Two-time MotoGP champion Casey Stoner has entered into the picture of Pecco Bagnaia's desperately disappointing 2025 campaign - with Bagnaia keen for Ducati engineers to listen to Stoner's "super useful" feedback.
Stoner, premier-class champion in 2007 with Ducati and 2011 with Honda, is an occasional paddock presence these days as a guest - and knows Bagnaia well, having given him advice and feedback at times since 2022.
And Bagnaia says right now is the "best moment" for that feedback, having floundered through the year on a 2025-spec Ducati that he believes is incompatible with his style and stripped of the previous iteration's strengths.
Team-mate Marc Marquez has dominated the season and is on the verge of clinching the title, but for Bagnaia this has been evidence of Marquez being able to ride around the issues of a problematic package - as he had previously done at Honda.
However, the Ducati company line has long been that the newest bike, the GP25, is just not all that different from the previous version, especially in light of the fact that the engine that was homologated for the season was not actually the intended 2025 engine - which was discarded after testing.
"Like I said many times at the beginning of the year, we don't want to take any big risks," Ducati tech chief Gigi Dall'Igna said earlier this month. "So the '25 bike is an evolution of the '24.
"The engine is a little bit different, but all the differences are related to durability, not to the performance of the engine. On the performance point of view, both engines are similar.
"The bike is slightly different because we introduced during the first part of the season some different things on the '25 machine - like for example the fairing, like for example some other devices on the gearbox.
"But the '25 is not like what we did in '24. We made a big difference between the '23 and '24. From '24 to '25, the differences are really small. This is the reality."
Stoner as an expert witness
Though Ducati has been supportive publicly, there has clearly been a mismatch between Bagnaia and the team on what the cause of his slump is - or, more accurately, on whether the solution lies in re-engineering the bike or simply Bagnaia recovering his confidence.
In that context, Stoner has emerged as a relevant voice - having spent time trackside at Misano during the San Marino Grand Prix.
"I just spoke to Cristian [Gabarrini, Bagnaia's crew chief and Stoner's former crew chief] about what I saw - and some of the complaints that Pecco's been having, I actually did witness yesterday on track," Stoner told the MotoGP world feed on Saturday during that weekend.
"Which I didn't witness [happening with] any of the other Ducati riders.
"So it was a little bit unique. I personally thought [before] that Pecco sort of needed to get on with it a little bit more - but I did see yesterday some things with that bike that didn't seem quite right compared to the others, that all looked very comfortable."
Stoner was then in Bagnaia's garage on Monday during the post-race test, and then stuck around with Italy to spend time with former rival Valentino Rossi - Bagnaia's mentor - and the VR46 Academy.
According to Bagnaia, speaking on Thursday at Motegi, the feedback from Stoner has completely aligned with that of Ducati's rider performance analyst Manuel Poggiali, a past 125cc and 250cc champion.
And he described having Stoner in the garage as "something great" - also because it was providing "to the technicians, to the engineers another point of view".
"Having Casey - that is someone out of Ducati [right now] - was helpful. Because he was saying different kinds of things that were helping a lot. And then we also spent time together in the days after, with go-karts, then at the [Rossi] Ranch, speaking a lot - and was super helpful."
Bagnaia said Stoner was "clearly seeing what my bike was doing".
And he made a couple of remarks that could only be interpreted as a plea towards the engineering side of the team to take this feedback more into account.
"I think it's super useful if you want to listen to them [Stoner and Poggiali].
"It's another point of view - engineers look at the data and listen to the riders, but are not watching riding. So, it's a good point of view."
Asked by The Race whether this feedback from Stoner was perhaps more important for the engineers to hear than for him, Bagnaia said: "Maybe yes, but I'm the one who listens to him more."
The 2026 outlook
After a three-three split between GP25s and GP24s in the Ducati camp this year, Ducati is expected to field four factory-spec entries next year - with Alex Marquez confirmed on a factory-spec machine alongside Fabio Di Giannantonio and the two works team riders, Bagnaia and Marc Marquez.
Fermin Aldeguer confirmed at Motegi that he would have a 'GP25' next year, while Franco Morbidelli seemed to indicate so, too.
However, what the nominal 'GP25' will actually entail - and what the 'GP26' will look like, too - is likely to remain a mystery for quite a while longer. MotoGP is under a two-year engine freeze, so the GP26 in theory cannot include a new engine spec - though clearly Ducati, unlike Bagnaia, is not convinced this year's GP25 and GP24 are two different engine specs.
Bagnaia said of his ambition for next year: "I feel like this championship was the championship without any rivals for Marc. Because he was the only one competitive, the only one constant. Not anyone ever battled with him.
"So, I think it was like- it's never easy, but for him, he was not giving his 100% I think. Or maybe sometimes yes, but... I really would like to be in my best shape again, because I think considering the race times this season, many times was slower this season [than last season], so I think it could be a good fight."
