Pecco Bagnaia “humiliated” after Misano MotoGP Sprint: “The problem is huge”

Pecco Bagnaia was left feeling “frustrated and humiliated” after finishing a lowly 13th in Saturday’s Misano MotoGP Sprint.

The double MotoGP champion and former Misano winner, making his final home appearance for Ducati, gained just one place from a career-worst qualifying result at the circuit.

It also meant Bagnaia has failed to score a single point since the Sachsenring on 12 July.

“This morning, honestly, I was feeling a bit better," Bagnaia began. "But then when I moved to the qualifying and we put a new soft rear, I was having the same grip as a used soft.

"Frustrated, but also humiliated"

“Like I said yesterday, it's extremely easy to see the difference between what my bike is doing compared to all the other Ducatis.

“Big, big difference, but difficult to understand why.

“Also the team is without any answers.

“Today I just tried to do the maximum. I'm not happy. I feel really frustrated, but also humiliated about my feeling, about what is happening.

“But it is what it is, so I will just try to give my maximum and try to give to the people and to Ducati the maximum I can.”

Bagnaia highlighted a MotoGP social media clip to illustrate his complete lack of rear grip.

“Right now things are happening that I can't control. Like if you look at a MotoGP social media video of me entering turn 14 in a slow lap and completely losing the rear without doing anything.

“In '22, '23, '24, also '21, '20, '19, the bike was always doing [the normal] thing.

“And all last year apart from Japan and this year, the bike is doing strange things, and mostly in the last three GPs.”

“The problem is huge”

Asked how he is approaching the situation, Bagnaia replied:

“Enter [the track] and push, and do the maximum, and have the best approach possible also entering in the garage - because it's what I heard that was important to do.

“But honestly, the result didn't come, the same. So I don't know. I'm just trying to do the best as I could. My way to work is different compared to when I was winning, because when I was winning I was always asking for things in a very precise way.

“Right now, no, because I can't feel anything. And when I say that I didn't feel any difference between the soft and the medium front this morning, yesterday. And when I say that I don't feel any difference between new or used soft… It means that the problem is huge, and it's difficult to understand this thing.”

“Completely without engine brake”

Given the desperate situation, the 31-time MotoGP race winner was asked if he might try something radical to regain feeling with the Desmosedici.

His response indicated that the bike is not responding normally to setup changes, while engine braking feels nonexistent.

“Right now, we don't have any plan, just to try to figure things out. But the problem is that in the past, when I was having a low grip, the team tried to charge [load] more the rear to have more support.

“But now, when I have low grip, if we put more charge [load] on the rear, I lose grip.

“And normally you need to brake with both tyres. But now if I brake with both tyres, it's worse than braking with just the front.

“So it's like the opposite, and the feeling is like entering a corner with the clutch in your hand [pulled in]. So completely without engine brake.

“And the bike cannot work like this.”

Bagnaia, who finished 17.8s behind team-mate and Sprint winner Marc Marquez, will join the factory Aprilia team to start a four-year contract next season.