The 2024 season was marked by the excellent performance of Francesco Bagnaia, who, on the factory Ducati, won 11 of the 20 Grand Prix and five more podiums in the other nine races.
However, a series of crashes and misfortune – especially in sprints– wiped off all his efforts, while a more consistently-performing Jorge Martin outpaced him to the title by 10 points astride a Pramac-run GP24.
Interviewed by another ex-racer Andrea Migno in a podcast, the Italian stated that his 2024 may mirror Marc Marquez’s 2019 with Honda when the sprint format was still being largely unseen.
“In my opinion, it has been an incredible season. It took us a bit to understand this bike well.” Bagnaia said.
“It took us four races, until we got to Jerez and understood the potential. [But] everything has been incredible since then.
“If you look at Sundays, apart from the times I crashed or got thrown off, I’ve always finished in the top three, except in Austin, where I was fifth.
“I think it’s been a season in which, if you take away the sprints, it’s on par with Marc Marquez’s in 2019.” Bagnaia added.
With a tally of 420 points at the end of the year, Marquez was 151 points ahead of his nearest contender and the Ducati competing leader, Andrea Dovizioso.
In comparison, Bagnaia could secure one less victory in a slightly more extensive 20-race season and had 14 podiums against Marquez’s 18 come the end of the year.
He scored 498 performance points during the season in the half-distance races of which 116. If only the acquired points from the race held on Sunday had been considered, Bagnaia would have been 24 points clear of Martin.
