Francesco Bagnaia’s third-place finish at the Aragon Grand Prix might not have made headlines in past seasons, but in the context of his current struggles, it felt like a breakthrough.
And the key? A change as small as 15 millimetres – yet it made all the difference.
Bagnaia and Ducati were floundering. After a miserable sprint race where the reigning champion finished 12th on merit and looked completely out of sorts, the weekend looked like another chapter in what’s been a disappointing run since the Spanish Grand Prix. But Sunday brought an unexpected shift.
In the words of team manager Davide Tardozzi, Saturday night saw “a long discussion” between Bagnaia, Ducati engineers, and technical chief Gigi Dall’Igna.
The end result of that conversation was a call to fit a different front brake disc on Bagnaia’s GP25 during Sunday morning warm-up.
A small change on paper, just a switch from Brembo’s usual 340mm disc to a larger 355mm version.
It had an immediate impact. Bagnaia described the transformation as “huge,” saying, “From the start of the day I was able to brake harder when I needed, brake less when I felt the front was locking. It was a huge step for me.”
The difference was so dramatic, Bagnaia admitted he doubted whether it could be down to the disc alone.
“Maybe it’s not just the disc,” he said. “But I was losing the front, understeering everywhere, and then suddenly I could force the corner entry again. The tyre felt there. Yesterday, it didn’t.”
The symptoms Bagnaia had been fighting – lack of front-end feel, locking, understeer – point to an issue that has plagued several Ducati riders on the new GP25.
Fabio Di Giannantonio, battling missing front-end confidence all year, wasn’t surprised to see Bagnaia benefit from the larger disc.
“You add more weight to the front wheel,” he explained. “It changes a lot.”
The increased disc size adds rotating mass and shifts weight distribution subtly forward, influencing how the front tyre engages during braking and corner entry.
This wasn’t just a minor tweak either. Bagnaia revealed, “We never did it in the past. Normally we always use the same disc.”
The decision to make the change stemmed from desperation rather than strategy.
But the result was a third-place that felt “like a victory” and offered Bagnaia the relief of knowing his problems might not be as deeply rooted as they appeared.
Still, both Bagnaia and Ducati are cautious about declaring the issue solved.
The Aragon ride didn’t put him in podium contention in terms of race-winning pace. “It helped me to be competitive lap-by-lap,” he said. “But I never had the chance to win.”
The championship gap remains daunting at 93 points, and Bagnaia has openly conceded that “right now Marc [Marquez] is just faster” and “Alex [Marquez] is doing a very fantastic job.”
But at least now, he believes there’s a direction. “We just need to work on myself and on my side of the box, to guarantee a better feeling.”
With a test scheduled for the Monday after Aragon and races at Mugello and Assen coming up, two tracks where Bagnaia has dominated in recent years, the timing couldn’t be better for a confidence reset.
The verdict from within Ducati was clear. Tardozzi put it best: “Sometimes confidence comes from small things. And I guess we found it.”
