- Francesco Bagnaia finished Friday practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix in 12th, crashed at Turn 1 and missed direct entry to Qualifying 2, per Motorsport.com.
- Bagnaia ranked second in sector one and third in sector four at Sepang, yet says he loses eight tenths in the two sectors between them.
- A day after calling Sepang his best chance to enjoy the GP26 before leaving Ducati, Bagnaia now has to get through Saturday’s Qualifying 1.
Top Three at Both Ends of the Lap, Eight Tenths Down in the Middle
“My bike works only when it’s straight, so I did the maximum in the first and last sector.” Francesco Bagnaia said it after Friday practice, on a day he had hoped would go better. “I think I’m in the top three in both sectors. In the other two sectors I lose eight tenths, so it’s ridiculous.”
The numbers back him up on one half of that sentence. Bagnaia ranked second quickest in sector one and third quickest in sector four, the two parts of the Sepang lap that hold the main straights. He was the fastest Ducati rider in the top-speed charts. The other half hurt him. He sat outside the top 10 with minutes left in the session, tried to climb into it, and crashed at Turn 1. The factory Ducati rider ended the day 12th and will go through Qualifying 1 on Saturday.
Sepang was supposed to be different. Bagnaia had already missed the Friday cut 10 times in 2026, and the Malaysian track gave him reason to expect a change. Last year, in the middle of a miserable season, he took pole here and won the sprint. That record had him arriving with far more confidence than usual.
Even the ideal lap, which stitches a rider’s best sectors into one run, would have put him no higher than the 12th place he took in reality. That suggests he left little on the table.
A Promise Made on Thursday
The Friday quote lands harder next to what Bagnaia said 24 hours earlier. Having scored just 23 points in the last six rounds, he arrived at Sepang optimistic. “I’m really looking forward to riding here. I love the track, and I think it’s the best chance I have to enjoy it a little bit more,” he said on Thursday.
He described the weekend as his best opportunity to rediscover some enjoyment on the GP26 before leaving Ducati. Bagnaia has signed a four-year contract with Aprilia Racing starting in 2027, so this is his last Malaysian round as a factory Ducati rider. He has spent his entire premier-class career with the Italian manufacturer, first with Pramac and then with the official Lenovo team. A two-time MotoGP champion, crowned in 2022 and 2023, he now talks about a race weekend in terms of how much he can enjoy it.
His plan was simple, and he said it plainly: “I will give my maximum. I will risk more to enjoy.” He did not hide how hard he expected the weekend to be. He pointed to last year, when he took pole and won a sprint before an issue in the race. “This year is more or less the same, but I would like to enjoy,” he said. Bagnaia has won two of the last four grands prix in Malaysia, and the winter test at Sepang had gone well. “I was quite fast and also the pace was strong, so it would be good.”
On Friday he risked more. He crashed at Turn 1 chasing a top-10 place, and it did not bring him the cut.
Two Sectors That Work and Two That Do Not
The sector times put a number on the split. Bagnaia was only 0.035s slower than KTM’s Pedro Acosta in sector one. He was 0.069s faster than Ducati teammate Marc Marquez there, and Marquez ranked fifth best. In sector four Bagnaia was third quickest, 0.060s behind Marquez, with Joan Mir between them. Both sectors feature a long straight and a heavy braking zone, one into Turn 1 and one into the final hairpin.
The middle of the lap told a different story. In sectors two and three, Bagnaia gave away around 0.8s, which matches his own count of eight tenths. Those are the fast, flowing sections of Sepang, and he says they are where he struggles most.
“It’s really difficult to carry corner speed right now,” he said. In the Ducati press release he explained that he is losing the front in the high-speed corners: “the front tucks and I end up running wide.”
Asked about the performance of the different aero options, he did not elaborate. “To feel something, you need to have a feeling on the bike,” he said.
A Resurface That Never Arrived
Bagnaia did not point to the surface as his excuse, even on a day when the track looked slippery. Sepang hosted a rare Formula 1 race earlier this month, and the circuit had been due for a resurface before this year’s MotoGP round. The planned work was scrapped. “We need the resurface, but they were trying to do it, but unluckily they could not ship the material here to do it. So we already knew that it was the last time riding in these conditions.”
On Thursday he had explained what that meant for the tyres. Michelin brought an additional medium rear tyre, designed for the resurfaced track, alongside the soft and the hard. “The tyres are different,” Bagnaia said then. The extra tyre was an answer to the plan to resurface, and the plan fell through: “they had some issue with shipping the material, so the asphalt is the same.” He added his own view of the straights: “Apart from that Formula 1 scratched the straights. So let’s see. It will be interesting.”
“The track feels like in the [pre-season] test,” he said on Friday. He then separated the circuit from the bike with one sentence: “my feeling on the bike is completely different.” He went on to say it has been that way for most of the year. He described the track as unchanged from the test and the bike as the thing that feels different.
What the Ducati Garage Said
Ducati’s own release carried a longer version of the same complaint. “We made the decision to start with the same bike configuration as in winter testing, and I certainly had different expectations in terms of performance,” Bagnaia said in it. He said he struggles mainly in the faster, flowing sections, T2 and T3, and sits among the quickest riders in the first and fourth sectors, where the braking zones are heavier. The lack of grip does not help either, he said, and the team must keep working to regain the right feeling with the bike and a track where he has always been strong.
The contrast inside the garage is sharp. Marc Marquez completed a Friday practice double at the top of the timesheets. Bagnaia, the two-time champion, sits 12th and needs Qualifying 1 to reach the next round. Bagnaia has watched wins go to Marquez before from the seat next door, and Friday put the two riders at opposite ends of the same factory team.
Valentino Rossi described the state of the relationship in his own terms, in a comparison to a failing marriage earlier this month. Bagnaia’s own Friday words stayed on the motorcycle: what it does on the straights and what it does not do in the middle sectors.
Saturday Decides the Tone
Bagnaia was in this position last year too. He missed direct Qualifying 2 access in Malaysia a year ago, still took pole position and won the sprint, and then a puncture ended his Grand Prix hopes. On Thursday he pointed to that weekend when he described this one. On Saturday he starts again from Qualifying 1.
The straight-line speed gives him something to work with. His first and last sectors sat in the top three. The rest of the weekend follows, and Bagnaia has said how he intends to ride it: with more risk and, if the bike allows it, with some enjoyment.
His 2027 plans are set, with the move to Aprilia announced in June. What remains is the question he put into words himself in Sepang: whether a bike that works only when it is straight can give him one last weekend worth enjoying with Ducati. Saturday starts to answer it.
