Francesco Bagnaia has been fighting at Ducati since Marc Marquez became his team-mate in 2025. Neil Hodgson said he was ‘mentally devastated’ and never recovered.
Last year was a terrible year for Italy. He failed to finish five of the last six races and finished fifth in the standings. While he did not get any feeling from the GP25 Marquez He won the championship in five races.
Valentino Rossi felt that Marquez Bagnaya had affected him ‘psychologically’ As he adapts to the bike seamlessly and leaves his teammate behind. Bagnaia rubbished Rossi’s claim.But in 2026 Hodgson He doesn’t seem to have recovered.
Neil Hodgson says Francesco Bagnaia has been ‘mentally destroyed’ by Marc Marquez.
It has been a difficult start to the 2026 season BagnayaRetirement from three of the first five races. It wasn’t much better for Márquez though as he was still off the Grand Prix podium and missed the French and Catalan GPs through injury.
Bagnaia admits that he wants Ducati Marquez After crashing at Le Mans, his streak without a podium extended to 10 races after Le Mans. Fortunately, that ended with back-to-back P3s at Catalunya and Mugello.
But the Italian Grand Prix It still exposed weaknesses for Italy. Bagnaia finished with Marquez In the Spaniard’s first weekend back in MotoGP, he was beaten by him in the Sprint.
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During the Grand Prix, Hodgson noticed how Bagnaia was struggling to pass his rivals on the track. In the year He revealed how he was ‘mentally destroyed’ by Marquez in 2025 and never really recovered.
Lai said. TNT Sports: ” Marking Marc Marquez as your teammate, winning all the races, taking the championship in absolute cakewalk, mentally destroying Pecco Bagnaia.
“And we were hoping this year, we saw a quick Peco Bagnaia in the preseason, but as soon as the pressure is on, as you can see, if he doesn’t start, if he’s in that team, he can’t figure out how to get past people for whatever reason.
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“I don’t know if it’s from tire temperature, we talk about that a lot, and that’s what we talk about, drivers try to get the front tire pressure as low as possible early in the race.”
Bagnaia took the lead in the third lap and showed strong pace with the Aprilias. But his GP26 could not catch, as Bezechichi won from George Martin Aprilia one-two.
Bagnaya took third place and narrowly beat Ai Ogura over the line. Back-to-back podiums, things are looking brighter for the Italian.
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