A third place finish in the Thai Sprint Race was all Francesco Bagnaia could manage in the first race of the season.
Francesco Bagnaia's Sprint Race struggles have transferred from 2024 into the 2025 season. The two-time MotoGP World Champion had to settle for third on Saturday in Thailand.
The factory Ducati rider was unable to lay a glove on Marc Marquez or Alex Marquez during the opening Sprint of the year. In the end he was 3.4 seconds behind his teammate at the chequered flag, and almost a second behind the Gresini Racing rider.
However, Bagnaia believes there is a 'scientific' reason why he struggles in the Sprint Races.
“There’s a scientific reason why I’m struggling in the sprint,” he said.
“We were trying to understand it and, honestly, the only thing that changes from the long race is the fuel tank, it is small, by the regulations. So, it changes a bit the dynamics of the bike and I’m struggling a bit more on the entry.
“But we are working on it. We are trying to solve it. Today we just tried it in a standard way, but next time we will try something different.
“Apart from that, I just decided to go with the hard front tyre for the race tomorrow but I was quite surprised that I finished it before the end of the sprint. So, for tomorrow I don’t know. I might have to consider doing something different.
“Apart from that, I’m not satisfied at all, but considering the test, considering yesterday third place is not that bad. It’s like October, same place, so I hope tomorrow is also like October.”
Bagnaia elected to go in a different direction than the Marquez's when it came to tyre choice for the Sprint. The Italian chose to use a hard front tyre and a soft rear, whereas the Marquez's went for a soft front and rear tyre.
“My problem with the soft is the braking, I don’t like when the front tyre is moving a lot,” he explained.
“But in this track, there are many corners where you need to put more corner speed and more turning, and the soft helps a bit more.
“But I’m struggling to be fast with the soft like with the hard, so for tomorrow maybe we will change something.
“We will try to solve this problem, but if not I will go with the soft because the hard after 10 laps was already finished.”
