MotoGP Germany: Sachsenking Dethroned

the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 734 for June 20th, 2023. We're here in the midst of a three races in a row European stint. We're just got done with Saxon Ring and to help me talk about everything that's going on at Saxon Ring and specifically most of it that happened off the track in Saxon Ring is Richard Gile. Richard, how are you doing this evening in the UK?

Yeah, really good. Thanks, Jim. Looking forward to talking about what was a, what should we say? Impact and rather eventful in some significant ways we can. So yeah, looking forward to getting into this one.

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We love it, keep it coming. Remember, feedback goes to motopod at motopodcast.com. With that Rich, I think we'll go straight into the racing because the news is all about the racing and the weekend in general. And we think all the high points I think we'll cover as we go through it. So we'll start it off with the Moto3 qualifying very quickly.

Moto3QP1, there was a red flag for a crash by Scott Ogden, the boy high sided himself to the moon. That necessitated a red flag because he was definitely on the track and needed to have help to be recovered from the racing line. Smart read by the officials, we red flagged it from there. From there, it was basically Munoz, Artiga, Forosato and Colin Faroli, or not Colin Faroli, but Faroli all go through to get to that second session. The second session, only thing I can say is wow, Sasaki.

Sasaki was one second quicker than everybody else on the grid. Total domination to take pole, shocking result I thought. I cannot remember Rich where anybody has put in a lap like that in Moto3 qualifying. I'm searching, I did some searching. The only thing I can come close to is I think Marquez had a pole back on the 125s that was seven or eight tenths maybe better, but Sasaki a whole second.

We do tend to see one or two of the guys, let's say guys, because I doubt I'm gonna be the girls that have done this so far in Moto3, but what was so interesting to me about it was Sasaki, I think he was on his very, very fast lap in qualifying, was towing his teammate Colin Vya around, but they were pretty much just out there on their own whilst everybody else was hanging around the pits as Moto3 tends to do, just getting in each other's way. And yet Sasaki's out on track, as you say Jim, going something like 0.8 of a second quicker than everybody else. I mean, it was just madness, wasn't it? And you do occasionally get one of these guys, it just seems to be good at just going out on their own, just turning fast laps, not worrying about towing anybody. It's probably a little bit track specific because there's obviously not a big slipstream effect at Saxon Ring, but yeah, hugely impressive from Sasaki.

Yeah, Sasaki actually was in the garage at the end of qualifying. He had no reason to go out, I was like, guys, try me, catch me if you can. I don't think you can. I mean, it was just, it was a, I don't know if I wanna use this analogy, but almost stoner-esque in the, hey, there's the lap boys, and when you better it, I'm gonna go back out and better it again, kind of a thing. Go beat it, yeah.

Yeah, go beat it boys, if you can. So that was pretty amazing. So Sasaki was on pole, Anchi was second, riding that wave from Mugello a little bit, I think. Then Ortola, Vier, Munoz, and Masi make that first two rows. Avner Helgardo was seventh, and Murera was ninth.

So those guys we think would be a little closer to the front, not having the best of qualifiers, but we would see what happens in the Moto3 race on Sunday. As the green flag flew, Sasaki got beat Anchi to the first turn, but man, Anchi just rode around the outside, hanging on to everything. But the guy who really had a crazy start was Colin Vier, Sasaki's teammate. He was like from way back in row four or something, and he just- Fourth, yeah. He was fourth, not row four, he was fourth, my apologies.

He wound up blowing by everybody, and credit to Anchi, he was riding around the outside of everyone to keep up with it. But it settled into Sasaki with Anchi, Ortola, Horgado, Vier would slide down a little bit as they went through. And then of course we had Munoz, who always makes a great start, having to take the long lap at inconvenience. Now they moved the long lap to the last turn on that racetrack, and I have no idea why, Rich, because that to me was the most dangerous thing you could have possibly done. It's a sketchy re-entry to the track, isn't it?

It's very sketchy. Not a good place for that at all. No, I totally agree. Did they have a long lap last year, somewhere else then? Because I was trying to think where it might have been previously, or did they miss Saxon Ring?

No, no, they had Saxon Ring last year, but they missed it the year before because of COVID, I think. Yeah, that was not racing during COVID, thank you. I don't remember the long lap being there. I mean, possibly could be wrong on that. But certainly, as you say, when Munoz re-entered the track, it was sketchy, as we've said, because somebody else was coming out.

And it's a kind of wide sweeping line out of the final turn then. So they tend to go up onto the curb. So it's a recipe for a collision, really. And we didn't see one over the weekend, thankfully, but not a great way to do it. Munoz definitely had his eyes.

He was looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, which is great. I mean, he's cognizant of, cognizant? Is that right, Rich? Yeah, yeah. You're the one who's right.

Good word. Thank you. He was cognizant of it, and he was being sure that he got back into traffic safely. However, that to me distracts from your objective of trying to get through the long lap penalty as quickly as possible. I don't think it's a good position for it in that track.

I'm not sure where you would do it, but I was thinking that the long lap was somewhere around turn two. Like it was around the outside of the Omega corner or something, maybe. That kind of rings a bell to me, but I'm not 100% certain that that was there. In that first half of the lap, given how many sort of slow, not 180 turns, but there's quite a lot of long radius corners in that first half of the lap, you would have thought that there was a better place for them to situate that long lap, although you might be sort of bent in a much deeper gravel trap area, I suppose. So that, I suppose, could potentially create some other issues.

I mean, we saw this with Zarco and Marquez, didn't we? Which we'll get to a little bit later on. So it's just trouble with the sacks ring. It's kind of like a go-kart track, which makes it perfect for a Moto3. It's not really such a great track, I think, for MotoGP bikes, but yeah, it's a tricky one, that.

But it's a great venue. I went there a few years ago. I probably mentioned this before, and it's one hell of a track to visit as a spectator. I would love to ride a Moto3 bike around there, because fifth gear wide down the waterfall is just like my kind of thing. That's the kind of roller coaster I like to ride.

Oh, I digress. So basically, Collin Vier actually crashes out on the, I think, the second lap. Maybe he turned 12. So his great start, shuffled back. I don't know if he lost his composure, maybe a slightly little bit, but he did crash, unhurt, so he was out.

He's showing some pace, so hopefully he becomes sort of a regular at the front here, because he's kind of come on with that. Hopefully I'm getting the pronunciation of this right, because he's Dutch, so I'm pretty sure it was Vier. Vier, okay. Is the way you pronounce it. And of course, he's heading into Assen this weekend, so Home Run coming up.

So although he will have been very disappointed to have crashed out, great weekend for the young lad, because I think it's, is this his first season in Moto3? I don't recall him being in the championship last year. So it's a lot of good early form from him, and heading into his Home Run this coming weekend. So it'd be interesting to see what he can do. Like I said, Munoz had a long lapel, and he took the long lapel, and we discussed that, how he got back on.

With 19 laps to go, Sasaki was starting to slip away. Elgardo from his seventh position on the grid had made his way to second, and was holding up Anshu and Artola. And then there was a gap of about two and a half seconds back to Masiya and Alonso. Now, Elgardo was wide, and Anshu instantly jumped on that little, single, solitary mistake. I think he was wide in the Omega, around the Omega.

One of the numerous number of left-handers that are strung together at the Saxon Ring. And instantaneously, Anshu was like a good two to three tenths faster, or had pulled two to three tenths on Elgardo right away. Well, the question then became, Sasaki had over a one second lead, which is almost unheard of in Moto3 terms. And given the fact that Sasaki's third sector over the waterfall was so good all weekend, you just felt that Sasaki was gonna just control this race. He had it, he just had to bring it home.

And Anshu, I really think it was cool because he put his head down, and he just started putting in the laps. I don't wanna say he thought about it methodically, but he just said, okay, I'm gonna chip away, I'm gonna chip away, I'm gonna chip away. And for a while, their lap times were identical. It wasn't until there was 13 laps to go. So it took Anshu roughly four or five laps to get to where he could run a lap time equivalent to what Sasaki was running, and then start chipping away at it.

So it was one of those things like, ooh, you start doing the math, is he got enough laps to get there? And even if Anshu gets there, is he gonna be able to get by, was sort of the question that I had. Meanwhile, so with Tendigo, Sasaki, Anshu, big gap to Helgardo, when Ortola, who are having a great little ding dong battle there, Ortola's poking, he's trying, he's probing, but he can't seem to figure out a way past Helgardo. And then there's, yeah, there's no way through. And Alonso and Yamanaka make out that top six.

Now with 9 to go, Anshu was starting to like dangle the left leg off. He was using his hand and sort of gesticulating a little bit with it. Matt Burton, who's the other guy, Rich, I forget. They were talking about it. Lewis Sotheby, I think his name is.

Yes, thank you. The Brit, yeah, he's another Brit, right? Yeah, you guys knew who we're talking about. That's what matters. And they were speculating that like Anshu was trying to talk about something or was trying to signal something.

I kind of thought Anshu was sort of like doing the jockey thing that like he whips the horse down the final stretch. Come on, girl, come on, come on, we gotta go. We gotta go, we gotta go. It turns out that Anshu has been having trouble with his leg. He was having leg cramps and leg pain from his left hip and his left calf.

So Anshu was doing sort of 110 mile an hour massage therapy on himself to try to exercise his leg and not have a cramp. Because he is squeezed into a Moto3 bike. There's no other way to say it other than he's a big lad and a Moto3 bike is not really where he really should be on. But despite all this, he's still starting to take time to get out of Sasaki. They're closing in and with seven to go, Anshu was there.

Anshu had gotten to the back wheel of Sasaki. Where was he gonna make the move? You're thinking 12, 13, maybe into one. And Anshu was probing, he was prodding, he was looking at it. At this point, Helgardo was doing an absolutely masterful job of defending and holding off Ortola.

Again, Ortola did not give up in this, but he still could not find a way past Helgardo. So we sort of have these two separate races going on. The two guys at the front and then the guys at the front, they're on three, four. Anshu sort of kept his powder dry. He probed a few areas, kind of looked at where the weaknesses of where Sasaki was.

And then he, on the last lap, he was just up on Sasaki's back end. In fact, Anshu is so close. His front wheel touched Sasaki's rear wheel as they head down the waterfall. You didn't notice it until they showed the replays of it later. I didn't have that heart and mouth moment that you would have, but I did when I saw the replay.

I'm like, whoa, that could have been really super bad. Regardless, Anshu sold Sasaki the fake and squeezed by in the last turn to then lead across the line. The only lap he led, the only 100 feet that he led to win his very first Moto3 race behind, was Sasaki very dejected, I would say, having led all that way. He would be second. Helgardo would hold off Ortola.

And then it was Alonso and Masiya running out that top six. A fantastic race by Anshu to get to that position and then to keep cool and through the pain of the leg cramp to win. The kid was over the moon in the pits when he brought the bike back in. Well-deserved victory. I think everybody can say we're happy to see Anshu finally sort of take the monkey off his back.

What do you say, break your duck? Yeah, that's it, break your duck. Break your duck. And you broke his duck and quite honestly, Akiyo has done wonders for Dennis Anshu, in my opinion. He has really settled that kid down and made him focus on what his strengths are and use his size to the advantage when necessary.

And it's starting to show. Anshu looks really good right now. He's hot, don't know what's gonna happen in a fast-flowing track of Assen, but I'm pretty sure he's probably gonna be at the front. I've got to tell you, Jim, I was absolutely punching the air when he won the race, because how often have we said, oh, Anshu was second. And he is, I know he's sound like a broken record on numerous things.

And certainly one of them is the fact that Dennis Anshu is quite clearly physically too big. And as you, I think, correctly pointed out, that might well be a contributor to this leg cramp problem that he's been suffering with and was obviously severe on Sunday's race, because he was making such a play to get down and reach his calf, which is you say that sort of speed and under that much pressure. I mean, a few years ago, that Dennis Anshu, say three or four years ago, would have thrown it up the road in frustration. What I'd like about Dennis Anshu is, he was a bit of a snout-nosed brat, to be perfectly honest, when he was younger. But then, yeah, it'd be just like 14 or 15, or whatever he was.

So I mean, you expect it. What I like to see, he's matured a great deal. And in fairness, I think we saw that in his last time at the Tech 3 team as well. Obviously he's gone up to the IO team, as you say, Jim, and back at IO just works magic with most riders that he comes into contact with, doesn't he? And so Anshu, you just sort of felt he had to get that first win under his belt.

Even if it's just this one, at least he's won a race at Moto3. I have absolutely no doubt that he'll be in Moto2 next year on a very, very good bike. So yeah, I was just delighted. And I mean, you would not have seen a more mature race from just about anybody, I don't think, compared to that race, because you say he was a little bit further back at the beginning, he had to work his way through. Then he had to bridge that second or so up to Sasaki.

By this time, managed the problem with his leg. Unbelievable. And then that pass that you put on Sasaki in, what was it, 10.13, I think the final turn, at Saxon Ring, was absolutely, I mean, executed to absolute perfection. So I did feel sorry for Sasaki because he was super quick all weekend, but he's settling down, racking up the podiums as well now. So it's all to play for.

I mean, Hulgardo's still got quite a big lead, but these other guys are gonna start hopefully catching up. Whether Anshu can win again, I don't know. Because as you said, Saxon Ring kind of masked the problem of him in terms of being able to tuck in when there's slipstream involved. And that isn't really a factor at the Saxon Ring. But Valencia may be a win.

They can never take it away from him now, can they? So fair play to the lad. He really deserved it. Yeah, I think that's one of the fun things of watching Moto3 is watching riders mature. You get a chance to watch these kids grow up, and it's really, it's fun to watch.

So congratulations to Anshu. Yeah, absolutely. Well, as you said, you mentioned, you spoiler alert, Hulgardo has got a stranglehold on things right now. He is on 125 points. Masiya is second.

He is on 84. That is a 41 point difference. And Wowzer, Wowzer, Wowzer, that is pretty impressive to be this. We are only five races into the world championship so far. To be honest with Jim, I was actually quite surprised when I realized that Masiya was in second in the championship because we haven't really seen a great, I mean, he's obviously been racking up the finishes, but not really much sort of podium activity.

I'm not sure if I'm trying to remember if he's won a race this year so far. No, not yet. I think he has. He's second in the standings, but yeah, quite a long way back. So there's a lot of work to do.

Ortola has lost a little bit of ground. He's now three points behind Masiya for second. And then there's Sasaki, who's made a gain. He's only two points back of Ortola, which puts him five back of Masiya, which is good. Anshu takes a big jump up to go forward there as well to be fifth.

Then you've got Marrera, Alonso, Artigas, Rueda and Nepa as your top 10 in the point. With that, I think we've done all we can do for Moto Three in this race and we'll move ourselves to Moto Two. Moto Two qualifying, that first run, Marrera Baltis, Kanet, Chantra, Garcia, they get through the first qualifying session. I have to give a big huge shout out to Sean Dillon Kelly because he got to Q2 for the first time and he didn't have to go through Q1 to do it. He was quick enough to be in that top, what is it?

15, I forget what it is that they have. 15 or 16, I think. 15 or 16, he was in the fast group and he went directly to Q2. Props to Sean Dillon Kelly. Congratulations, my man.

I hope you can build on this. I'd love to see you there week in and week out. Looking forward to seeing what you can do when you get to Aston as well. However, when we got down to the nitty gritty of Q2, it was about halfway through when Acosta was 10th and Arbolino was on pole. Like, oof, I'm like, ooh, this is really gonna shake this up in this championship run.

I mean, Arbolino's got a chance here to maybe capitalize on another Acosta error. I'll use air quotes around that error there. So that would then fall off at turn one. But then Acosta gets towed by lows to pole. So I'm like, whoa, Acosta's learned the Mark Marquez.

You find the guy who's gotta throw down a lap and you tag on the back and you go to the front with him. Okay, well, hey, there's no law against it. There's no rules against any of this, fair play. The kids obviously looking at every strategic advantage that there exists. What I didn't recognize at the time was when they were putting a new tire on Acosta's bike, Akiyaya went over and talked to the kid.

I don't know what he said to the kid. Yeah. No one knows what he said to him, right? But when it came down to it, Acosta on his own without a single person around him, an empty track, sort of that mad skill that sort of Marquez has where you find yourself in it when Marquez could qualify well, right, on a good bike. You were in that little empty zone by yourself and not being bothered by anybody or anything and Acosta bettered his full time.

So he wasn't fast because he got towed by lows. He was fast just because he figured something out or Akiyaya told him something. I think Simon Krayford asked Akiyaya, what did you say? And he says, we just talked about what he needed to do. So there's some calming him.

Again, it's like we all start calling Akiyaya Tinkerbell because he's got pixie dust and he can just sprinkle on kids and suddenly his magic happens and these guys are doing great, right? Honestly, Jim, I just think Acosta's got so much confidence right now as well. It could be. It could be. He sort of banked a reasonable time and just went out and smashed it after that.

Possibly Ayo just said, you've got this, go ahead and just do your best. All right, the boy's confident. There's no question about that. He's got things figured out. He would romp the pole, Arbolino would be second, Dixon with a blast lap, last second dive, not dive, last second run, right?

Time had run out, Dixon had got around just enough. He had one lap to do it, jumped up to third place. Kinet was in fourth, Lopez, lows, would take the first two rows. So it was looking like we were gonna wind up with a straight up fight between Arbolino and Acosta. Ooh, mouthwatering shades of coda come to mind of what was going to happen here.

So we then get into the race and basically at the start, Arbolino grabbed a whole shot. Alonso made a really great shot. Then it was Dixon. Acosta had kind of went backwards. He got sort of shuffled to the outside around the first couple of turns, but then in the first turn, Bender and Boben Schneider went down at turn one and rumbled into the gravel trap.

It looked, I didn't look, it was like a claw. Poor Bender just got clawed at. Boben Schneider lost the front, just took him out. Well, no, it was Jeremy Alcoba who caused the accident. Oh, that's right, Alcoba was a part of that.

I mean, he did a firm in Aldegaard from Mugello and just went in. Or Marquez from Porto Milo? Lost it, took out two riders, and okay, Alcoba did get a long lap penalty for that. Yeah, that's right, he did. In the current climate, deservedly so, but it still irks me that Aldegaard didn't get a long lap penalty for doing exactly the same thing in Mugello, but anyway, moving on, I mean, that's past history.

But Darren Bender can't buy a look at it. Can't buy anything, no luck. Nothing going for him, that's all. So basically, Acosta would then fly by at turn 12, and Acosta would lead, and him and Arbolino would gap the pack. Canett, Lopez, Dixon, Garcia, they would all try to give it their best shot.

Canett would fall down at turn 13. I hate to say this, but if Canett wants a better ride, it has nothing to do with the tattoos or his personality. It's the fact you fall off a lot, I'm sorry. I don't really, I'm not trying to be mean or harsh, because if anybody is not taking him because he has tattoos, that's crap. And it shouldn't happen in the paddock at all.

But his results are not what they should be. If he wants to be on the IO squad, or he wants to be on a gas gas, they're just not there, and you need results. He's that frustrating conundrum of a guy that is so fast, but just crashes far too much. And he was the same in Moto Three as well, if we remember back. Now that's not to say that he can't turn a corner, like a lot of these guys do, and suddenly work that part of the game out.

I mean, case for the defense, Jorge Martin, for example, in terms of this year, and he's been terrible for crashing out of good positions, and Canett hasn't worked that bit out of his system yet. But I mean, he's, I'm trying to think how long he's been in Moto Two, and I know it must be his third or fourth season, so he can't afford to keep on with this. Otherwise, World Super Sport beckons probably. So I just want to say, just in terms of the start, Jim, for the first time in a long time, Jake Dixon made a good start. That is true, yeah.

Which is the one thing that has been, the one part of his game that, I'm sure he would freely admit, has been the sort of the one weak area is getting off the line. Now he's quite a tall, probably one of the heavier riders in Moto Two, so that is clearly going to be a handicap. But although he dropped back a couple of places over the first couple of laps, he was right at the front, as opposed to dropping back to sort of 10th, sort of 15th zone, which is what he has tended to do a bit too much in his Moto Two career, and it showed in the end result. Anyway, that was all I just wanted to pick up on. No, I agree.

You're perfectly well within your British rights to be on about Dixon, because it was fantastic to see him at the front, the sharp end of the grid. However, he had two of the fastest Moto Two riders on the planet ahead of him, unfortunately. Now, Acosta and Arbolino are gone. It is going to be settled between those two. The fight is for those third places in back, and it's Dixon who does have advantage over Chantre, Lopez, and Vieri.

In fact, to be honest with you, Gulvera goes down at turn 13, and Dixon wound up starting to catch Arbolino late in the race. He was nipping away. Dixon was pulling away for that three, four, five battle, and was heading towards the front, because Acosta had put about a second, second and a half on Arbolino in what was truly a masterful ride of control at that point. So as it came down, Acosta's gone, he wins the race. He winds up slowing down and wins it only by a second, but it was a very controlled dominant race by what, is he 18 years old?

I think he's only 18. Maybe we'll turn 19 here shortly. He's 18 or 19 people. An amazingly mature, controlled ride by that kid. It was absolutely impressive for me to watch him put in essentially perfect lap after perfect lap and control the situation.

Arbolino had nothing for Pedro this weekend, did not. And it was, I, shamefully, was hoping Dixon was gonna get Arbolino towards the end, because Arbolino had fallen off. I don't know if it was a tire, just couldn't keep it under him, or if it was something else maybe that was going on that we're not aware of. Anything could happen, tire spin on a rim, balance weight, something, who knows? Could have been anything, but Dixon tried, but he came up short and stayed third.

So it was Acosta, Arbolino, Dixon, Chantra, Lopez, and Gonzalez were like your top six out of the race. Lowe's would be 17, just missed out on that. And that's pretty much sad race for Agura. He's longer in the back, remnants of the wrist problem that he had. Sean Dillon Kelly would be 17th, even though he had that ability to get into the second qualifying session.

So that is, Robert's DNF'd it. He crashed in the last turn. So hard day for the American riders. Question for you, Jim. Sure, Rich.

Do you fancy Agura is gonna have another year in Moto2? Because I know you're a big fan of Agura. Well, so am I. I mean, he's a great rider, but he's been severely handicapped by that wrist injury this year. And I don't imagine prospect of jumping onto a Honda MotoGP bike at the moment is necessarily pilling him with a lot of confidence.

Yeah, I is 21, 22 years old, somewhere close to that, I think. He can spend another year in Moto2. The question becomes what happens with Mark Marquez? I think Mir is there to stay, right? I mean, Renz is probably there to stay.

I don't know, they could all walk. We know contracts are made to be broken, but I guess in the scheme of things, does Honda wanna take their best Japanese prospect and put him on a bike that's horrible? I don't think they want to, but they might have to, because if Mark walks, says that he's gonna go his own way or something, then they might have to, because I don't know if they could, I'm sure there'd be people who would wanna get on the Honda and ride it, okay? I think that's, there are, but it may not be the caliber of rider Honda wants on the bike. So, I mean, it really comes down to what's gonna happen there, because you still have Mir as a Spaniard on a Repsol motorcycle, Renz a Spaniard, right?

With Repsol sponsorship, they can both be in the factory team. We know Renz's contract is paid by HRC. I don't know, I mean, at this point, I can't imagine I moving up, I really can't. I think he'll stay in Moto2 next year. I think he stays.

So, let's talk about, let's flip this a little bit. From what I've read was that because Acosta has now won three races this year, that's triggered a, I get a MotoGP bike, clause in his contract, which pit buyer has said to Simon Gravar that we prefer him to stay in Moto2. Well, if there's a get out of jail free card, how many factories are now running down to Akiyo's garage, beating the door down to try to put Pedro Acosta's pin signature on paper to ride their MotoGP bike? All of them. Every single one of them.

They're crazy they're not. So, what happens here? Secondhand, because you would have heard the same thing on the Dawn of Feed, but the deadline date for this is the 30th of June, is what I wrote down. Which is what, a week and a half from now? So, we're gonna find out on this one fairly soon.

You know, it's a huge problem. And without stealing thunder from other podcasts that I've listened to today, but I mean, everybody knows this. And a KTM faced this with Jorge Martin and had to let him go and look what's happening. So, they ain't gonna get bitten twice. So, they're gonna have to find room.

Arbolino is still on top. Acosta's right behind. Acosta's chipped another five points off of it. So, what was 15 now becomes 10 point lead. It's narrowing down.

Acosta's on a run of form that I wouldn't bet against him at Ascent, nor would I bet against Arbolino. So, I'm sure those two are gonna be back at the front again. Lopez, Dixon, and Slash there for the championship. There's top five. All right, championship results over with done.

We know what's going on. It's two man race at the top. It's Arbolino Acosta. So, Rich, go ahead. Well, just briefly, and again, this is obviously within the realms of speculation.

It's true, but an article came out in therace.com yesterday. I'm pretty sure it was written by Simon Patterson, who is obviously in the paddock. And he's talking to everybody and is well established, irrespective of people's feelings about him. So, he does know what he's talking about. And this story has now gained a bit of traction around the whole third KTM satellite squad with the rumor mill starting to churn that that could well be the Husqvarna branded team that you and I have kind of been going down the wishful film and rode on Jim.

But interestingly with Acosta, because that's the problem that they have to solve. Otherwise they risk losing him. I don't think that buyer is willing to stomach losing another amazing talent. No, and he can't. Well, they would be very foolish to allow that to happen.

Now, okay, you could say, well, they do have options. I mean, clearly they're not going to bin Miller or Binder, the works squad, because neither of those guys deserve to be binned. Even though we might have had some doubts about Jack Miller when, you know, at the beginning of the season, he's doing fantastically well there. In the gas gas squad, well, it would be a tough call to turf Augusto Fernandez out because he's doing a solid job as a rookie. And Polo Spargrove, well, we don't know because he hasn't competed in a race really this year.

Was it the sprint race, I think, when he had that huge crash and we've not seen it since? Practice, I thought it was practice. It could well have been. Yeah, it was very serious injuries. So we haven't seen Polo.

So it would be pretty tough justice on him if he was kind of turfed out without being able to show his hand sort of thing. Although, I mean, if you're being a little bit kind of drastic in your view, you might say Polo's been in the championship a long time. One of the number of riders that this applies to and does tend to crash a lot and does tend to get injured for quite long periods of time. So if anybody was going to go, I would have thought Polo Spargrove might be the one to go, but there are two grid places on offer and KTM have never been shy about spending a bit of money and they've got a lot of backing in terms of their sponsorship. So it does make sense.

And so this story is doing their rounds. So Acosta on one bike and the story that Simon Patterson was pushing yesterday was that Jake Dixon could be on the other bike. Now that does make sense because he's on a Gas Gas sponsored bike in the Aspa team and Aspa have previously been expressing interest to taking up a position in MotoGP again. So it's kind of connect the dots, Jim, isn't it? I suppose.

And a lot of this makes a lot of logical sense if the money can be found. And the only blockages, I understand it from what I read. And I think we've talked about this before is that those two slots technically should go to a works team. That's correct. So it would require agreement from the other teams because this is obviously a bit of a gray area because whilst it would be a defacto works KTM bike, it would be branded as a sub marketing division or whatever you want to talk about it.

So, you know, it's a gray area in the rules, but will the consensus be there to say, let's get another two guys on the grid, fill up those slots as a Suzuki vacated. So that's the big story that, and that is a big story. And if this one comes off, that is huge really. So yeah, thoughts. One, pit buyer will remove Paul Spargero if it becomes necessary.

If it's a push comes to shove, he's going to push Paul Spargero out. I'm sorry. Pit buyer will do it when it comes to that. Now I saw another article that said five into four. Now how does KTM take five and put it into four slots?

Well, what was branded about, and this was not by Simon Patterson, was that they could put a MotoGP bike in Husqvarna colors out of the IO squad, but that would be one bike on the grid, not two. And it would be a satellite, definitely, because IO is not a factory, right? That would take some doing. And it's probable that Dorna would simply brush aside anything from Erta or the MSA going, nah, we have two slots and it's a factory bike, it's okay. That solves the problem.

And Dorna has that power because the other part of it is that kid has got everybody's attention. Even people, fans, not people, fans. Fans of the sport are looking for that next one that transcends sport, right? Michael Jordan transcended sport. Everybody knows who Michael Jordan is.

A lot of people who don't even know anything about racing know who Valentino Rossi is. I'm not saying Acosta is gonna transcend sport, but he is probably the most marketable one because he seems to understand the interaction with the fans more than most of the other riders. Now, that doesn't mean you don't get a seven figure contract to ride a MotoGP bike. You're not gonna go call off into the corner of your garage and not be seen again. Money changes people.

But he seems to understand that they, and when Acosta says they, they have to do better at promoting the sport themselves. So, that needs to be done. And he seems to see that, okay? There wasn't any celebration that I know that I saw of him with the Moto2. There wasn't a backpack and shark fins or anything like that.

But he did have a celly, right? The kid's got a personality that kind of people kind of cling to. He just does. It's you have or you don't, right? Marquez is just good because he's the villain.

Has been the villain since the very beginning, right? He was branded as the villain and he just plays the villain well. He smiles and carries on and whatever. I'm gonna do what I want on the track and da da da da. Acosta has that more playful, carefree attitude that sort of Rossi had.

He's kind of somewhere in between the two. I think we touched on this last week, didn't we? Yeah, he is. So, the other fact is just that I forgot to mention that was in this article, which is another sort of way in, in terms of the funding is CF Moto because I believe that sits under, and that's obviously a Chinese brand, but it's part of that group of companies. Pierre Motoring Group or whatever that is.

Yeah, thank you. Something to that effect. I was trying to think what it was, but. It's with a P, I think it's Pierre, but. Yes, so there are various ways that this can work.

And as you say, it might just be that the powers that be just railroad it through for the overall good of the sport and to solve some problems that could do with being solved. So yeah, watch this space everybody, but the wish fulfillment thing could well be coming true by the looks of it. And we'll find out pretty shortly, I would think, because as we said, this clause in the cost is contract that's been triggered by his winning spree is due to be figured out what just the other side of Aston as we head into the summer, this long summer break. So there'd be silly season, you know, we'll go fully into overdrive, I would think this weekend and over the next couple of weeks. If not, and if nothing is announced, if it's somehow not announced at all, all the five weeks of speculation that's gonna run rampant about what Costa is doing is gonna be absolutely ludicrous.

Well, you're David Amits, you're Matt Oxley, you're Simon Patterson, that'll be- They're gonna go nuts. I mean, they're tapped in enough to be able to hint of what's gonna happen. So I'm sure we'll find out pretty much what's going on, but official announcements might wait until, I'm trying to think what the first race back is, is it Silverstone? Yes, August in Silverstone, yeah. So watch this space.

Yep, my personal take is I think KTM shows up with two Husqvarna's on the grid. So Costa's got one of them, the other one, Dixon, okay. But the question then is, do they throw Marquez a lifeline? Well, he can't, I just don't think he can get out of that contract next year, Jim. I mean, that's the big problem that they've got.

And then there's all sorts of spots that become available in 2025. We can come onto this in a little bit. So let's show that, let's get into kind of the scenario surrounding all this. First of all, free practice. What was it, free practice one?

Marquez loses the front going into turn one and absolutely destroys Zarco's Ducati. Zarco's fault, apparently. I don't know about you, but I just wasn't having that. You and I, as we've started to do over the course of a weekend, Jim, we're what's happening each other a fair bit. Yeah, we do.

I forget precisely what I said. And I'm not looking to invite sort of hate because as I've said before, and I'll stand behind what I've said before, which is that Marquez is, I mean, arguably the best ever. I'm not quite sure you can really ever say that about any rider. His generation, yes. His generation, hands down.

I mean, the guy's just a magician, or has been a magician on a motorbike. So no two ways about it. But okay, he crashed at turn one, lost the front. As we're gonna talk about that happened quite a lot over the weekend. Now Zarco was coming out of the pits, admittedly, fairly slowly, but you know, whether you come out fast or slow is not really the point.

I mean, if there's a bike traveling towards you at God knows what speed out of control, it's luck of the draw if it hits you or if it doesn't. So for Marquez to suggest that it was somehow Zarco's fault, I didn't really get that. But when I WhatsApp'd you, Jim, I think, you know, I was saying that we've seen the best and the worst of Marquez in like a two minute period there because he had to crash, fair enough, people crash. He hit Zarco, that was very unfortunate. I don't think it was anybody's fault.

It certainly wasn't Zarco's fault. But Mark, you know, just runs straight to the scooter to get back to the pits, to get onto a spare bike and doesn't even stop to kind of just even inquire. In fact, he was gesticulating at Zarco as soon as he jumped up out of the gravel that it was kind of his fault and then just left the scene. And I thought that was, I mean, I know they're going to say clock and he needs to get back because he wants to get another lap in and all the rest of it. But I just thought that was not very sporting, that behavior.

Marquez did go behind the trucks and he did go find Zarco and they had a conversation. You know, you okay? Yeah, duh, duh, duh, duh. For me, we were always taught when I was racing that when you enter the racing track, it is you who needs to be paying attention to where you can get into your position. You are responsible for entering that track safely where we exit pit lane.

That was drilled in to every one of us. I'm sure it's been drilled into these guys, okay? The thing of it is, is that it is just bad timing. Zarco happened to be in a place where Zarco couldn't get out of the way of what was happening. And especially if Zarco had looked over the hill, glanced, right?

Said, okay, I'm going to beat Marquez into the corner, pass the apex. And then if he's trying to do, take pit lane speed limiters off, look at his dash, something that, you know, these things are complicated machines to ride. He's maybe trying to check to see if his ride shape shifting buttons are in the right order, right positions or whatever. If he's distracted for that one to two seconds, he looks back and Marquez's bike is sliding at him, Zarco's got nowhere to go in all of this. I'm going to just tell you that that was purely just racing.

It's just the crappy look that exists in racing motorcycles. Yeah, it's bad luck. It's that, that. Yeah, I'm not saying it was Marquez's fault, but equal, I don't think it was Zarco's fault. I mean, Zarco zoomed out of the pits, or out of that pit exit into the apex, then he'd be accused of bulking the line for people that are on hot laps.

So you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't in that situation. And okay, I'm sure he did look to his right as he came onto that main straight or started to feed into that main straight. But at a certain point, you have to look down to make sure you don't go off the track because it is a 180 degree bend pretty much. So, and in that split second, down Marquez went and in the blink of an eye, you know, you've got a bike traveling at what? 100 miles an hour or 80 miles an hour, whatever it would be going into that turn.

And luckily, I mean, Zarco did see it right at the very last moment because he lifted his leg out of the way and good job that he did. Because otherwise that would have been a horrendous leg injury. So yeah, gnarly. That's very gnarly. To me, I will give you the sporting part of that, right?

It was not very sporting of Marquez. It was like you said, it was very much the best of Marquez and the worst of Marquez in those 30 seconds. I wanna add something else to this from a different perspective whatsoever. The entire front end of Zarco's motorcycle was ripped off. Okay, that was a big impact.

I am not gonna lie about that. But the engineer in me can't help but go, wait a second. Has Ducati built a frame that is very rigid front to rear? Braking stability, traction are all greatly enhanced by having stiffness, but it has no feel nor would it have the ability to flex around a corner. But if Ducati's built a bike that is, that front end can be ripped off that easily?

That implies that they have flex built in left to right and front to back as rigid as all get out. Which may explain why the shape shifter works so well on the Ducati because you're playing with that geometry, but you're playing with the rigidity of the frame. And if it's that rigid and you've dropped it, you have no suspension movement, which means it's like having literally a drag bike, which explains how the Ducati's, despite KTM's very promising position that they're in, they still do not get off the corners, the slow corners, anywhere near as fast as the Ducati does. The Ducati's put a length, a half a length on them every single time. And I'm wondering if it isn't down to the rigidity of the frame that these guys are riding on.

That explosion of parts, I'm telling you, that explosion of parts makes the engineer in me go, they're playing literally with, there was always flex, people were always talking about, they were doing this back in the 80s and everything. But the problem was then the modeling techniques that you could use with the computer aided designs weren't that good. They were okay, they weren't great. Now you have some really sophisticated modeling softwares that Gigi DeLinia may have taken advantage of with his team. And that may be one of the things that's really helping them out.

Where everybody else is, well, I need a rigid frame because I've got a break with it and whatnot, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because the Ducati never really, and now it might actually had this in an article years ago, how they were wanting to make the bikes flex in the middle. I think they figured it out. From that crash, I think they figured it out because wow, that came apart way too easy. Good grief for rambling, Rich, I'm sorry.

We gotta get on them. We're down a rabbit hole already. So MotoGP qualifying. That first session, both Bender and Marquez were in that first session, which goes to show how bad things are at Honda. He was there.

But they both got through, but it was a drying track. Marquez was out on reins initially. Then he winds up going down at the last corner. And Marquez doesn't even look at the book, just gets up, runs back in, grabs another motorcycle. I think he crashed the Kalex frame and got on the HRC frame.

I can't remember which way Simon Krayfar said that, but apparently Mark's bikes are not identical. It's not two Kalexes, it's not two HRC frames. It's one of each that's there. Well, that bike had wet. So Mark sort of says, oh no, wait a minute, we're gonna wait here a little bit.

Bender had gambled earlier on for slicks at sort of the advice of Jack Miller that you should be on slicks now. And then Bender went to the top. Vinales was quick, but was doing it on wet. Then Mark wound up making an assault on slicks to get to second. So Bender and Marquez will go into the Q2 session.

In Q2, Marquez is down again at turn 13, basically wadded that bike up again. That was the fifth crash of the weekend for Marquez. That boy was dejected. I think it was fifth one. Fourth or fifth, but at that point, they were pinching wings and stuff off Mears bike that was sat in the pits.

Well, they weren't ready for him to get the bike back. No, and they were just having to scavenge parts off of other bikes, because it was so much crash damage that week. Quick thinking. Hey, the spare parts right there, get it, put it on. Quick thinking by the mechanics to do that.

I mean, applause to HRC and the mechanics. Those guys are working their ass off. And unfortunately they have a guy who's riding his ass off. And unfortunately after the morning, we'll talk about that in a minute. We'll table that for a second.

Yeah, it's a whole other conversation. The second session, it was still drying, right? So we're still working with this drying track. It was gonna come down to last man standing. Whoever was gonna get by with one second on the clock and produce the lap was gonna be the guy who was gonna be on pole.

Bezeky was down at turn 13. Marquez got it back to the pits. The mechanics were caught cold by all this. They stripped parts as you said off of Mears bike. Impressive work by the HRC squad to get another run.

Martine was on top. Then it was Benyaya. Zarco went to pole. Miller was there in first. But again, the times are just dropping as we go by.

It's a roulette wheel. But Benyaya would wind up getting the pole. Luca Marini would be second. Miller would stay on the front row in third. Zarco fourth, Bezeky fifth, Jorge Martin sixth.

So the middle of that second, or barely on the second row. And Marquez would wind up seventh having had those problems with the crashes and et cetera. So that was qualifying for MotoGP. We'll move to the sprint after that. Benyaya, Miller and Martini and Martin, go with those M's there.

We're out front at the beginning of it. Benyaya went wide and turned one. And it became a three wide fight with Miller as they were all running it through there. First lap and Marquez already had a track on this morning. He'd been off the track three times with the bike.

Crazy at that point. Martine led over the waterfall. It was Martine, it was Miller, Benyaya, Marini, and then Bender. Bender having a great start and working his way through the pack on a track that you really can't really pass on. Everyone was just gapping the front.

Martine was gapping Benyaya, Miller was gapping Marini. There was a gap to Bender, gap to Zarco. It was running crazy at that point. Then Vinales was down at turn one with his bike. This race kind of lacked any pizzazz.

It became a follow the leader processional type of thing. Zarco did put a wicked pass on the waterfall with Bender. He nerfed Bender off at the waterfall. Now Bender stayed on track barely and he did continue on. I was thinking there's, and this was on the last lap by the way.

And I thought for sure Zarco should have been demoted one place. I thought that was deserving of a penalty. You are playing a game that is not the place to play that game in my opinion. That was a little bit too much. I'm all for tight racing.

I'm all for racing is rubbing. I thought Zarco was over the line and should have been demoted one place. Did you see it differently, Rich? Well, I thought it was right on the edge of what you could reasonably get away with without sanction. And I raced direction, looked at it and decided it didn't deserve a penalty, which I thought on balance was the right decision.

It was a hard move and it could have gone quite badly wrong. But at the end of the day, we've had this discussion endlessly. You need people to take opportunities when they present themselves. And so that's what Zarco did. And Zarco to be fair to him is a pretty decent overtaker most of the time.

It was right on the edge. There's no two ways about it. And I thought, oh dear, that is going to get a penalty. So I was pleasantly surprised, if not a bit shocked when that isn't what happened. So whether they were kind of balancing it against, you know, the move that had happened earlier in the race the other way around between Binder and Zarco, I don't know.

Cause I don't think race direction ever really gives much in the way of an explanation as to their decisions. No. But I wrote in my notes, good decision. So that was how I felt about it at the time. And I don't think I've changed my mind, but it's, yeah, it's right on the edge, Jim.

So I can totally understand why you think the other way. That's fair. It's all valid points, Rich. My take on it is I've seen worse from people and I've seen less worse incidents from people and race control go, oh, you got to drop the place. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. To me, it was more a consistency issue with stewarding than actually the riding between Zarco and Binder. Well, think about that little tap. Was it Miller on Banyai in Argentina this year? Yep.

You know, and he had to drop a place. So Banyai had to drop a place. So yeah, I mean- Oh, that was Toreth. Well, and Argentina. I'm pretty sure it happened in Argentina.

It happens in just about every bloody race, doesn't it? Something happens and you get- Doesn't quite stack up against a decision that's been made in a different race. So this is kind of the problem which we're going to go back into now. Yeah. I mean, maybe there are a few little signs of change coming in race direction with regards to some of the decisions because there wasn't too much this weekend that stuck out in my mind in terms of decisions you thought of, you know, what's a why sort of thing.

You know, so that's the first time we've been able to say that for a while. That's true. But some people might say like you just have that Zarco should have had a penalty for that person. I thought not. So, but that was the only one that springs to mind other than the fact that, you know, our COVID white people out on the first turn in the Moto2 race and did get a penalty when the same thing happened in the previous race and that person didn't.

So it is still a bit inconsistent but at least there are signs of slight improvement. Yes, I will give you there was improvement. My basic complaint was if you're going to call them, call consistently. You didn't call this one consistently. We've seen things that are less obtrusive, be drop of place, vignettes to be precise.

And I was just, all right, I was KTM blinded because Binder got shoved off, right? At this point, except in that there's a degree of kind of health and safety interference that exists in just about every facet of life, well, certainly in the Western world. I would settle at this point for and taking the Zarco Binder case that we're talking about. If there's an overtake and there's a bit of contact but nobody goes down, I think that's okay. If there's an overtake with contact and it puts the other person down, then okay.

In the old days, it would have just been a racing incident and it would have been, nothing would have happened. So now that would be a penalty. And I think we can all accept that that's probably not unfair. Right, I agree. But I think the minute you sort of say, well, if you have a bit of contact and you get through, you've got to drop the place.

Well, then I just think you're disincentivizing people from racing full stop. So- I wholeheartedly agree. I don't think that's the right way that the sport should be governed. All right, let's set the sprint race aside. And, oh, well, actually let's run down where people were in the sprint, we didn't do that.

Martin would win, Benyaya, Miller, Marini, Zarco. Binder would be your top six. Interestingly, Marc Marquez finishes 11th. And basically, if you, to me, when I watched that race, I looked at it like, geez, he's not even trying anymore. Like, I just want to finish something.

I wrote in my notes, Jim, I wrote, Marc Marquez going backwards, the Honda just won't hold its line. So every time you did see him, he was just going wide everywhere. I mean, but it was the front that's just pushing everywhere. And I think he was backing off because he didn't want to crash because he'd already been down, what, two or three times on Saturday at this point as it was. So at least he finished a session, which is more than he'd managed in every other session up to that point of the weekend, but 11th at Saxon Ring.

But Marc Marquez, I mean, oh, shocker. So we get into Sunday morning warmup. I don't remember what turn it was, but Marquez has basically froze it away again. Was it the last turn, 13? No, it was the fast left-hander at the bottom of the hill, not the waterfall hill.

It's a long sort of set of downhill left before they start heading uphill towards the waterfall again. And it's- Okay, okay, before the waterfall. It's quick, yeah, definitely. And he threw it away. Marquez was sitting in the gravel trap for quite some time.

He was looking like that, what happened, or what do I do now? And he finally removed himself from the gravel trap and climbed over the armco or gotten around the armco or whatever. And there's a picture, very, now a prophetic picture of Marquez with forearms on the armco, leaning over it, head down. And in that moment, you got to believe that he just realized that I don't know what to do. I cannot keep doing this because the bike is not capable of doing it.

It's bittersweet to see an eight times world champion dejected in that way. Loving or hating from a human being standpoint, that guy realized that he can't do this anymore. Not that he, and it's not him. It's not a physical limitation of his shoulder or his arm or his dilopia. It's none of that.

It is the bike. The bike cannot do what he needs it to do. And he can't adapt to what the bike needs to do. And it seems like no matter what they try, it does not get any better. We are now at a point where we're watching the breakup of a very successful group of people.

I can't figure out how HRC can build him a bike next year that's gonna be a world beater. It might be a vast improvement over what it is, but it is not going to be a world beating motorcycle, which leads us to what the hell is Marquez gonna do? If it's true and he gets 25 million Euro for a season, I can't see him buying his way out of his contract. Can he persuade Red Bull to pay 25 million Euros to get him out of his contract to be on that third KTM team with Pedro Acosta? I don't know.

Is Marquez damage goods is the question. Is there an aura of prima donna about him that you wouldn't want on your motorcycle? Oh, blimey Jim. There's so much to pick out of this and unpack, isn't there? I'm gonna stumble over this a little bit.

I mean, the first point to make is I think the problem that HRC have got, and all of the riders have this problem, is that that bike just crashes so unexpectedly. The front just goes. I mean, you can sort of see the way these crashes are happening. I mean, we didn't really get to see in a lot of detail Rinzi's crash at Mugello, although it was just about caught on camera. But he's going through, what's the name of the, I can't think of the name of the turn now, but a quick right hand turn at the bottom of the hill in Mugello.

And the front just goes. You don't see people crash there hardly ever at all. So you've got Mir that can't get through a session without landing on his head. Nakagami admitted over the course of the weekend that he's just not pushing on the bike anymore because he's just scared to crash. And he did have a big crash on Friday, I think it was, and damaged his hand again.

And Marquez just doing what Marquez does, which is chucking the kitchen sink at the problem. And just, I mean, having huge, huge crashes. I mean, even, and again, not great for a podcast. I'm doing the old inverted speech box thing, but you know, that crash he had in the final turn in Saturday qualifying, I mean, he still came down on his head really hard. And this is a guy that could suffer this diplopia recurrence at any moment from a bang to the head.

So that's got to be in the back of his mind. And I mean, the Sunday morning crash, the friendly boy that did see it. And although it wasn't caught particularly brilliantly on the sort of the main coverage that Dorna was showing, there was subsequently, I don't know if you call it like a CCTV view, a different camera that wasn't part of the worldwide broadcast that kind of showed the crash. And I mean, again, you know, he just comes into that turn and the front just goes without any warning whatsoever. I mean, he barrel rolled and barrel rolled through the thing and he was visibly hazy.

So as you said, Jim, he was sat on a chair on the side of the track for a good three or four minutes. And then it kind of cut back to the action for a couple of minutes and it went back to him by which time, as you mentioned, he kind of climbed over the bar and he's just leaning over. I mean, I watched it sort of live footage. And you know, as you say, he's just leaning over this armco shaking his head, you know, and we've never seen this before with Mark Marquez, this kind of broken spirit. We figured out he's human.

Well, yeah. And you know, Mark Marquez is a human being. I mean, even for the most kind of virulent kind of VR 46 fans out there, I'd defied most people to not felt a little bit of sympathy for Mark Marquez at that moment because he'd just done everything he could and the thing just isn't talking to him. And it's kind of really a danger of having a life altering injury again at this point or a reoccurrence of the eye injury, which, you know, could be permanent if it happens again. I mean, these things are not guaranteed to go away.

So now we should preface this that the news came out earlier today. I don't know if you saw this, Jim, I'll put it on the notes, but he has confirmed he'll be riding a ascent this weekend. We didn't mention that. He decided he was cleared fit to race. He does have a small fracture in a finger, but Marquez did not race.

He withdrew and did not race. That has to tell you a lot. And he'll be back at Ascent or whatever. So there's a couple of things. Jim, I mean, Ascent is a quick track.

I mean, a bike with a vague front end, it doesn't really bear thinking about, unless he does what Nakagami's doing and just starts to roll it back to sort of eight to nine tenths, but that's not the Mark Marquez way. So again, at this point, you're fearful. I'm very fearful that he's going to have a really big one and it's going to be broken legs, arms, whatever. It's going to be crazy. So a couple of things to unpack in all.

Me, this is one. The last time the Honda was really good on the front was when it had a bridge down, the uncrashable front end. Admittedly, at the beginning of the Michelin tenure, Marquez could make that bike work. But remember, he started to complain in the second year of Michelin's, I can't make anything with the hard tire work. He started then.

So it makes me think that the evolution of that Honda is not built to take advantage of what the Michelins give you. And that's where Honda's lost. I think that's this transition off of the bridge then to a Michelin, Honda has no clear way of figuring out how to do it. They're trying things, they're not succeeding at it. So Gary did send us an email talking about this.

And he said, look, guys, do you think that part of the problem with HRC is Alberto Puge being there? I thought about this for a second, really did. I had to think about it, Gary, because it's an interesting comment, because remember the last time Honda was really successful? Livio Suppo was at the helm of that. Now, Suppo is a hard-nosed Italian, true and true, right?

So he could kind of demand things that he wanted. He took Stoner to a world title, took Marquez to world titles, right? Everything was all well and good. But then Suppo was gone. What I can't remember, maybe you can remember, Rich, it was sort of in my mind, this is what I think, and I'm willing to admit I'm wrong, because I don't know for certain, that there was sort of a coup d'etat rendered against Livio Suppo by Puge, because they didn't see eye to eye on development cups and whatnot and all that.

But was that coup that Puge orchestrated, was that led by Marquez to the point where like, Marquez didn't want to work with Suppo? Or we don't know that whole story there, but there is a dynamic there that we do not understand, because you take Suppo out of it and you can watch the results go right off a cliff. It's a very fascinating point that Gary has made. It is, and I think you're onto something, Jim. I mean, again, we don't know, we weren't there, but it was kind of that era of HRC was a little bit like the sort of the Schumacher Ferrari kind of thing, where it was like a little cabal of people that kind of ran the show, and anybody that wasn't kind of, the face that didn't fit soon disappeared from the scene, because you had Alfamora, you know, Pedroza was in the team as well, so it was, and it's based in Spain anyway.

So that team was like absolutely Spanish. Now, having said all that, that's nothing against Spanish people, of course, but Pooch, and I haven't met the guy, don't know him, but I was listening, just coincidentally, about a week and a half, two weeks ago, I was listening to a great podcast interview that Toby Moody from the race did with Chas Davies. And Chas was part of the, if you remember, he was back in 125 and 250 back in the two stroke days. And so he was one of a group of riders that was under the sort of the Pooch management thing. And so Chas, in a nice way, was kind of making the point that Pooch is not the most personable or easy of blokes to get along with.

And he is very sort of divisive, I think would be the word. Whereas I think probably Livio Super was more of a manager or a people person, to be more politically correct about it. David Brivio. Probably exactly like Brivio, sort of galvanized the team around a central strategy. Whereas I think, I suspect, and I don't know, I'm happy to prove him wrong, but I think probably the Pooch way is more factional.

I mean, you're either in or you're outside. And so you can just see how this kind of breaks up this sort of single minded purpose that you have. Add in COVID, add in, you know, the European factories coming along and starting to do stuff much more kind of out of the box, progressive, whatever you want to call it, in terms of their approach to the engineering and the aerodynamics and stuff. And it kind of, it all kind of becomes the perfect storm of a problem really, which has just got worse and worse and worse until we get to the point that we're at now, which is where, I mean, we're standing in the HRC camp now that can ride the bike. So is it a management problem?

I mean, I think you always have to sort of blame the management to some extent. We'll get into this, as you said earlier, Jim, when we sort of do the readers comments special show, but Don, I think it was, was kind of chastising us a little bit, or somebody made the point anyway, I might be getting that wrong, but about the fact that we're sort of always carping on about Yamaha and Lin Jarvis. And it is true to say that these people run the team. They don't run the engineering that happens in Japan. So this is yet another problem, whereas the European factories are a little bit more kind of homogeneous in that way, but it all kind of happens in one place.

And it's just all a bit more directed, I think, in that way, it's more logical. So, I don't know, I mean, I might just be sort of rambling and talking out of the backside, because that's what I do most of the time, but clearly something has gone terribly, terribly wrong there. And just to pick up on what you were saying, Jim, about the tire thing, let's just only go back to the beginning of last season when Honda brought out this kind of new concept bike, if you remember, because of course Marquez was absent at this point. Correct. Holder Sparger was on the bike.

And in that first, in testing pre-season in 2022, and in the first, certainly in the first two to three rounds, Qatar in particular, Holder Sparger said, I've got a bike I can ride again, because I can feel the rear tire. That's correct. That seems to have disappeared again. And it were all back on the front again with a vague tire that they cannot make a hard enough tire for Marquez and or any of the riders now it seems. The front is just vague and unpredictable and causing people to get seriously injured at the minute.

So it's a horrible situation. Not one that I take any pleasure in because we really need a strong Honda at the front, or at least a strong Honda that has a chance of winning. The real kick in the balls for Honda, I mean, is the fact that Alex Rins won in Kota this year, because that means they won't even get concessions. So by taking that unexpected and glorious win, he's really set them back, because they don't even get the extra allowances on engines or testing or anything. So, I mean, it's just all gone terribly wrong really.

And it's hard to figure out how it gets put right in the short term. And as you say, Jim, unless some sort of an engineering miracle happens and they can produce a bike that Marquez suddenly thinks, oh yeah, I can work with this. And it's quick compared to the opposition by this winter. He's already talking to other people about his contract being up for expiry at that stage. And even if you get one of these KTM teams, I don't want to be mean to anyone, individuals, but they could put somebody into one of those teams and just say, well, you've got a year.

And if you don't really perform, there'll be people waiting in the wings. And it might be at that point that Marquez comes in, in 2025. Yeah, we're gonna have to talk about this in the Reader's Special, you know, or feedback show, because this is deep. This is way longer, because we're never gonna get through the race if we don't cap this year. And we can tell you, this is a show unto itself where we could postulate about all kinds of crazy stuff, but let us move back to the race.

So Marquez decided, I'm not racing. He was off there. We were down to what, 16 bikes or something on the grid. It was looking CRT-ish, you know? We don't really want to do that, but that's just where we are.

Miller got a great hole shot followed by Benyaya, Marini, Martín, Bender, and Mzeke, but the Ducati's all blew by Miller. Again, this goes back to what I was saying, that that shape shifting worked so well on hooking that frame up and getting the best out of that rear tire, that they, I mean, and Miller, Grant Miller was having trouble hooking up coming out of the corners. Not as bad as Bender, but I don't care. They were even putting gaps on Bender. But for all three Ducati's to just blow past Miller was pretty flat out wild to watch.

Benyaya and Martín would settle in to go after each other, and Martín, about three laps in, would get by Benyaya. It might have been shades of the sprint because Martín just started to keep putting the laps down, put the laps down, put the laps down, and nobody was gonna go catch Martín. That was pretty much it for him. Nobody was gonna see him again. Benyaya wouldn't be threatened because he'll ride home in second.

Bender was dealing with Zarco and Miller. That was a good scrap that was going on there. Bender would get by Miller. Zarco would go by Miller. Vinales' bike was smoking profusely.

He got it back into the pits, because I thought it was odd that he crossed the track with a smoking bike to get in there. But Simon Crafer was on the scene. He said, hey, that exhaust is from the front two cylinders of the Aprilia. There was no liquid that came out of it, so it was something very internal. They could have dropped a valve, potentially, anything of that nature.

So there was nothing to worry about on track, which I thought was good news. Bender had got himself to third, so it was looking pretty good because he had dispatched Marini. So with 10 laps in, Martín, Benyaya, Bender, Marini, Zarco, and Bizecki. Then Zarco would go by Marini. Zarco was passing everybody at the waterfall.

That's like his little place to pass. He sort of owns that part of it. Bender was then down at turn eight. He'd lost the rear in a really weird kind of crash. You know, it was turning, cutting the back, was plowing, and away he went, and down.

Not hurt, but pride. Benyaya would get back past Martín, and then Zarco had gone by everybody to be third. But Martín got back in front of Benyaya, and ahead of Zarco, and like I said, Martín would win the race, followed by Benyaya. Zarco was the last man on the podium, then Bizecki, Luca Marini, and Miller. The first five places are all Ducati's.

And right now, guys, if you're all mad about Ducati, and it's a Ducati Cup, and there's eight bikes in the grid that's got the Ducati's, be thankful they got riders that, no matter which team it is, can win on it. Because if you imagine if only Bastianini and Benyaya had the good 2023 bike, yeah, it would be really bad then, wouldn't it, folks? So be careful what you wish for, because you might get it. Well, Jim, in the top 10, there were eight Ducatis. All eight were in the top 10.

All eight were in the top 10. Only Miller and Alais were there, and that's all European. Yep, first Japanese bike home was Morbidele in 12th, and he beat Quattro. Beats Quattro, again. Again.

Again. Yeah, weird, isn't it? I mean, Quattro is a different story for another, or a different discussion for another day. We'll save that one for the next one. We'll save that one.

Well, we've had a full mailbag this week, which has been great. So big that we have to dedicate a show to it, but I'm really interested to know what people think in terms of their observations and so on about the Marquez and the Quattro, or the Yamaha and HRC kind of conundrum, because it's, yeah, it really is a big conundrum at the moment. And it's sort of almost getting to the point of being an existential threat to the sport in terms of whether those companies want to continue, because they've got a very, very steep hill to climb to get anywhere back to competitiveness at the minute. Yeah, I'm sorry. The actual, the only other European bike in the top 10 was Olvera's Aprilia.

It wasn't, I thought it was Alais. I had the Aprilia part of it. I had the Aprilia. Yeah, 8-Jukes, one KTM, one Aprilia. Yeah.

Yep, crazy. All 8-Jukes in the top 10. Anybody take a gander that they'll have all eight in a row here at one point? Nah, I think the KTMs are fast enough to keep that from happening. I mean, greatest respect to Fabio DiGiantonio, because great rider, but he's beaten some big names.

Where did he come in? I think he was eighth or ninth. So, and Mark has a side, remarkably few crashes across the weekend in all three categories, actually. Just Mark. Yeah, Mark was- Chucking it down the road.

Keeping the marshals busy. Mark always did crash a lot though. Yeah. And you kind of thought that it was like, okay, I'm searching for, oh, there is the limit. He would not go any deeper or any faster on the front or push this any harder than X.

And then he'd show up at the race and win. I was gonna say, the point there, I think, is that he was crashing out of first row in qualifying and all the lead in a race, whereas now, Yeah. he can, it's a struggle to make, well, he makes it into Q2, but he's put it all on the line. And then in the races, the bike just goes backwards. So, yeah, sad to see.

It is. So let's, I guess let's look at the championship standings now since we've gone through all this. But Benyaya is still leading the championship. He's on 160 points, but there's this menaces who used to be on a KTM that is now on Ducati, who is Jorge Martin, who is only 16 points behind Benyaya. Benyaya is going to, I don't wish this on him, but Benyaya's weird crash at Kota is going to come back and haunt him, I think.

Yeah. This is gonna be a tighter race for a championship than what we thought. Bizeki is third and he's only 18 points behind Benyaya. And so you've got three Ducatis, right? Zarco with a great finish on the podium is now fourth.

He's on 109. So that puts him 17 behind. So, yeah, or sorry, he's 51 behind the leader. He's only 17 behind Bizeki. So it's not out of question.

Bender is there. So that's another European bike, KTM. Marini, Ducati, right? Quattro is the first non-European bike and he's eighth. And he's gonna be sinking fast because I guarantee you almost everybody else is going to go catch him and pass him because Alex Marquez is definitely quick enough on that Ducati to take points off of Quattroraro.

DG Antonio is probably faster than to take points off of him and whatnot. So it's crazy that these guys are that, we're talking about a championship that you would have never thought wouldn't have had a Japanese bike at the top. And you are in the top 10, top two, top three, something. It's all European. It's amazing.

It is utterly amazing. In a parallel universe, Samba Jim, I just hope there's this championship going on which still has two Suzuki's running in it because it would be so fascinating to see how Suzuki would be doing this year. How good would they be? I do think on the strength of how they finished last season, okay, you've got a whole winter of development that's gone on, it's true. But I still think the Suzuki's would be featuring strongly in the top 10 at most of these rounds with Brins and Mia.

You know, if that team is still intact and that bike had moved on a bit over the winter as well because that was head and shoulders the best Japanese bike out there. So which came first? The announcement that they were taking the Suzuki's and destroying them or Watanabe going to HRC. Oh golly, I don't know. Oh, I'll tell you what I did hear today somewhere or read somewhere and that is that admittedly not on a MotoGP Suzuki but on a heavily modded super bike Suzuki.

Sylvain Gontoli is out testing the new Michelin front. So at least there is some work going on towards resolving the vexed issue of the Michelin front. Wouldn't this just throw a cat among the pigeons? Let's say that they give them that tire to test at the end of the season. And let's say the Honda suddenly magically becomes quick.

Well, if you accept the conventional wisdom that the front end is the problem on the Honda whether it's chassis or tire. I mean, obviously it's a combination of all these things in aero as well. But maybe it's the silver bullet they're looking for. But I don't know. I don't think it's quite as simple as that.

But Jim, the other thing that we must touch on in terms of a new site and it cropped up today is another contractual clause that's been triggered by the sounds of it with Martin. And that is? That he... Oh, I know what this one's called. Well, Ducati are not necessarily making a secret the fact that there may be the option to switch Martin and Bastianini around.

Yeah, Bastianini, yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, I don't see the point even from Martin's point of view because he's embedded in the Pramac team. He's on the 23 bike anyway. Factory, presumably he's got a factory contract. I'm sure he must have.

Why change? I mean, if it's just purely the ego of having the red leathers on and the red bike, I find that one a bit tricky to understand. Particularly given that Bastianini has been injured all year in a crash that wasn't his fault. No, it was the fault of Marini who was on a Ducati. What I heard today on one of the podcasts was that there is a clause, because of this kind of tug of war that went on through most of last season between Martin and Bastianini, that there was a clause inserted in each contract that said there was the option for the factory to switch them around if certain conditions occurred.

But you would have thought that any manager worth his or her salt would have said, yeah. A clause of injury. But if there's an injury, particularly if it's an injury that's caused through no fault of the rider, then that clause can't be activated or there's some mitigation around it. Anyway, again, this presumably we'll find out what they're gonna do over the summer break, but it would be pretty tough on Bastianini, who you'd have to say isn't back to completely 100% full fitness yet, but I think he needs to make a bit of a good show over the course of the next three to four races, otherwise he might be on sticky round there, because Martin has done, as we said right at the beginning, he's doing what he needed to do, which was to stay as fast as he is and stop crashing. And I mean, 16 points behind Bagnara, that'll be getting the attention of the Wurzucati bosses, I would think, a little bit in terms of whether they need to start stage managing that one a little bit.

Totally agree. Yeah, anyway, what keeps us coming back for more, isn't it? That is true. All right, with that, I think we're done rambling on for this one. A lot of juicy stuff in this one.

Hopefully you guys enjoy this one. For me, I want you all to ride safe so we can be back here after Assen. Yeah, nice waiting. Cheers, everyone.