Bagnaia can't take any false hope from his first shot at Marquez

Was Pecco Bagnaia’s Austin MotoGP sprint the most encouraging performance of his anonymous 2025 season so far? Or just another comprehensive beating by a pair of Marquez siblings?

Both.

It was a breakthrough, but nowhere near enough.

Overtaking Marc Marquez for the lead twice in the first third of the opening lap was the first time all season Bagnaia has looked capable of taking any kind of fight to his new Ducati team-mate.

That’s a plus.

But being left two seconds behind within as many laps once that battle immediately proved Bagnaia had no hope of actually defeating Marquez over the race distance.

Regardless of the specifics of gap size, Bagnaia’s reflections of what happened in race one at Austin were all about feelings. A feeling that he’s made clear progress compared to the opening two rounds. But also absolute acceptance - expressed through a kind of feeling of wonder at what his team-mate’s doing - that he’s not beating Marquez on track this weekend.

Bagnaia shrugged off the half-second and five-place gap between him and Marquez in qualifying as just being the consequence of a pair of mistakes on his best lap. He was adamant he’s made crucial progress with his braking and corner entries.

“I’m working hard. And every time I see that we’re getting closer,” he insisted.

He lost those early two seconds to Marc and Alex Marquez “because I needed some more laps to get in my rhythm”, then felt his “pace was quite equivalent to the others” - an opinion backed by the fact he finished 1.8 seconds from the win, having been 2.2s behind Marquez on lap three of 10, but undermined by his admission that “Marc just controlled today. He was faster”.

Watch Simon Patterson's full take on Bagnaia's race on Patreon in his latest exclusive paddock insight video for The Race Members' Club

His responses around the first-lap battle were perhaps too casual and self-effacing to be those of a rider genuinely expecting to succeed in that fight. Asked if the brilliant start and first-lap thrusts sent the message he hoped for, Bagnaia joked: “I did the first overtake of the season, so yes…”. And when The Race suggested that overtaking Marquez at his Circuit of the Americas stronghold had to be a sign his confidence was returning, Bagnaia was keen that we didn’t forget that he “did it twice”.

But the way he described watching Marquez pull away was his most revealing remark.

“Looking from behind, it’s quite clear how easy it is for him to be competitive here, because he’s entering very strong and very fast in the corners and he’s turning much better so he has really great confidence here,” Bagnaia explained.

And he admitted that, when he sensed a bike coming past him moments after Marc had the ferocious slide that looked certain to spit him off his Ducati, he was sure it would be Alex’s Gresini version rather than the sister factory bike that he’d seen lurching wildly just seconds earlier.

IT'S ALL KICKING OFF AT THE FRONT