Francesco Bagnaia “spent hours analysing mistakes, worst races”
“On the left corners I miss something”
11 GP wins. 8 non-scores. 10 points.
Those were the key statistics from Francesco Bagnaia’s 2024 MotoGP campaign, where the Italian won more GPs than all other riders combined but still came up ten points short of Jorge Martin in the title battle.
“I’ve spent hours analysing and re-watching my mistakes and worst races from last year,” double champion Bagnaia confessed at this week’s Ducati Lenovo team launch.
While the cause of his non-scores varied, among the conclusions drawn by Bagnaia was the need for greater patience in some situations.
“I want always to arrive [as far] in front as possible. But I understood that sometimes it's better to wait a bit. Because the championship is long,” he said.
“It's true that you can gain and lose many points every weekend. And it's true that it wasn't always my fault.
"But if in more than one situation, I was waiting [more patient], I was not crashing and taking maybe 13 points [that] was enough to win [the title].”
While patience could have paid off during situations such as clashes with the Marquez brothers at Portimao (Marc) and Aragon (Alex), there were other occasions where Bagnaia fell on his own while riding ‘calmly’.
“It's difficult to predict sometimes, because I lost the front many times when I was calm. Like in Barcelona [Sprint] on the last lap, like in Malaysia. So that's something that it's not easy to understand, but I will try.
“And [then], it's not that the team has to improve, but we have to improve as a team in some situations.
"It’s something that has to come easily, just doing our job and not being under pressure sometimes, just working like normal and everything will be easier.”
Bagnaia also highlighted that he fell only nine times over the entire season, meaning he was ranked just 17th in terms of most falls last year.
The problem in terms of the title was that seven of those accidents came during races (he retired due to a technical issue in the Le Mans Sprint).
“It's more - not to change the strategy, but to change something during the races,” he confirmed.
“Because if we look, I'm one of the riders that crashed less last year, but [seven] out of nine were in the races. So I have to improve that.”
“On the left corners, I miss something”
In performance terms, Bagnaia was often untouchable last season, claiming dominant double victories at Assen, Austria and Barcelona.
However, the Italian revealed one area where he can still improve further.
“Riding style is difficult to change a lot, it’s a long process. But what I want to improve from the first test is to try to be [as] competitive in left corners as I am in the right corners,” he said.
“This is already a good thing because on the right corners I feel very, very strong. [But] on the left corners I miss something. So I will try to be better on that."
That’s the polar opposite of new team-mate Marc Marquez, who is famously strong in left-hand corners and at anti-clockwise tracks such as COTA, Sachsenring, Aragon and Phillip Island.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
