BAGNAIA FINISHES 13TH AT SEPANG AS GRIP PROBLEMS PERSIST

Pecco Bagnaia’s difficult Malaysian Grand Prix ended with a stark measure of his struggle: his final lap took 2m 5.1s, more than four seconds slower than his own best effort and slower than the Moto2 pace. He finished 13th, 32.9 seconds behind Ducati team-mate and winner Marc Marquez.

Bagnaia said rear grip had become the limiting factor almost immediately. “Yesterday I was just lucky that it started to rain,” he said. “Today I saw that my limit was the grip. Even trying to manage it, after five laps I was without the rear tyre and needed to start thinking about just finishing the race.” He described the closing lap as “unbelievable” given what he knows he can do at Sepang, adding that he had to accept the result and focus on the final three rounds. He also said he could no longer touch the right-hand turns with his knee by the end of the race.

The result contrasted sharply with Bagnaia’s Sepang form a year earlier, when he took pole, won the Sprint and was in contention for the Grand Prix before a puncture. His comments after this year’s race pointed to a problem he believes cannot be fixed through ordinary setup or electronics adjustments.

“The problem isn’t from the setup, and it’s not from an electronics calibration,” he said, explaining that changing power delivery had not helped. “We’ve been doing it all year, and the problem has always remained the same.” He recalled that a change made around the Misano test and the Japanese Grand Prix last season had enabled him to ride well again. “That change had allowed me to ride again,” he said, but added that it had not been present since the race after Japan. Asked what the change was, Bagnaia declined to elaborate: “It doesn’t exist, let’s not go into details.”

Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi said he did not know what Bagnaia meant by the missing change. “We’ve done everything we could, but unfortunately we haven’t yet found what he needs,” he said.

Bagnaia’s Sepang weekend had begun with a Sprint victory in wet conditions, but the Grand Prix exposed the grip problem he said had left him managing the bike and tyre rather than fighting for a stronger finish.