{"id":234458,"date":"2025-10-23T07:19:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T07:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234458\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T07:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T07:19:06","slug":"francesco-bagnaia-sepang-test-data-could-help-understand-the-bikes-behaviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234458\/","title":{"rendered":"Francesco Bagnaia: Sepang test data could help \u201cunderstand the bike\u2019s behaviour\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/911999\/francesco-bagnaia\" data-entity-type=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Francesco Bagnaia<\/a> is hoping data from February\u2019s Sepang <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\" data-entity-type=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MotoGP<\/a> test might provide a further clue in understanding the behaviour of his Ducati GP25.<\/p>\n<p>Incredibly, Bagnaia hasn\u2019t scored a single point in the four races since soaring to a perfect double victory in Motegi, where his form was transformed after switching to some older GP24-parts at the Misano test.<\/p>\n<p>But while last weekend\u2019s Australian Grand Prix took place on the unique Phillip Island circuit, Sepang is a much more familiar venue, where Bagnaia took Grand Prix wins in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m leaving behind another difficult weekend, with two crashes between the Sprint and the race,\u201d said Bagnaia, who was 19th in the Phillip Island Sprint before crashing from twelfth in the grand prix.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m not satisfied, but I know that, at least for Sunday&#8217;s race, I did everything I could to stay with the group and recover positions.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s not an easy situation, but the whole team and I are doing everything we can to fully understand the bike&#8217;s behaviour and get back to being competitive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFurthermore, on this track, we have all the data from the early February test to be able to make a real comparison.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bagnaia was second fastest to Alex Marquez during February\u2019s Sepang test, when team-mate Marc Marquez was fifth.<\/p>\n<p>Gresini rider Alex is now on the verge of confirming second in the world championship, while Bagnaia is now eight points behind Aprilia&#8217;s Marco Bezzecchi in fourth.<\/p>\n<p>2025 world champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1654\/marc-marquez\" data-entity-type=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Marquez<\/a> will be missing his second event in a row due to shoulder injuries this weekend, and is again replaced by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/ducati-lenovo-team\" data-entity-type=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ducati <\/a>test rider Michele Pirro.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first race weekend was challenging: Phillip Island is tough, both physically and in terms of riding,\u201d he said. \u201cI hadn&#8217;t raced there since years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Sepang, however, I feel more comfortable; I&#8217;ve already ridden here with this bike, and we definitely have more reference points. We&#8217;re continuing to work and gather information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francesco Bagnaia is hoping data from February\u2019s Sepang MotoGP test might provide a further clue in understanding the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,17197,8456,7607,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-234458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ducati","11":"tag-ducati-lenovo-team","12":"tag-francesco-bagnaia","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}