A few days ago, at the launch of a new sports road bike in Rome, Ducati Team CEO Claudio Domenicali claimed that Francesco Bagnaia’s season would really begin in Qatar — where a run of tracks more suited to his taste begins.
The two-time world champion endorsed the thesis on Thursday, citing the distribution of races in the MotoGP 2025 calendar as a major factor in the domination his new team-mate, Marc Marquez, has shown over him in the first two weekends.
After being unable able to fight head-to-head for victory in Thailand, and then failing even to make the podium in Argentina, Ducati's factory rider, 'Pecco' Bagnaia, appeared in good spirits in Texas. After all, Qatar is now just one race weekend away.
“If we had started the world championship in Qatar or Portimao, things would be different,” said ‘Pecco’.
“But it's not that I started so badly. I finished on the podium and fourth in [the Argentina GP]. It's just that Marc and Alex [Marquez] did a better job.”
The “things” Bagnaia refers to? A deficit of 31 points to Marc, whose brother Alex (Gresini Ducati) is also ahead of Bagnaia in the standings.
This weekend’s venue, Circuit of the Americas (COTA), doesn’t immediately present itself as a venue where the pecking order is likely to change, at least as far as the elder Marquez brother is concerned. Marc has won seven times at the track and calls it ‘special’.
But although Bagnaia fell off at the Americas GP whilst leading it in 2023, he hasn’t historically been slow in Texas.
In Argentina, on the other hand, he came into the weekend having never finished better than fifth at Termas de Rio Hondo, in any world championship class.
In that context, his third place sprint and fourth-place grand prix finishes there could be framed as positives. And Bagnaia wants to believe that the worst could be behind him.
“I think this circuit is a bit better than the one in Argentina, and I will be able to take more advantage of the braking and direction changes,” explained Bagnaia in Austin.
“In Argentina, I couldn't exploit my strong points. I still lost a lot of speed entering the corners. I've been training a lot to try to improve on that.”
“This is a track where I can feel a bit better. I like it more when we have this kind of braking and these kinds of smooth corners. So I think it will be a bit better and with all the steps we did in the last two races, I think we can be more competitive.”
Still, Bagnaia is under few illusions about the challenge in the USA and understands the importance of damage limitation. Asked what a satisfactory result this weekend would look like, the Italian added ‘victory’ almost as an afterthought.
“To close the gap and to be closer to the leader…or in front of the leader,” said Bagnaia.
“I think this weekend Marc will be super competitive,” Bagnaia continued. “It’s his best race track, along with the Sachsenring.
“Normally Alex is not that fast here but we clearly see the step in front he has taken this season. So my objective will be to find my feeling back and fight with that.”
Bagnaia also moved to correct a perception that he wanted to return to his 2024 bike, claiming that certain comments in Argentina had been misconstrued: “What I want is to recover the feeling of 2024, not the bike of 2024. It was just a concept. I’m not sure everyone understood.
“In fact, the concept was a bit misguided. But in any case, the feeling I'm looking for is what I had last year.
But you have to move forward so I will continue with the bike I've ridden until now but I will be trying to find a solution to get back what I had last year.”
The Torino man added that his analysis after Argentina meant he now had a much clearer idea of where he was losing time compared to Marc Marquez.
“I saw that what I’m missing from last year is the last part of the entrance [to corners]. I was missing a bit of speed there and it’s where I'm losing time.
I'm very good in braking, I'm very good in the second part… but in the last part, when I need to put more speed on entering in the corners, it’s where I'm struggling more.
“This was also situation in Argentina, so I trained a lot [since] to analyse and try to improve on that, on the bike and see if I do a step in this race weekend.”
