Faulty dashboard ruins Bagnaia's sprint

With five laps to go, Marc Márquez, on the other factory Ducati, let Pedro Acosta's KTM pass to allow his front tire to reinflate. A lap earlier, Pecco Bagnaia was seen doing the same, even though he wasn't leading and was therefore behind other competitors. The Italian confirmed that the same problem as Márquez was affecting him, with his dashboard indicating that his front tire was below the minimum required pressure.

"It's strange to say, but I'm happy with my day.", he explained to the official website of the MotoGP. "For the first time, I was able to fight for pole position and I got it. In the race, I followed Marc and for the first time I was able to understand certain things, which was important. Unfortunately, I had an alert on my dashboard, telling me that I was below the minimum pressure in the front tire."

But despite several laps in the direct wake of his rivals, there was no way to increase the sacrosanct pressure of the front Michelin tire of the #25 Ducati Desmosedici GP63. Arriving at the garage after finishing seventh in the Sprint, the Turin native was certain he wouldn't be able to keep the three points that went with it, since the penalty was inevitable. That was without counting on a new bit of bad luck in a 2025 season where, clearly, nothing is going right...

“I tried to let other riders pass, but the message wouldn't go through. I was sure I'd get a penalty, and when I got back to the pits, I saw I wasn't under investigation. I thought it was strange, and looking at the data we realized I was above the minimum pressure on the second lap. It's surprising to have these kinds of problems, but I've had electronic issues before the start. Maybe something wasn't set correctly. I shouldn't have let the riders pass because my tire pressure was good, but I did it because the bike was telling me it wasn't.”

Keeping up with Marquez

Despite this stroke of bad luck, Bagnaia believes he should be able to compete on par with his teammate in Sunday afternoon's Grand Prix (14 p.m.). At least in the first half of the race, with the pace in the second half being determined by tire wear, an area in which the Italian has not been at his best this season.

"I think I'll be able to hold on for the first ten or fifteen laps, but after that we'll have to see, because he manages the tires very well. I was competitive going into corners but I'm losing a bit on acceleration because he manages to turn the bike better. I was trying to keep up with him, but I lost my concentration when the problems occurred. Sunday will be different, I'll have to control the rear tire well and we'll see."