Why Bagnaia needs to forget and reset after Aragon MotoGP round

A new rookie, without a doubt. That was the impression that Bagnaia gave during Friday practice at Aragon. Messy out on track and off the pace. This was a stark contrast to team-mate Marc Marquez who never looked better, as the six-time MotoGP champion simply glided around the track, looking firmly in command all weekend.

On the other side of the garage, Bagnaia's weekend crumbled around him as he tried to pull some results out of the bag. Only a late technical change on Sunday saved his weekend from complete disaster with third place in the grand prix.

Let's take a detailed recap of Bagnaia's weekend at Aragon. The mess began on Friday with the double MotoGP champion struggling to put clean laps in as he constantly fought in the braking zones with front locking. Talking to the media on Friday, he said: “It’s not an easy situation as the bike is the same one as in the previous races so we are trying to find different solutions."

So the bike was the same but the performance wasn't coming. Strange. To make the situation additionally frustrating, Marc had plenty of speed, comfortably ahead of his nearest challenger Alex Marquez. It seemed like this was just an issue for Bagnaia then with Ducati persistently looking for a solution to his problems. If the on-track problems weren't enough, the Italian also had to dismiss the annoying rumours of him becoming a Yamaha rider on Friday after seeing a barrage of fake social media posts regarding the idea, rumoured to be coming from AI-generated social media content. Considering that he's in the process of trying to negotiate a contract with Ducati, it must be frustrating to see such lies.

Saturday didn't go much better, with qualifying a massive struggle he managed to put his factory Ducati fourth on the grid after "risking a lot" in Q2. The status quo returned in the form of a disastrous sprint race, a poor start, and a lack of pace reducing him to an also-ran. He finished 12th, behind Fabio Quartararo's wayward Yamaha. The handling problems were the same, with the longer forks tried by Ducati labelled a failed experiment. What Bagnaia was suffering from was a lack of grip under braking which simply resulted in going wide in the corners that required heavy braking. Whether the understeer also suffered by the Italian was an additional issue or simply a result of carrying too much speed, it was difficult to say.

At the end of Saturday, Bagnaia was rather downcast as he described the current situation as the toughest in his whole career and how he knew what he had to do but “simply couldn't”. The Italian held out some hope for the medium tyre but generally wasn't looking forward to the main race.

It should be remembered that this front-end confidence issue has been in the headlines all year. It is a point that popped up late last year, while Bagnaia called the 2025 Ducati a "huge" step forward, so clearly some has awry gone in the development of the bike. Of course, it's difficult to convince Ducati to make massive, dramatic changes to the bike when team-mate Marquez is so competitive.

Marc Marquez was flawless in Aragon, leaving Bagnaia lost for answers

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

Come Sunday, something was needed to improve Bagnaia's chances for the race. Thankfully Ducati found the answer in the form of larger brake discs.

Now would be a good time to point out that the Motorland track has a strong focus on braking, with the brakes being applied for 29% of the lap. Brake disc stress levels are ranked 4 out of 6 with Italian supplier Brembo classifying the circuit as ‘hard'. Despite this, the 340mm brake diameter disc is still used by most riders.

For the Sunday main race, Bagnaia stepped up to a disc with a 355mm diameter, a 15mm increase which is relatively large in engineering terms. The result? His performance was transformed. Despite heavy pressure from the KTM duo of Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder, Bagnaia was able to keep in front. It was also encouraging given that the KTM is MotoGP’s missile down the straights and being very strong under braking, so the fact that Bagnaia could resist Acosta’s barrage of attacks was promising. Okay, he wasn't able to defeat Marc’s brother Alex on the Gresini Ducati who came home second, but it was still a massive improvement on the woes of the previous two days.

Constantly looking over at what your team-mate is doing is a recipe for disaster and has been for many years. If Bagnaia admits that Marc is simply stronger this year on this bike, that might free up some mental capacity to just focus on himself

A point to note following the race was Ducati’s team manager Davide Tardozzi comments when talking about Bagnaia trying new components at Monday’s test. He said “Marc is already using some of them”. This appears to confirm that there is a difference in specification for the two bikes within the factory Ducati camp – selected by the riders in terms of their preferences. However, he also said that Bagnaia would “try them again”. The evidence appears to point to that Marc’s bike is using components from testing that he thinks made a difference, but Bagnaia wasn’t sold on. This is likely creating a messy situation from a problem-solving standpoint, as when Ducati goes over the data it has two different specification of bikes – even if incredibly subtle difference – so you cannot be 100% sure what is causing what issue.

This is why Bagnaia shouldn't fall into despair following Aragon and should just treat it as a one-off. The Italian is a worthy champion but the bike this year simply does not suit his riding style and, combined with the Aragon circuit, simply emphasised the problem.

After all, the results speak for themselves. Marc is particularly strong at Aragon – with eight wins at the Spanish circuit when you include his Sunday victory across all classes. Bagnaia, in contrast, only holds one victory at the track even when you take into account his Moto2 and Moto3 years. That’s a period of over 10 years.

From longer forks to bigger brake discs, Bagnaia exhausted his options looking for an Aragon breakthrough

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

Taking the role of armchair psychologist, the problem that might occur is that Bagnaia is simply losing himself in the chase behind Marc. Constantly looking over at what your team-mate is doing is a recipe for disaster and has been for many years. If Bagnaia admits that Marc is simply stronger this year on this bike, that might free up some mental capacity to just focus on himself and work through the bike issues in a better head space.

Of course, Bagnaia should not just throw in the towel and say that the older Marquez brother is better. Professional sportspeople do not give up and neither should Bagnaia. It’s clear that Bagnaia hasn’t been quite on Marc’s level this year but the situation hasn’t been as bad as Aragon made it out to be.

When everything was stacked up, Aragon was a messy weekend for Bagnaia and one which deserves to be forgotten. There have been accusations that Bagnaia is an overrated champion but that seems to be a stretch. These are some incredibly talented professionals and to score a championship, let alone two, on the world stage doesn't happen just by being in the right place at the right time. Granted his performance this year has been lacking, but Aragon made the situation appear much worse than it actually was.

Can Bagnaia find a breakthrough after the Aragon post-weekend test?

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