Why Ducati must own its GP25 shortcomings to be winners again in 2026

There could not have been a more fitting end to Francesco Bagnaia’s 2025 season than the double MotoGP champion lying crumpled in the gravel trap at Valencia’s Turn 4. ‘Good riddance’ was surely the mildest possible translation of Bagnaia’s thoughts on the year in the immediate aftermath of being punted out by Johann Zarco.

Glad as Bagnaia must be to see the back of this season, it will be exactly the same feeling for his fans, friends and family. So too the baffled media, who have been along for what was, at times, a surreal ride. But most of all, it’s his mechanics and engineers who will be heaving a sigh of relief. It’s over at last.

Yet those at the top of the Ducati tree will have a price to pay if they try to put 2025 behind them too quickly. Sure, there’s no need to dwell on the many moments of misery on the number 63 side of the garage. But they would be fools to ignore what went wrong on a technical level.

That would seem a no-brainer, of course, but there has been strong evidence of potentially dangerous denial at Ducati when it comes to the GP25 this year. This was most clearly observed when the factory denied convincing claims by VR46 that Bagnaia had borrowed one of its GP24 machines to test at Misano.

Why wouldn’t Ducati just be open about what it was doing to try to help Bagnaia through his problems? So what if trying the older bike – widely acknowledged as an almost perfect MotoGP machine – was part of that process? While it’s clear that engineering companies would prefer the world not to know about any backward steps they may take, it’s also a popular theory that tech boss Gigi Dall’Igna’s ego has been a factor where his troublesome GP25 was concerned.

How much Bagnaia’s problems aboard the latest factory machine were down to the bike and how much they were attributable to a mentally shot rider was a season-long debate in a mystified paddock. Yes, Marc Marquez cantered to the title on the latest bike, but his genius has a history of masking fundamental issues. That there was only one other GP25 for comparison – that of inconsistent VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio – was another factor in the general fog around the whole business. A fog that you could argue provided fuel for denial that there was anything wrong with the GP25.

Bagnaia's nightmare with the GP25 is over, but can Ducati deliver him a bike he can gel with next year?

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

To be clear, we’re not just talking about a relatively harmless public unwillingness to acknowledge an issue. We’re talking about denial within the Ducati camp itself – at least from certain quarters. Among other things, conflicting public statements on how exactly a GP25 differs from a GP24 have suggested some internal unwillingness to align.

Against this backdrop, things took an interesting turn as MotoGP worked its way through the Iberian double-header that concluded the season. After a year of sticking mostly to vague language as he dipped and surged to sixth in the championship, one spot behind Bagnaia, Di Giannantonio suddenly showed an interest in talking about the GP25’s flaws in public.

Make of it what you will, but the Roman said much that lent credibility not only to Bagnaia’s nine-month lament about the bike, but also the idea that newer doesn’t invariably mean better. Di Giannantonio’s mild offensive began after the race at Portimao, when he said he had had more confidence in 2023, the year he scored a late-season win for Gresini Ducati in Qatar.

"The MotoGP bike has a super high potential, you can really go fast, but if you don’t feel, sometimes it’s difficult to extract the maximum potential" Fabio Di Giannantonio

“The best thing is [to have] a good feeling, whether the parts are new or not,” remarked Di Giannantonio. “The best example, I think, is me in 2023, with a 2022 bike. At the end of the year, I was fighting with Pecco in some races and I had fewer [new] parts than him. In the end, when you get the best feeling with the bike, it’s better than having the newest parts on the market.”

Those familiar with Bagnaia’s way of saying things in 2025 would immediately have noticed Di Giannantonio’s repeated use of the word ‘feeling’ – that nebulous, elusive thing Bagnaia has been on about all year. Call it overthinking at the end of a long season, but these quotes felt pointed.

That suspicion grew at Valencia, where Di Giannantonio continued to talk in terms familiar from Bagnaia briefings – and to some extent explaining things better than Bagnaia has: “The bike is a super-fast bike, but we have to improve the front to have a more sincere feeling where we can push. Because the MotoGP bike has a super high potential, you can really go fast, but if you don’t feel, sometimes it’s difficult to extract the maximum potential.”

Better feeling or being fast - Di Giannantonio's comments about the GP25 rang true with Bagnaia over the final two rounds

Photo by: Steve Wobser / Getty Images

Expanding on that, and without naming names, he explained why Marquez could easily tap into the GP25’s speed while lesser mortals Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio suffered from that fatal lack of feedback.

“The general feeling is a low [level of] feeling on the front,” he added. “So when you go fast in a natural way, everything becomes easier, let’s say. But when you’re not super fast in a natural way, you have to find the speed from the bike, from [trusting] the bike. It’s really tough this year because you don’t get that feeling, let’s say.”

Di Giannantonio was happy to admit that he was “sometimes” able to feel what the front end was doing – thus addressing the inconsistency two of the three GP25 riders produced. While Di Giannantonio didn’t have quite the dramatic peaks and troughs Bagnaia lived through, he also had ‘off’ weekends mixed with good outings.

“[My confidence in this bike is] enough to finish around fifth position, as we are doing, so not fantastic. I think Diggia, with the factory Ducati, with the best feeling [I have] had in other years or races, can fight for podiums and wins at every race. And we are not doing it.”

He did, in fact, produce podiums in Valencia, but his Sunday afternoon press conference saw no change of tack. His answers on matters Ducati were becoming monosyllabic but no less honest. Asked if he had more difficulty keeping the GP25’s tyres in good condition than he had had in 2023, he offered the gathered media a simple “yes”.

With Di Giannantonio finally coming to the party as a kind of witness for Bagnaia’s tribulations, denial around the GP25 has got tougher as November has unfolded. At the same time, its potential to be a harmful phenomenon has taken on new meaning as 2026 preparations begin… starting with today’s (18 November) Valencia test.

Di Giannantonio could do little to challenge an Aprilia 1-2 in the Valencia GP

Photo by: Mirco Lazzari GP - Getty Images

Depending on whom you ask following Aprilia’s post-summer surge, Ducati’s status as the strongest manufacturer on the MotoGP grid is either a thing of the past or hanging by a thread. This is not a time for denial in Borgo Panigale.

As a Group A concessions manufacturer, its testing and development options going into 2026 happen to be more limited than those of any rival. This means Ducati has to reach deeper into its existing toolbox, and learn honest lessons from what it finds there, as it settles on its final ‘GP26’ for next season.

Let’s just assume for a moment that the best possible 2026 bike is a GP24 in disguise. Or that trying to develop the GP25 further under another name is a blind alley. Ducati can only take these decisions if egos don’t get in the way. It can only take them if it takes a long, hard look at itself. On Sunday in Valencia, Di Giannantonio seemed to want to say something along those lines whilst retaining a veneer of diplomacy.

Di Giannantonio wants Ducati to pick the best weapons in its arsenal for next year, and designations be damned

Asked what he would change on the GP25 to make the GP26 easier for him to be fast at every track, Di Giannantonio sounded like a man who had told Ducati all he had to say. “You have to ask Gigi, I don’t know,” he told the room.

Trying a different tack, another journalist then asked him which bike he would suggest Ducati uses next year. He didn’t take the GP24 bait. “The 2026,” he replied with a resolute sort of smile, leaving out the ‘GP’ part. One interpretation of that? Di Giannantonio wants Ducati to pick the best weapons in its arsenal for next year, and designations be damned.

That can only happen if all the options are on the table and taken seriously. And that, in turn, can only happen if denial is locked out of the room.

Will Ducati and Dall'lgna be able to provide a 2026 MotoGP bike that provides speed and feeling to its riders?

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