Pecco Bagnaia's 2025 MotoGP season hit a new low on Saturday at the Sachsenring, as he struggled badly through a day of wet-weather action.
Bagnaia was 1.473s off the pace in morning practice, 1.942s off in Q2 and a brutal 20 seconds behind race-winning Ducati team-mate Marc Marquez at the finish of the sprint - despite Marquez's first-corner mistake.
He described his day as a "nightmare".
"Nothing changed during the day," Bagnaia lamented. "I was always at the same level: slow. When I tried to push in some situation of the race, also in qualifying, I was losing the rear everywhere.
"It's difficult to understand and I'm very disappointed about today, about my performance.
"I'm shocked about what I did. I don't remember a time or a session where I was this slow on the wet."
Bagnaia hinted he didn't think this was something to do with the layout of the Sachsenring - recalling a 2023 session in the wet in which he was a much more respectable 0.64s back from Marquez.
"Every time I was trying to push a bit more, I was close to a crash.
"I was the only one that didn't improve that much from FP2 [the Saturday morning session] to the race. I was always at the same pace. I did 1m29.7s in FP2, 1m29.7s in qualifying, and 1m30.0s in the race.
"So...I was always in that limbo. And I saw the data from others. I tried to enter [corners] faster. But I cannot. I really cannot.
"And this makes me very shocked, like I said before."
A fellow struggler
Discounting the injured duo of Maverick Vinales and Franco Morbidelli, Bagnaia would've easily taken the mantle of the most disappointing rider of the sprint day - but for Alex Rins having a very similar experience on the Yamaha and being put in the shade by another difficult team-mate in Fabio Quartararo.
"I'm so confused right now," he said. "So confused."
Rins was nowhere near any of his fellow Yamaha riders in the wet sessions, and was borderline distraught discussing his day with the media - as he pointed to an alarming gap in the second sector in particular.
This comprises a sweeping downhill right-hander and then a section of connected left-handers spent consecutively at considerable lean angle.
"Second sector is a sector where you can only do one line, and you don't have hard braking, stop-and-go," Rins vented. "You just take the throttle in Turn 4 and you don't close it until the braking on Turn 8 - it's a little bit more difficult to do than I'm describing, but it doesn't have any big secret.
"Comparing to Joan [Mir on the Honda], he was giving [faster than] me 0.4-0.5s in that sector. OK, can happen because he has another bike. But Fabio and Jack [Miller, Pramac Yamaha rider] - it was the same."
There was, indeed, a difference of nearly four tenths between Quartararo's best S2 time and Rins's in the sprint - and, aside from the opening lap, every Quartararo time in S2 was better than Rins's best.
"I can't understand how," added Rins. "I asked to my team. I said, 'Hey, guys, I need your help, I need your help because I cannot do another line, I have a lot of spin, a lot of sliding, I can't get more traction than the traction that I have'.
"And the problem that we had in the sprint race in the wet condition is exactly the same as in the dry. I did great races in the wet and in the dry on the Yamaha. It's not normal that I'm feeling this problem. It's fully confusing."
When asked by The Race whether it was something to be ironed out by testing his two bikes back-to-back, Rins said he'd had a problem on Friday already with two bikes that were supposed to be the same having a "6mm of average difference on the rear suspension" - a difference that couldn't be pinpointed or recreated after disassembly and reassembly.
Bracing for worse
Another wet race is a distinct possibility on Sunday, and neither Bagnaia nor Rins welcomed the prospect.
"For sure we're going to struggle. For sure. 100%. But we need to stay high [positive]," Rins said.
"Hoping and dancing for some sun," quipped Bagnaia.
"I think on the dry I have more potential, I can fight for the top five. On the wet, we need a radical change - because if not, I will finish 40-50 seconds behind the leader."
