Pecco Bagnaia couldn't hide his frustration after the Austrian MotoGP 2026. The Ducati rider finished seventh at the Red Bull Ring, and although he gained a position after Fermin Aldeguer received a penalty, the result was still far from ideal. What's more concerning, Bagnaia feels his teammates are getting closer to him, not the other way around.
"It's hard to say," Bagnaia told Sky Italy when asked to assess his weekend. "We definitely worked well as a team and did the best we could. But more than me getting closer to the other Ducatis, they got closer to me, honestly, because in the end I was seventh, eighth; even in the other races I was close to doing that."
Bagnaia did look more competitive throughout the Austrian weekend, but was never a factor in the podium battle. He qualified seventh and finished there before Aldeguer's penalty promoted him to sixth. Despite beating VR46's Fabio Di Giannantonio on pure pace and being just a few seconds behind fifth-placed Marc Marquez, Bagnaia dismissed the idea that he has closed the gap to his Ducati stablemates.
"This is a track where you can get off the ground a lot, so it's generally where I lose a little less," he continued. "But we'll see, because I think today we noticed a loss compared to previous years: we're lacking in entry speed, corner speed, and especially in the first phase of pick-up, where we're not able to get good traction."
Data analysis is key. Bagnaia revealed he had examined data from previous years and found a stark difference. "These days I've also tried to look at the old data, and you can clearly see the difference in the final phase of corner entry and the first phase of corner exit, where we were able to carry much more speed into the corners, and we were able to get better traction," he explained. "But in any case, for better or for worse, we all gave our all."
Interestingly, Bagnaia wasn't too surprised by Ducati's struggles, but admitted he didn't expect KTM and Aprilia to be so strong. "I wouldn't have expected Ducati to struggle so much, but I would have expected KTM and Aprilia to be so strong, because Aprilia was already strong last year, and KTM, who decided on the engine changes since Aragon, have made a big step forward, and Pedro is riding them very well," he said.
Front brake issues also plagued Bagnaia, similar to teammate Marc Marquez. "Yes... it [the lever] came very close to me, three times it reached my hand and I had to push it away," he revealed. This incident adds to the list of challenges Ducati faced in Austria, where they seemed unable to match their rivals.
With this result, Bagnaia is falling further behind in the title race, while other Ducati riders are performing more competitively. The question now: can Bagnaia and Ducati find a solution before it's too late? We await their next move.
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