Francesco Bagnaia walked away from the Italian Grand Prix with something he had been chasing for weeks: a podium, and with it, a reason to believe his troubled title defence is finally turning a corner.
The Ducati rider finished third at Mugello, his home race, after leading for the opening ten laps. He was eventually reeled in and passed by Aprilia's flying pair of Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin, but a late scrap with Ai Ogura — which Bagnaia narrowly won after briefly being overtaken at the final corner — secured a result that felt like a release.
"I really hope it is like this," Bagnaia said when asked whether the rostrum marked the end of his recent slump.
The 2022 and 2023 world champion has endured a punishing run in which Ducati's normally dominant machine has refused to bend to his style. He pointed to a fundamental grip deficit as the root of his struggles.
"It's quite clear that we are struggling. We are missing rear grip, also compared to other Ducati, so we are trying to follow another way," he explained.
That "other way" has meant rethinking how the bike is balanced. In parc ferme, Bagnaia told crew chief Cristian Gabarrini that a shift in weight distribution had unlocked a better feeling from the front end. "By shifting our weight forward, we've improved," he said.
Bagnaia was candid that the fix is a work in progress rather than a cure. "Our bike is working in a different way compared to the past, and we are trying to set it in a way that I can be 100% myself and we are reaching this kind of level," he said. "So we just move forward a little, step by step, but we are arriving, and I'm pretty sure that in the future we'll be there fighting with them."
Mugello has long been a happy hunting ground for the Italian, and he acknowledged the circuit flattered his strengths. "It's true that this GP for me was always super good because the layout of the track suits my style very well," he said.
Even so, he insisted the groundwork for the recovery had been laid long before the home crowd lifted him. "From the start of the season, we started to work with a different mindset," he said. "I'm giving everything at home, every training here, to reach the level we used to have."
The closing stages underlined how fine the margins have become. Ogura, who had been four seconds adrift, closed and briefly demoted Bagnaia before the Ducati man fought back. "Ogura overtook me; he was four seconds behind!" Bagnaia recounted to Marc Marquez, a mix of alarm and admiration at the Japanese rider's late pace.
For all the caveats, Bagnaia left Tuscany sounding like a rider rediscovering his footing — and issued a pointed promise to those who have written off his season.
"But with a result like this can be a point of start," he said. "If we continue like this, I promise that we will arrive again and we'll be back there to fight for the wins."
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/bagnaia-ducati-fightback-mugello-podium-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
