Francesco Bagnaia has “enough talent” to dig out of current slump

MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez believes his Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia has “enough talent” to bounce back from his difficulties in the 2025 campaign.

While Marquez is enjoying immense success following his switch to the factory Ducati team at the start of the year, Bagnaia, who is the squad’s most successful rider, is enduring one of his most challenging seasons yet in MotoGP.

Following the Hungarian Grand Prix last month, Marquez commented that the Italian needs to “regain his confidence” to return to the sharp end of the field.

However, since then, the pressure has mounted on the two-time champion, who struggled to ninth at Balaton Park before qualifying 21st for the Catalan Grand Prix.

Marquez admitted that Bagnaia is going through a difficult phase in his career, especially with the increased scrutiny over him in recent months, but hopes he can turn around his season.

“I’m not the [best] person to give advice to Pecco, because he has his team and his people around him, and they have a lot of experience here and they will help him,” said Marquez, who leads Bagnaia by 250 points after 15 rounds. 

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

“But I want the best for Ducati, and for Ducati, we need both riders there on the top and fighting for the top positions, because it will be better to develop the bike for the future. 

“In the end, I want to beat everybody. I want to beat my team-mate and I want to beat my brother [Alex Marquez, second in the standings] and I want to beat everybody. But I don’t want to see that somebody is suffering like Pecco [is] right now.

“It’s something that is not easy for riders when they are in a difficult moment. It’s difficult to forget, because every day you are [talking to] journalists. Every day, you [the media] are doing your job and asking the same question. And this is something [that is] hard for us, for the athletes, but we need to accept.

“But it’s the first time in his career that he’s in that situation. But he has enough talent to go up from that hole.”

While a number of theories have emerged about Bagnaia’s slump, he maintains that he is simply not able to adapt to the DNA of Ducati’s GP25.

Initially, Ducati decided to retain the 2024 engine across all six of its bikes, but a late change saw Bagnaia, Marc Marquez and Fabio di Giannantonio being given a newer specification power unit.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Asked about the Ducati team potentially switching back to the 2024 unit, Marquez said: “I want the best for the team. 

“But check your notes from Thailand and Malaysia [testing]. We were saying, me and Pecco, that we follow the same direction, with the same comments, and we choose the same direction. 

“So, in the end, what I understand by the engineers is that we are riding with the base of the GP24, with some evolutions that you see on the aero package. 

“But in the end, I want the best for Ducati. And with Pecco, we have a very similar comment. And if it’s working for me, it will work for him, and the opposite.”