Francesco Bagnaia “Very happy but very angry” after Motegi Domination

September 29, 2025 editor 2 min read

Ducati MotoGP factory rider, Francesco Bagnaia said he was “very happy, but very angry” after dominating the weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix, held at the Motegi Ring. “Pecco” as he is more popularly known, had qualified on Pole, grabbed the Sprint race win, before going on to win the main race on Sunday.

Pecco had been suffering the entire season as he found himself struggling to adapt to the Desmosedici GP25. More specifically, he had complained of front-end issues which robbed him of his braking strength, and feel, besides understeering (the front going wide). As such, he arrived in Japan without a single podium in the past 10 races.

But it all changed after Ducati offered some ‘unconventional’ changes in the Misano post-race test.

“In the test in Misano, I was riding 0.7 faster, so quite a huge difference,” Bagnaia said in Japan.

“I’m very happy about today, but I’m also very angry about this weekend, because maybe we could’ve done it earlier, maybe after one or two grands prix.

“We just struggled a bit during the season, but finally the test in Misano gave us the possibility to try things that have helped me a lot. Some specific [things] that have helped me also in other situations.

“So, super-happy about it, finally we found it.”

When asked what were the changes that Ducati made, Pecco circumvented the question with a vague answer, possibly because he was instructed to do so: “Honestly, I’m just a rider and I’m just here to push. Sometimes when I push, I’m 20th. And sometimes when I push, I win. It’s not only a matter of me.”

“We tested different things in Misano, different things that we already had. But we never had the chance to really try this season.”

The visible change was the GP24 rear seat aero. It was also rumoured that Bagnaia had an older swingarm, forks and perhaps ride-height device. The engine cannot be changed due to the rules, but the end result is that Bagnaia appears to have finally rediscovered the feeling of last year’s GP24.

“This weekend I was riding my bike and not fighting with it,” he said on Sunday evening.

“It was much easier for me to brake hard, enter fast into the corners, and without having that much movement, that much locking, that much understeering.

Pecco’s win had also opened up an entire chapter of conspiracies, regardless if it is true or otherwise, about Ducati being ‘preferential’ toward Marc Marquez, who is Pecco’s teammate and had secured his 7th MotoGP in Japan after coming home second in both the Sprint and Main races.