Francesco Bagnaia says he is “not that worried” about his lack of results in MotoGP despite making a lacklustre start to the 2026 season in Thailand.
The factory Ducati arrived at Buriram keen to bounce back from a wretched 2025 campaign in which he scored two grands prix wins but largely struggled to match his championship-winning team-mate Marc Marquez.
Pre-season testing all but confirmed that he had put his 2025 struggles behind, as he immediately found the GP26 comfortable to ride, with the lap times showing his growing confidence on the bike.
However, the Italian never seemed to find a rhythm during the Buriram weekend, with a spate of mistakes late in qualifying leaving him 13th on the grid.
While he salvaged a point in the sprint, he failed to make any inroads in Sunday’s race after jumping to ninth at the start. Only late retirements for Marc Marquez, Alex Marquez and Joan Mir helped him remain inside the top 10.
Explaining his latest troubles, the three-time world champion said: “I was managing the tyres a lot. I never pushed, because I could not push, just to control the rear tyre.
“With eight laps to go, I started to spin till fifth gear on the straight. It was very strange, and I lost other positions. It was impossible to remain at a constant pace, even if I was controlling a lot at the start.”
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
The Thailand Grand Prix took place in unusually hot conditions, with track temperature reaching 58C during the race. Michelin also brought a special tyre carcass for Buriram, which Bagnaia’s team-mate Marc Marquez reckoned was partly responsible for Marco Bezzecchi’s dominant performance on the Aprilia.
Ducati’s relative lack of competitiveness at Buriram only compounded Bagnaia’s difficulties, with the Italian beginning the new season still carrying the weight of a miserable end to 2025, when he failed to finish the final five races.
But Bagnaia doesn’t see his ninth-place finish in Thailand as a cause of concern, instead suggesting that he has found a starting point he can build on.
“I think finishing the season as I finished last year was important to restart and to start building the speed again,” he said. “I’m not that worried about my result. It’s true that it’s not a position I want to finish, but it’s a point of start.
“Then it’s true that I never felt good during the race weekend. FP1 was the best session I had. From FP2 till the race, I started to struggle quite a lot.
“It was completely opposite compared to the test. In the test, I was feeling fantastic, I was able to push well, I was able to control the tyres a lot. Then, for some reason, I started to struggle a lot during the [race] weekend.
“We just need to improve, because right now we are not anymore the fastest.”
While Bagnaia also faced some issues at Buriram last year, he was still able to claim a podium finish in third behind the Marquez brothers.
Asked what was different this time, he said: “Others made an improvement and we made a step back. So we need to understand why.”
Pressed further as to where he slipped backwards, he said: “Controlling the tyre. Because our bike is turning a bit less. In the test, no, but on the race weekend, the bike was turning a bit less. It was very difficult to manage the rear tyre with the throttle.”
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