Racing Returns

Motocot the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 733 for June 15th 2023. We'll be talking about Mugello. Racing is back and of course that means both Rich and I are back. Rich, the racing this weekend, pretty good I thought.

Not a classic gym in my opinion. Don't want to be too controversial but we got a pretty hectic schedule for the next few weeks so hopefully things will improve from here on. Yep, that's with that. Let's just get to it because it is quite hectic with a three on the bounce. We had a three week spring break.

Now we're going to get three races on three weekends. It's definitely going to be a little bit crazy but before we really get into everything, I want to remind you to subscribe to the show if you can. Every little bit helps. Server space and things of that nature helps us get some interviews, get out to some people, some tracks and races. All of it is greatly appreciated.

If you have the means by which to donate to the show, we'd greatly appreciate it. You can go to our website www.motopodcast.com. There are links to PayPal and Patreon on the sides. If you don't have the means to subscribe, we understand. We totally get that.

If you could, just go to your favorite podcast player, give us a review and rate us. It will take us and put us back into the algorithm somewhere else and hopefully more people will be able to find us. With that, let's just go to listener feedback and start off here. This first one is from Brian Summers. He's in Brisbane, Australia, which I thought was really cool.

His thing was about the interview I did with Mark Miller. He was saying how he loved to hear Mark again. I personally loved interviewing Mark. I thought it was really great. It's really fun.

Mark's a really cool guy. We were talking about shape-shifting bikes on the grid in MotoGP. I can't remember if Mark said it or if I said it. I think I did. It doesn't really matter, but what I said was or what was said was we see no reason to have a shape-shifting motorcycle on a MotoGP grid.

It serves no purpose. There's no trickle-down effect that could be there. Well, Brian has set me straight because I tell you it was a very well-argument. His point about this was that there are many people who are not six foot tall. There are too many motorcycles that are quite tall, especially a lot of these adventure tourers, which seem to be a new wave of what everybody's going to.

He's like me. He's five foot and a little bit extra, and that's about all I am. If you had a shape-shifting bike that could lower the ride height so that you could get onto the bike easier and then maybe go back to its original ride height as you're riding, but then as you slow down and come to a stop, if it would compress itself back down so you could easily put one foot on the ground and be comfortable, there would be more people who'd be inclined to actually ride a motorcycle instead of having to try to lean off the one side or fall over or feel like the weight of the bike is going to trap them if they did fall over because it's not a comfortable thing to be with one foot off of a peg and one foot on the ground. I see the point. I totally get it, Brian.

Maybe they could do that and put those in there for us shorter people. Maybe shape-shifting technology can translate to our street or adventure tourers bikes or dirt bikes or who knows what, but at what cost, I'm not sure, but it is a great thought. I appreciate that, Brian, and appreciate you listening. I'm sorry, it's Bernie, not Brian. Sorry.

I had a chat, I'm trying to think what it was now, last year sometime behind the pits in Silverstone, I think it was, and I bumped into Neil Spalding, who quite a lot of the listeners will know who that is, and we started talking about this very thing and he actually made pretty much the same point that Bernie's making, which is that for whatever reason, and I guess it will be mostly to do with trying to contain costs, although of course the factories always find a way to spend the money somewhere, but it's mandated in MotoGP not to have automated or electronic suspension devices. Neil was making the point that effectively what the MotoGP factories have done is they found a mechanical way around the rule, i.e. the pumping devices that lower the front or the back. Now we know the fronts are being banned, but the rear devices are still there, and he made, I thought, a very salient point, which is exactly what Bernie has said, which is that on the road you can buy a plethora of bikes now that do have electronic suspension devices of one sort or another, even down to sort of weather conditions you might want to soften it up in the wet, for example. So it seems a bit incongruous really that MotoGP has gone down this, you can't do it, but they've just found a way around the rules, whereas the mainstream kind of road bike industry has just decided that electronic systems are the way to go, and it does seem a bit stupid now that if you've got devices in MotoGP that alter suspension geometry in one way or another, why don't you make it relevant to the road industry?

There's a kind of a dichotomy there at the moment, so it is a bit stupid and I completely understand what Bernie said, and I think we agree with him, Jim. Completely, completely. So there was another listener feedback from Patreon, if I'm correct, Rich? Yeah, yeah. So we had a message in from Paul Lang, who's somebody that, well, as you say, Jimmy's a Patreon, so thank you for that, and writes into the show from time to time.

So the question is, KTM appears to be far superior off the start. The overhead video replay of Jack Miller in Mugello was really something special, and it really was. So what is going on here now? I mean, I simply don't know from an engineering mechanical point of view. You all have a better speculation because that's all it's going to be because we're not part of those factories, so we don't really know.

But what's your take, Jim? Here's my theory, and again, this is completely and totally theory. I think what they've done is they are using an accumulator or a slow-release valve that is monitoring the hydraulic pressure that disengages or engages the clutch. So I think they go through the weekend doing these practice starts, and they look at the clutch pressure, the slippage, the bite, all that stuff because they've got data on all this. And much like how we said in the suspensions and the lower, it's a mechanical system that avoids electronic interference.

I think they're doing the same thing. I think KTM has a small reservoir or an accumulator of some kind that's holding hydraulic fluid at a certain pressure, and they've got it set to bleed out as the clutch comes in. And that fine bleed gives you the maximum amount of forward thrust. So it's not too much to spin the tire. It's not too little where you're slipping the clutch.

It's sort of that exact perfect bite as they leave. I think that's where they went with it. Pure speculation on my part, but it's the only thing I can think of that they could be doing that isn't electronically driving the clutch, which I believe is illegal in the rules. Could be wrong on that one, but I do believe it's something to do with the clutch in some way they are taking the feathering of the clutch out by hand away from the rider where they're simply just letting go of it and the bike is figuring out how to manipulate the clutch in some fashion. And I'm assuming it's hydraulically related because of the electronic part of it.

You've already got some sort of system that's moving the suspension up and down. Why not just borrow some of that pressure to be able to work the clutch. So that's my take. Now that I've hit the wrong side of my half century, my memory is pretty appalling, but do I recall us talking about or somebody bringing up the possibility that KTM were using a cable on the throttle as opposed to a fly-by-wire system? I'm sure I've remembered that from somewhere.

Now whether that feeds into it in terms of the more analog way that the riders can sort of feather that power in and allied to all the others. I don't know. I mean, that's just something that's just occurred to me. I might be completely wrong on that. My memory is this.

And again, I'm on the wrong side of the half century mark too. So my memory is not that great, but I think when KTM came into the series, I think they had a cable that was working the butterflies for the throttle. I think they've since gone to a fly-by-wire. And the only reason I say this is because when you watch them do a practice start, it's held at a certain rev and then they let go and then they never move their wrist. So it's open, which you could feather that in electronically as well.

So maybe it's a combination of those. I think it's more to do with the bite of the clutch because Formula One teams will practice starts and they will analyze that bite on that clutch and then the driver has the ability to set the bite point to get the best launch possible. I think it's something very similar. And the reason I also think it's that is because KTM is Red Bull sponsored. Red Bull has a great presence in Formula One and a lot of great engineering and Red Bull has a Red Bull Technology Center where they work on all this stuff.

And they might be... I know that some of the Formula One aerodynamicists that work on the Red Bull cars are working on KTM's bodywork and other aero flicks and tricks. So why not take some Formula One clutch magic as well and put it on your bike? I mean, Paul's question is a salient one because pretty much every round so far this year, we've seen the KTM's, whichever one it is, absolutely just massacring everybody else off the line, haven't they? Almost without exception.

So whatever they are doing, it's very effective, that system. Yep, agreed. It also could be the fact that it seems to me that their ride height goes lower than anybody else's. So again, you lower that center of gravity, more traction, less wheelie. Maybe you put it all together and you have what they have.

Again, it's all speculation here. We don't know and I don't think that Biro is going to tell us anytime soon. No, completely not. All right, let's get to some news, Rich. So the first thing here is there are rumors abound of Honda and Yamaha leaving MotoGP.

They're being upset over the cost of their dynamics and they really don't want them to be on the motorcycles to begin with. Now, KTM was very vocal about that at the beginning. Honda was sort of vocal about it at the beginning. They've learned that they have to go down this way and this was from Moto News, is where I got this from. The most salient one is probably Yamaha leaving.

I don't think Honda would leave, but what this is, I think we're coming to a head here like we had with the full-on electronics that we had prior and basically, Carmelo said, hey, we're going to bring in CRT bikes on a budget. Well, hey, go try us. You're not going to do it. Well, they did. And say it like it or not, those bikes were not as fast as the full factory bikes.

There was a very distant gap between those two. Now, I think what we're seeing now is there's a lot of teams that are saying this has gotten out of control and we can't afford the money and the research into ride height devices, into aerodynamics and everything that that black art of aerodynamics is. Again, KTM has got Formula One engineers working on it. Ducati has got Formula One engineers they hired from Ferrari working on this. These guys are next level smart when it comes to making air work around a car and creating things for it.

I think that what they're trying to push for is maybe a ban of aerodynamics or a lessening of the aerodynamic impact and a cost cap, a la Formula One that says you get so many millions of euros per year to run your team on. I think that's what we're looking at. I think you're getting to a point where you're driving the smaller teams, the Grissini, the LCR. There's more, I know. Gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas is full factor KTM.

But I was thinking, you know, I was trying to think of the actual private tier teams. I mean, VR46 is obviously private team. Primaq is a factory supported team, but not to the extent, you know, they're they may be paying Zarko's salary, but I don't think they're paying Martin's salary, whatnot. So I think that's what this is headed. There's going to have to be some day of reckoning about the cost and the amount of money we're spending here because money isn't free anymore.

It's not cheap. We don't have cigarette companies who are just standing there with a blank checkbook going, how much do you want? We kind of went that way. And quite honestly, something has to happen as well because I think the racing is becoming a bit stale. The long races, right?

The sprint, I think is fantastic. Don't get me wrong. But the longer the race runs, the more the problem is, you know, I'd rather get away from the aerodynamics, have just a bike and have Michelin build like really sticky tires, as opposed to having to design a tire that's got to cope with these aerodynamic forces and being pressed into the ground and all that. I don't know how you feel about it, Rich, but that's where I think we're going. Yeah, I don't know, Jimmy.

I mean, it's one of these things where the grass is always greener, isn't it? You know, the matter what you do or what stage you find yourself at, there's always something that seems to be the better way. I'm actually quite surprised, I guess, thinking about this now, that one of the things that MotoGP hasn't copied from the Formula One Brigade, and we do kind of criticise MotoGP a bit for just always sort of copying what Formula One sort of lead by, I'm kind of surprised that there isn't a cost cap in MotoGP because, I mean, certainly in the past, you could, maybe not quite so much now, but definitely in the past, you would say that it was warfare based on dollars spent in the past. And that's where the likes of Honda definitely did this through resource at the problem. And they did very well from it in that regard.

As a purist, I would like to say, maybe, I don't know, introduce a cost cap, open up the engine regs. I always go back to the 2002 to 2006 Formula, where you had different weight categories for different engine configurations. And it was kind of, it was a purist sort of Darwinian thing, you know, choose your formula, you get your advantages, but your disadvantages from whichever way you tend to go and see how you get on sort of thing. So if we went back to that with a cost cap and maybe a tire war as well, and some limitations that kind of tried to rein in some of the excesses that create, you know, over speed, and which is a stupid way of putting it, it's not a good word, but we need to slow these bikes down a little bit. You know, we saw a top speed record broken at Mugello this weekend, or the weekend just passed, you know, the bikes are getting too fast again, and that is a problem.

So we need to try and find a way to slow them down if we can. Now, okay, and I'm saying introduce a tire war, which always decreases lap times. So there's obviously a balance to be found. But I do think we're kind of maybe on a bit of a wrong path at the moment. With regards to aerodynamics, I don't know how you kind of put that genie back in the bottle, because I mean, to find aerodynamics, we went through this several times back in the sort of the mid, what, well, 2015, 16, 17, where we were starting to find appendages kind of bolted on, not bolted, but you know what I mean, onto the sides of fairings, and then that was outlawed.

And then they sort of found different fairing shapes, which had holes in them. So they were doing the same thing. And now we've got sculpted sides that create, kind of create what's the ground effect and this sort of thing. So I don't really know how you contain that particular problem. So they need to find some other mechanisms to try and slow them down.

But quite how they did that, I don't know. We've said numerous times, and I don't really want to keep going on about the same thing all the time. But there are some obvious things like shape shifters, going back to that, which you could easily ban, that would have effects in slowing them down a bit. But you know, these engineers, these are some very clever people, all these boys and girls, men and ladies, they all find a way to get the speed back up again. So I don't know what the answer to the question is.

But clearly, your Mugello's, your Saxon rings, all these tracks, they can't keep making them safer, because I think they've probably gone about as far as they can go with most of these places. So something else needs to change. But quite how they do that is a bit of a conundrum. Yeah, I'm with you. You can put the Genie back in the bottle.

Formerly the one did it. They used to refuel the cars. They then banned it, said you can't do it. Did that make the racing any better? No, sort of the same problem.

My fear here with these motorcycles is what Bender set a record at like 22322 clicks, I think it was something like that. I think it was 225.1 miles per hour. Yeah, I figured that out was 227 miles an hour. Okay, that is stupid fast on a motorcycle. So that's crazy.

My fear is, is that all you with these aerodynamics and all this stuff, is that you get a bike that somehow gets into an area of spectators. That's the fear. I've said it, and I don't want to go on about it again. But if you watch even Moto3 and Moto2 bikes are reaching some of the crash barriers now, where they never used to before. So we got to find something because I don't want this racing to stop.

Anyway, that's where we're at there. Let's move on. Next thing on the news list. There was an article, I saw it on Twitter. It saw Simon Patterson, follow him if you're not.

And his thing was, does Marquez really have anywhere to go? So the idea is that Mark says, hey, look, Mark kind of, not spoiling anything. I think we all know Mark fell off in the race in Mugello, stood up and looked at the bike with his hands out and his suit puffed out like the Michelin man. What was that kind of a look, if you will? And with that, that was a signal to Honda, like, look, I'm tired of this.

I fixed myself. Time is running out on my career. I'm 30. Time is running out. I want to win races and I want to win at least one more championship.

He doesn't have a bike to do that on. So the question then is where would Mark go? Well, he has one more year in contract with HRC to what Simon Patterson said is believed to be 25 million euros for a season. Now, contracts are made to be broken. We all know that, but I'm not sure that Marquez is willing to part with 25 million euros to get out of his contract, to go someplace else.

If he did go to someplace else, where would he go? There isn't exactly a lot of spots in the field. Ducati, I don't think they want the drama that is Mark Marquez. I don't see it. If they did take him, it would have to be on a very small retainer, somewhere like Lorenzo with 800,000 euros or something to go to Honda.

It's going to be something really small like that. I don't think money motivates these guys to some extent. They want to win races and they want to win championships. However, I don't think he would go to Yamaha. I don't think they could afford him even at 800,000 euros.

You're just throwing that number out there, folks. So that leaves KTM. But is there a spot left at KTM? No, I don't think that there is. But Pit Buyer would cut any man's throat to win a world title.

Does that mean that KTM takes the last two grid spots that are available and makes a Husky team? We said it before, but if there's anywhere he's going to go, I think it's KTM. They have the money with Red Bull to do whatever they want to do. They could maybe figure out a deal to pay half of the 25 million euros to get out of that contract. So your thoughts, Rich?

Anything on that? Well, I mean, we've talked about this quite a bit, I suppose. I don't see anywhere other than a KTM brand, whether it's KTM or one of the sub brands, as any place that Mark can land, to be honest, because we all accept that he is one of the great test riders of all time. And of that, there is no doubt the stats back up and what we've seen him doing on the bike over these years. We've seen it with our own eyes.

So he has been absolutely phenomenal. But like all these great riders, their time slowly draws to an end. And I think really the question to ask is who wants Mark Marquez, particularly if he wants to earn a big salary as part of the deal. And I'm not suggesting he would because we don't know. I mean, maybe he would ride somewhere virtually for free and take it as bonuses.

As you said, Jim, we don't know that. But he gets injured quite easily, does fall off a lot, and he's been quite badly injured, et cetera, et cetera. So there's so much young talent coming up through. We talk endlessly on the show about where's this rider going to go? There's a logjam of talent that just can't break through to the top class at the moment.

So at a certain point in time, some of these guys have got to get out of the way. So I'm struggling really outside of the wild speculation about a sort of a Husqvarna team making up those extra two grid slots because quite frankly, I don't see who else is going to step up to fill those two grid slots at the moment. So that kind of seems logical, but it will take a huge amount of time and resource and money on KTM and Red Bull's part and whoever else would be commercially involved, let's say, to make that happen. Whether that could then stretch to Mark Marquez if he was demanding a fairly big retainer as part of that. I struggle to see how that would work really.

Now it might well be that Mark Marquez would say, I'll take that ride because I think he's got another championship in him on the right bike, but time is running out and pretty quickly. So he is in a bit of a conundrum and all those histrionics. I'm not saying that he did it on purpose because it was in the moment, but I guess we'll come to it when we briefly talk about the racing. There's not as much racing to talk about, but you can see how frustrated he is with the situation and he knows that the clock is ticking and he's only one sort of nasty crash away from being sidelined for a period of time again and he's like virtually every other Honda rider at the minute. So sorry, I'm laughing and I'm not doing that in a disrespectful way.

It's just a bit frustrating really. So he can't afford another big crash and on the Honda at the minute, the way things are, you know, either he's lost some of his skill. Well, no, he hasn't lost his skill, but something has changed from the Mark Marquez that we used to see or the bikes just got much worse or the other bikes has got much faster and he's just doing his damnedest to keep up and crashing as a result. I don't know that it's a bit of a bleak situation for Honda and Marquez at the moment and I don't know where he would really go other than the KTM Jim is the answer to that question. Agreed.

Let's move on to the next bit. There was an article by Matt Dunn. It's on Red Bull.com or if you followed David Emmett on Twitter, there's a retweet of the Matt Dunn article where he spent 72 hours post-Harroth with Pedro Costa. It's a fascinating insight into Pedro Costa and what makes him tick. Well, a couple of quick things that I saw in there when I read it that I thought were really interesting was one, after Harath, he stayed and made sure every fan had an autograph or a picture and engaged with everybody.

And the other thing that was that about that, he said, well, hey, we have to do better to promote our sport. And if it takes me standing here giving a kid an autograph to make him a fan for life, I'm willing to do that. So he seems to be somewhat grounded. He comes from a very humble background. His father was a fisherman.

So it seems as though his mind is he sees the bigger picture. And I think maybe, and we'll go to this one, maybe he's trying to become Rossi-esque in the paddock because if you watch the Moto 2 race, at the end of it, you saw a Costa stop and receive a backpack with a shark fin on it. Now, he's called the shark. That's his nickname in the paddock. But he delivered pizza to the crew, to several members, to the crew at the podium area, and then also to the mechanics for the people who were also in the Park Formae area, if you will.

So the conspiracy theory is this is a good one. I like this, Rich. I'm not trying to take anything away from you because you told me this one, but I just love this. Was it since he had a backpack on that was signs, hey, I'm leaving KTM and going to greener pastures elsewhere in 2024 with a Moto GP ride where I have no idea. But the rumor was what, Rich, that maybe he was going to who?

Well, I think, I, yeah, just again, we're into speculation here. I mean, I think the first point to make, Jim, in terms of what you've just prefaced there is that there is a Valentino Rossi-sized personality vacuum in the Moto GP grid. Let's be honest. I mean, there's one or two characters, but they badly need somebody to kind of create that alter personality almost because that is what sells the Netflix shows and the Amazon shows and the worldwide tickets and stuff. And we've been missing that for a few years.

So humble beginnings, yes, but I'm sure Pedro Acosta has some very savvy advisors around him that says do the hard jobs now, my boy, and you're going to be a superstar and a multi multi-millionaire as a result of all of this. So which is a bit of a cynical thing to say, but again, I'm 50 years old, so I can afford to be a little bit cynical. So, you know, he has otherworldly talents as well. So he's the full package at the minute, isn't he? And the whole backpack thing, it was a little bit reminded me a little bit of when Rossi put the sort of the blow up doll with the Claudia Schiffer thing, you know, it was definitely designed on purpose to create a reaction.

Now, I don't know, but the speculation on Twitter and, you know, there's no worst place to go for your facts and Twitter, but was the whole I've got the backpack on, the bags are packed, I'm ready to go. And, you know, the speculation being that obviously every factory will be trying to get his signature on a piece of paper. I mean, why wouldn't they? Whether KTM can find room for him, that's the big question. And we've talked about that endlessly, we won't talk about Husqvarna again, but or somebody like Paul Aspargrove has to give way to, you know, the guy that's coming through.

Because as I said a minute ago, there are some people that have been in MotoGP for quite a long time, and they've had a chance, you know, it's time to let some of the other guys have a go, you know, so that's kind of where I came from with what I read and been a little bit mischievous, I suppose. But Acosta knows precisely what he's up to. We saw this in Moto3, didn't we, when he deliberately rode into the back of Dennis Foggia on that last round at, where was it, Portimao when the title was up for grabs, he gets into people's heads, he creates the narrative. And that's what the best ones do always. So, you know, clever boy.

Yes, very clever boy. Simon Kreyfar had reported on the grid at Moto2 that it was Pitbuyer's desire to leave Pedro Acosta in Moto2 for another year, which leads Kareem to say, well, I'm going, because I don't want to stay anymore. There's a bigger lucrative contract there. I do hope that he does create sort of the after race celebrations that Rossi had. I think those are cool.

So I would like to see it. I do think Acosta is the complete package. He is, this is going to sound weird. He is essentially the offspring of a Marc Marquez Valentino Rossi, right? The skill and the riding ability of Marc Marquez to save anything, go anything and ride beyond the limits of anything, yet has this corporate identity that isn't a corporate identity, but really is a corporate identity, if you can follow any of that screwed up logic I just had.

Because that was what Rossi was. He was such a showman, I guess that's maybe a better way to put it. And I think Acosta is sort of that same way, potentially. I think to my eyes, I think it's a bit contrived in the same way that what Lorenzo did was a bit contrived. I mean, he clearly tried to be Valentino Rossi, but he didn't have any of the panache.

His personality was just different. I'm not really quite sure that, I mean, Rossi was a total one off. He was like James Hunt or Barry Sheen, wasn't he? He was a complete kind of- He was a throwback. He was born in the wrong decade or a different decade to what he sort of manifested in terms of the way he behaved and stuff.

And I don't know that anybody else will come across like that. I mean, as I've said a couple of times recently, I've got a lot of time for Tony Arbolino. I think he's more of a Rossi character probably than Pedro is. But what Pedro Acosta is showing us this year, and we were not worried, but last year he had a rough introduction to Moto2 after that stellar year in Moto3, because it took him a bit of time to figure the bike out. And he did crash a lot.

And he crashed out at some race winning positions. But by the end of last season, he was winning. And this year, he's looking like a robot, like a machine for winning. So Pitbarer might want him to stay in Moto- Of course he wants him to stay in Moto2 because he hasn't got a bloody MotoGP bike to put him on easily at the moment. But that I think is the message that Acosta was delivering with the backpack, which is that, well, either you give me a bike or somebody else damn sure will.

And I'm pretty sure that just about every factory will do whatever it takes to get them on their bike. And I include a Honda and Yamaha in that, because that is the sort of talisman that they need. So Silly Season is well and truly underway now. So this will all kind of work its way out, I suppose, over the next few weeks. Continuing down the Silly Season theme, WarpedBadilis stated that he pretty much says, I don't want to be with Yamaha anymore.

I think we've all seen this coming. Yeah, people were asking him, you know, when is his future going to be decided? And I think he said words to that affection, which is that, well, maybe I don't want to be here anymore. You know, so really sort of up in the ante on, we always have a go at Lin Char, this is a bit of a kind of solitary target, but there isn't really anybody else. But I mean, there's my Amerigali in that squad and so on and so forth.

But I mean, Yamaha just don't have the cards in the deck to deal at the moment, do they? So I mean, I don't know where they go from here at the moment. And the sensible money would be on what we have speculated in the past being, which is that if Martin or Zarco depart from Pramac, one of which, if not both, looks very likely, certainly one of them moving on, then Buzaki goes to Pramac and that opens up the slot for WarpedBadili to go home at VR46. And that solves his problem. And to some extent, it solves Yamaha's problem, albeit who the hell do they get into replacing Yamaha?

Because presumably the queue is not going around the block for people looking to sign that piece of paper. But Jorge Martin, that's the rumour that keeps doing the rounds. But it's a little bit hard to understand from a career progression point of view. It might be good from a bank balance point of view. But in terms of whether he could win a championship on that bike anytime soon.

I mean, that's up for serious debate, isn't it, Jim? Yeah. So I think we let's talk about Martin. He kind of wanted to have the factory Ducati ride. He didn't get it.

Bastionini got it. I think Bastionini deserved it. Martin crashes too much. That's my own opinion. So where does he go?

I mean, I'm not saying it's career suicide, but wow, going to Yamaha is again not the place I would want to go. So again, you know, there could be a Husqvarna with his name on it. Who knows? He could move to Aprilia because Alessius said he wants sort of a testing role. Doesn't want to do races.

So maybe he slots there. I do not know where he would go, but I do think he wants a full factory bike. Wherever he goes, it's going to be a full factory bike. After all the injuries Polo Spargrove has had, I can see him wanting to stop. Or Pitt Byers is going to say, no, you're not coming back with us.

So maybe there's a spot there. That's a bit cruel. But I mean, you know, you say everybody's got their time in the paddock and maybe the Spargrove brothers time is running short. So maybe that happens. Don't really know.

The other thing is Zarco, where is he going? He's Ducati's beloved test rider. So does he go to World Superbike and ride at Ducati and test the Desmodici parts that they want? Don't know. There was some other team that you were thinking he may go to in World Superbike, Rich?

Well, there's been a lot of speculation for quite a while that he would land in World Superbike. Jim, now the situation in terms of the works, a Rubio IT Superbike squad in World Superbike is that Bautista is already signed for next year. And although he's a bit up and down in terms of his form, I think probably if you were going to put a few sensible pounds, dollars, euros, whatever on Rebet, you'd probably figure that Michael Rubin-Renaldi will be retained because he has a lot of personal links in terms of management and sponsorship in that team. So the Zarco thing, for those that watch the World Dornafee, you know, the MotoGP.com, Matt Burt, who incidentally thanks Matt, nice interview last show. On the Mugello commentary, I think it was him that mentioned that, you know, Zarco banks the points.

He's not spectacular. He hasn't won a race, gets the occasional pole. He does fall off a little bit, although not as much of late, but he banks a lot of points for that team. So he does a solid job. And as you say, Jim, he is their sort of de facto race weekend part tester, or that's what everybody says.

So the question is, can Ducati afford to let him go in that sense? But if they did, as you say, probably he'd retain some sort of a fairly busy testing schedule on the bike within the boundaries of what testing is allowed. Now, the thing that I noticed was that the MotoCorsa Ducati team, which is the team that runs Axel Passani and World Superbike at the minute, which is a, I don't want to say it's a semi works team, but it's, I think it's very heavily supported by Ducati. They, I saw a news article on worldsuperbike.com earlier on that said they are looking to run two bikes next year. So that immediately makes you think, Oh, who's going to be on that bike?

You know, that is a good bike, not the work squad, but somebody like Zarco would slot in there very easily, you would say. And if, you know, if they're looking to create a place in the MotoGP paddock for a Bizeki to move across so that Morbidelli can move, then that would be a logical sequence of events to make all of that happen. So again, wild speculation, we don't know, but that is a possibility. But there's any number of people that could end up on that MotoCorsa bike. I mean, Nico Booliger, who's going to win probably the World SuperSport Championship on a Ducati V2 this year is being promised a works or semi works bike in World Superbike next year, where the hell does he go?

You know, so there's again, it's the usual problem. There's lots of people vying for not enough seats. So yeah, but certainly the Polo Spargrove, Johan Zarco's, Alessio Spargrove, I think has got a year to go on his contract. Jim and Enni has said that he will step down. I mean, Maverick Vignale is, you know, the questions don't go away, do you?

Because where the hell was he all weekend last weekend? I mean, not doing me any favours in my MotoGP fantasy team, that's for sure. And a couple of others that we could name. I mean, Raoul Fernandes, when is that talent going to suddenly make itself apparent? You know, because, okay, I know he's been having some illness problems and arm pump surgery and all the rest of it.

But quite frankly, I think the block is ticking. So there are some other bikes and seats available, but it's not very obvious at the moment. And the Martin to Yamaha thing is a stretch, isn't it? Because as you said, perfectly career suicide in terms of results at the minute, unless he thinks that he can outperform Fabio Quattraro. But that's a bold statement.

The very bold statement. All right, well, let's stop speculating about things and talk about facts. Let's move to the racing rich. Let's go to Moto3. Quickly, Anshu had pole, which is like a seventh pole that he had.

Kelso was a surprise because he had the second spot. Then it was Sasaki, Marrero, Hulgardo and Bertelli all making up your first three rows. Now, the problem was that everybody seemed to be in violation of some problem of something, whether it was track limits or impeding riders or whatever. Penalties were being handed out, everybody lined up at Halloween and getting candy at the door. So the grid was completely trumped around or whatever with Ortolla starting from the very back.

Some people had double long laps. Some people had one long lap and start from the back, somewhere from the pit lane. You needed an abacus, a calculator and a computer the size of NASA has to figure out where it was supposed to be on this grid. It was just ridiculous, which is, I guess, what we should expect from these guys at the fast track that is Mugello. Anyway, when the race started, Anshu got the whole shot.

He got ahead of Hulgardo, Sasaki, Furato had a really great start. Then it was Masi and Rossi. Hulgardo did make some moves on Anshu, but basically Anshu got back to the front. Ortolla was like 20th. He had started way in the pack and moved up a few spots.

He was the first of the people who had to do long laps to come in, which I was like, I'm wondering if that's a really smart move or a bad move. But the interesting thing was that Marrera, who did have a long lap penalty he had to take, was the last of the people to come in to take the long lap penalty. It was interesting that he actually was able to come back out and be 10th, or Ortolla who did it did not have to race his way back up to get to 10th. So maybe if you're allowed, I think, four laps to do your long lap penalty, that maybe it's best to do it, at least with Moto3, as late as you possibly can. So that's when you should take the long lap of inconveniences, you like to say, Rich.

This one settled down. It became a five rider battle at the front. It was Anshu, Sasaki, Masi, Alonso, and Hulgardo. Those were the guys that were out front. And it was put them in any order that you want.

But there was a pattern that started to emerge in this race. And the pattern was that Anshu would get drafted by everybody down the long straight away. He'd lead onto the start finish. He would then go way late on the brakes. I think that's a polite way of saying it.

Pass people around the outside, turn one, which I thought was really brave and rather impressive, but would be in the lead by the time they got through the first chicane. He then would set about eking out an incredible three tenths of a second between essentially the third turn and the last turn on the track, by which Sasaki, Hulgardo, and Masi would all draft back by him again at start finish. I'm like, well, this is going to play out rather interesting to me because this is a pattern that just kept happening. And I'm like, oh, you know, I didn't like the camera angle that they were showing us all the time. I was hoping they would show us from the helicopter or an above view because my question became exactly where did everybody get by Anshu?

Was it before start finish? Was it after start finish? That's a key point. What does it take? I think Anshu was trying to figure out how big of a gap does he have to have and maintain the lead to win?

And that was where this whole thing was going to be figured out at. Like I said, these front five guys had like a one point four second lead over the next group of guys that was behind, which is a fairly significant gap in a Moto3, especially Mugello with the draft. Or Tola had an up and down. He was at 20th. He went to 13th.

He was 10th. He went back down again. Him and Marrero were back and forth trying to figure out what it was, but they kept the focus at the front, which is where we expected to be with Anshu. Now Anshu with five laps to go actually got up to a half of a second lead on everybody. And he did it in that stretch from turn two to the last turn.

And it really didn't matter except for if he had a half a second, he led across the line. Now everybody got by going into turn one with the draft, but it took them the extra few feet to do it. So it was like, huh, guess that's what we're going to have to see is how far Anshu could be ahead to see if he could actually win. It got rough and tough at the end because all five guys in the front got a conduct warning for their riding, which I don't agree with. Controversially, I'm going to say no, none of them deserved it.

And if you're going to give it to Anshu, who I admit was riding aggressively, but I don't think he was out of bounds anywhere with anybody. That's my own take. But Alonzo was at the back of the pack the whole time and he really shouldn't have gotten a misconduct warning because he didn't do anything. He didn't run into anybody, he didn't touch anybody, he wasn't anywhere near anybody. And yet he got a misconduct warning too.

It's like, okay. Jim, I think the misconduct warning was because, and I think it was Danny Holgarda that actually instigated it, where he was quite obviously deliberately going wide to try and position himself ready for the slipstream on the straight. So we saw this, if you remember, a few years back at Barcelona in Moto3 with Jeremy Alcoba, who was deliberately slowing down in order to position himself in the pack in an advantageous way so that by the time you got onto the main straight, you could then draft because Moto3 is all about the draft, right? So particularly if the start finish line is a long way down the straight, which in Mugello it certainly was. So I think that's what the misconduct thing was about.

And when they served it out to Holgarda, he thought, well, fair enough, because he looked as if he was deliberately letting people pass so that he could slot in behind to get the slipstream. But quite a lot of why David Alonso got the warning as well. I guess they thought, well, everybody has to be equal in 2023, don't they? So let's just give everybody a penalty. Whether you deserve it or not, that was like laugh out loud, bizarre that was because I just, yeah, I couldn't understand why everybody got the same thing because quite clearly it was one or two people that were doing it, not all five.

Anyway, I mean- Again, I disagree with it entirely. I didn't see it as he was slowing down. Maybe he was. Now, like Okoba, he was slowing down purposefully to actually get to a better position. I kind of, in my mind, thought that that's just where Holgarda was riding his line.

And if you watch, he never really changed because the last lap, it came down to basically a race between him. I mean, as it started, Sasaki was out front with Masahid, Anchu, and Horgato. They were all back. And then by turn three, in the chaos of two turns, it was Holgardo ahead of Anchu, with then Sasaki and Alonso and Masahid slipped back. That first couple of turns was pretty impressive by these guys.

And it's worth taking a look. But as it came down, Anchu did what he did. He went back to the front after the second or third turn. He tried pulling a lead. He had to ride the lap of his life if he was going to win this.

He kind of felt like you wanted it to happen. You wanted a win for Anchu because he rode so hard, yet he couldn't because Holgardo rafted him at the end and won the race by five hundredths of a second over Anchu, who was second. Then Sasaki was third, rounding out the podium. Por Alonso was fourth. Masi, a fifth.

Vierre was sixth. Marrero was seventh. He was the highest of the people who had to start from the back and do a long lap. Then it was Ricardo Rossi, Nepa and Toba in your top ten. Interesting.

Eleventh was Ortola. He had a very up and down weekend. But that's how the race finished. Heartbreak for Anchu. What does a kid got to do to win a race?

I don't know. Maybe start hand waving? Maybe? He kind of shut up about being the tallest kid and being on the slowest bike. Now we just we could control his arm waving.

Maybe he might win one or two. I just really felt sorry for Anchu because although I had a family funeral at the end of last week, so I had to drive over to the other side of the country. I didn't get to see Friday practice. I was a bit behind the eight ballers, they say, when it came to the Saturday sessions and so on qualifying. But from what I saw on the timing sheets later on, Anchu was stellar all weekend.

He was. But this is Moto3. So once you're in a pack, single lap pace tends not to be a factor. I think it is incontrovertible that Anchu is now too big for the Moto3 bike and he was creating a massive hole in the air. It is a slipstreamer's dream.

I mean, that's just the way it is. But just returning to the misconduct thing, the other thought that I had was that if you're going to penalize everybody, then you're not penalizing anybody as well, aren't you? So what's the point? If you're looking to punish somebody for something, if it happens on the last lap, you just do it for everybody. Well, then everybody's equal.

So there's no outcome to that. There's no consequence. Anyway, I mean, that's just the absurdity of modern application of the rules. But the only thing I've got to say in conclusion, Jim, is that if Acosta makes it up to MotoGP somewhere next year, then I hope to hell that Anchu gets onto his bike in Moto2. Because I think he's quite a decent kid.

He's been very young and some of the stuff he's got up to, some of the antics in the past have been pretty distasteful. But in the last two to three seasons, I think he's taken stuff on the chin and he's behaved with a level of maturity that's actually been quite commendable. And again, on Sunday in part Fermi when he was interviewed, you know, he was very, very sort of mature in the way that he dealt with the fact that again, he finished second, when in a more just world, he should have won that race really to my mind. So I'm looking forward to seeing what he could do on a Moto2 bike. And if he makes it into the Akihaya squad next year, if Acosta does vacate that seat then, or indeed if Albert Arenas vacates the other seat, because that looks quite likely at the minute, then yeah, Anchu's quite a talent.

And he's from that Pininsofaoglu, you know, Toprak Raskatioglu, you know, that is a very, very talented group of lads operating out of that camp there. And he'll be good on a Moto2 bike, because obviously it will fit his physical stature much better than the Moto3 bike is doing there. So I felt sorry for him, but it was a great race. The Moto3 race was the best race of the weekend, which isn't saying a great deal. It had moments where it was pretty dull.

But yeah, it was a pretty good race. So yeah, but I mean, Hulgado, yeah, he's doing a bit, isn't he? Yep. With that, when he strengthens his place in the championship, he's now on 109 points, which puts him 35 ahead of Masiya, or Tolo slips back to 41 points behind. If he wants that title, he's got a lot of work to do.

Hulgado's pretty much got a firm grip on this, I think, but anything can happen. One bad race, one crash, it's all gone. It's Moto3. It's not going to last. Just going to be interesting to see how long it lasts.

Hulgado, I think, Jim, and I might be wrong, and I'm sure I'd be correct if I am wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure he was the, I forget the name of the championship precisely, but the sort of CEV or the European Moto3 championship. So he came into Moto3 Grand Prix paddock last year, broke his leg fairly early on. So he was injured for a lot of last year, but he came in as the champion, I'm pretty sure the CEV. So he has a lot of pedigree as Hulgado's and this year, in the right team, right environment, injury free as things stand, he's proving it. So he's, did you say 35 points ahead?

35 points ahead. That's a pretty big lead in Moto3. For Moto3 standard, yeah, but like I said, it takes one, two bad races, a bad qualifying, anything, and it's over. Yeah, and it's a long season, so anything can happen, but that's a decent position at the minute. It is.

Oh, let's move to Moto2 and talk about Moto2 real quickly. Aaron Kinnett would take pole ahead of Pedro Acosta and Sam Lowes on the front row. I was pleasantly surprised to see Joe Roberts qualify in fourth, but I wasn't going to get out the flag in the fireworks because I was pretty sure that was not going to last. Then it was Flip Salach and Jake Dixon rounding out the first two rows. When we got to, it went to race day, and Acosta bolts for the whole shot, gets out ahead of Lowes and Lopez and connect with backwards.

Arbolino was coming forwards because Arbolino qualified 10th. Arbolino's got a bit of that Rossi Sunday man magic. He doesn't seem to qualify well, but boy, he's there because wow, he just blasted his way to the front relatively quickly there. But that led us to a big crash at turn one, which included Altegr, Alcoba, and Darren Bender. Alcoba went up the inside way too fast, lost the front, or was trail breaking too late to the corner.

I don't know which it was, but he did go down and then he wound up collecting Alcoba and Darren Bender. That part happened there. Now we get back to the front and then Lopez literally just punts Sam Lowes down at turn 11 and Lowes was smoking hot about that one. How did you see that one, Rich? British pride was notwithstanding.

Yeah, well, I think this is one of those cases where different camera angles tell a very different story because from the front on view, I thought it was kind of a bit of a race and incident. Just one of those six or one and a half dozen of the other jobs where Alonzo went for the gap, Lowes closed the line and they touched and Lowes came off second best. But another view would tend to suggest that Alonzo sort of threw it in there, perhaps a bit too speculatively on lap one. What do you think? I called it racing.

I'll call it a racing incident because Lowes was just on his line and it just so happened that it left a gap because Lowes is thinking about trying to get a run on Acosta, which that's fair, right? You come in downhill, he's a little wider. He's trying to go back to the apex and Lopez just dove it in there. There was a gap, you know, classic saying if there is no, if you no longer go for the gap, you're not a racer. He went for it and the two lines converged.

Lowes got the short end of the stick. The guy on the outside generally does get the short end of the stick in that one. But again, as you said, if you look at it from a different angle, you think Lopez chucked it in there. So did he did get a long lap penalty for it. So you have to believe that the stewards took it as he chucked it in there.

I could have went in their way on it. Again, it depends on the camera angle. I'm sure the stewards had several other camera angles that we were not privy to. So I'm not really going to complain too harshly about that one. I'm going to feel sorry for Sam, because I think Sam could have been on the podium.

It was a tough outcome for some Lowes, absolutely no question. And he was, you know, quick all weekend and was going to be quick in that race in a perfect world or in the relatively recent old world that you and I grew up watching. That would just be a racing incident and nothing else would happen as it, you know, in the modern context, a long lap probably was about what you would expect. I mean, it turned into a double long because he botched it. Is he going to talk about in a minute, but he touched the white line.

I still err on the side that giving him a penalty was slightly harsh. I agree. But from certain angles, you can see that he did chuck it in there and it was a very speculative move. And it's just one of those things. But again, it's like Rossi and Stone at the top of the corkscrew.

Rossi chucked it in there. Yeah. See, that's my question. That's always been my question. You go back to that famous pass Rossi does it passes Stone or in the dirt at a goodness sake.

It would today Stuart say, well, you get a penalty because you'd have to drop the position. You'd have to give it back, right? Yeah. Yeah. Whatever.

That's a rant for another day. Just hold the thought a minute. I'll come back to it when we get to the MotoGP sprint, if I may. And the MotoGP race, the Aldegar incident at turn one. Yes.

We'll come back. That is pertinent to other things. Yep. So he did get a long lap penalty. He botched the entry to the long lap penalty.

Had to do it again. So Lopez's race was pretty much ruined at that point for that. From there, nothing really happens. Acosta is out front. Arbolino is second and Kinet is right behind him.

Now this section here of Kinet, Solache, Dixon and Garcia, they all sort of kind of interchange themselves as we go along. With eight laps to go, Vietti was charging up to the group. Roberts had fallen all the way down to 12th, as I had feared from the beginning of the race. With six to go, Kinet got by Solache. Then Solache has a major problem.

It seems like he couldn't stop. I don't know if it was arm pump. I don't know if it was a brake problem, a physical problem with the motorcycle, but he seemed to have a huge amount of trouble slowing down. I never did find a true answer to what had happened. I don't think if it was a problem, I think most of the riders ride with a Brembo system.

Brembo is not going to say that they had a problem with it. It could have been false neutrals. Triumphs are kind of known to have a false neutral, but we haven't heard a lot of people having that problem. Tire slipping, who knows? Something.

Tire spun on rim, out of balance. Any of those things could have happened. Not sure, but it was definitely a major problem that he had. Five to go, Dixon got by Solache. Then Vietti had gotten his way to sixth with three laps to go.

Dixon was then charging towards Kinet. On the last lap, Dixon got by Kinet for third, but nobody was going to touch Pedro Acosta. He won the race going away. After he had passed back at the end of the second turn, he was never headed. Nobody could touch Pedro Acosta.

He simply sprinted away, maintained a gap, and it was all over. Do I seriously say it? It was very Marc Marquez-esque. Get out and just win. That's what he did.

It wasn't a classic race. No, it was not a classic race, but Arbolino did very good for damage limitation. For a guy who was starting 10th in the Moto2 grid, for him to charge up and be second and be only a little bit behind, Acosta was really good, I thought. Great damage limitation. Great podium for Dixon to get there on the last lap.

It was definitely awesome. Vietti showing us some glimmer of talent again. I'm not sure there, but all good for him coming along. Alonso did, or Lopez did get sixth. Even though he had the two long lap penalties.

Now, he is on a speed up slash Bosca Cora, call it what you want. We know they have to take the big sweeping, arcing lines where Loews is running a more of a squared off line. I wonder if you've got to keep that in mind in that penalty as well. I think we're going to settle on racing incident and move on from that one. The championship impact is not much.

Remember, Arbolino came in with a 25-point lead over Acosta. Acosta having won only trims five points off of that. He's only now 20 points behind. Acosta needs to get on a roll here because Arbolino is going to be right there all the time, I think. If Acosta doesn't string together three, four wins here in a row soon, it's probably going to...

I'm not saying the championship is over because anything can happen, but that Le Mans crash is going to haunt Acosta, unfortunately. Because Arbolino is not making stupid mistakes and Acosta did, but we shall see what happens when we go to the Saxon Ring and we go to the Saxon Ring and Assen. Arbolino has been in Moto 2 one or possibly even two, but certainly one season longer than Acosta. Yeah, two, is it, Jim? They came up at the same time.

No, no, no. Arbolino was definitely up one year before Acosta was. I'm convinced of that. Okay, maybe. My point is that if there is a slight doubt over the whole Acosta thing, he is still a little bit inclined to have the off weekend or to chuck it away.

Whereas Arbolino, as you just said, is now pretty solid and will bank the points. So that's the way... This is kind of like the hare and the tortoise, I think, this Moto 2 race this year. And incidentally, Arbolino absolutely working the crowd just with the old marketing personality cap on again. These two guys are going to be really funny to watch as they come up through now over the next few years.

Yeah, they gave me the... I mean, is he going to be stuck in Moto 2 forever, Jim? Or do you see him off to the World Superbike Paddock sometime soon? World Superbike. He had a huge crash in qualifying as well, which I caught on the news.

So all things considered, grabbing a fourth was probably not such a bad result for him, but he's just always the nearly man, isn't he? And then starts moaning about the fact that people don't want to take him seriously because he's got tattoos and stuff, which I'm not saying that's not part of his problem, but he just crashes a lot, doesn't he? And just a bit too inconsistent. And Dixon doing his usual thing of... Sorry, that sounded uber critical.

I didn't mean it like that. Typical Dixon race where drops back a bit at the beginning and then super strong in the second half of the race and gets through and grabs yet another podium. So I'm sure there's a win in there soon for Jake, but like you with Joe and STK and you know, can't come soon enough really. Yep. All right.

I think that's everything for Moto 2. I think so. Let's just finish up here with... Let's go finish up with Moto GP. Qualifying we'll talk about because there is a little bit of interests in that.

So in the first qualifying session, QP1, you had Vignoloz, Alex Marquez, Miller, Quattroraro, and Morbidelli. I don't really think there's really anything other than maybe Miller being in there, but somebody's got to be on the outside looking in. There's just too much good talent, right? Too many good bikes. So Alex Marquez and Miller advanced to get into Q2.

In Q2, the question was would it rain? It was definitely dark. There were clouds. Was it going to rain? Not going to rain?

Don't really know. Bender crashed. Now, they had been through roughly half of the time allotted of the 15 minutes and Vignoloz zoomed out of the pits with like nine minutes to go. Roughly a two, roughly two minute lap time from the pits to get back around. Got you down to somewhere about 15 minutes to go.

Marquez then comes out and comes out ahead of Benyaya. Now, Benyaya gets irritated that Marquez is in front of him, backs off, gets all bent out of shape. It's hand waving. He rolls up past Marquez, arms waving and flying like, what are you doing? Kind of a thing.

Marquez looks at and gives him the shake of the finger like, no, no, no. You're like, what the heck is this all about? Then those two proceed to rocket around to a great lap time, which put Marquez on pole, but then, sorry, which put Benyaya on pole and Marquez is on second behind him. But then Mark's brother, Alex, was on the front row. So it's the first time I think in MotoGP that brothers have shared the front row.

Then Marini, Miller and Jorge Martin are your second row. The incident that we found out after qualifying that Marquez told Benyaya that it wasn't him he was looking for. He wasn't trying to get a tow from him. He was trying. He was looking for Biseki and was trying to get a tow from him.

Now, I watched it and I'm like, okay, Mark can say what he wants about who he wants to get a tow by. But when Mark came out of the pits, he would do what I would do if I was riding out of the pits. I don't have a warm tire up to race temperature. I have a tire that's warm, but cold tires can be devishly tricky on a front of a motorcycle, especially a motorcycle that the front end is suspect to begin with. So Marquez kind of glances over.

He sees Benyaya coming and what he does is he sort of straight lines away from the apex of the first turn to ride around the outside. Now, this is where Benyaya goes nuts on, but that's what Marquez should have done. He was on the inside. He quickly accelerated, went straight, got out of the way. Benyaya should just put his head down and got on with his show.

But he had to have some big brouhaha about it. Everybody's got their thing, but Marquez has to get towed by somebody because the Honda's junk. We all know that. So it's like, just get on with it. More than likely, as Benyaya, you should know that you're going to have the better race pace and Marquez is going to be nowhere near you come the end of the race.

So just leave it be. But Marquez is in everybody's head. That's one of Benyaya's problems. I think he lets the little things become really big things and then he gets all flustered by it. And then you get a call in Mulback County.

So that's all I got to say about that. If you got anything to say about that, Rich. Well, he had a touch of what you might call the Mavericks, didn't they? Because exactly the same thing happened at Mugello in that sort of fateful last season at Yamaha before the whole thing completely imploded for Maverick. Marquez did exactly the same thing following Maverick around all weekend.

And yeah, Maverick just completely unraveled. And Benyaya, you think, really? Just like you said, Jim, just get on with it. Yeah, Mark came out of the pits. Could he have slowed up on the pit exit line?

He could have. But like you say, whilst you're doing that, your tyres are cooling off, which is pretty dangerous. But yeah, I mean, Benyaya, I don't know. All a bit too Formula One-ish for me. Just bitching and moaning.

Just get on with it. Whilst you're busy waving your hands around, you could be doing something much more productive. So yeah, just a bit all a bit silly, really. OK, so let's go to sprint. So we lined up that afternoon for the sprint.

Excuse me. Benyaya got the whole shot with Marquez behind him, then Martine, who had a great start from his second row position. Lace crashes and, or not a lace, sorry, Alex Rins crashed, not a lace. He crashed in the sprint, broke his tibula and his fibula in his right leg, left leg. I can't remember which.

Oh, I'm trying to think of the face. I think it was his left. Was it his left? I think, but I might be wrong. Either his left or his right, Jim.

But anyway, he's got a long recovery because he broke both his tibula and his fibula. So he has a long recovery. There were spots of rain on the second lap and that caused chaos. But I'll tell you one thing, Martine had no problem going fast in an iffy condition. That was sort of the thing that you thought maybe Miller would excel in, because he's in that tricky condition kind of a thing where he goes pretty fast.

But Miller then nudges Mark Marquez off at 10. It was a pretty good little nudge, no penalties called there. But Bender got a long lap for a crash with Alex Marquez. Now that happened in turn one, was it? So Bender was in there deep.

He was going to the apex. Marquez was deeper and he was cutting back to the apex. Two riders converging on the same line. Bender can't see where Marquez is because he's under the bike. That's how we ride nowadays.

And there goes Alex Marquez off into the gravel trap, to which Mr. Bender receives a long lap penalty for this. This is what you're going to go have a little rant on, aren't you? I literally wrote on my notes, beep, beep, beep, because I do swear a huge amount and wrongly so in normal life. And I make a conscious effort not to do so on the show.

But that was the most ridiculous penalty I've ever seen. Because I mean, you said that Bender went deep. I don't actually think he did. I mean, I just think he went in hot, as you do, and he cut back to the apex. Well, from the inside camera angle, it looked like he went deep.

But if you see it from above, it's normal. Again, it's sort of maybe a touch, maybe a touch. There are a variety of lines into that turn because you're arriving at you know, like stupid speed, ludicrous speed. What Alex Marquez did, and he did exactly the same thing the next day, is he went way wide and then just completely cut back onto his line. Without checking.

Okay, you might say, well, he's not got time. It's a split second thing. Fair enough, I would accept that as an argument. But he just cut straight back in. What really sticks in my crawl though, is going back to the Moto2 race where Firmin Aldegir, on lap one as well, goes in completely out of control, takes two riders out and then race direction say, there's no consequence to that.

And I actually wrote on my note, in fact, I tweeted it out in response to, I think, Simon Patterson or somebody that mentioned it as well. I said, you know, if I was watching the Moto2 race, if bearing in mind the sprint happened on the Saturday, if I was Brad Binder, I'd be feeling a bit aggrieved at that decision because I don't see how he gets a penalty for doing effectively nothing wrong when Alex Marquez bumped into him. And Aldegir takes out two people and race direction consider that case closed. Nothing to see here move on. No penalty.

Now, I'm not, again, I'm not an advocate for penalties, but I am an advocate for if you do something that's similar or worse, then you must be consistent in that. Now, again, perhaps race direction have some insight that we don't know about, but I thought it was pretty clear in terms of the various camera angles that we saw what Aldegir did was way out of control. And you can't penalise Mark Marquez for doing the same thing in Portimao where he was out of control and took two riders out, but not do the same thing to Firmin Aldegir in Moto2. It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. And the fact that Marquez did the same thing, and we're talking Alex, did the same thing on Sunday, just kind of added to the whole there he goes again, you know, nothing against Alex Marquez, but he kept going wide and he kept cutting in.

And if you do that, you will make contact with somebody. And it's not the person on the inside fault because they can't see because they're looking to the right, as you say, Jim. So they are not seeing what's to their left because you can't not with a visor, not with a crash helmet on. So yeah, that was a really, really poor decision, I thought. And Brad Binder, after the race, after the sprint, you saw him in the pits, kind of not remonstrating with his team, but arms up in the air, sort of, you know, like that.

Sorry, that doesn't translate on podcasts. But what, why did I get a penalty, sort of shrugging your shoulders and arms in the air? Because, yeah, he couldn't understand it. And I definitely can't. Yep.

Well, I will say this, the only consistent about this, Stuart, is their inconsistency. Well, yes, at this point. Yeah. Yep. You know, little credit where credit's due, they asked Marquez what he thought about the bump for Miller and he was like, well, that's racing.

You know, Mark dishes it out and obviously Mark can take it. I mean, it's easy to beat, do you have high ground? Very easy for that Mark to put that off as a political thing and, you know, throw it out there. But I really don't think Marquez cares if he gets rubbed around. I think he's just, that's okay with him.

But. I think Jim as well with some of the shenanigans he's been involved in, it would be slightly, well, hypocritical would be the word, but disingenuous to complain, wouldn't it? Yeah. But I mean, he just said, you know, that is racing. Yeah.

And it is. I think that's what we all want is racing. We just want racing. I think we have stewarding. I don't think we have racing.

I'm watching the MotoGP stewarding because I have no idea what's going to happen because heaven forbid somebody touched somebody and I know rent for another show. We haven't finished this off. So Benyaya would go back to the front after sort of the rain kind of, I don't want to say let up, but it never got any worse than it was there. But basically Benyaya rode to the road to the wind with the Zeki second, Martine would finish third, then Zarco, Marini, Miller, Marquez, Mark, that is, then Alessio Spargero, Baschini and then Quattrarra would be 10th in the sprint. So not the question that becomes what could Benyaya do the double, I guess is really what it comes down to because as we head into the MotoGP race this time around, we have the fact that Alex Marquez has a three grid, three spot grid penalty.

So we're having qualified third on the front row. He's now back three places for indiscretions from the previous race at Hearth. Correct. Yeah, that's correct. So the race, oh, Mir has a broken finger.

He's not riding. Renz has got the broken leg. So they're not riding. So you only have two Hondas on the grid, Nakagami and Marc Marquez. Apparently, if you're riding a Honda, you will break things and I don't mean the bike.

So, crazy. Well, true, true. You can destroy motorcycles as well too. 23 laps, Miller with the fantastic hole shot. We kind of talked about that earlier in the race, earlier in the show.

Sorry, not the race. Followed by Benyaya, Marc Marquez, Zarco or Marc, sorry, Marini, Zarco and Marc Marquez. Benyaya quickly got to the front. Alex Marquez goes with way deep into turn one. This is what you're kind of leading to, Rich.

It was three wide with Miller and Marini and basically he and his brother. And he basically threads the eye of the needle between everybody and somehow they get through that corner the first turn. Now, what I read was that it was the aero problem. He got sucked in there following everybody. He's Marc, or Marc, Alex claims to have broke earlier than he usually did.

And he was literally shitting himself because he thought he was going to take four riders out because he couldn't stop the bike. Now, is it air wash? Is it just the vacuum of the draft getting in there? Not sure what it is, but man, everybody just opened up enough to allow him to go scooting on by. If he did not have that room, if everybody did not part as they did, that would have been a hell lacious crash.

And given the fact that the retaining wall to the riders left is very close and is unprotected, it could have been extremely nasty. Again, ludicrous speeds with ludicrous problems. Now, this is what you're going to have. Okay, so anything you want to add on that little bit, Rich, before I continue down the rest of this? No, not well.

I mean, we've heard about this issue of the aero effect when you're either in the air or out of the air. This has been mentioned several times in the past, hasn't it, by various people? And clearly is one of the big question marks hanging over what the organizers do about the aero. But as we said earlier on, I'm not quite sure at this point what they can do about it. I mean, if you're being cynical, you might say, well, that's an easy excuse to pull out of the drawer of potential excuses, isn't it, as to why you went in so hot?

I don't know. You might just break two meters later, if all I know. Who knows? But it was a near miss, that's for sure. And it could have been, as you say, a lot worse.

So I guess we sort of dodged a bit of a bullet there. But I don't know. The aero is always going to be a problem that we keep banging on about, isn't it? Because this is the sort of thing that happens. It's a little bit like if an F1 car loses a front wing, it's basically at that point, it's completely out of control or a rear wing or whatever, or the floor.

So this is a problem. But as to what you do about the problem, who the hell knows at this point? No idea. Benyaya and Martín start to pull away. Marini's holding on to third with Marquez and Alex right there.

It's a good battle between those. Bender got by Miller, so Bender's on the charge. And then we find out Marquez goes down, turn 15. He was wide. The front end just folded on him.

He was in the gravel. That's four consecutive DNFs for Marquez. He stands up with a classic what happened moment. So yeah, I believe he was on the HRC chassis. Simon Kreyfarr had commented about that in qualifying that he believed he was on that chassis.

I do believe Mark was on that HRC chassis and not the KLX. I could be wrong, but that's what I believe. There's no clear definition of whether he was or wasn't. He could have changed between qualifying and after the sprints or anything like that. But either way, there was no field at the front and down goes Mark.

Jim, the funny thing about that crash is that the brown stuff kind of hit the fan after that crash, didn't it? But the way I looked at it was that, or the way I kind of look back on it now is that it's a kind of a cumulative effect because the crash itself, I mean, quite clearly Mark is having to, even more than we might have said in years gone by, override that bike. And he was quite a long way wide into that turn and probably got out onto the marbles or the dust or whatever and the front tucks and stuff. So it was kind of a crash. You thought, well, it was a crash that you watched on replay and thought, well, I can see how that happened, i.e.

why he crashed. But the reaction that he had in the gravel and obviously all of the stuff that's happened since with all the fingers pointing at Honda and Mark, Mark has said, all of the main riders, and he's obviously excluding Nakagawa from that, who's just kind of wending his way into MotoGP retirement. Everybody's out injured with broken bones and brokenness and broken neck. It's kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back really, rather than being like a really horrendous indication of what's wrong with the Honda. It's just kind of that one more crash that's just made the whole situation blow up.

I mean, that's how I read it. I don't know how you think about it, but again, it's the crunch talks with Mark as an Honda. But quite what Honda is supposed to do in the short term about this, I don't know, because I mean, what can they do? Well, has Honda ever really had a sweet handling bike ever in Grand Prix? No.

True. They just had guys who could ride around it, is really what it comes down to, in my opinion. But back to the race, 16 laps to go. Benya is out front. Martín's in second.

Marini's still holding strong with third with Alex Marquez right behind him. Zarco has rode it up to get to the end of that pack. Oliveira would go down with 13 to go. Still the same at the front. It's kind of processional now.

Benya and Martín are definitely gone. 11 to go. Alex Marquez gets by Marini. Marini was nursing an injured foot from a bike accident, I think they said, bicycle accident. No, that was the Lacia Spa.

Oh, Lacia. OK, that was the Lacia. Marini was carrying the injury, I think, from Le Mans, wasn't it? OK, the injury from Le Mans. Thank you.

I got those mixed up here in my notes. My apologies. So Marini was actually having a great race. Then Alex Marquez fell at turn two. Now, he did come into the first turn very wide.

He then got back online. He said he was a little bit wide on the white line going into turn two and down he goes, front end folds on the Ducati. I think he was just pushing a little too much by that. With six to go, Zarco would get by Marini and basically everybody rode home at that point. For Benya, he would win.

Martín would be second. Zarco would, since he had gotten by, Marini would be third on the podium. Marini had a great race to be fourth. Bender would get to fifth. Then it was Lacia Spargo in sixth.

Miller, Bizecki, Bastianini and Morbidelli beating his teammate, Fabio Quattraro, across the line in tenth. And that is the MotoGP race, people. Indeed. Ducati domination, Bagnale domination. Yes.

The big fast tracks are going to be Ducati's domain, that is for sure. Sapang, probably Phillip Island. Assen will probably be quick. They'll be quick there, I'm sure. It's a great bike.

I'm not taking anything away from Ducati. They're doing great. I mean, there's eight bikes on the grids that are Ducati's. Let's be honest, it's taken Ducati a bloody long time to get to this point. Okay, they've won the championship last year, but it's taken them a long time to win the championship and now they are utterly dominant.

So that is true. It is the complete package. It is the complete package. It is everything molded together in one bike to make a very fluid and capable motorcycle. It's not little add-ons or bolt-ons.

It's the whole thing from beginning to end is built. A boatload of top quality riders. If we've been uber unkind and critical, okay, perhaps, with the exception of Fabio DiGiante, who's not getting on very well and probably... He's not long for this. His seat's going to be taken by someone.

Everybody else crashes aside, you know, top draw, really. So I mean, question Jim, I know we've got to wrap this up, but is Mark Marker going to win the section ring this weekend? If he's got a chance to do it anywhere, there's where he'd win. It's his track. It's left-handed.

Is he going to win? That's the question. Yes or no? Yes, I think he does. Oh, wow.

Okay. I'll go there. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I don't... It's whatever.

If you think about how well he goes there, you got to believe he's going to be on the front row. If he gets a start and he gets out front, it's not impossible to pass. It's not impossible, but I think Mark could hold everybody off. It would be monumental. I mean, nobody saw Alex Wren winning at Cota, right?

And he did. Sure. Yeah. So that's kind of why I'm going that way. But yeah, I mean, I would be shocked if he won, but I would be happy that he does win there for him.

He still has it per se, but it's going to take a monumental effort to get there. Don't wait to see what happens. It'll be fun. Let's look at the championship standings real quick. Ben Jaya solidifies his lead over Bizecki.

He's now 21 points ahead of his fellow Italian. Martín is now third on 107 points. He is 24 behind Ben Jaya, but only three behind Bizecki. And then Binder is there at 92 points. He's 39 behind Ben Jaya, but only 15 behind Martín.

Then Zarco, Marini, Miller, Quattraro, Espargaro, and Vinales fill out the top 10 places in points. So next weekend, this coming weekend, I should say, we will be at Saxon Arena. We discuss whether Marquez will win or not. I think Acosta will probably win Moto 2 as well. And I think, to be honest with you, probably, I'm going to go on a limb.

I'll say Anshu wins his first one. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Hard to call that. Yep.

So that's everything that I've got, Rich. Anything else here before we get out of this podcast? TT finished reasonably great. I mean, some good results. We'll perhaps touch on it on one of the next shows.

Not too bad in terms of the worst side of what happens at road races. One notable thing did happen. Won't bog ourselves down by that now. And Richard Supervikes back at Knock Hill, which is like the little Scottish go-kart track. Yeah.

With all due respect, there's a great little kind of first scratch of track this weekend. So we'll talk a little bit of BSP perhaps next time as well when we get back to talk Saxon ring. All right. Sounds good. With that, we're out of here, folks.

See ya.