Francesco Bagnaia “braking harder”, Ducati tried “things never in our thoughts”
Francesco Bagnaia says Ducati’s Misano test solutions let him brake harder at Motegi after trying “things never in our thoughts.”
Francesco Bagnaia is keeping his expectations in check and “waiting for tomorrow” after a strong start to the Japanese MotoGP weekend.
After seeing previous apparent progress on his front-end woes quashed when he arrived at a different track, solutions from the recent Misano test appear to be working at Motegi.
Bagnaia kicked off the weekend in perfect fashion by being fastest in FP1 - for the first time this season - then recovered from technical issues at the start of the afternoon to claim a close seventh and direct access to Qualifying 2.
After a season where he has often failed to match his 2024 race and lap times, Bagnaia was 0.2s faster than Friday at last year’s Motegi round, where he went on to win both races.
Bagnaia didn’t identify which parts - rumoured to be fork, chassis and possibly ride-height related - have changed, but did reveal they were previously used in pre-season testing.
“We tested different things in Misano, that we already had, but we never had the chance to really try during this season,” Sky Italy quotes Bagnaia as saying.
“Today I felt good in braking, I did a comparison with last year and I was braking a bit harder.”
"Things that had never been in our thoughts"
He added: "We've been chasing feeling all year, and we had to try things that had never been in our thoughts. I think having that test day was crucial.”
Bagnaia finished practice just 0.16s slower than team-mate Marc Marquez, who can wrap up the 2025 title on Sunday.
“We just lost 15 minutes in the first part of the [afternoon] session for some [technical] issues. But apart from that, I was riding in a smooth way, quite confident," Bagnaia said.
“I was also trying different things [with my riding], because finally I can brake very hard, so maybe I was exaggerating a bit.
“We can be happy, but it's only Friday.
"We have to wait for qualifying and especially the Sprint, which is where I usually struggle the most."
Without a podium for the past five rounds, Bagnaia is setting his sights on the top five on Saturday.
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