One of the most confusing storylines of the 2025 MotoGP season surrounds Francesco Bagnaia’s sudden rise and fall in form, highlighted by an unexplained dominant weekend at Motegi.
Bagnaia arrived in Japan struggling, having gone five rounds without a podium and coming off a disastrous, scoreless home race at Misano. An official test followed, during which Ducati was able to give him access to a GP24 machine previously used by Franco Morbidelli, hoping to unlock answers to his ongoing issues.
Whatever was learned during that test appeared to work perfectly at Motegi. After battling corner-entry problems all year, Bagnaia looked transformed. He took pole position with a lap record and went on to lead every lap of both the Sprint and the grand prix, showing total control despite minor mechanical concerns during the race.
However, any optimism quickly disappeared. Just one week later in Indonesia, Bagnaia qualified poorly, failed to score points, and endured one of the most difficult weekends of his MotoGP career. Similar struggles followed at Phillip Island.
Sepang briefly offered another glimpse of competitiveness, with Bagnaia taking pole position and winning the Sprint. But that momentum did not last. A puncture in the Malaysian Grand Prix and several non-finishes across the final races meant he would not return to the podium for the rest of the season.
Bagnaia later admitted that Motegi was the only weekend in 2025 where his bike felt similar to the previous year, allowing him to ride naturally and confidently. While Sepang produced results, the overall feeling never matched what he experienced in Japan.
He acknowledged that adapting to the GP25, which proved highly successful for team-mate Marc Marquez, was a personal challenge. Bagnaia explained that he struggles to quickly adjust to bike characteristics he does not feel comfortable with, relying instead on detailed feedback to help the team improve the package.
Adding to the mystery, Bagnaia’s performance declined as the season progressed rather than improving. From Austria onwards, he encountered increasing instability and bike movement, issues that appeared inconsistently and proved difficult for the team to diagnose or resolve.
When the bike became unstable, Bagnaia was often forced to back off, limiting performance. The unpredictability of the problem made development even harder, contributing to a frustrating end to the year.
Ultimately, Bagnaia slipped from third place midway through the season to fifth overall in the final standings, with Motegi and Sepang standing out as rare bright spots in an otherwise perplexing campaign.
