Pecco Bagnaia has not had a good MotoGP campaign in 2025 - but Friday at the Hungarian Grand Prix still looked out of step even with his generally diminished performance this year.
While team-mate Marc Marquez was rooted to first or second place for most of the running, Bagnaia was scarcely troubling the top 10 - and came up short in his late push to bag a Q2 spot in the end.
He'd had one of his laps compromised by yellow flags for a Johann Zarco crash, but was improving compared to that lap on his final effort - which still could've been enough to usurp Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo in 10th place if not for a botched final sector.
Still, that would've only been a consolation for a rider who still feels totally hamstrung by the subtle changes from last year's Ducati to the GP25 spec he's been riding this year.
Bagnaia was actually the fastest of the Ducati MotoGP riders when they came to Balaton Park earlier to try it out with the road-going Ducati Panigales - but said he already knew at that point this would not translate into good MotoGP form.
"After I tested here with the Panigale, and I was feeling comfortable with the Panigale - but I was already knowing that with the GP25 I could have some issues.
"Because every time I need to stop the bike in a short distance and I need to let the bike turn with brakes, it's where I'm struggling the most with this bike. All the corners here are like this.
"I already knew it before - accepting that I could've been out of the top 10, out of the potential to fight for the win. We just need to work."
Bagnaia will contest Q1 for a third time in 2025 tomorrow. He turned his two previous Q1 appearances into third on the grid in Thailand and pole position at Brno.
He and his crew "already did a step" between the two Friday sessions and "halved the gap between me and first" - but optimism seems in short supply that he can do much more than just secure and consolidate a place in the top 10.
Told that it's 'shocking' to see him set a modest target of the top 10, and then fall short of that target, Bagnaia said: "It's also shocking for me to struggle like this on braking. But it's like this, in the last eight months it's been like this.
"I'm already fighting in different ways to find the solution, that's quite far, but I'm there fighting, because I don't want to give up and I want just to find the potential that is quite difficult for me.
"But it's there. Marc is the only one that is using the potential of this bike, so I just need to use it."
