Francesco Bagnaia

Pre World Championship career

Born in Torino (Italy), Bagnaia was successful in Minimoto and he won the European MiniGP championship in 2009. Bagnaia made his preGP 125 mediterranean championship debut with Monlau Competicion team in 2010 and finished 2nd in the championship. In the 2012 CEV Moto3 season he rode a Honda NSF250R and finished 3rd in the championship behind Álex Márquez and Luca Amato with three podiums in seven races. Bagnaia is also a member of the VR46 riders academy.

2013

In 2013, Bagnaia made his Grand prix debut with Team Italia FMI with Romano Fenati as his partner riding a Honda. The 2013 Moto3 season was a disappointing year for Bagnaia as he did not manage to get a single point the entire season. His best race was a 16th place finish at Sepang.

2014

In 2014, Bagnaia switched team to join Sky Racing Team by VR46 riding a KTM with same partner Romano Fenati. After failing to score points in his rookie season Bagnaia made a clear improvement after a strong pre-season and also switching bikes for the season, riding a KTM instead of Honda. He finished top 10 five times during the first 7 races with a 4th place finish at Le Mans as his best result, where he also set the fastest lap of the race. Bagnaia missed the races at Assen and Sachsenring due to injury. After scoring 42 points in the first 7 races of the campaign Bagnaia slumped badly during the second part of the season, only finishing in the points twice of the last 9 races, clearly affected by his injury. He finished the season in 16th position with 50 points.

2015

In 2015, Bagnaia made another team and bike change, this time joining Aspar Racing Team on a Mahindra and new teammates Juanfran Guevara and Jorge Martín where he got his first podium at the 2015 French motorcycle Grand Prix finishing the race in 3rd place behind Romano Fenati and Enea Bastianini. In the next race at Mugello Bagnaia finished 4th, missing the podium with 0.003 seconds behind his former teammate Romano Fenati. He was on his way to another podium finish at Silverstone but crashed with 2 laps remaining. Despite improving his championship position with two places and gaining 26 more points than the previous year on a new bike for the third straight season, this time a Mahindra it was still an up and down year for him. Bagnaia only finished Top 10 during races five times. He also missed points in seven races, unclassified in five of those. He finished the season down in 14th place with 76 points.

2016

In 2016, Bagnaia started the season with a podium finish at Losail and another podium finish at Jerez, finishing 3rd on both occasions. At his home race in Italy Bagnaia secured another 3rd position beating Niccolò Antonelli by 0.006 seconds. Followed by a crash at Barcelona, Bagnaia secured his first Grand Prix win at the historic Assen circuit in his 59th moto3 race and it was the first win for Mahindra too. He now had 4 podiums in the first 8 races of the season and found himself fighting for the title. After two average races and a crash at Brno, Bagnaia got his first pole position in the rain affected Silverstone and finished second behind Brad Binder in a thrilling race. Bagnaia won his second race of the season at Sepang, winning the race comfortably with a big gap after Brad Binder, Joan Mir and Lorenzo Dalla Porta all crashed out in the same corner during the beginning of the race, which was filled with multiple crashes. He finished the season with 145 points to place 4th in the Moto3 Championship with a total of 2 wins and 6 podiums. Bagnaia had an opportunity to finish 2nd in the World Championship behind Brad Binder but was unfortunately taken out in both Phillip Island and Valencia by Gabriel Rodrigo, Rodrigo pushed out Fabio Di Giannantonio in Australia who went down and collected Bagnaia with him. In Valencia Rodrigo made a highside crash on the first lap approaching the last corner, again Bagnaia went down unavoidably.

2017

After 4 seasons in the Moto3 category Championship Bagnaia moved up to Moto2, racing for SKY Racing Team VR46 where he last rode in 2014. In just his fourth ever Moto2 race at Jerez Bagnaia finished 2nd. He finished 2nd in the next race as well at Le Mans after having qualified in 2nd place, missing pole position to Thomas Lüthi by just 0.026 seconds. Bagnaia took a third podium at Sachsenring, finishing 3rd behind Franco Morbidelli who won the race and Miguel Oliveira who came in second. At Misano Bagnaia originally finished the race 4th behind Dominique Aegerter, Thomas Lüthi, and Hafizh Syahrin however Aegerter was later disqualified promoting him to his 4th podium of the season. He was crowned Moto2 Rookie of the year after the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi. He finished his rookie season with 174 points to place 5th in the Moto2 Championship, scoring points in 16 of the 18 races.

2018

Bagnaia opened the season with a win in Qatar, having led the race from start to finish. Bagnaia took a second win in Austin after a hard fight with Álex Márquez winning the race with a gap of 2.4 seconds and also setting the fastest lap of the race. At Jerez Bagnaia finished 3rd behind Lorenzo Baldassarri and Miguel Oliveira holding his starting grid position. Bagnaia took his first first pole position in Moto2 at Le Mans, like the race in Qatar he led the race from start to finish. The win was also his 3rd podium at Le Mans since 2015. Bagnaia took a 4th win at Assen, starting the race from Pole Position and leading the entire race. After qualifying 3rd on the grid in Sachsenring Bagnaia finished the race down in 12 place, having been forced outside of the track after Mattia Pasini fell down infront of him in the last corner on the second lap, despite being down in 26th position he still made up fourteen places, including overtaking Álex Márquez on the final lap in the last corner. At Brno Bagnaia finished third and lost the championship lead to Oliveira. He retook the championship lead at Austria, winning his 5th race of the season. Bagnaia won his sixth race of the season at Misano from pole position. He took a 5th straight podium at Buriram, winning the race with his temmate Luca Marini in second place. He currently leads the Moto2 Championship with 259 points, scoring 10 podiums in 14 races, including 7 wins.

Grand Prix motorcycle racing