Pecco Bagnaia: no excuses — with a Ducati like this, you can't be left behind

In the points, but far from Marquez: Bagnaia tastes bitterness after the Sprint in Goiania, and it’s fairly clear what didn’t work on Saturday.

Disappointing qualifying, an unremarkable Sprint. Starting from the eleventh slot on the MotoGP grid, Francesco Bagnaia finished eighth at the Autodromo Internacional de Goiania. Considering that the Ducati Desmosedici GP26 bikes of his teammate Marc Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio took the top two spots in the sprint race, it’s safe to say the Piedmontese rider wasn’t able to exploit the potential at his disposal. We’ll see if he can do better in the long race (31 laps).

The three-time world champion was one of the very few riders to choose the medium rear tire instead of the soft, but that wasn’t what limited him from achieving a better result in the Sprint: "I went with the medium," he told Sky Sport MotoGP, "because based on the data and the advice I received, it seemed like the right choice. Honestly, in the race I didn’t struggle with the rear tire; in fact, it was very consistent. Maybe in the first 2–3 laps the soft would have helped me a bit more, but that wasn’t the issue. The problem was my slide in qualifying, which kept me from starting up front. Unfortunately, I didn’t have two identical bikes, because on Friday we couldn’t run in the dry and I had to do some testing on Saturday morning; I went down on the bike I felt best with."

The mistake at the start of Q2 proved costly for Bagnaia, who knows he didn’t get the most out of his Ducati Desmosedici GP26: "It’s a bit of a shame to start eleventh when you have a bike that allows you to be at the front. The limiting factor in the race wasn’t the bike, but starting so far back. It’s a bit of a waste of points, because I had a bike to do better: in my opinion, I could have fought for the podium. But I was never incisive enough to make passes and I got stuck. I was much faster than Alex Marquez, but I could never find the space. It was my limitation not being able to get past him."

Pecco took responsibility for qualifying and the sprint being below his and the bike’s potential. We’ll see how today goes. Getting a good start and then managing the tires effectively will be crucial: "Long race, the limit is almost more the front tire than the rear. For me it’ll be important to pass at least 5–6 riders in the first 2–3 laps and be in the top 5–6, then manage the tires. In terms of pace, we’re the ones who did the most laps on used tires; in FP2 I took them to 16 laps and felt good. In the Sprint I was able to be fast even at the end; we’ll see on Sunday."

Bagnaia knows what he needs to do to try to finish with a good result in the 2026 MotoGP Brazilian Grand Prix. It also remains to be seen what condition the Goiania track will be in; we’ve seen a bit of everything these days.