Francesco Bagnaia predicts shock No2 manufacturer behind Ducati

Francesco Bagnaia is anticipating a change in the competitive order of MotoGP this season after a strong showing from Yamaha in the opening preseason test in Malaysia.

Grand Prix’s premier class has been dominated by European manufacturers in recent years, with the two remaining Japanese brands – Honda and Yamaha – falling to the bottom of the pecking order in both 2023 and 2024, as Aprilia and KTM have risen to be Ducati’s closest challengers.

Bagnaia, however, suggested that this could change in 2025, after Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo was the only non-Ducati rider to lap in the 1:56s on the final day of the Sepang test.

“I think that we will have a switch in terms of who will be behind Ducati during this season,” Bagnaia said following the conclusion of this week’s three-day test in Sepang.

“I think Yamaha did a very good job, but we have to wait for Thailand because they did six days of test [Yamaha also took part in the Shakedown with all four race riders thanks to their concessions status], so maybe some performance also comes from this.

“But it’s true that Fabio [Quartararo] had fantastic pace on all three days, and the time attack, that was one weak point [of Yamaha] from last year, was fast today.

“So, I think that they did a very good job.”

Pecco Bagnaia summarises Sepang test

Bagnaia did add some caveats, though, mostly regarding limitations of his own testing programme that left limited time for hot lapping.

“From my personal perspective, this test I didn’t have the chance to really push like I wanted,” he said.

“My configuration of the time attack was able to beat the lap time, but with just one time attack it was difficult to explode like I’m [normally] doing when I do a time attack.

“But, apart from that I’m happy that all the jobs done were useful for us to understand where to improve and to understand which base to decide to use in Thailand.”

Quartararo’s time attack performance was not the only eye-catching headline time, as at the very top of the list was Alex Marquez at the end of day three.

The Gresini Ducati rider inherits this year the Ducati Desmosedici GP24 that dominated last season and whose engine is still in consideration for the factory team, with Bagnaia in particular missing its braking characteristics compared to the 2025 engine.

So, does Marquez’s performance on the GP24 make things more complicated when deciding on which engine to choose for the upcoming season – and, indeed, for 2026 as a result of the incoming development freeze.

“For me, no,” Bagnaia said, “because, honestly, it’s clear that when you have to do many things, when you have to try many things, a bit of the performance goes away – it’s normal that it’s like this.

“For example, this morning I just asked to my team ‘Let me do one time attack, I want it’.

“I didn’t have the chance to do two or three like other riders did, just because we needed to be more focused on working.

“But I know that we are just engineers riding bikes because we need to test for them, we need to keep our maximum performance for them, and the performance is taken a bit apart.”

Split configurations

Bagnaia was able to lap in the 1:56s on the final day, just 0.007 seconds adrift of Marquez’s benchmark, but his 1:56.500 was also almost 0.3 seconds adrift of his pole position time from last November.

However, the three-times World Champion was happy with his test as a whole.

“Three positive days, honestly,” Bagnaia concluded at the end of the test.

“We had time – not enough – but we had time to filter many things and we tested more or less everything.

“We were unlucky that Diggia [Fabio Di Giannantonio] was out of the test because he could help us a lot, but with Marc [Marquez] we did a fantastic job.”

Bagnaia and Marquez both completed Sprint simulations, with the latter having an average lap time around 0.3 seconds faster than Bagnaia.

The Italian didn’t address this difference directly, but did note a difference in “configurations” between his bike and Marquez’s for those 10-lap simulations.

“Also today we decided to go with two different configurations of the bike for the simulations, just to give more data as possible to the engineers and it was super-useful,” Bagnaia said.

He added: “For the Sprint simulation [...] I needed to sacrifice a bit the performance to try something during the simulation and I wasn’t that happy during it because something came out, I was having a bit of vibration – was not the same as last year, but lap-by-lap was [getting] worse.”

Part of the difference between Bagnaia’s specification and Marquez’s for the final day was the chassis.

“I can just say that we were doing different jobs,” Bagnaia said.

“We used two different ways during the day, and one thing that I tried more than Marc was the chassis compared to him.”

The impression was positive, but the Italian would like to try it in conditions with less grip, conditions he hopes to find in Thailand next week.

“I liked it, but like everything, more or less, it has bad and good [points], so I want to try it better in Thailand.

“We need a lower level of grip, because today was like– I was exiting with a new thing, I was coming back, I was going faster, but then I was improving again with the new things. So, it’s difficult to understand when the level of grip is like this.”