BAGNAIA SAYS DUCATI FEEL IS STILL MISSING AS ZARCO AND BAGNAIA REACH Q2

Pecco Bagnaia’s difficult run with Ducati has continued into the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, with the reigning double world champion still searching for the feel he says is missing from his bike. After a crash at MotorLand Aragon and a frustrating home event in Misano that left him without any World Championship points and with further damage to both machine and confidence, Bagnaia arrived in Spielberg hoping for a turning point.

The early sessions offered little encouragement. Bagnaia ended both FP1 and the crucial qualifying session in 18th place. While his gap to the session benchmark improved—his deficit to KTM’s Pedro Acosta shrank from 1.1 seconds to 0.88—he remained the slowest Ducati rider on the day. Teammate Marc Marquez qualified fourth and will go into Q2 in that position, while Fermin Aldeguer impressed with second place. Di Giannantonio (6th) and Alex Marquez (8th) also made it through cleanly.

Speaking to the media, Bagnaia described the problem as unchanged since Assen. “The situation is unchanged. The feeling that I need is missing. In the phase of deceleration, I lose grip at the rear and then the corner entry doesn’t work anymore.”

For sprint Saturday, his message was focused rather than dramatic. “It doesn’t help—keep your head down and try everything, to understand.” He also indicated that the team does not plan major hardware changes before the next outing: “On Saturday we won’t make very big changes to the bike.”

Qualifying itself brought a further twist: in Q1, the Red Bull Ring was only fully dry at the start of the first qualifying session, after FP2’s setup work had been done on a dry track but then undermined by changing conditions. With the session packed—19 riders completing their runs within 0.9 seconds—Bagnaia fought his way through. In the decisive improvement phase, he and Johann Zarco both posted identical times of 1:28.753, with Bagnaia ultimately matching Zarco’s pace to secure passage to Q2. The Speedweek report notes that Raul Fernandez missed Q2 by 0.118 seconds.

With the championship situation having dropped—Bagnaia is reported to have fallen to ninth—attention now turns to whether Ducati can find a breakthrough. The hope is partly fueled by recent history: after a similar grip crisis in Spielberg and a scoreless Misano, Bagnaia had then gone on to win twice in Japan “out of nowhere.”