The numbers behind Francesco Bagnaia’s “difficult to accept” MotoGP comparison

One of the most frustrating elements of Francesco Bagnaia’s 2025 MotoGP season was being unable to match his own pace from the previous year.

“It's very difficult to accept because, looking at the race times from me last year, compared to this season, I could be winning, or fighting for a win,” Bagnaia said during the campaign.

“This season I'm not able to repeat [those times], and I'm much slower compared to last year.”

Unfortunately for the double world champion, that trend continued across the season.

Not all 2025 races can be directly compared to those in 2024. Several rounds - Termas de Rio Hondo, Balaton Park, Brno and Valencia - were not even present on the 2024 calendar.

Other races had to be excluded due to wet conditions, restarts, or altered race distances in either year. Bagnaia also had to finish in both years.

To keep the comparison meaningful:

• Barcelona uses the 2024 Catalan GP (not the Solidarity finale).
• Misano uses the Emilia Romagna GP (due to rain at the 2024 San Marino GP).
• Temperature differences, grip, grid position and tyre choice are not accounted for, although most tyre compound options were unchanged.

Using these criteria, 18 races could be compared, with Bagnaia faster than his 2024 pace in just four of them.

Two of those 2025 improvements came at Motegi, where Bagnaia won both the Sprint and Grand Prix

The other gains were the Aragon Sprint (held on a much dirtier track in 2024) and COTA Sprint, where the Italian improved from eighth in 2024 to third last year.

In the remaining 14 races, Bagnaia on the GP25 was slower than he had been at the same track with the GP24.

At Mandalika, Bagnaia qualified 16th, then lost 25 seconds compared to his 2024 race-winning time in the Sprint.

But Mugello - traditionally one of his strongest tracks - was arguably the most frustrating.

Bagnaia finished fourth with a time 22.910s slower than his 2024 winning pace but was only 5.081s behind team-mate and 2025 winner Marc Marquez. 

In other words, Marquez won despite being 17.829s slower than Bagnaia in 2024.

By contrast, a nightmare Phillip Island Sprint saw Bagnaia much slower in 2025, while race winner Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) went significantly faster than Jorge Martin in 2024.

Were the 2025 races slower overall?

A second comparison looks at all comparable race-winning times, regardless of whether Bagnaia finished. This wider sample includes 28 races.

Of those, 13 were faster in 2025, but the other 15 were won with a slower time than the year before.

Of course, a rider with a comfortable lead, as Marc Marquez often had in 2025, doesn’t need to push to the limit.

Nevertheless, of those 15 ‘unbeaten’ 2024 race times, 12 were set by riders on a Ducati GP24: Seven for Bagnaia, three for Enea Bastianini and two for that year's world champion Jorge Martin.

In other words, on paper, Bagnaia could have won three more Sprints and more four GPs last year if he had been able to repeat his 2024 race times.

Even Bagnaia’s perfect 2025 Motegi double was only a marginal improvement on his winning times at the track a year before.

Meanwhile, Marc Marquez was several seconds quicker on a Gresini GP23 at Phillip Island in 2024 than the 2025 Grand Prix winner Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse) - although Sprint winner Bezzecchi had to serve a double long lap.

Marquez missed the 2025 Phillip Island round due to injuries caused by the Bezzecchi incident at Mandalika.

Marc Marquez’s Aragon Grand Prix win was the standout time improvement of 2025, on a much cleaner surface than when the Spaniard won for Gresini in 2024.

Meanwhile, the Mugello, Assen and Misano GPs saw the ‘slowest’ victories relative to 2024 pace.

As mentioned, Marc Marquez won at Mugello with a time 17. 829s slower than Bagnaia in 2024, then was 6.858s slower than Bagnaia the previous year at Assen and 6.254s slower than factory Ducati predecessor Enea Bastianini when he held off Bezzecchi at Misano 2025.