Why has it gone so wrong for Bagnaia?

Francesco Bagnaia - more affectionately known as ‘Pecco’  is the second most decorated rider on the MotoGP grid this year. Yet how did the two-time MotoGP World Champion we all know and love fall off so drastically?

(Image credit to Motogp official website - Bagnaia crashes out of sepang sprint 2025)

Bagnaia has currently accumulated 1896 points in MotoGP, along with 31 victories and 59 podiums as of the 2026 United States GP. It is undeniable that Bagnaia is one of the best talents we have seen in MotoGP. From Turin to the top step of the premier class, he has proven his capability time and time again, so why has it gone so wrong in the 2025 and 2026 seasons?

To set the scene, we must return to just after the final race of the 2024 season. Bagnaia lost the world championship to Jorge Martin by just ten points. However, despite losing the championship, there was still a large amount of optimism from both Bagnaia and Ducati going into the 2025 season. During the 2024 campaign, Bagnaia won a total of eleven main races and six sprints and accumulated a tally of 467 points. So, for Bagnaia, while losing out in 2024 was a bitter pill to swallow, going into the 2025 season, it was looking like 2024 would be put behind him. This would mean he could start afresh and reclaim his crown with little to no difficulty. Then Marc Márquez entered the chat.

The Spaniard has a reputation that precedes him. The now seven-time World Champion is undeniably one of the greats. Marc was signed to the Ducati Lenovo factory team halfway through the 2024 season and has since delivered them the World Championship in his first season with the Italian giants.

As the season commenced, it was mainly smooth sailing for the Italian as he adjusted to the new challenges that come with a new teammate - and let me be clear, Marc Márquez is not just your average teammate. The first glimmer of hope came for Bagnaia in the United States GP as Marc’s crash left Pecco to inherit the win. This felt like the first real sign that Bagnaia could compete with Márquez and could potentially bring the championship fight to the Spaniard.

Importantly, Jorge Martin, who had to sit out the first three races of the 2025 season due to injury, came back during the Qatar GP but crashed mid-race, resulting in a collapsed lung and multiple rib fractures, effectively ruling the Aprilia man out of contention for the championship full stop and eliminating another source of competition for Bagnaia.

Bagnaia remained fairly consistent between the Qatar GP and the Netherlands GP, but between here and his only other win of the season in Japan is when he began to struggle with the bike. It was as if the two-time World Champion had just lost his ability to dictate the bike and control its movement on track. After Japan, however, Bagnaia did not finish a single race out of the five remaining of the season. This highlights how severe these bike struggles really were for the Italian as he was now entering unprecedented territory.

So why has Bagnaia struggled on the bike?

Last year, Bagnaia’s struggles may be attributed to the unpredictability of Márquez. Why? 

This is because Márquez adopts a different riding style from the standard one used by current riders, drawing on Marc’s experience with the older generation of bikes. Therefore, the data he generates after a session is not of much use to the Italian. As a result of this, for Bagnaia, who is adapted for the new generation of bikes, this means that he cannot adjust his setup accordingly.

Now you might be wondering, why does this matter? Why is data so important for Bagnaia’s riding style? 

Bagnaia, throughout the 2024 season and, in fact, during his career, has relied heavily on his data interpretation skills to adjust his setup before a race. This allows him to extract the most out of the bike, and these skills and surplus of data Ducati provides him with is partly responsible for his dominance during the 2022 and 2023 title-winning campaigns. 

During Martin’s time at Pramac and, importantly, Bastianini’s time at Ducati, Bagnaia was able to utilise the data gifted to him by Ducati, which allowed him to extract the best performance week in and week out and dominate 2024 in such a fashion. With Martin departing to rivals Aprilia and Enea being dropped in favour of Márquez, this has left Pecco in the situation that he now finds himself in, struggling for performance and often unable to challenge for wins and podiums, a mere shadow of the Francesco Bagnaia we once knew.

As a disappointing 2025 drew to a close with just two wins for the Italian, a large step down from the eleven the year before. So where does Bagnaia go from here? There have been rumours of Pecco joining close friend Marco Bezzecchi at Aprilia in 2027, but nothing has been confirmed as of the United States GP. Only time will tell. Importantly, Márquez has not had the start to 2026 that everyone had expected him to have, scoring only 45 points to Pecco’s 25. This will force Ducati to rethink its approach for the rest of the season, and during this downtime between the US and Spanish GP, will they be able to catch up to Aprilia, or are Martin and Bezzecchi running off with the title fight?

Article written by Olive Woolley