Pecco Bagnaia believes there may be a common culprit between team-mate Marc Marquez's crash out of the Spanish Grand Prix and his own struggles so far in 2025.
Bagnaia believes that the Ducati 'GP25s' being campaigned by himself and Marquez are more sensitive on the front end relative to last year's hand-me-down bike that Alex Marquez romped to victory with at Jerez.
There is in theory not a huge distance between the two, and Bagnaia acknowledges this. Ducati discarded its prototype 2025 engine in the off-season and has not made major changes to the aero or the chassis, yet Bagnaia has long maintained that even so the bike he's riding this year is not the same.
He has had difficulty exploiting it in sprint races in particular - which he has attributed to a long-term discomfort with the smaller-capacity fuel tank required for the sprints - but felt on Sunday at Jerez that he was again powerless to make progress up the order as he finished behind Alex Marquez and Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha in third.
"As soon as I arrived to Fabio, I didn't have any chance to overtake,” said Bagnaia.“Every time I was arriving to Turns 7-8, 11, 12, I was losing a lot, the front was locking a lot, I was losing it everywhere. It's a shame that it's like this but it's the situation right now.
"It's just strange that corners where I was super strong last year - corners 11 and 12 - this season I was struggling a lot. Even more when I was behind [someone]. And looking at Alex, he was super strong like I was last year."
Bagnaia pointed out that, with the GP24, he spent last year's Spanish Grand Prix shadowing Jorge Martin - a quarter of a second back at most - for a good third of the race before Martin crashed out.
Yet here he was unable to run even within half a second of Quartararo for any sustained period of time, while Alex Marquez eased past both of them.
When The Race put Bagnaia’s theory to fellow ‘GP25’ runner Fabio Di Giannantonio (the only Ducati customer to get the latest-spec equipment), the VR46 rider had a different perspective, joking “maybe I should try his GP25” before suggesting it was actually the turbulence from rivals’ bikes that had changed.
“For sure with the bike we have now, we get more turbulence behind other riders,” said Di Giannantonio.
“So I think it’s not coming from our bike but it’s more coming from the turbulence of the other bikes at the moment.
“I think that Alex Marquez for example, or Franky, would have the same turbulence effect as me or Pecco or Marc, honestly.”
What about Marc's crash?
Bagnaia argued that team-mate Marquez has led from the front for so much of the year that he may have been caught out by how this Desmosedici bike feels when running in traffic.
This wasn't necessarily disputed nor corroborated by Marc himself, who was simply at a loss as to what caused the crash, admitting that it was one he "doesn't understand a lot".
Marquez did emphasise however that it won't have been an issue of the front tyre pressure getting out of control because it was too early in the race.
The hole in Bagnaia's theory is that the elder Marquez already did prove he can run in traffic earlier this season.
He had deliberately dropped behind his brother Alex in Thailand, then shadowed him with ease for many laps. And, after crashing this Sunday, he picked his way through the pack without too much trouble, though naturally none of the riders he overtook were as fast as Quartararo.
But Bagnaia also acknowledged that Marquez is better at riding around bike deficiencies.
"Marc is very good at riding everything, honestly speaking," he stressed. "I cannot do it.
"I want to feel better, to have a good feeling with the front. And in this situation it's quite difficult because it's something that is new for me. Last year I never had this kind of feeling, and I was doing things in fast corners that this season I cannot do.
"It's true that today was very hot [but] it's always like this when I'm behind.
"Even in the warm-up lap that you're going slow and you're behind someone, you start to feel this."
So what now?
Bagnaia will look for answers in Monday's post-race test - but though he clearly misses certain aspects of the 'pure' GP24 being raced by the Gresini riders and Franco Morbidelli, he said going back in spec is not an option.
"I think that the '25 has more potential than the '24. Because I have more acceleration, more top speed, in the braking zone it's very good, on straights it's very good.
"[But] looking at the data, it's quite clear that if you put the lap [trace] of Alex with my laps from last year, it's very similar, his potential on the fast corners. And if you put my ones with last year's, I cannot do it.
"But it's not completely correct to go back to the '24. Also because Marc is winning everything. So it's also difficult when your team-mate is winning like this."
As far as the rebalancing efforts are concerned, Bagnaia's suggestion was "to add more weight on the front of the bike" - but presumably Monday's test will have more substantial changes for him to try, too.
