{"id":234550,"date":"2025-10-23T08:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234550\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T08:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:13:07","slug":"valentino-rossi-makes-intriguing-claim-about-pecco-bagnaias-motogp-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/234550\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentino Rossi makes intriguing claim about Pecco Bagnaia\u2019s MotoGP struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi says Pecco Bagnaia has \u201cstruggled a bit alongside a fast team-mate like Marc Marquez\u201d in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The double world champion has just two victories to his credit from the first 19 rounds and offered no serious threat to Ducati team-mate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1654\/marc-marquez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Marquez<\/a> in the championship battle.<\/p>\n<p>Since the summer break, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/911999\/francesco-bagnaia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pecco Bagnaia<\/a>\u2019s form has dropped further, though there was a rebound at the Japanese Grand Prix when he won both the sprint and the main race.<\/p>\n<p>This is thought to have been due to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/ducati-lenovo-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ducati<\/a> reverting to some 2024 parts, particularly the rider height device, at the Misano test before the Motegi round.<\/p>\n<p>However, that hasn\u2019t provided a long-term fix, with Bagnaia pointless in the recent Australian and Indonesian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Sky News in Italy earlier this week, nine-time grand prix world champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1999\/valentino-rossi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Valentino Rossi<\/a> admits he still \u201cdoesn\u2019t understand\u201d why Bagnaia has struggled so much.<\/p>\n<p>However, he has suggested that being team-mate to Marquez has played a factor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPecco is a three-time world champion, including one in Moto2 with our team,\u201d he began.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s very fast, but unfortunately, this year he\u2019s struggling a bit. Over the last three years, he\u2019s always fought for the world championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe won two, while last year he lost it in the final race. He\u2019s proven his worth. This year, for a combination of reasons, he hasn\u2019t been very comfortable with the new Ducati.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s started to struggle a bit alongside a fast team-mate like Marquez.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going through a difficult time, and we\u2019re trying to help him 100%, trying to figure out how to resolve the situation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe still don\u2019t understand what happened either, but we\u2019re convinced that Pecco will get back to the front and fight for wins again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Claims Marquez form affecting Bagnaia contradict previous statements<\/p>\n<p>Marquez\u2019s arrival at the Ducati team as a key factor in destabilising Bagnaia in 2025 has been discussed a lot this year.<\/p>\n<p>But both Bagnaia and Ducati have refuted this at various points.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt first, I was a little worried,\u201d Bagnaia told Gazzetta dello Sport recently.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe always said he put sticks in the wheels even of his team-mates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead, it has surprised me. Experiencing him as a team-mate has been very positive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ducati sporting director Mauro Grassilli also told Crash at Misano: \u201cPecco was happy having Marc as a team-mate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, Pecco is really part of our strategy as Marc is part of our strategy.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, honestly speaking, I don\u2019t know [if Bagnaia has been mentally affected]. But our target is to have both riders in the right positions and we will help Pecco come back.\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":"MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi says Pecco Bagnaia has \u201cstruggled a bit alongside a fast team-mate like Marc Marquez\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,17197,7607,4280,806,805,803,804,85,20420],"class_list":{"0":"post-234550","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-francesco-bagnaia","12":"tag-marc-marquez","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-valentino-rossi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234550","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=234550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}