Bagnaia remains baffled in Misano as well: “I feel humiliated”

– Francesco Bagnaia experienced a bitter milestone at his home race in Misano. It was his 142nd MotoGP start for Ducati. This makes him the rider with the most starts for the Italian brand in the premier class. However, he left Misano with zero points in his luggage.

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After Bagnaia finished only 19th on Friday, he qualified for 14th on the grid. In the sprint, the Italian finished 13th and thus scored no world championship points on Saturday.

“Honestly, it is very difficult to talk about my feeling because I have none at all,” the two-time Misano winner speaks frankly. Solutions for his problems, which have been plaguing him massively since Silverstone, were not found.

“In qualifying, we fitted a new soft rear tire. With it, I had just as much grip as with the used soft tire. That was really strange. Honestly, it is also difficult to understand why that is.”

“It is extremely easy to see how big the difference is between the behavior of my bike and that of all the other Ducatis. The difference is huge, but it is difficult to understand why. The team also has no answers.”

“I feel really frustrated, but given what is happening right now, also humiliated,” sighs Bagnaia. “But that’s just how it is.” Does he feel that his options are running out? “Absolutely. I am giving my maximum.”

“The team is also giving its maximum with the possibilities we have. But something is missing. It is difficult for everyone to understand what we need to do. We are just trying to improve something, but that is difficult.”

Everything was tried in the setup. Bagnaia also tested the setups of Alex Marquez and Marc Marquez, but even that did not solve his massive grip problems. The Desmosedici simply does not give him any feeling.

“My working method is different than back when I won,” Bagnaia compares. “When I won, I always formulated very precisely what I needed. Now I don’t do that because I don’t feel anything at all.”

“At the moment we have no plan. We are just trying to understand the problems. When I had little grip in the past, the team tried to shift the load more to the rear to get more support.”

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“But if I have little grip now and we increase the load on the rear wheel, I lose grip,” he describes the puzzling behavior of his bike. His strength in the braking phase has also disappeared.

“If I brake now with both tires, it is worse than if I brake only with the front wheel. It is exactly the opposite. The feeling is like entering a corner with the clutch pulled, completely without engine braking.”

Crash in the Grand Prix as the endpoint of the home race

In the Grand Prix, Bagnaia had a slightly better start than in the sprint. He tried to follow the VR46 duo. After Franco Morbidelli served his long-lap penalty, Fabio Di Giannantonio right in front of him was the reference.

But not for long. In the sixth lap, Bagnaia said goodbye to his home race with a crash in turn 2: “As soon as I wanted to carry a bit more speed into the corner, I lost the front wheel again.”

“Unfortunately, another crash and unfortunately another very difficult weekend. But that is the situation. We have to work with what we have,” said Bagnaia, who has now gone three race weekends in a row without scoring world championship points.

The action continues next weekend in Spielberg. The track in Austria is traditionally very good for Ducati. Bagnaia won in Styria in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

“Yes, it is a good track for Ducati and one of the best for me,” he looks ahead. “When I felt comfortable on the bike, I won races there with a lead of several seconds. So it is a very good track for me. But we have to wait and see what I feel there.”

His Ducati teammate Marc Marquez won the sprint and the Grand Prix in Misano. With that, he took over the world championship lead. In the team standings, the Ducati factory team is in second place, 98 points behind the Aprilia factory team.

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