Bagnaia and Ducati at the end of the line: no hope with the GP26

Ducati’s two-time MotoGP champion, Pecco Bagnaia, is experiencing an up-and-down 2026 season. Four podiums in twelve races and five retirements signal a poor feeling with the Desmosedici GP26. For the rider from Chivasso, nothing good seems to be on the horizon, with a good part of the Ducati factory team already looking ahead to next year, when the new prototypes will debut.

At Silverstone, Pecco Bagnaia hit the lowest point of the season and perhaps of his tenure in Ducati factory colors. In truth, the Piedmontese rider’s dark spell with the Desmosedici already began in 2025, which is why the top brass in Borgo Panigale decided to bet on Pedro Acosta for the near future. His current eighth place in the standings has been affected by technical bad luck, but also by Aprilia’s rise—his future employer...

It must be admitted that Pecco has offered few flashes of excitement in this MotoGP World Championship. The only noteworthy performance came at Brno, with a win (his only one of the season) in the Sprint and a third place in the race. Then at Silverstone, he managed to do worse than expected. At the end of FP2 he had a gap of 1.127 seconds from the best lap. In the Sprint he finished 17th, about 17 seconds off the winner, while in the long race he crashed on lap seven. The front-end tuck put a bitter cherry on top of the British Grand Prix, in a weekend where he suffered rear tire wear like never before.

Bagnaia has insisted for much of the season that his difficulties with the current Ducati GP26 are very different from those that troubled him with the Ducati GP25. Previously, he suffered from a lack of confidence at the front, likely triggered by small changes in the bike’s weight distribution. In 2026, the core issue is a lack of rear grip, for reasons that remain unclear. "I’ve changed everything: setup, electronics, but that’s not the problem. From the first race of the season I haven’t had any grip, absolutely zero," Pecco admitted after the Silverstone GP.

Finding solutions for the remaining ten races is equally complicated. "We don’t know what to do because there are Ducati riders who have a lot of [rear grip], so it’s hard to understand." In reality, Ducati’s focus is more on lead rider Marc Marquez, the only one who right now could put a spoke in Aprilia’s wheel. From here on, Bagnaia’s MotoGP season is already oriented toward his next adventure with the 850cc bikes, aiming not to carry over bad habits, to adapt to the Pirelli tires, and to make the most of the four-year deal with the Noale manufacturer.

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