Francesco Bagnaia quizzed on who he expects to be in the MotoGP title battle

Francesco Bagnaia expects plenty of challengers for the 2024 MotoGP title, but not just from Ducati.

Ducati have a stunning line-up that includes the likes of two-time defending MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia, six-time premier class champion Marc Marquez, Jorge Martin, Enea Bastianini and Marco Bezzecchi just to name a few.

All five of those riders will have ambitions of fighting for the MotoGP title, but the threat from the likes of KTM and Aprilia can’t be ignored either.

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Bagnaia left it open to interpretation: “Like last year, many names are there.

“I think, more or less, all Ducati riders. Honda will maybe do a step, Yamaha will do a step, Aprilia and KTM so many of them can be super fast.

“It will be important to, like last year, make very few mistakes and be consistent. It will not be easy.”

When it comes to fighting for titles, Bagnaia has done it under extreme pressure as he won both his MotoGP titles at the final round.

And the factory Ducati rider expects this to help him going forward: “I think we worked very well in the last two years from the mental side. I think we were always competitive even in bad situations and we were 91 points [down in 2022] and last year after Barcelona [I had the injury].

“So I think this will help us a lot to know our potential and to know that we can always have a good potential. I think this is a little bit of a step more.”

Bagnaia wants more ‘explosiveness’

Although qualifying was a non-issue for Bagnaia early on in 2023, it became exactly that at a few rounds during the second half of the season.

That, along with Martin’s brilliant form helped the Pramac rider sustain a serious challenge for the title.

But Bagnaia is keen to find more performance in that area, which could make him even harder to beat given his ability to find more on raceday than most.

Bagnaia said: “I would like to improve a bit in terms of explosiveness like I was at the beginning of the season, but then I lost it a little bit after Barcelona.

“But still I need to take it a step further. Other riders are more competitive in that area and make fewer mistakes. I crashed seven times last season and five were in the race.”