Tire disaster in the Motegi Sprint: Bagnaia’s rear tire is shredded

All that was missing was a tire disaster: Pecco Bagnaia’s 2026 is truly ill-fated. The Ducati rider finished the Sprint at the back, with the rear tire destroyed in the central part of the tread. When the tire temperature rises excessively, the compound delaminates and, besides making riding practically impossible, it also creates significant safety issues.

In Austria, Pecco Bagnaia had shown an upward trend with 6th and 7th place. At Motegi last year, the three-time world champion (two in the top class), the Piedmont native, dominated the scene, winning both the Sprint and the GP. But this year something has changed.

Bagnaia arrived on the Sprint grid after a catastrophic Friday, only 16th in pre-qualifying. He failed to make it into Q2 and had to settle for 13th on the grid. A result that will obviously affect the development of the GP as well. What went wrong? "It was a normal Friday, like I’ve had many times this season," Pecco Bagnaia replies with bitterness and irony. "I have no grip, we need to work on it. It’s more or less always the same thing."

In 2025, Pecco Bagnaia dominated in Japan and was a step ahead of his rivals. This year he’s been tinkering with different setups, but none have worked. Here in Japan, Michelin also played a part. "Some issues had already emerged in qualifying, not only on our Ducati bikes," commented technical director Luigi Dall’Igna in the heat of the moment. "We’ll look at the telemetry to understand what happened." Marc Marquez, however, had no problems. "I think so, it depends on many factors: riding style, setup, lots of things." Even Jorge Martin, who finished second in the Sprint, had serious issues with the rear. Clearly it’s not a problem with a single rider or bike; there’s something in the material brought by Michelin that didn’t work: no one expected the soft to suffer such issues.

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