After failing to secure a podium at his Grand Prix at Mugello, Francesco Bagnaia admitted that it’s “impossible” to see himself winning the 2025 MotoGP title.
The two-time MotoGP champion has endured a difficult 2025 campaign due to a lack of front-end feel on his GP25 Ducati. However, he remained optimistic about being competitive at a track where he had previously won three Sunday consecutive races.
Despite starting second, Bagnaia once again lost out to title rivals Marc and Alex Marquez, and on Sunday, he surrendered the final podium place to VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio.
Following the weekend’s events, the Italian sits 110 points behind his own team-mate, and 70 points behind Alex Marquez in the championship.
Bagnaia has now admitted that the gap in the standings, combined with his ongoing lack of front-end feel after the ninth round, may be too much for him to overcome.
“Like this, it’s impossible to think about winning the championship,” Bagnaia told Autosport post-race.
“If I’m doing races like this, if we are not changing something on the bike and the bike remains the same, I think that it’s difficult to think about the championship.
“So we just need to do something different, hoping to find the solution.
“I think the potential is there. I know that I can fight for the win, I know that what I did in the first six, seven laps is something that I can do always. I just need to feel good with my bike.
“I was quite confident the first part of the race, I was feeling good and then after six laps, the front started to drop. I needed to slow down because I was risking to crash.”
Francesco Bagnaia: ‘I can’t do what I want on the bike’
Bagnaia admitted that his inability to find front-end feeling nearly forced him to end his race early in the gravel traps.
“The problem is that this season it’s always like this,” he stated.
“I cannot do what I want on the bike. I need to follow what the bike has to do, and when I try to do what I want, I crash, or almost.
“Today, I was almost on the ground in the last corner when I tried just to do the same line as I did always.
“From the first race, it is like this. I maybe start well, then I do all the race watching the brothers, what they are doing, hoping a mistake from them to maybe have a chance to overtake.”
He added: “But like this it’s not possible, because I’m there, stuck in between seven, eight tenths, then I try to push to catch back, I arrive to two, three tenths, and then I need to slow down again because the front is starting to understeer everywhere.
“It changes in a lap. You feel okay, you are pushing, you are there, close. You can have a chance, you can overtake. And then from a lap, you start to have understeer, movement, and it’s impossible to be competitive like you were in the first laps.”
