Francesco Bagnaia endured a nightmare weekend on the British Grand Prix, failing to attain factors for the primary time this season.
Returning to MotoGP motion simply weeks after surgical procedure on his proper forearm, Bagnaia by no means seemed snug on his Ducati GP26 at Silverstone, however remained optimistic a few turnaround.
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As a substitute, nonetheless, his weekend solely bought worse with every session. In apply, he struggled with braking and crashed late on within the session, failing to safe a direct entry into Q2.
On Saturday morning, he recorded an excellent slower time in qualifying, ending up seven tenths off the tempo of Franco Morbidelli on the GP25.
Dash nightmare
Then, Bagnaia misplaced vital time on account of tyre graining within the dash, very like his team-mate Marc Marquez, together with his tempo dropping within the 2m02s vary. Having additionally did not make any headway at the beginning of the race from sixteenth on the grid, he crossed the road in seventeenth place, solely forward of Maverick Vinales’ stand-in Pol Espargaro and the Yamahas of Augusto Fernandez and Toprak Razgatlioglu.
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“I can not think about one thing extra with my efficiency in the present day,” Bagnaia lamented after the dash.
“[I had] no efficiency, no velocity. The shortage of grip…. Their grip is large, and in the present day after 4 laps, I began to go behind, not in entrance, and the final two laps, I raced with out touching the knee on the appropriate aspect, so it was very tough for me to be aggressive.
“The goal to start out the weekend was to be within the high 10, however my efficiency it is tough to think about one thing higher than 15.
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“The manufacturing facility staff in the present day struggled so much, me and Marc have been the slowest riders within the final laps, so it is tough to think about what to do, as a result of in the present day I used to be anticipating the drop, however not that a lot.”
Inexplicable crash
Sunday’s race supplied no respite. In simply three laps, he had slipped again to 18th place, with simply 21 riders remaining on observe at that time. As a number of extra riders crashed in fast succession, he steadily made his means into points-scoring positions, however his weekend got here to a untimely finish when he tucked the entrance at Luffield on lap 8. This was coincidentally the identical nook the place he crashed ultimately 12 months’s British GP.
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Nonetheless, the Italian was baffled as to why he went down after the apex, describing the crash as “unusual.”
“I by no means misplaced the entrance exiting from a nook, so, very unusual,” he mentioned. “Wanting on the information, it is very tough to see one thing. The one factor is that the entrance steering utterly closed the…
“I utterly misplaced the entrance in a matter of milliseconds. So, very unusual. However it’s what occurred.
“Additionally it is tough to simply accept, as a result of it was already one of many hardest weekends of the season. I struggled to be near the highest ten on the weekend. And in the present day there was slightly chance of ending within the high 10.
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“We have to rise from this case, as a result of I do not need to do one other weekend like this one.”
An absence of rear grip has been a persistent situation for Bagnaia in 2026, with the Italian figuring out it as the most important issue holding him again this season.
Whereas Gresini has been capable of finding an answer for this downside on Alex Marquez’s bike, Bagnaia continues to cope with it on the manufacturing facility Ducati, regardless of his staff doing its greatest to repair it.
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“I modified the whole lot. The set-up, digital aspect, however the issue will not be that,” he added.
“From the primary race of the season, I haven’t got any grip. Utterly zero. And we do not know what to do, as a result of there are riders in Ducati which have so much. So, it is very obscure.”
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