NEIL HODGSON APOLOGISES TO FRANCESCO BAGNAIA AFTER SILVERSTONE CRASH REVIEW

Francesco Bagnaia endured a difficult Silverstone weekend that ended with a crash on Sunday’s Grand Prix, going down on lap eight of 20 and bringing an end to his run of scoring points at every round this season. The Italian had already struggled for pace across the weekend: he posted his worst qualifying result of the year on Saturday, starting 16th, and then dropped further in the Sprint to finish 17th.

After initially viewing the incident through the usual lens of trackside interpretation, TNT Sports pundit Neil Hodgson revisited the crash using circuit CCTV replay. Rather than the standard camera angles, the footage showed Bagnaia losing the front of his Ducati on the exit of Luffield as he was winding up for the old pit straight. Hodgson said the moment looked unlike rider error, explaining, “That was on the throttle,” and adding, “That was like a technical issue. That was well weird.” He also noted the similarity to last year’s crash location, but with a different phase of the corner: “Same corner [as] last year, but that was on the earlier part of it, that was Luffield.”

Following that reassessment, Hodgson issued an apology for his earlier comments. “I apologise for what I said earlier,” he said, acknowledging Bagnaia’s weekend had been a nightmare, but insisting the crash itself was not necessarily his fault: “He has had a nightmare weekend, but I would say that was not his fault.”

Bagnaia himself said the accident was baffling and that it had “never happened to” him before. Speaking to Speedweek, he said, “Even when you look at the data, it’s hard to make sense of it,” and described the moment as sudden: “I lost grip in a millisecond and that was it. It was really very strange – but that’s how it is. It’s very hard to accept.”

The crash also adds to a wider pattern of Bagnaia pushing back on blame earlier in the season. At the French GP, when he lost a potential podium, he insisted it was “not human error,” saying Ducati had identified a “small issue,” which he also pointed to after his DNF at the Catalan GP. Earlier still, after going down in Brazil, team manager Davide Tardozzi admitted, “It’s not bad luck,” describing it as “a mistake stemming from the fact that we have not been able to give him the confidence he needs to race at his level.”

That backdrop is part of why Casey Stoner’s concerns about Ducati’s behaviour have gained traction. Stoner, who worked with Bagnaia in an advisory capacity last year, said, “This is a really smooth rider, a really smooth guy on all these elements, and I was watching the bike do things that it shouldn’t be doing,” without adding further detail.

In the championship, Bagnaia remains eighth despite the non-score, though he could face pressure from Alex Marquez, with a 37-point gap that may shrink further given Marquez’s situation. The broader weekend also highlighted Ducati’s struggles, with Aprilia dominant, while Bagnaia’s teammate Marc Marquez finished seventh—matching his worst result of the year.