Two-time MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia has faced a sharp downturn in his 2025 performance, notably revealing that his race time at the Austrian Grand Prix was 12 seconds slower than his winning time in 2024. As this year’s Austrian GP winner, Marc Marquez, matched Bagnaia’s winning time from last season, the stark contrast highlights Bagnaia’s troubling loss of pace amidst the ongoing season.
Despite past dominance, Bagnaia’s 2025 campaign has been marked by frustration and confusion, as rivals Marco Bezzecchi and Marc Marquez have outperformed him repeatedly. While natural bike development and other factors have boosted competitors at venues like the Red Bull Ring, Bagnaia slipped to an eighth-place finish, signaling a pronounced drop from his championship-winning form.
Comparing Bagnaia’s 2025 Struggles to His 2024 Success
By the 14th round of the 2024 MotoGP season at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Bagnaia had secured seven victories and ten podiums overall, showcasing dominance across both full-distance and sprint races. In sprint events—previously his weak spot—he had won four and secured two additional podium finishes by this stage last year.
In contrast, while Bagnaia has claimed podiums in half of the fourteen grands prix so far in 2025, he has managed only a single win. The sprint races have been particularly problematic this season, with fuel tank issues reported by the Italian rider contributing to poor outcomes. In 14 sprint appearances this year, Bagnaia has only found the podium five times, only once in the last nine rounds.
For a clearer comparison with 2024, it is more useful to examine Bagnaia’s results at circuits that appeared on the calendar both seasons, excluding new or returning venues such as Hungary, Czech Republic, and Argentina, along with the rescheduled Portuguese GP, to avoid distortions caused by differing race locations.
Finishing Positions Highlight the 2025 Decline
At tracks featured in both seasons, Bagnaia’s results reveal a dramatic slide. His average finishing position in these races was an excellent 1.8 in 2024—excluding his retirement at the Aragon GP caused by a collision with Alex Marquez and sprint race results. However, in 2025, his average finishing place at these circuits has dipped to 4.6, with tough races such as his eighth-place finish in Austria dragging his standing down.
This decline is illustrated by a six-win difference when comparing the two seasons, reinforcing the sharp contrast between his championship-winning campaign and the current downturn.
Examining Race Times: A Clear Regression
Bagnaia’s comments about his Austrian Grand Prix race pace also point to a broader drop in competitiveness when comparing his 2025 times with those from 2024. While direct comparisons of race times are complicated by multiple variables—including track conditions, weather, tyre management, and bike evolution—a review of several major races offers insight into the trend.
The 2024 Jerez GP serves as a useful benchmark since it took place in both years during the same month. Bagnaia won that race last year with a time of 40 minutes 58.053 seconds after starting seventh on the grid. This year, however, while the winner Alex Marquez improved the overall race pace slightly to 40 minutes 56.374 seconds, Bagnaia’s finishing time was slower by nearly half a second, suggesting a significant performance drop.
His slower pace at Jerez also occurred amidst on-track battles with younger riders, such as Marc Marquez and Fabio Quartararo, indicating that race dynamics further hampered his efforts. Similarly, his performance at the Dutch GP weakened substantially, though this was mirrored by slower times across the whole field, making individual assessment difficult.
At the Sachsenring in Germany, Marc Marquez’s winning race time in 2025 was two seconds slower than Bagnaia’s 2024 performance, yet Bagnaia himself was seven seconds off his previous year’s pace, an unusually large regression relative to other riders.
The Austrian GP comparison brings the clearest example of Bagnaia’s fall: although the overall race time remained consistent with 2024, Bagnaia’s own performance slowed considerably. Marc Marquez’s victory margin in 2025 would have been negated by last year’s Bagnaia, who was one tenth of a second faster than the current winner, highlighting how much the Italian rider’s pace has dropped.
Bagnaia’s Mental Struggle and Technical Challenges
The numbers only tell part of the story. Bagnaia’s own statements reveal his growing frustration and psychological strain as the season progresses. He remains perplexed by his inability to replicate his earlier speed and has openly questioned what has gone wrong.
“The winner did it in the same time it took me to win last year. So I have the potential,”
he said to DAZN.
“I don’t know why things aren’t working out for me. Marco Bezzecchi and Marc Marquez did everything better than me. That I finished 12 seconds behind on a circuit where I always made a difference is something I don’t understand, and will never understand.”
—Francesco Bagnaia, MotoGP rider
He has pointed to the transition from the ‘GP24’ to the ‘GP25’ Ducati bike as a contributing factor, acknowledging that the new machine does not suit his riding style in the way the previous model did. This technical mismatch, combined with other issues such as fuel tank problems during sprint races, continues to hamper his ability to perform at the highest level.
With eight rounds still remaining in the 2025 season, Bagnaia faces an uphill battle to regain his former dominance and contend for another world championship. His slump has opened the door for Marc Marquez, who is closing in on a record-breaking seventh title amid Bagnaia’s struggles.
