While Pecco Bagnaia was getting himself back on track with a pole-win-win Japanese Grand Prix weekend, elsewhere in the pitlane at Motegi, another Ducati rider was having a weekend eerily reminiscent of Bagnaia's prior struggles.
VR46's Fabio Di Giannantonio described his Friday practice outing as "one of the best days on the bike of this year" and added: "I don't want to say much - because I'm almost scared this year, with all the things happening."
He was right to be wary because from Saturday onwards, everything was awful immediately. Di Giannantonio crashed on his first run in morning practice, then was last or close to last in every non-race session across the two days and struggled badly in the two races.
He described it as the second time this season that his Ducati Desmosedici GP25 pulled a Jekyll-and-Hyde trick in-weekend, the first being Brno.
"From one session to the other, without touching anything, the behaviour of the bike is completely-completely different. I cannot do anything that I was doing before. Completely unexpected for the team.
"It's a big shame and it's frustrating. Because seems at the moment that it is out of our control. We really don't know why.
"Already this morning, apart from the crash - I was doing the same as yesterday and going wide in every corner, the behaviour of the bike was different. Such a strange situation.
"The good thing, let's say, is that I'm riding the same [as Friday], you can see on the data, but we are slower and we are not having the same behaviour of the bike."
There are no obvious clues in the track conditions - no huge swings in air or track temperature, no suggestions of a sudden change in grip level.
It really is strange, because while Di Giannantonio's bad sprint was at least a byproduct of getting caught up in the Jorge Martin-Marco Bezzecchi incident at the start, his Sunday should've been a lot more conventional - but he just had no pace at all, limping to the finish a dreadful 29 seconds back from the winner.
And if that sounds to you a lot like a couple of the weekends Bagnaia had had earlier in 2025 - solid on Friday with grand aspirations, then suddenly faced with adversity and all at sea - then you are not alone.
Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio - promoted to works-spec machinery and given a factory contract this year - found themselves in the same boat in 2025, with eventual champion Marc Marquez a deeply unfavourable reference point for the other two GP25 riders.
Both have had some dreadful troughs, although Bagnaia always looked a lot more likely to pull off something like his Motegi weekend - with Di Giannantonio too limited by recurring qualifying struggles. However, the VR46 man hasn't been a total catastrophe, with three consecutive podiums in the sprints leading up to Motegi evidence that he was doing something right.
All through the season, Di Giannantonio was a lot more reserved than Bagnaia in talking up the difference between the GP25, whatever its exact spec comprises, and the GP24. He is less experienced than Bagnaia, of course, and has no knowledge of the GP24 - but that spec difference would've been an easy thing to latch on to to explain any underperformance, and he'd refused to do it.
But he also went to bat for Bagnaia during his recent rut. "The problem is that every rider works and looks for [things] and rides in different ways. Believe me," he said at Barcelona last month.
"I'm studying riders, I try to not copy but study and improve, where riders are better than me. But I never achieve their exact way of working or riding. It's really difficult to copy also the method of another rider.
"You can copy the set-up, but then it's a completely different story, riding on that set-up. If I copy Marc's set-up, I'll go dead last, 100%, for example.
"It's about what you're asking from the bike, what you're asking from the team, what you need to feel good, to push and trust the bike to go fast. It's a long process. It's not that easy.
"It's not about 'ah, Pecco should ride better, shouldn't touch anything [on the bike]'. It's not always like this. In this time, if I spend a word, I want to defend a little bit the rider, Pecco, that sometimes it's not about him that is lost. Maybe they are just looking for the wrong thing. And that's it.
"It's different. But Pecco, for sure, didn't lose the skills to ride. 100%."
Bagnaia, in the end, 'touched' some things on the bike during the Misano post-race test and was a double winner at Motegi. Ensuring that breakthrough sticks has to be priority number one for Ducati - but trying to transpose it onto Di Giannantonio, whose issues are not copy-paste but are clearly also related to inherent trust in the bike and corner entry, must be priority number two.
Ducati riders share data so Di Giannantonio will get the chance to look for the answers he needs in Bagnaia's data. He said it was "for sure" relevant to his current predicament - but also something that "will need a lot of time".
It's not clear that he has that time, but it should be in Ducati's interest to help him. And Di Giannantonio is convinced he has VR46 on his side.
"The good thing is that with the team we are really united and really believe in our potential. From myself, I'm not taking that for granted. It should be like this but it isn't always, that the team believes so hard in you.
"We know that this year we have an unpredictable performance every time. When we are in the 'bubble' [performance window], the potential is insane, we can definitely fight for podiums and wins. But then when we are not in the 'bubble', we don't know why, we are just trying to finish the race - and the results are really poor, let's say.
"We know what's going on in the next races. I really believe that it will be a big step."
