Few sportspeople are having a more disappointing season than Francesco Bagnaia. The Ducati rider, twice MotoGP champion, and finalist last year, was in theory favourite for the MotoGP championship this year, after last year's winner, Jorge Martín, suffered a series of devastating crashes in his debut year with Aprilia that had him absent most of the season. Then, Marc Márquez, the "Hamilton" of MotoGP with six world titles in the top category, as well as other two titles in Moto2 and 125cc, made a huge comeback and has dominated, with 418 points, leading well above his brother Alex (276) and his Ducati teammate Bagnaia (221).
While Márquez wins weekend after weekend (last time, last weekend in Austria), Bagnaia has only won once race this season. He sees how his teammate Marc wins almost every time, in a circuit where he has won before, last year. "The winner did it in the same time it took me to win last year. So I have the potential". But something must be wrong with his bike, otherwise, the Italian rider cannot explain what happened. And, in his post race interviews, he is being harsher with the team.
"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", he said to DAZN (via Motorsport).
"I hope Ducati explains it to me, because I'm running out of patience", he added, maintaining that it's not his fault: "I'm always focused, I've never lost my head. But today I couldn't accelerate; everyone was overtaking me coming out of the corners."