Francesco Bagnaia had the pace to fight for the podium at Le Mans, but a recurring mechanical problem with his Ducati cut his race short for the second time in as many weekends.
The Italian was running in second place when he lost the front end with 7 laps remaining. He stopped short of blaming his team outright, but made clear the crash was not purely a riding error. The same issue that forced him out of contention in Jerez had resurfaced, and this time he pushed through it until the bike threw him off.
Bagnaia acknowledged that the weekend itself had shown genuine progress. He took pole on Saturday and had strong pace in both the Sprint and the main race, even managing to recover from a poor start and hunt down the leading group. After following Marco Bezzecchi closely, he identified key adjustments to the anti-wheelie system that helped close the gap to the Aprilias, something he sees as a step in the right direction.
He was candid about his mindset heading into Le Mans: he wanted results and was willing to risk a crash to get them. He crashed twice, but came away believing Ducati is closing the performance gap.
Bagnaia also expressed sympathy for Marc Marquez, who underwent surgery after his latest injury setback, calling his absence a real loss for the championship and saying he hopes to see him back soon.
The circus heads to Barcelona next, where Bagnaia expects the team to have a fix in place.
