Bagnaia still waiting for a miracle on his GP25

It's no secret that two-time world champion Francesco Bagnaia is having an extremely difficult 2025 season, compared to his teammate Marc Márquez, who is leading the world championship after another victory this year in the Sprint of the Aragon Grand Prix. While the Spaniard was busy celebrating another success, the Italian was lamenting another missed opportunity and a twelfth-place finish.

After having lost 14 seconds in only eleven laps of the race, the number 63 once again appeared disillusioned on the official website of the MotoGP. Confidence issues with the front end of his machine have still not gone away, even though he has already passed the quarter-season mark. While he is 84 points behind Márquez, Francesco Bagnaia knows that his chances of winning a third MotoGP world championship are diminishing by the week.

However, after a complicated start to the weekend, the protégé of Valentino Rossi managed to get his machine onto the second row of the grid, in fourth position. From the first laps, however, it became clear that Bagnaia was not going to stay so high up the rankings, despite his best efforts.

“I knew the Sprint could be difficult today because I struggled in the morning to be competitive. Other drivers were much faster than me, so I just tried to give my best. In qualifying I was lucky to finish fourth, but in the race I really struggled. When I was behind other drivers, my front-end feeling, which is already not good at the moment, was even worse. I was trying to hold my position but I started to have problems, I went wide at Turn 7, lost four places, and that’s it.”

Bagnaia and Ducati running out of solutions?

Bad sensations with the front of his bike is a refrain that Francesco Bagnaia has unfortunately repeated a lot since the season kicked off in Thailand last March. However, while he seemed to have found the beginnings of a solution before the French Grand Prix, the Turin-born driver has since sunk into a downward spiral, from which he has been unable to escape. Worse still, despite his work and that of his engineers, no solution to his problems seems to be emerging.

“It’s really the lack of feeling at the front that’s holding me back right now. We’re trying to work as best we can to resolve this issue with the team. It’s difficult because I’m struggling a lot, but we also know that it’s the little details that can make a big difference. We’re continuing to look for what’s needed. We’re really trying everything, and nothing’s making a difference so far. We’re waiting to find a little detail that could resolve my issues. It’s difficult because if you look at Márquez, he’s very strong. He’s handling this situation much better. For my part, I’m struggling because I can’t carry speed into the corners, I go wide everywhere, the front tire locks up and then understeers, it’s difficult.”

The Grand Prix warm-up this Sunday will be another opportunity to test some setup options, and hopefully using a harder rear tyre in the race will also help: "On Sunday morning we'll try some new things, hopefully it will help me improve my feeling on the front, because that's the main problem. We'll see, a longer race means we'll have to control the tires even more, put a medium tire on the rear, which can help to push the front less... It could be better, but let's wait and see."

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