BAGNAIA SAYS PEDROSA ADVICE HELPED SHAPE HIS AUSTRIA SPRINT SETUP

Pecco Bagnaia credited Dani Pedrosa’s advice for helping him find a better direction during Saturday’s Austrian Grand Prix, after a difficult start to the weekend that forced him through Q1 again.

Bagnaia had to negotiate Q1 for the fifth consecutive time, but he managed to progress to Q2 and set himself up with seventh on the grid. From there, he carried that momentum into the sprint, where he finished sixth. A key part of his approach was tyre choice: Bagnaia was one of only three riders to use the medium rear tyre instead of the soft.

Speaking after the session, the Ducati rider said he felt an improvement in rear grip compared with previous rounds. “This morning we tried something different on the set-up, and it was luckily in the correct direction,” he explained. He added that the change showed up early, even on the wet patches. “And from the morning, from the first laps on the wet patches, I was feeling a bit better.”

That confidence, he said, allowed him to ride the bike more aggressively and more effectively through the rear. “So, I was able to stop the bike more, use the rear more to turn, and the grip wasn’t that bad.” While he acknowledged that grip is still not where he wants it to be, he felt the team had made progress. “It’s true that it’s something that is still lacking, but we did a step in front. So, maybe for tomorrow we can do something more.”

Bagnaia also linked his tyre decision to the longer race ahead. He said the medium rear was chosen with Sunday in mind, explaining that the soft might have offered a sharper opening but would not necessarily help him understand the bike over a full distance. “And the decision to go with the medium was just to prepare for the race of tomorrow, because with the soft I don’t know if would make something better; maybe in the first three laps I was able to attack more.”

Instead, he felt the medium would give him the information he needed for the race length. “But we decided to go with the medium because tomorrow the race will be very long and I needed to understand things more.”

The Italian’s comments then turned to the influence of Pedrosa’s message from DAZN the previous week. Bagnaia said he had taken Pedrosa’s words on board and applied them to his mindset and preparation. “I used what Dani Pedrosa said on DAZN last week, which is maybe I need to do more laps and understand the bike before controlling the results. And it was a good suggestion.”

Pedrosa’s advice, as Bagnaia described it, was essentially to focus less on immediate outcomes and more on learning what the bike is doing. Bagnaia called it “a good suggestion” and said it aligned with what he and the team were trying to do in Austria.

When asked what Ducati had changed to improve his feel, Bagnaia was cautious with specifics, but he did confirm the work was not entirely new. “Something that we already did but in a different way,” he said. “This time it was working a bit better.”

He also pointed out that the grip issue appears to be shared across the Ducati field, suggesting there may be a wider technical pattern rather than an isolated problem. “It’s true that we are still missing grip, but luckily all the Ducatis are having the same issue, and maybe being altogether with the same issue will help to improve it.”

With seventh on the grid and a sixth-place sprint finish, Bagnaia’s weekend in Austria is still defined by the search for grip, but he believes the combination of set-up changes, tyre strategy, and Pedrosa’s guidance has moved him in the right direction ahead of Sunday’s race.