After winning the 2022 and 2023 titles and fighting until the end of 2024, Pecco Bagnaia looked with strength for the whirlwind that everyone expected: Marc Márquez. The arrival of Spanish to Italian box should not have meant a problem for Bagnaia, but the truth is that this year its performance is far from what is expected.
We are fully in the second half of the season, and as long as he cannot go quickly with the motorcycle and has only defeated a Grand Prix, the United States, his box partner has 9 wins on Sunday and 12 on Saturday, plus a second place. The mixture of both of the situation is generating a complicated breeding ground of managing, and more when Bagnaia has not hesitated to point directly to Ducati again.
Bagnaia’s lack of confidence with the GP-25 is evident, and it could be checked not so much on Saturday with the technical problem that led him to leave, but on Sunday where by wear the front tire could not keep the pace to finish eighth. While Marc, with the same tools at his disposal, won exactly Pecco time when he won last season.
Bagnaia is being slower than in 2024. At least that says …
This situation seems to have baffled the Italian, because on this occasion the environmental conditions were very similar to those of 2024. What is true is that in Germany something more slowly rolled this season than last, and yet Bagnaia could not be at the level. But what does that mean?
Well, in this case we have a part of the season where we have not been able to compare times. The other part, in the middle of GP has gone faster and in the middle, equal or slower. But there is something that seems that Bagnaia overlooks, and that is that last year Martin and he went to the limit (with their respective mistakes) to achieve those times that Márquez this year manages managing.
Managing? Yes, at least it is what can be deduced if the ways in which Marc faces the race is analyzed, and that is something that happens especially from the mistakes of Austin and Jerez. Since then he has always sought the moment and has not thrown more than the account, he has managed to manage and apparently does not go to the limit in the race.
🗣️ «Like the whole year … I don’t know what happens. I have given everything but I have been eighth »
Pecco Bagnaia, sunk behind the race #Austriagp 🇦🇹 #Motogp 🏁 pic.twitter.com/4qlNK4DJFL
– Dazn Spain (@dazn_es) August 17, 2025
Therefore, to say that time is the same (or even worse) and that it is an irrefutable argument is complicated, because each race is a world. Right now we have had faster and faster examples of races, and Bagnaia neither in the fastest nor in the slowest has been able to excel, and if it were not because of the fall in Austin it would be zero in the victorious lockers.
Why are Bagnaia’s problems? The truth is that the sensation, according to his statements, is that both he and Ducati are totally lost. And if there are problems slowing down, entering and leaving, it is that there is nowhere to take the motorcycle … Analyze what happens is complex when a pilot gives those instructions and everything is bad, but of course the weather is starting to get ugly. And situations like that do not usually end well.
🗣️ «I am losing patience. They don’t tell me anything, I’m waiting “
PECCO BAGNAIA expects explanations from Ducati 🇮🇹#Austriagp 🇦🇹 #Motogp 🏁 pic.twitter.com/v5lnzw9bkz
– Dazn Spain (@dazn_es) August 17, 2025
Although from Ducati, both late and Dall’Egna have taken iron to the matter, the situation within the red box can only be worse unless they find a quick and effective solution. Even so, we must not forget that Bagnaia is still third in the championship, which implies that despite all the problems is the most competitive average in front of the Márquez brothers.
And there is more. These performance problems that began to manifest effusively after the GP of Italy, are accompanied by two thirds in the Netherlands and Germany and a room in the Czech Republic. Therefore, taking away the eighth of Austria, they are not disastrous results, taking into account that it has only fallen in Sunday’s race in the United Kingdom (in France they threw it) and, as a general rule, Bagnaia was a pilot who in past seasons was very fast or ended on the ground.
The points table is relentless
What is evident is that Bagnaia carries much less points at this championship heights than in 2024, since after 13 GP he accumulated 305 points and now adds 221. That implies having lost a lot along the way, and more when Marc adds 418, which are in turn 116 more than those that Martin had last year when he led. However, Álex Márquez, who is second, has “only” 276 and here is the bottom of the matter. With the same Moto Marc it is being infinitely superior, and that makes it easier for ghosts to appear.
There is no doubt that the situation for Bagnaia is not easy, but what is certain is that generating noise and aiming at your box and your classmates in such an obvious way never ended in anything positive. You win together and lose together, that is the spirit of races.
