like he\u2019d already hit rock-bottom? <\/p>\n How are Ducati processing the rider who was their ace becoming increasingly irrelevant as Marquez sweeps all before him on the same bike? <\/p>\n And what role does Marquez himself play in the relationship with his completely lost teammate on one hand, and an ascendant rider now in another camp who he\u2019s had a poisonous relationship with in the recent past?<\/p>\n After 32 races in 2025, Bagnaia has won just once – in Texas when Marquez crashed out of the lead. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp \/ GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA \/ Getty Images via AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n FROM BAD TO WORSE FOR BROKEN BAGNAIA<\/p>\n The previous (and only) time Bagnaia hadn\u2019t scored a single point at an event before last weekend\u2019s home-race disaster at Misano? France in May, where a crash early in the sprint preceded being taken out by former Ducati teammate Enea Bastianini on lap one of the Grand Prix the next day, a rain-affected race stunningly won by home favourite Johann Zarco<\/a>. <\/p>\n Le Mans, though, is the data point of where things started to go wrong for Bagnaia, and much more right for Bezzecchi. Even after Bezzecchi won the following Grand Prix at Silverstone, Bagnaia\u2019s lead over his compatriot was still 55 points, more than an entire race weekend\u2019s worth of points. But it was the beginning of a trend.<\/p>\n From rounds 6-16, Bezzecchi \u2013 still adjusting to Aprilia after his first three MotoGP seasons were spent riding for Ducati \u2013 has outscored Bagnaia 191-117, and finished on nine podiums (sprints and Grands Prix) to Bagnaia\u2019s four. <\/p>\n MORE MOTOGP NEWS<\/p>\n MISANO RACE REPORT<\/a> Spaniard sets up match point for title with bounce-back win<\/p>\n NINE PENALTIES, 14 MONTHS<\/a> The expanding rap sheet of MotoGP\u2019s serial offender<\/p>\n In the past four rounds alone, Bezzecchi has 59 more points than Bagnaia, a number that would have been far greater were it not for the luckless Bezzecchi being taken out twice in 24 hours at the Catalan Grand Prix, skittled by rookie Fermin Aldeguer in the sprint (which earned Aldeguer a long-lap penalty) and then being shoved off by serial offender Franco Morbidelli<\/a> early in the Grand Prix the following day, Bezzecchi leaving Barcelona with his only zero-score round of the season. <\/p>\n As Marquez has thrived in the garage next door, Bagnaia has floundered. The late-braking mastery he showed on Ducati\u2019s GP24 machine last season has completely disappeared with the GP25, which Bagnaia can\u2019t \u2013 won\u2019t \u2013 push to its limits. <\/p>\n Regarded as a more cerebral rider than many of his contemporaries, Bagnaia simply can\u2019t get his head around what he\u2019s routinely described as a \u201clack of front feeling\u201d with the GP25, not trusting its ability to give him the fine touch he needs to ambush rivals on the brakes. <\/p>\n A lack of confidence what his bike is doing has acted as a mental block to simply accepting it isn\u2019t entirely to his liking and living with its limitations after last year\u2019s sweet-handling GP24 might have been the best bike of the modern era; Marquez, who never rode the GP24 after campaigning a year-old GP23 for Gresini last season, hasn\u2019t longed for what he never raced, as Bagnaia has seemed to be doing for most of 2025. <\/p>\n Misano, for so long a happy hunting ground for Bagnaia, was the lowest low point yet. <\/p>\n Eighth on the grid was his worst at Misano since 2020, but an improvement on the horrendous 21st the round previously in Barcelona, his worst qualifying result in over three years. Bagnaia drifted to 13th place in the sprint, dropping 16 seconds to winner Bezzecchi in just 13 laps, and then crashed out of a nondescript seventh place in the Grand Prix a day later. <\/p>\n The sprint non-score was one thing \u2013 he\u2019s scored just three points in the past five short-form races \u2013 but a DNF from a race place where he was making up the numbers at a track he\u2019s bossed for years was confronting. <\/p>\n \u201cMy patience is running out,\u201d Bagnaia said. <\/p>\n \u201cThis can\u2019t be happening. We have to look at the data and understand what\u2019s going on, someone has to explain it to me. I\u2019m living a nightmare.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult \u2026 my effort is enormous, my head is strong. I will not lose confidence in my potential and in my team. We will continue to work, and one day we will return. I hope it will be soon.\u201d<\/p>\n PIT TALK PODCAST: Michael and Matt delve into F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali\u2019s ideas to refresh the Formula 1 weekend format, including shorter grands prix, more sprints and reverse grid races.<\/p>\n Ducati\u2019s top brass, who have been publicly supportive of the rider who propelled their rise back to the top of the sport for the first time since Casey Stoner\u2019s 2007 world championship, sound increasingly exasperated. <\/p>\n \u201cThe situation is definitely delicate with \u2018Pecco\u2019 [Bagnaia], he\u2019s struggling,\u201d Ducati general manager Gigi Dall\u2019Igna told Sky Italy in Misano. <\/p>\n \u201cAs I\u2019ve said many times before, we\u2019ll have to find a way out. I\u2019ve lost patience too, as have Pecco\u2019s fans. I think it\u2019s normal to say these things when the results aren\u2019t coming.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs we\u2019ve said several times, we won\u2019t give up, he won\u2019t give up, we\u2019ll find the right balance sooner or later,\u201d Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi added, per motosprint.it.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he\u2019s shown over the last seven years is something important. It\u2019s true that we\u2019re in a really difficult moment, but we\u2019re sure that with the talent he has and the bike he has, we\u2019ll get through it. There are long steps forward, and we must not take them all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n Even Marquez, the newcomer into \u2018Bagnaia\u2019s team\u2019 who has quickly made it his own, expressed some level of sympathy to his teammate\u2019s plight. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first time in his career that he\u2019s been in this situation, but he has enough talent to come out of it, to come out of this hole,\u201d Marquez said. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not the person to give advice to \u2018Pecco\u2019, because he has his team and his people around him. They have a lot of experience here and they will help him, but I want the best for Ducati, and for Ducati we need both riders there on the top, fighting for the top positions. It will be better to develop the bike for the future.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to beat everyone, but I don\u2019t want to see someone suffering like \u2018Pecco\u2019 right now. It\u2019s something that is not easy for the riders, when you are in a difficult moment.\u201d<\/p>\n On-track fights between Marquez and Bagnaia have been few and far between in 2025. (Photo by Tiziana FABI \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n BEZZECCHI\u2019S RISE, AND A ROCKY RELATIONSHIP REPAIRED<\/p>\n As Bagnaia has wilted, his good friend, compatriot and fellow Rossi brethren Bezzecchi has thrived. Unexpectedly, he\u2019s now become the Italian rider Marquez has grown most wary of, much as a rider who has won as much as the 32-year-old has this season needs to be wary of anyone.<\/p>\n While winning the Grand Prix at a windswept Silverstone was where his so-so start to life at Aprilia began to turn around, the seeds of that surge first sprouted in the British Grand Prix sprint race 24 hours earlier, Bezzecchi tearing through the field from 11th on the grid to fourth and just six-tenths of a second from the podium in only 10 laps. <\/p>\n Alex Marquez breaks Marc’s winning run | 00:59<\/p>\n It was the beginning of a trend at a time of turmoil for Aprilia, the factory desperate for good news after star off-season signing Jorge Martin competed in just one of the opening 12 rounds of the season after litany of injuries, his rehab coinciding with an ugly dispute with his new team after he tried to use a contract clause to trigger his exit<\/a>. <\/p>\n Bezzecchi, for the first time in his career, was pushed into a position of responsibility and was forced to lead the team on track, and provide a development direction off it with Martin sidelined and trying to leave. <\/p>\n Aprilia\u2019s CEO Massimo Rivola backed his rider and made it clear how much his input was being valued, his commitment appreciated. Bezzecchi grew demonstrably, a development that may have never come to light had Martin been racing and \u2013 understandably \u2013 setting the tone for the team as the reigning world champion. <\/p>\n After his near-perfect Misano weekend \u2013 only a mistake-free Marquez denied him a perfect 37-point haul of points at home \u2013 Bezzecchi was asked if his 76th premier-class start was his best yet. <\/p>\n \u201cThe [Silverstone] win obviously has a different taste, but in terms of overall performance and the mood of the weekend, it\u2019s one of the best,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cNot the best, because when you win it\u2019s much better, but one of the best anyway. Physically it was a tough race because this track is one of the toughest, and when you have such good grip conditions you can push all the race, all the laps for 27 laps is demanding. My legs were not live anymore \u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n Bezzecchi gave as good as he got in his race-long battle with Marquez at Misano. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757873113_439_poster-fallback.png\"\/)
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