Pecco Bagnaia's bleak one-word response to his Japanese GP issues

Pecco Bagnaia said “everything” is different with his Ducati MotoGP bike at this year’s Japanese Grand Prix, 12 months on from his shock victory at the event.

The double world champion enjoyed a stunning form resurgence amid a difficult 2025 campaign last year at Motegi, where he won both races from pole.

Enduring a similarly difficult stretch ahead of this season’s Japanese Grand Prix, Pecco Bagnaia looks miles away from being able to repeat this winning form after Friday practice.

He was 16th at the end of Practice, 0.775s off the pace set by fellow Ducati rider Alex Marquez, while Bagnaia’s team-mate Marc Marquez was third overall. It marks the sixth race in a row that Bagnaia has fallen into Q1 after Friday’s running.

“A standard Friday for this season…”

Asked what was different on his bike compared to the 2025 Motegi round, Bagnaia replied: “Everything,” before adding, “Unluckily, everything.”

In what was a short debrief with the media that lasted just shy of 90 seconds, Bagnaia said the rear grip problems he has battled all season returned.

“Standard. A standard Friday for this season. Struggling with grip, no grip, completely zero grip. We need to work on it,” he explained.

“Yes, always, more or less, the same [problem].

“But, we know. We try to work with a good approach and we try to improve a bit.

“I think this time it’s more difficult compared to Austria, because in Austria, the level of grip with the AZ tyre is less for everybody.

“So, I’m closer. But this time, the casing is the same one as always. I struggle more because I don’t feel the extra grip.”

Bagnaia is the only Ducati rider on the GP26 not directly into Q2, while only Fermin Aldeguer and Franco Morbidelli on GP25s joined him from the marque’s stable outside of the top 10.

Morbidelli said his speed was good on medium rubber, but couldn’t extract the same performance from the soft in time attack trim.

“Not one of those Fridays where I'm able to go through direct to Q2,” Morbidelli said.

“Unfortunately, I'm bummed about that because at one point of the day we had a great speed, especially with the medium.

“I was feeling really confident that with the soft I could have gone through, but I couldn't improve enough to make a lap time good enough to go through.

“It's not a lot; it's two tenths, but it's enough.”