Pecco Bagnaia urged “find something, a missing piece” to thwart Marc Marquez
“We need Pecco Bagnaia in that battle," ahead of French MotoGP at Le Mans
Pecco Bagnaia’s season has not gone to plan yet he remains within touching distance of the championship leader.
The factory Ducati rider is 20 points behind Alex Marquez, who sits atop the MotoGP standings. He trails his teammate Marc Marquez by 19 points after five rounds.
But it was Marc’s two costly crashes, in Texas then last week in Jerez, which have opened the door to his title rivals.
Bagnaia, despite failing to get to grips with the GP25 this year, still has hope if he can emerge from last Monday’s test with some improvements.
Pecco Bagnaia urged to strike after Marc Marquez errors
“Luckily for Pecco, Marc has made two huge mistakes in races. So it doesn’t look that bad, at all.
“If Pecco can find something [in testing]... I know everyone [was] testing so could potentially find something.
“But I believe Pecco. He is missing something in corner entry.
“It’s a balance thing. You don’t experiment too much in race weekends. You are racing on a Saturday, and on a Friday afternoon you’ve got to go to the absolute limit.
“There is so much pressure on riders over the weekend, that they don’t want to experiment.
“[The test was] about experimenting and trying something.
“If Pecco can find that missing piece, after the two big mistakes by Marc, then suddenly we have a championship on our hands!
“We have got a championship anyway because, of course, Alex is leading by a point.
“We need Pecco in that battle. We need him winning, and able to make passes.
“He has basically said ‘I am not in that situation, I can’t make passes’.”
Bagnaia finished on the podium in Spain a week ago, then emerged optimistic from the test on Monday.
Although he stopped short of confirming which parts he had tested, Bagnaia insisted he would bring them to next week’s round at Le Mans.
Bagnaia did confirm that the weather prevented him testing set-up changes, so he instead tried old parts discarded after the pre-season tests, which teammate Marquez had continued to use.
The season’s European leg is now fully in swing so Bagnaia will be hoping for circuits and conditions which suit his riding style, to finally deal a setback to the Marquez brothers.
Despite the year going poorly for him so far, he remains in contention for the championship.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
