Ducati works rider Bagnaia after the Silverstone crash: “Hard to accept”

The British MotoGP weekend at Silverstone, held immediately after the summer break, was hardly worth the trip for Ducati factory rider and new dad Francesco Bagnaia this time round. Whilst his Gresini Ducati team-mate Alex Márquez battled it out with Marco Bezzecchi for third place, the 29-year-old Ducati factory rider was already forced to watch from the pits. The two-time world champion’s front tyre gave out after seven laps.

Game over für Ducati-Pilot Pecco Bagnaia

Foto: Gold and Goose

Bagnaia returned from Lap 1 in 14th place – only to drop back to 18th. At the time of the crash, he was running in 15th place. “I asked myself what on earth had happened. I’ve never had a crash like that before – I’ve never lost control of the front tyre coming out of a corner,” said Bagnaia, looking both dismayed and at a loss. “Even when you look at the data, it’s hard to make sense of it. I lost grip in a millisecond and that was it. It was really very strange – but that’s it. It’s very hard to accept.”

Bagnaia, who will be team-mate to his mate Bezzecchi at Aprilia from 2027, admitted: “It was one of the most difficult weekends of the year anyway. I was struggling to be quick – no, that’s wrong – I wasn’t actually ever quick. Let me put it this way: I struggled to stay with the top ten. But today there was a chance I might have finished the race among the top ten. Yet I then ran into major problems. We’ve got to find a way out of this – I don’t want to go through another weekend like this.”

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Pecco Bagnaia then offered an insight into his situation: “We changed everything for the race here – the set-up and the electronics – but that’s not where the problem lies. The difficulty is: I haven’t felt any grip on the bike since the first race of the season – simply none at all. We don’t know what to do. But at Ducati there are riders who are quite happy with the grip and for whom it feels good. It’s very difficult to understand,” said the Italian, who lost further ground to his World Championship rival Pedro Acosta in England.