The factory Ducati team’s Sunday in Indonesia was compounded by Pecco Bagnaia’s miserable outing. The double MotoGP World champ had a terrible start and was in last place when he crashed out at the final corner.
This was deeply puzzling. Especially as team manager Davide Tardozzi confirmed he was riding the same bike in Indonesia as Motegi the previous week.
Bagnaia was so devastated on Sunday that he cancelled all his media duties that afternoon. But on Saturday, he cut a perplexed and extremely frustrated figure. “I’m just a passenger of my bike,” he said. “I cannot control anything. I’m just having a lot of movement. I think four times, I arrived to the first corner and corner 10 without brakes. Three times, I need to close the throttle for the shakes. Difficult to imagine a race like this, a weekend like this.”
It emerged in Indonesia that he had used Franco Morbidelli’s year-old GP24 at the Misano test to understand what was wrong, even if Ducati management strangely tried to deny that. Cycle News understands Ducati had built a bike for him from spare parts of their year-old GP24 machine for Indonesia. And as Bagnaia is such an extremely sensitive rider, he noticed differences from what he had previously ridden, even if they were minute.
Rumors in the paddock also point toward his relationship with General Manager of Ducati Corse Gigi Dall’Igna is strained in the extreme.CN
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