Pecco Bagnaia ‘confirming nothing’ amid Ducati MotoGP bike swap rumours

Rumours in the MotoGP paddock suggest Pecco Bagnaia’s form turnaround in Japan was a result of Ducati giving him one of Franco Morbidelli’s GP24s at the Misano test.

The double world champion has endured a largely difficult 2025 campaign on Ducati’s latest factory prototype, which did have a tough birth in the winter as the marque was forced to abandon the full GP25 engine.

From the off, Pecco Bagnaia got nowhere near the form of world champion team-mate Marc Marquez as he battled a lack of front-end confidence on the bike.

His season got especially tough following the summer break, most notably with a three-year worst 21st in qualifying in Barcelona and a double DNF at his home San Marino Grand Prix.

The post-race test at Misano was very much seen as the last opportunity for Bagnaia to salvage something from the 2025 campaign.

Bike swap rumour cited as key to Bagnaia’s turnaround

Bagnaia was positive about what he found on his bike at the Misano test, though insisted that he focused more on riding at the time rather than any big changes.

Then when he arrived to Japan, he told the media that “unconventional” changes had been made to his GP25 in order to allow him to ride with more confidence.

And that was certainly the case at Motegi, as he stormed to pole and dominant wins in both races - showing form that has been absent all year for Bagnaia.

Just what those changes were, both he and Ducati have remained cagey. But it is thought the key changes are a 2024 front fork, swingarm and ride height device.

On Thursday ahead of the Indonesian Grand Prix, Dorna’s Jack Appleyard amplified rumours already doing the rounds that Ducati wheeled one of Franco Morbidelli’s VR46-run GP24s into Bagnaia’s garage and fitted a GP25 engine to it.

“He was in long, long meetings with Gigi Dall’Igna and Davide Tardozzi, and from putting pieces together, I think he put an ultimatum on the table and said to them ‘enough is enough, this cannot go on. All year I’ve been asking give me the GP24, the bike that I know, the bike I know I can perform on. We just have to draw a line under it and move on’,” the television presenter claimed.

“And it seems as though Franco Morbidelli’s GP24 was wheeled into the Ducati box on Sunday evening with the GP25 engine bolted into it and that’s where Pecco has found his confidence from.”

Bagnaia admits ‘items from the past’, but denies Morbidelli bike swap chatter

Bagnaia has spent much of the year batting away questions asking him if he wanted to try a GP24 again with the 2025 engine fitted (as per the regulations, he is not allowed to change engine spec).

In Japan he also noted that some of the items he was using are ones Marc Marquez also has on his GP25.

When asked by Crash.net on Thursday in Indonesia about the Morbidelli bike rumours, Bagnaia said: “The thing is that in the Misano test we decided to try different things, that also in the past gives to me more confidence and performance.

“So, I’m not confirming what you are saying, but I confirm that the feeling that I felt back in the Misano test was arriving from some items that we were using in the past.”

After the Japanese Grand Prix, Bagnaia admitted he was “very angry” at finding this form now because it could have come earlier in the season.

However, he did defend Ducati by noting that at post-race tests at Jerez and Aragon this year, he had come from podium results and therefore didn’t feel a radical change was necessary.