Resurgent Pecco Bagnaia enters ‘stronghold’ - ‘beginning of turnaround’
Praise for Pecco Bagnaia whose resurgence is well-timed with a favourite track
Pecco Bagnaia has taken his first major step forward of the MotoGP season - and it coincides with a trip to advantageous tracks.
MotoGP returns next weekend at Mugello in Italy, a grand prix which he has won in each of the past three years.
Bagnaia claimed a podium a week ago at Aragon but, perhaps more importantly, rediscovered the front end feeling on his Ducati GP25 which had eluded him all year.
It was a stark overnight improvement after finished 12th in the sprint race.
“It was a rapid change on the Sunday,” Lewis Duncan told the Crash MotoGP podcast.
“There was a battle with Pedro Acosta which proved a point of the front end feeling coming back. He wouldn’t have been able to do that, at recent rounds, until they made a step.
“We can look at this as the beginning of a turnaround for Pecco. It has probably come a bit late because he is 93 points behind Marc. He overturned a 91-point deficit in 2022 but we’re dealing with different circumstances.
“Hopefully we now see the real Pecco turn up which is what we want.”
Pecco Bagnaia praised for 'mentality shift'
Jordan Moreland added: “It was a really good ride. Confidence-wise he was 12th in the sprint. It was an all-time low. “Jack Miller said he noticed that Pecco’s riding style was completely off.
“I don’t want to get too ahead of myself by saying he’s firmly back. It’s a starting point.
“At least Pecco Bagnaia is not the fourth or fifth Ducati now.
“The mentality shift was very good. It shows a lot to bounce back from the awful sprint.”
Lewis Duncan said: “We have seen mixed form from him around Aragon, so to come away with a good result is where the confidence comes from.
“He was 0.12s slower than Marc Marquez which won’t win you a grand prix but it’s better than it has been.
“These are positives going into the next two races which are strongholds for Pecco. Mugello and Assen, he has cleaned up.
“He doesn’t expect that to be the case this year, to his credit.
“But the worry we had, going into these next two races, was that we’d seen at strong circuits for Pecco he’d been nowhere.
“In theory, there should be a step forward. On balance, with everything we’ve seen, this is the first genuine step forward for Pecco this season.”
Bagnaia is 93 points behind championship leader, and factory Ducati teammate, Marc Marquez.
The 2025 MotoGP title might now be beyond his reach.
But Bagnaia enters the next couple of rounds, at Mugello and Assen, with a realistic hope of rediscovering his past form to put a dent in Marquez’s title bid.
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