Ducati makes confident Pecco Bagnaia claim: ‘From Qatar we’ll see a difference’

Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali expects “we’ll see a different championship from Qatar” as he backs Pecco Bagnaia to transform his results after a tough start to MotoGP 2025.

The double world champion was expected to face the toughest challenge of his MotoGP career when Marc Marquez joined the factory Ducati squad as his team-mate.

But the start to the 2025 season has been far harder than expected for Bagnaia, who was 5.5s off Marquez in fourth at the Argentina GP having come up third in the Thai GP having at no point looked like being able to challenge for victory.

Marquez, by contrast, has enjoyed a perfect start to the campaign, winning both sprints and grands prix run so far as well as qualifying on pole for both.

Bagnaia has been unhappy with the feeling he has found on the GP25 and has even contemplated reverting to the GP24 from this weekend’s Americas GP.

Coming into another Marquez stronghold at COTA, Bagnaia is expected to remain on the back foot.

However, from the following round in Qatar, Domenicali is backing Bagnaia to return to the front of the field.

“I think Pecco started with two races that weren’t the most favourable for him,” Domenicali is reported by GPOne as saying at a recent Ducati event.

“He finished the winter tests with some problems that weren’t his fault, so we’re not seeing his true potential yet.

“I’m convinced we’ll see it, starting with the next few races - although, perhaps not in Austin, which is a particularly well-suited circuit for Marc.

“But I think we’ll see a different championship from Qatar.”

Bagnaia won last year’s Qatar Grand Prix and was second at the event the year before, though his record at the Lusail venue is patchy.

He retired from the 2022 Qatar GP after a collision with Jorge Martin, while in 2021 he was third and failed to finish again in his rookie start in 2019.

In his Moto2 title-winning year in 2018, Bagnaia won in Qatar, but has just one other podium to his credit before that - a third in 2016 in Moto3.

Ahead of this weekend’s Americas GP, Bagnaia sits third in the standings but is already 31 points adrift of team-mate Marc Marquez at the top of the championship.

Despite his results not being where they were expected to be, a brace of third in Thailand and a 3-4 finish in Argentina marks the first time in the sprint era that Bagnaia hasn’t registered a non-score inside the opening two rounds.

It’s also the first time since 2021 that he has finished the first two grands prix in the points.