A gloomy but accepting Pecco Bagnaia hinted his MotoGP 2025 campaign might be lost for good, even more so than before, after an inglorious Friday practice run in Barcelona.
Bagnaia won the Catalan Grand Prix at the track last year, then also won the Solidarity Grand Prix at the same venue scheduled due to the Valencia flooding - but his dire run of recent form continued through Friday at this favourable venue.
Though he was poor at Balaton Park, Bagnaia believed that a big swing on set-up yielded a big step that would pay off here - but that claim strained credulity then already, given how many times this season he had suggested a breakthrough that failed to materialise, and indeed no breakthrough transpired here.
While Ducati looks unusually vulnerable in Barcelona - and three of its six riders were absent from the top 10 - Bagnaia appeared convincingly the slowest through the day, and though the end of the session was influenced by yellow flags, he himself readily admitted he wasn't going to pose a top-10 threat.
"For some reason, my expectations were wrong," said Bagnaia, who finished right behind Honda tester Aleix Espargaro and right ahead of Aprilia tester Lorenzo Savadori in the afternoon. That meant 21st place - two positions better, at least, than the morning, although in that session Bagnaia never ran fresh tyres.
"From the start of the day, I hoped that was just something wrong in the morning, was not working. But then in the afternoon was- not worse, but similar.
"Struggling to understand, how could it be, the fact that I'm pushing that hard and I'm 21st, between two test riders, that - all my respect to them, but I cannot be there.
"It's difficult to understand also for me. It's difficult to explain something to the team. Because I'm pushing really hard, I'm risking a lot with the front. But I'm not fast, I'm very slow. Difficult to understand."
Bagnaia said the Hungary set-up wasn't paying off, and that the issues remained the same overall. "Braking in [lean] angle, and first part of traction, is where I'm losing a ridiculous amount of time."
But he felt for now that "it's better to not test again big things" and "just try to adapt" instead.
"At the moment I imagine tomorrow...I need something important to be in Q2. Because today I wasn't even close to getting to Q2. We need a big step, in terms of riding. For the sprint race, if I can finish in the top seven, it would be a fantastic result," he said, placing a particular vocal emphasis on the word 'fantastic'.
And he acknowledged he didn't believe there was any minor tweak that could just make things better. "After a season trying many things, many things, and the result is always the same, I think it's not anymore little things."
Bagnaia has long maintained through the season that the thought-to-be minor differences between the 2024 Ducati and the 2025 one - understood to be related to weight balance - have fundamentally compromised his campaign.
Asked by The Race this time whether this was a moment where he had to look at factors outside of the bike spec, like for example his preparation, he said: "I don't think it's my preparation. Because I feel super good riding, I don't feel tired - never tired.
"But one thing about me is that I always put me in front of the problems. Before judging other things. And I tried everything different. Riding in a different way. Adapting to what the team was asking me to do.
"But the result this season is always the same. I'm still trying to adapt, and still trying to understand what I could do better. But I cannot ride like others. I have my own riding style, that always worked, apart from this season.
"Even if I'm trying to do different things on riding, everything is a loss of time. We need to find other solutions, that right now we don't have."
