How Lenovo helped Ducati make its Bagnaia breakthrough

After several months away, the old Francesco Bagnaia turned up at the Japanese Grand Prix. Following some of the most miserable races of his career, Ducati’s two-time MotoGP champion suddenly found his form, producing a dominant weekend at Motegi.

While it’s always dangerous to declare a rider is ‘back’ on the strength of one outing, there are strong indications that Ducati has managed to give Bagnaia the mysterious ‘feeling’ he has been missing throughout most of 2025. If so, this is the happy ending to MotoGP’s biggest technical story of the year. 

Bagnaia’s travails aboard the same GP25 team-mate Marc Marquez was using to crush all opposition have been among the chart-topping talking points, posing a head-scratcher for team, media and fans alike. The bike was evidently a race-winner, but there was some connection missing between the machine and Bagnaia. Engineers love a challenge, but this one pushed everyone’s patience.

The essence of the task was turning Bagnaia’s ongoing complaints about a ‘missing feeling’ into engineering terms, then coming up with a technical solution that would result in the rider rediscovering a sensation that would give him his old confidence. Ducati had to find a connection between an intensely solitary human experience and the scientific hard-numbers world of parts and settings.

After months of burning the midnight oil, a breakthrough was made at the Misano test ahead of the Japanese GP. But if it weren’t for its title sponsor Lenovo, the Ducati factory team - and Bagnaia - might still be waiting.

Lenovo may have lent its name to the team since 2021, but not everyone is aware that this is far more than a branding arrangement. Lenovo was already Ducati’s official technology partner three years before becoming title sponsor. Since 2018, then, its premium hardware, high performance computing and advanced AI-ready solutions have been a key part of Ducati’s ongoing performance. 

“This is more than a partnership,” said Ducati Corse sporting director Mauro Grassilli, who featured prominently in the celebrations on Ducati’s perfect Sunday at Motegi.

Mauro Grassilli, Ducati Corse sporting director

Photo by: Ducati Corse

“We started in the beginning together and then we have grown together. And honestly speaking, I don’t see the future without Lenovo as a partner from a sporting point of view; from a technology point of view. So we really are part of the same project.”

Lenovo’s global sponsorships and activation director Lara Rodini stresses the same point. 

“We are really part of the Ducati operations,” she said. “It’s not just positioning. Our logo and the key assets of the Ducati MotoGP [project] are like one single DNA working together to achieve the major goals that we have.”

Arguably, Ducati and Lenovo achieved their two biggest goals at Motegi last weekend: sealing Marquez’s world championship and getting Bagnaia winning again. While Marc’s title celebrations rightly stole the show, those involved in solving Bagnaia’s issues will be feeling just as satisfied with a team effort that finally got man and machine talking.

“The big problem that we usually have is to translate the emotions that the rider has to the technology, to the data,” explained Grassilli. “At the beginning of our history in MotoGP it was very difficult to have this kind of relationship between riders and engineers, especially after the race or after practice.

“Lenovo and technology in general, from the beginning, helped us to have this kind of answer. It’s not easy to find the right answer every time, but we try our best and Lenovo, of course, helps us 100%.

“Sometimes when the human doesn’t help us to give a right answer, the technology helps us to give this answer.”