Pecco Bagnaia has understood his mistake: relief for Ducati, awaiting the “comeback”

Will we have the long-awaited “Dream Team” at Ducati in 2026? Marc Marquez will be in the spotlight as the reigning champion, but Pecco Bagnaia won’t go unnoticed. The three-time world champion between MotoGP and Moto2 is coming off a dreadful season—undeniable—and clearly an immediate bounce-back is expected. Let’s set aside all the criticism coming from every direction, plus the constant rumors of a possible rift between Bagnaia and Ducati. And we’re not in the rider’s head to say he was rattled by the arrival of a champion of Marquez’s caliber... In 2026 it all depends on the rider himself. A season like the one just finished has to remain a one-off, and Bagnaia is certainly already working hard to get back to where we saw him in previous years. Also because other manufacturers and riders are moving forward too...

Anyone expecting an exciting head-to-head between Marc Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia was surely very disappointed. The Piedmont native, the one who put Ducati back on top of the world for the first time since Casey Stoner’s magical 2007, didn’t actually start that badly in terms of results, with eight podiums in the first five GPs, including the win in Austin. With Marc Marquez, however, having crashed... But it’s only the beginning, that duel will come, right? Instead, from that moment on, the stat sheet of his season tells us the podiums dwindled: after two GPs without points he started grinding again, but only third places, and after the Sachsenring the dark patch results-wise began. The double victory at the Japanese GP seemed like the turning point, but it was only a one-off: apart from the Sprint win in Malaysia, he strung together an incredible sequence of zeros, closing out the 2025 season that way.

But what was the mistake? “Trying to find on the GP25 the feelings I had on the GP24”, as reported by Motorsport.com. This simple sentence, said during Ducati’s celebration, encapsulates the entire discussion about his just-finished season. All riders with the GP25 have admitted differences from the previous version—nothing revolutionary, but noticeable. But from this starting point came all the problems, a chain reaction that likely didn’t help him in terms of concentration and mentality, and alas led to the season we mentioned earlier. “He hasn’t forgotten how to ride a motorcycle”, tester Michele Pirro also pointed out. The MotoGP audience is waiting for him; we’ll see what Pecco Bagnaia’s 2026 looks like.