Francesco Bagnaia makes progress in Valencia MotoGP test: “The feeling was better”

After a disastrous 2025 MotoGP season, Francesco Bagnaia had a positive final day of the year at the Valencia test.

The Italian was one of multiple Ducati riders – along with Fabio Di Giannantonio and Alex Marquez – to try a new fairing, based on that which Marc Marquez used for the majority of the 2025 season but which incorporated the ‘gully’ section on the side fairing as used by Aprilia, KTM, and Yamaha.

Towards the end of the day, there was a crash for Bagnaia, but it wasn’t one that seemed to bother him too much.

“I was pushing, it was my chance to set the time attack but I exaggerated a bit in corner two and I went wide,” he explained.

The test in general had gone well, with Bagnaia able to find a better feeling with the front of the Desmosedici, and taking a positive first impression of the new fairing, although it will need further evaluation.

“Honestly, happy that the things were going well,” the Ducati Lenovo Team rider said. 

“I started the day with the previous 2026 [bike] and it worked well. 

“We managed to do a good job all day, the feeling on braking and entry was much better. 

“So, now we will check, understand, analyse everything to understand the situation and to try to have this feeling [constantly]. 

“Very happy about the things we tried and happy with the new fairing that looks good, but we need to do more laps because this track is not very good for the aerodynamics, so we will try again in the future.”

Bagnaia added that he tried things other than the fairing that were less visible.

“We just tried things more hidden inside, and are new things,” he said.

“This test is very difficult to take decisions, so it was more important to start to test new things, but not exaggerating with the new bike completely.”

Bagnaia will be back on-track with the rest of the MotoGP field at the Sepang test next year on 3–5 February.