Bagnaia "struggled to accept" new reality during 2025 MotoGP lows

Francesco Bagnaia admitted that it was hard for him to accept that he was no longer fighting for regular race wins and podiums during the 2025 MotoGP season.

Bagnaia entered the year with renewed motivation and a desire to retake the throne in MotoGP following his title defeat to Jorge Martin in 2024. The two-time champion was also eager to assert his status at Ducati after the arrival of former Honda star Marc Marquez at the factory team.

But while Marquez dominated the year en route to his seventh premier class title, Bagnaia’s campaign unravelled as the season went on, even leading to question marks about his long-term future at Borgo Panigale.

Victories in Austin and Motegi proved to be rare highlights during a campaign in which he struggled to adapt to the latest-specification Desmosedici and failed to reach Q2 on multiple occasions.

His competitive struggles had already prompted the Italian to describe 2025 as “maybe his worst season” in the premier class, as he went from winning the title in both 2022 and '23 to finishing a distant fifth in the championship this year.

Asked what lessons he learned from his bruising 2025 campaign, Bagnaia said: “I don't know. Honestly, it's quite clear that I had more ‘bads’ than ‘goods’ this season. And after the last four seasons where a bad result was a third place, I struggled to accept the reality of this season.

“All the season I did the best job I could with the team, trying to understand and trying to adapt to the 2025 bike, but unluckily, I didn't. So I was struggling a lot. The bike has a really great potential because Marc showed it. But for the rest, I was just struggling.

“Honestly, I don't know if I will learn something from this season. What I think is good to have clear in my mind is that I always try to adapt to it and always try to be competitive. This is something that will help me in the future.”

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Even though Bagnaia lost the 2024 title to Martin, he still claimed 11 wins, 16 podiums and seven sprint victories that season. His results, however, dipped sharply in 2025, as he could manage only two wins and eight Sunday podiums across the entire campaign.

He admitted he had to revise his goals in 2025, as his definition of a good weekend changed with his declining form.

Asked what was the best advice he received in 2025, he said: “In this kind of period, many people want to give advice to you. And honestly, the one that helped me the most was to enjoy [because] sometimes it's better to forget the problems and just enjoy.

“Also, one that was good was to change your objective. Before, a good result was winning and a bad result was finishing third. And now a good result is already finishing in the top five. So I needed to change the objective a bit.

“But the [important] thing for me this season was just to accept not feeling okay on my bike and not being able to fight for what I know that I can fight. This was the hardest thing to accept. But also one thing to enjoy was a good thing.”