Francesco Bagnaia has acknowledged “there’s a problem” if he’s not fighting at the sharp end of the MotoGP grid at this weekend’s Grand Prix at Mugello.
After winning the last three Grand Prix at Mugello, the two-time MotoGP champion heads into his home race aiming for a fourth consecutive victory.
Bagnaia indicated that a strong result at his home race is important for regaining confidence in his 2025 campaign.
“It will be very important because if I will not be competitive here, we can say there’s a problem,” Bagnaia admitted.
“So I will try to fight for it. I know that I’m not in the situation of imagining a win in both races. Because we know how strong Marc was this season and we know how strong Alex was this season.
“So it will be important to restart from Sunday in Aragon and try to [improve] our pace session by session.”
The Italian changed from the standard 340mm to larger 355mm front disc during the warm-up session at Aragon, which improved his front end feeling on the GP25.
Post-race he reflected that the new feeling and securing a podium “felt like a victory,” but his mindset is different for his home race.
He disclosed that he would change back to the 340mm brakes for Mugello, but admitted that the Marquez brothers were more competitive.
“We have to be realistic and consider that the last GP until the race was quite difficult for me,” Bagnaia said.
“Then it’s true that I gained some confidence [with the 355mm brakes] for the Sunday race, but it’s true also that I finished in the same place as the start of the season, in third place.
“I was close to them, but Marc [Marquez] was playing. I was there with Alex [Marquez] fighting and he finished in front of me. So I think is a good point to restart, but we need to do another step this weekend and it’s the correct track to try to do it.”
“This track it’s more difficult to use the 355 because the temperature of the brake is not arriving to the [correct] temperature for the disc.
“So we will try starting with the standard one that are the 340mm with the low mass and hope to not have any kind of issues like we had in the past.
“But I think that this track, we need the brakes obviously, but less than other tracks, which maybe could be better for us.”
The Torinese rider sits 93 points behind his team-mate after the first eight rounds of the championship.
Bagnaia is looking to close the championship gap after a difficult 2025 season so far, with his sole victory coming in Texas following Marquez’s crash from the lead.
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