If anyone had a right to hold a grudge against Michelin after a brutal weekend at Motegi, it was Francesco Bagnaia. As Motorsport.com Italia reports, the Ducati Team rider has been wrestling with a rear grip deficit all year long, and he suffered the ultimate consequence in the Sprint when his soft rear tyre suffered terminal graining, shredding completely and forcing him to retire.
Yet, rather than pointing fingers at the French manufacturer following Sunday's grand prix, the Italian squarely blamed himself and his fellow competitors. Everyone ended up racing on the hard compound—the high-temperature carcass brought as a backup solution specifically because of the circuit's newly laid asphalt—and it proved to be the standout tyre of the weekend. Bagnaia admitted that dismissing it initially was a massive miscalculation by the riders.
"It was a great surprise, but a nice surprise, because at least I managed to do a bit more, so it went better. It was our fault, the riders, that we hadn't tried it before," Bagnaia explained to journalists at Motegi. He noted that because the allocation listed the hard option as a backup plan, teams naturally tried to avoid it. But history should have taught them otherwise, and failing to test every available option before race day was a collective oversight.
That hard rubber ultimately yielded his best result of the weekend, though an eighth-place finish is a far cry from the dominant double victory he secured at the Japanese Grand Prix a year ago. According to the three-time champion, extracting anything more from the machine was simply out of the question. Looking over the telemetry, he noted it was not a matter of speed or grit, but an inability to replicate what the fastest riders were managing on track.
Talk naturally turned to the historic milestone achieved by Ducati Corse general manager Gigi Dall'Igna, whose 100th victory came courtesy of Marc Marquez's ride. Bagnaia paid tribute to the engineer despite his own frustrations, lamenting that he had been unable to deliver his absolute best over the last couple of seasons.
Looking ahead to the championship showdown with six rounds remaining and only a two-point margin separating Jorge Martin and Marquez, Bagnaia expects a thriller all the way to the finale. He predicts different tracks will favour different contenders, pointing to Indonesia as a tough test for Ducati, Australia and Valencia suiting Marquez, and Malaysia leaning toward Martin.
