Bagnaia admits he underestimated his bike’s problems

“I underestimated the problems with my bike,” Pecco Bagnaia admitted after a difficult weekend at Sepang. He finished 13th in Malaysia, 32.960 seconds behind Marc Márquez. The gap between the two teammates is 226 points: Bagnaia has 173 and sits ninth in the standings, while Márquez leads with 399.

The contrast is also clear in their season results. Marc Márquez has seven Sunday victories and nine Sprint wins. Bagnaia’s strongest weekend came at Brno, where he scored 28 points and won the Sprint.

At Sepang, Bagnaia described a Sunday race defined by a lack of grip. “On Sunday I had no grip. In the first laps I tried with all my strength to control it, but after the fifth lap I had no rear tyre left,” he said. He added that by the final lap he could not even touch his knee down in right-hand corners. The Sprint had been less difficult thanks to the rain, which allowed him to push harder.

The Italian rider also said he was counting the minutes until the season ended, while making clear that this feeling had not started just now. He summed up his aim for what remains with one word: “survive”.

The campaign still has stops in Qatar, Portugal and Valencia, and has become a recurring ordeal for Bagnaia. At Sepang, the familiar pattern returned. The comparison with Márquez, his teammate at Ducati, is all the sharper because Márquez is close to drawing level with him in titles with the manufacturer.

Bagnaia also referred to a previous experience, saying that in Japan last year he had been able to use “something that is no longer there today”, which helped him return to his usual riding. He added that it had not been available again since the following race, but declined to give further details. With the final rounds approaching, his admission about the problems with his bike comes alongside open frustration and an objective reduced to the bare minimum.