Tardozzi shatters Bagnaia's alibi: the problem isn't the bike

Pecco Bagnaia’s final MotoGP weekend starts uphill once again. With the end of this championship, a nightmare ends for the Piedmontese Ducati rider, who has grappled with a season full of disappointing performances and very few satisfactions. Now the higher-ups at Borgo Panigale are beginning to demand something more, as they prepare to set up and let him test the Desmosedici GP26.

In the pre-race press conference in Valencia, the two-time MotoGP champion admitted his responsibilities. The Ducati GP25 certainly has some issues at the front, but that’s not a watertight alibi for Pecco Bagnaia. With the same bike, Marc Marquez put together a surprising championship and won the world title with five races to spare.

The Italian, on the other hand, tried many different solutions over these months, but without success, taking home just two victories. "I don’t know exactly what to ask the team to help me," admitted the 28-year-old from Chivasso. "It’s difficult to extract it from the data; we’ve been dealing with this issue since the first race."

A clear and quick solution is needed; perhaps a first provisional answer could come in Tuesday’s MotoGP test in Valencia. But only next year’s tests in Malaysia and Thailand will provide clarity—and the first hints about the future of Ducati and Bagnaia. "It’s not normal to see Pecco in the positions he’s been in this season. Ducati has done everything possible to give him the confidence he needs, but he hasn’t found it, and now we’re between a rock and a hard place," Davide Tardozzi told Sky Sport MotoGP.

On Friday in Valencia, he missed out on Q2; he lacked something in the fourth sector. A script already written in this season to be filed away, awaiting Tuesday... "Our focus remains on this weekend and we will try to place ourselves among the front positions in the Sprint and in Sunday’s race, while in next week’s tests we will start from scratch," added the Lenovo Ducati team manager.

Will the winter break be enough to rediscover the Pecco we knew up to a year ago? The GP26 will certainly be an evolution of the current bike, but there won’t be upheavals, considering that in two years almost everything will change with the new MotoGP class regulations. On one point Tardozzi seems certain: the problem is not the engine. "We are firmly convinced that the issue is not related to the engine and, in fact, we will continue to work on this year’s specifications during the tests."

The request from Borgo Panigale seems quite clear, for the present and the future. "Pecco is a champion and he must prove it," admitted Davide Tardozzi. And Bagnaia will have to start right away, before the rider market runs its course.