MotoGP: Bagnaia opens up on his current struggles with his Ducati

On the back of a run of tough races, Francesco Bagnaia has opened up about his current challenges on his Desmosedici GP25, revealing issues that see him struggle under breaking. F1Technical’s senior writer Balazs Szabo reports from the Balaton Park Circuit.

Following a disappointing perfromance last time out at the Red Bull Ring, Ducati factory rider Francesco Bagnaia continued to struggle on the opening day at the Grand Prix of Hungary. The two time world champion ended up only 14th fastest in Practice, 0.728s adrift of pace-setter, Pedro Acosta.

His disappointing result means that the Italian will need to take part in the opening qualifying session and attempt to progress into the second segment on Saturday.

Reflecting on his challenging time in finding his rhythm on the Hungarian track, Bagnaia cut a dejected figure: “It wasn’t the best day I could have faced.”

Ducati has already completed a test with its Panigale at the Balaton Park Circuit two weeks ago, where Bagnaia could already feel that the layout of the new 4.1km track would exaggerate his current issues with the Desmosedici GP25.

“After the test with the Panigale, I knew I would have struggled here as this is a circuit that features all the types of corners where we have struggled so far this year, meaning those that require heavy braking, leaning while still braking, and then turning the bike in the last part of the corner.

“We knew it would have been tough and so it was, but we must look at the positive side, as I halved the gap with first position throughout the day. I’ll have one more session available tomorrow in order to make further progress,” concluded Bagnaia.