BAGNAIA LEFT SCRATCHING HIS HEAD AFTER SILVERSTONE CRASH ENDS BRITISH GP

Pecco Bagnaia’s British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone ended in frustration after a crash on Sunday that followed a difficult build-up to the race. After a sprint where he struggled to even get his knee down due to severe tyre degradation in the closing stages, the factory Ducati rider carried that problem into the main event.

Bagnaia started from 16th, a season-worst position, and made early progress as riders ahead crashed out, moving him up to 15th. But his race was over on lap nine of 20 when he joined the DNF list. Speaking about the moment, Bagnaia described it as something he had never experienced before: “Very strange, honestly. I’ve never lost the front exiting from a corner.” He added that the data offered little clarity, saying, “And looking at the data, it's very difficult to see something. The only thing is that I completely lost the front in a matter of milliseconds. So, very strange, but it's what happened.”

The crash was particularly hard to accept because Bagnaia felt the weekend had already been among the toughest of the season. “Difficult also to accept, because already it was one of the hardest weekends of the season,” he said. He explained that while he was not expecting to be quick, he had been unable to stay close to the front: “I struggled to be - not fast, because I never had been fast - but I struggled to be close to the top 10 all weekend.” He believed there was a small chance of a top-10 finish on Sunday, but the overall grip situation prevented it. “Today there was a little possibility of finishing in the top 10. But I struggled a lot, and we need to rise from this situation, because I don't want to do another weekend like this one.”

Bagnaia also pointed to the work Ducati carried out during the weekend, insisting he tried changes across multiple areas without finding a solution. “We don't know what to do,” he said. “I changed everything. Setup, electronic side. But the problem's not that.” He then highlighted a broader issue with traction and confidence: “From the first race of the season, I don't have any grip, completely zero.” With other Ducati riders finding more traction, he struggled to understand why the gap remained. “And we don't know what to do, because there are [other] riders in Ducati that have a lot. So, it's very difficult to understand.”

In the rest of the Ducati camp, Gresini’s Alex Marquez was again the leading Ducati rider in fourth, behind a trio of Aprilias, while Bagnaia’s factory teammate Marc Marquez finished seventh.