The Forgotten Show!

Welcome to Motor Pod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 739, August 27th, 2023. I'm Jim McDowell hosting the show and with me from across the pond, Richard Jallett in merry old England. Richard, it's been a while. Yes.

Good afternoon, Jim. It has been a little while, which we, I suppose, co-apologize to all the listeners, but it's just been kind of crazy busy, isn't it? With lots of stuff going on and lots of races as well. So we've got some catching up to do. Yes, we do.

You used the phrase pushing water uphill. I think that's a sort of a must be an English colloquialism. In America, we'd say burning the candle at both ends, but I'd have to change that to burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. Yeah, it's been like that. It's been like that, guys.

We're sorry that we've taken this long to get here, but there's some good things to come and it's just been hectic. Again, Rich and I have jobs, which is part of the problem, but we're here. We're going to talk about it. And we'll just, I think we just started out. Let's just dive right in, Rich, with the news.

It's silly season in MotoGP, so there's a lot to cover with this one. And we're just going to jump right in. So the first thing of interest, Triumph has agreed to be the Moto two-engine supplier for another five years. I think this is fantastic, Rich. Yeah, I agree.

They've done a brilliant job. If you think about it. I think of a single engine failure since they came into the championship. So it's a solid engine. It sounds really good, certainly compared to the old Honda 600 that they ran before, which I never really could get behind the sound that those things made.

So yeah, I'm very pleased. And you know, Triumph is a heritage name, so it's good to see it at the forefront of motorsport. I agree. I think the only suspect piece at the beginning was maybe the transmission. some issues with the transmissions, but for the gearboxes, I think is probably more accurate and descriptive.

But I think they got over top of that. I think they got around what was going on there and they've moved on with it. I love the sound of that triple. I think it's unique. You definitely know when those bikes are on track.

And I think it's been a lot of signage I've seen around the tracks for Triumph. So it looks like it's been a win-win win, although it is going to be interesting to see Moto 2 bikes on Pirellis next year as well. Yes. Yeah. So the first thing.

So second thing on the list, Sam Lowes is moving to World Superbike onto Ducati and it will be in Mark VDS color. So Mark VDS is expanding their reach now into another world championship, into World Superbike. Now, I think it's a good move for Sam. I think his time in the MotoGP paddock has left him. I'm not sure what's happened to him other than being injury riddled.

So maybe it's a bit too much for Sam. I think he's a great rider. I think luck has definitely been against him, but I think he will thrive in a less business paddock, for lack of a better definition. Yeah. I was listening to, I think it might have been his crew chief being interviewed by somebody possibly over the Silverstone wake-in when this new sort of first kind of came out or the first time they had a proper chance to discuss it on the MotoGP feed anyway.

And it was kind of suggested that part of his discontentment in Moto 2 now is because things like the morning warm-up have been taken away and he just doesn't feel that there's enough running. So whilst you might conclude that he's kind of barren out because he's been around a long time and he's getting a bit older, I think it's actually the opposite. I think he's relishing the chance to go over to World Superbike and have three races a weekend and a lot more time on track. So of course, let's forget he is the World Super or was the World Super Sport champion a good few years ago now. So he's very familiar with that paddock as well and that overall series.

So yeah, he's kind of going home to some extent. So yeah, I think it's a really good move and it's a big commitment by Mark VDS to expand out to World Superbike because that is a tough championship. Don't be under any illusions. So I mean, it's quite a big move that. It's kind of like a homecoming.

I think a lot of Brits sort of excel in that World Superbike paddock. Very few have excelled in the MotoGP paddock. I think maybe it just has to do with there's a lot more Brits that are in that World Superbike paddock. All sort of traditionally have been that way since World Superbikes come on. And it seems as though that basically the MotoGP paddock is dominated by Spanish and Italian riders.

So yeah, it's just maybe just not home. I was saying to my wife, so part of the reason why we've been absent for a little while down to me this one is I went on holiday to Spain for two weeks. And so driving around in the hills of Andalusia and stuff, you can see why it is the Spaniards are so bloody good on motorbikes because they basically get all year round riding on empty, beautiful mountain roads in certain parts of the country. You can just imagine them sort of flying through the hills and stuff on bikes constantly all year round. And yeah, that's just very, very different.

And since Superbike came along, that was kind of the path that most of the British riders ended up taking. So yeah, but we've got one or two hopes in the GP paddock now. But looking forward to seeing Sam over at World Superbike though. It'll be kind of cool watching him race his brother. Yeah, I think it'll be fun.

So who takes his seat in Moto2? Well, that's going to be Philip Slack. He's going over to Mark VDS for that one. And staying with the Moto2 theme, Tony Arbolillo, who's in a fight for the World Championship with Pedro Acosta, is staying in Moto2 for next year because there's no seats available. That's a bit of a surprise to us, isn't it?

Well, certainly I was fairly sure that he was going to be on the Grasini MotoGP bike next to Alex Marquez. I would have thought that would have happened too. I think there's some skullduggery going on behind the scenes that have caused a few people to get disappointed. But I suppose the other thing that might be partly behind this as well is that Tony Arbolillo might be figuring that the championship this year is likely to go into the hands of a certain Pedro Acosta. So you might want to hang around to have another crack at it next year, perhaps.

I don't think so. But well, I think the door has been shut though anyway, in terms of the MotoGP ride, because you would obviously take that if it was available. I don't think he cares about whether he wins a Moto2 World Championship or not. He didn't decide to stay. He's forced to stay because there's really nothing else he could get.

No room at the end. It's sad, but it's just what happens. We do know that Jake Dixon is staying. He's going to stay with Aspar along with Guevara. So that's settled.

All the rumors of Jake going to MotoGP, they're done. So he's staying. I'd like to see Jake do better in Moto2. He is a talent. He can run with the big guys.

I just wish he had just that smidge more consistency. There's days when Jake is at his best and you're not going to touch him, but we need more days that Jake's at his best every weekend. Yeah, I think in his defence, I would say not that you're really criticising him. I mean, it's perfectly reasonable to wish to see that, but this is his best Moto2 season to date and he has been a lot more consistent this year. But there are still a few disappointments and maybe a couple of bits of bad luck along the way as well.

But he's won his first race this year. I mean, I think it was Dawner that had been really, really pushing as much as anything to get Jake into the MotoGP paddock, because you've got firms like, well, it's TNT now, isn't it? But they own various channels in the UK now. And there's a lot of pressure from the point of view of the British broadcaster to have a top line rider in MotoGP. And certainly that would be echoed by the likes of Stuart Pringle, the managing director at Silverstone Circuit, because they really need a fast Brit in the top class to help put bums on seats for the Silverstone round, which again, although the numbers were up this year compared to last, they were still probably, I think, disappointing overall, given how much effort went into that.

We'll come to that a little bit later on. So anyway, Jake stays where he is next year. So someone who's Googling up is Masiya. He's going from Moto3 to Moto2, and he's going to join Bo Ben Schneider on that team. You kind of think Masiya has spent his time.

He spent quite a few years in Moto3, so it was bound and determined that he was going to go, but that is really the only person that we've heard so far that's moving Moto3 to Moto2. Now there's probably going to be some more. It's going to be probably be in the off scene. And I think it's going to come down to who can bring money, who's got a contract that can be deleted. You know, this isn't just results performance based, like these guys get there a lot, this is the cash that they can bring along for the ride.

And I never will forget Toby Moody talking to us sitting at Indy when they had the MotoGPs there, you know, and what was it? 2008, nine, 10, 12, wherever. And he was saying that for his, for Dakota to ride a Moto3 bike, he had to come up with a hundred, a hundred thousand euros. And that was when, you know, a dollar was like only worth like 75 cents of a year, of a euro, right? So you're talking about having to be, what was a hundred thousand euros was probably closer to like almost 180,000 US to get there.

So, you know, disappointing, but I think it'd be interesting to see Masiya up there in there. Let's move to like the MotoGP portion of silly season. Just interesting. They've been flashing this all over the TV screen at us for the last two races and we haven't talked about it, but in 2024, the fuels that are used in MotoGP have to be at least 40% sustainable. And it has to be a hundred percent sustainable by 2027.

I like this idea. I don't have anything against electric bikes people. I really don't. And I don't have anything, anything against the environment, but we should do our best to be stewards of that environment. And if we can do it with sustainable fuels and as long as the sustainable fuels aren't purely just ethanol and we're using corn when we need corn to feed people, if we can do it from allergies in other biocells, fair enough.

But if it cleans everything up and if whatnot, I'm all for it. I think it's a great way that they're at least leading this charge. Whereas Formula One has sort of sat on the fence in my mind. They haven't fully committed to electric. They haven't fully committed to ice.

They're in the middle with that hybrid system, which I think is, it would be very difficult for a motorcycle to do hybrid. I think, I think that was just way too much weight and complexity that we really can't put into a motorcycle and go racing with it. We do have the Moto E-Class. So we shall see where that goes. And as we move forward.

So to the rider rumor mill, it's rumored that Morbidelli has a ride on Ducati in 2024. The question is where does he have a seat at Grissini or does he have a seat at Mooney? Where is it, Rich? Well, or Primac would be the more likely place. Well, I think Primac might be the most likely place, but.

I mean, I don't want to jump around the news too much here, although obviously all of this is kind of interlinked, isn't it? It is, it all goes together. Let's just jump forward in your notes a little bit there, Jim. Zarko is out of Primac. We know that he's just, he has now been officially confirmed at LCR Honda, which is a, you know, a bit of a surprising development.

I think I'm not sure any of us thought that that was going to happen because Zarko has been very ingrained as their kind of de facto race test rider, hasn't he, for quite a long time. So, hmm, curious, but. Here's the very curious thing about Zarko since we're here. He leaves, he goes to LCR. Okay.

We know he's sort of Gigi Delinia's favorite test rider. He susses out what they use and then they move it to the factory bikes. So did Honda poach him? Did Honda open the checkbook and go get Zarko and say, okay, we're going to put you on this LCR bike, we're going to fit you with all the different crazy, whatever we're thinking is going to make the factory Repsol bikes faster, and we're going to have you suss it out. It's possible.

Yeah. I mean, it's possible. Or did Zarko just get tired of playing second fiddle with a Martin? Yeah. Well, he kind of came out with a fairly direct quote.

I think this was, yeah, this was, I think on Saturday of the Austria Grand Prix weekend, basically said, or paraphrasing, Honda want me more than Ducati do, so I think he had not fallen out of favor at Ducati, but I think, you know, you'll have Honda come and poach them because they're going to be, you know, have Honda come and poach them because they need a good test and development rider, which they most certainly do. Most certainly do. Then it makes sense, doesn't it? And, you know, Ducati a little bit like KTM, sort of battling this problem of too many riders and not enough bikes. So, you know, it was a question of who's left stood up when the music stops.

And that appears to have been Zarko. I mean, I would speculate. I thought a good move would have been really for him to have maybe gone to World Superbike, but still done the wild card rides in MotoGP, of which there are reasonable number and continued in that kind of development type role. But clearly he wants a full time MotoGP ride, so he isn't done with MotoGP. So fair enough.

And Honda have been prepared to take him on. He did do a couple of sub rides or when he walked out of the KTM ride a few years ago, Jim, you may recall that he did ride the LCR Honda for two or three rounds, I think towards the end of the season. And he has the history with Lucho Cecchinello, or Cecchinello rather, from Moto2, I think. So, you know, it makes sense in a lot of ways, but still surprising nevertheless. Yeah, it caught me off guard.

That's for sure. But I understand the logic of what Honda is trying to do in a way that's there, which this all kind of goes back to the point that this is all tied to it too. KT, you know, first things about Zarko, he tried a V40, went to KTM, right? And he didn't like it. He hated it so much.

He was gone by half a season, right? So I'm like, but then he came back and he rode the Honda. It was acrimonious split. It was terrible. And then I was like, well, I thought Zarko's career was over at that point.

Again, like you said, he raced a few races in the LCR. He did okay. That was when that bike was a whole heap better than it was, than it is now. And I'm like, well, if you didn't like the KTM when it was first being developed, how are you going to like the Honda here? I don't know.

Well, Andy's jumping off a bloody QCati Jim as well. I mean, it's going to be a shock, a shock to the system. Correct. I think I, much like KTM got really good when Miller showed up, I think you have the same possibility happening with Honda, with Zarko, because they're going to bring with them the knowledge of how the shapeshifters work. They bring, they don't know exactly how it works.

Okay. I don't expect those guys to be engineers and understand how that works. What they know is how it's supposed to feel when they do something. And how fast it's supposed to react or, you know, when Zarko comes out of a corner and he hits the lever, Hey, this thing should in three seconds be squatted to where I want to be. That's how the Ducati works.

It's not halfway down the straightaway. Is it finally working? That sort of thing. The other thing too, about this one was that it's kind of interesting that the whole thing with KTM wanting to, wanting six bikes, getting all this is intertwined guys, that KTM needs six bikes on the grid. Now they wanted a factory Husky team and Dornas looked at them and said, Nope, not happening.

That's for another factory. You guys really aren't a factory. Husker Varner is not a factory. You guys are just calling it a KTM, a Husky, and you're calling it a factory team. So no, you don't get a spot.

Well, then they immediately went, ran over to Lucanelli's team at LCR. Hey, we want to buy you. We'll, we'll put our bikes in there. Factory equipment to which that, that went someplace until Lucanelli said, well, we have a contract. Well, suddenly I admire the fact that yes, I have a contract.

Yes. I'll honor my contract. I in today's world, I admire that from him, but that offer had to have been pretty damn good yet he did not take it. Well, I'm like going, huh? So did you know, but, but did Honda then look at them and say, look, we need you because we're going to go post Zarco and we need to put him somewhere to develop the bike and we can't develop it in the factory team.

So does that sway what. Lucanelli does. I, again, I don't know. I'm speculating, but there's a lot that went on here that we don't know really what actually happened. That's all I'm getting at.

Well, be Jim. I mean, KTM, let's try and put this as diplomatically as possible. KTM are not recently renowned for their behavior when it comes to contracts. And so it might well be that, you know, LCR perhaps don't want to be a satellite for KTM, you know, perhaps that's part of the factor as well. I mean, Simon Patterson on the race wrote quite a good article online, which I read yesterday, criticizing KTM in a reasonably gentle manner, but for getting themselves into this position again, where they're potentially having to sack riders who have contracts because they've over promised and they can't actually deliver.

So they've clearly been running around at breakneck speed, trying to cut deals with people, trying to force Dawners hand on this Haskew Varna branded bike or whatever it would be. And Dawner are standing firm. Now, I suspect Dawner are standing firm because they perhaps understandably and quite rightly think that they will get another manufacturer in and it's kind of linked to, well, hang on, I think it's linked to the sustainable fuels thing. That may well tempt some, you know, another manufacturer. I mean, it could tempt, say, a Suzuki back potentially because they left for reasons of, you know, wanting to change their kind of marketing approach to what sorts of bikes and what sort of markets they're selling and selling into.

Clearly, the sustainable fuels thing is intended to alleviate some of the corporate pressure that exists around burning fossil fuels and not seeing to be doing the right things. Well, this helps to address some of that. So that would be my guess, really, is that Dawner reckon that a BMW or Suzuki or maybe one of the Chinese brands that, you know, starting to become more and more prevalent, one of those guys might step in. And if they've got another satellite squad in the way, then that means they've then got the problem of do they expand the grid to even more? Well, I'm not sure if they can.

I suspect there's like an informal one, like a concord type agreement, and that is the number and they can't go above it. So, yeah, there's lots of stuff, obviously, politically at play here. Well, I don't know if they wanted if Dornor really wanted another satellite team just based on the idea that supposedly the indie teams get propped up by Dornor to a large amount of I've heard from different people, you know, at the race and stuff to the tune of somewhere between four and six million euro. Yeah, it's substantial. It's substantial.

That's substantial money. And which post covid are still kind of reeling a bit in terms of revenues. So that will also be a factor in them not wanting to have to dip their hands into their pockets any deeper than they do already. And as you say, find another substantial chunk of money to support one of the independent teams. So, yeah, all of this is just not playing in KTM's favor.

No, not by any stretch of the imagination. I, you know, again, now, though, that Dornor really wants Yamaha and Honda to be better. So they want to give them concessions. But KTM has said, Fassi said, no, they got themselves into that spot tough. And hey, Honda doesn't need concessions because they got to win.

That's all true. But now I think KTM is starting to try to power play the political aspects of what's going on in this paddock, because I think they want that six. They want six bikes and they have nowhere else to go. And they really from their side, they see it as a way to market another brand. At a very high level in a world championship and, you know, essentially.

You can see if Dornor lets that happen, that you have a KTM Ducati Cup, because literally two thirds of the field would be Ducati and KTM motorcycles. And you don't want your entire grid made up of two manufacturers supplying everything to it. That happened in World Superbike and nobody liked it. So what happened? The rules got changed to let other people come in.

So all of this moves around. It's really becoming, MotoGP now is becoming way more political behind the scenes than what we think it is or has been. It's becoming very Formula One-esque about what's going on. There are the movers, the shakers and the power people that are pushing stuff around here that are trying to move and get what they want. And I'm not so sure the sport really needs that or wants it.

Exactly. Exactly. Because I look at it this way. I always thought that, again, always with the Formula One analogies, I know, is that when Max and Bernie controlled everything with an iron fist, I thought the racing was better in Formula One. Now, to me, I don't think the racing is as good because you would let the teams run the show.

And I don't think you want the same thing to happen here. I think that's always a mistake. Yeah, that's always a mistake. Always a mistake. Right.

You can't let the teams write the rules or have control of the rules because they're just going to write it to their favor, which some people will argue that's happening in Formula One. That's why Red Bull is at the top of the heap. You make your own mind about that. Some people, Jim, might reasonably argue that that always used to be the case, you know, say back towards the latter part of the two-stroke here, where Honda effectively dominated everything. And, you know, it was them that pushed for the four strokes.

You know, what Honda wanted, Honda got most of the time up until the point of the control ECU kind of thing, which was the Dawner saying, well, if you threaten to leave the championship, off you go, then we'll carry on without you. And so I think it's always been like that, but this just kind of, this has all come bubbling up again recently, hasn't it? Because KTM have got themselves into this silly situation where they don't have a bike currently to give to Pedro Acosta. So who do they disappoint in terms of their current rider lineup? And I think Dawner is going to stand firm on this thing, but don't want to pay for another independent team.

And they want to leave those grid slots open in the hope that one of the other manufacturers will come across. Yep. I wholeheartedly agree with you. So that's the, that's the biggest question. We, we know Acosta's got a contract.

We've heard nothing at Silverstone. We've heard nothing in Austria about what's going on other than I have a contract to ride a MotoGP bike. Okay. So we now know, I think we can say with certainty, the Husqvarna team is not going to show up, right? No, I mean, we were right that that was definitely a possible, thing that would have happened.

And it would be happening if, if Dawner were more amenable to that suggestion, but clearly they, they are not. So that isn't going to happen. Now that means he's the odd man out. If you, you know, shout out to Gary Chavitte, what are they going to do with Miller Miller look great at the beginning of the year Miller has done nothing, but go backwards since Bender's been developing the bike. Yeah.

Bender's got it figured out and Jack doesn't have it figured out or something's changed. So if Jack is running poorly, do you think they could, I mean, they could ask Jack. I mean, Miller isn't doing anything different on the KTM to what he did most of the time on the Ducati. He starts, he starts well and doesn't for whatever reason, I don't understand why, but can't keep a tire alive for a whole race. And I mean, the last few rounds, even so bad that he's gone backwards in the sprint as well, where you would figure that the tire is not such a big issue.

So there's, there's something about what he's doing in the way he rides, but I'm not being critical. It's just, you watch it happen regularly on a Saturday or Sunday. So would they get rid of Jack Miller? I, I can't see it. I can't see that particular scenario playing out because I'm pretty sure he would have a pretty solid contract having come across from Ducati, but I could see him sliding down to the gas gas team.

Yeah. I mean, they've got themselves in a terrible conundrum now of KTM. They really, really have, because it's not even as if, well, they keep publicly saying that they're standing behind Polo Espegaro cause he's kind of there. One of their chosen ones, although you might say, well, really? I mean, on performance alone, why is that?

But he has been with them from, you know, from very early on in the projects. That is true. And he obviously has missed half of this season through injury, which, you know, okay, that was just bad luck. It wasn't really his fault. So they want to give him time.

And in the meantime, Augusto Fernandez, as we've said many times, has been doing, I think a really, really good job. He's been scoring points regularly, not necessarily big points. Although he's been, again, one of these riders who's been getting better as the years gone on. So that would be a tough, tough call. So I wrote a note, Jim, which might be with coming up next.

And this might be behind sort of the Arbolino thing, working out the way that it has. So will KTM look to cut a deal with Grissini and put one of the KTM contracted riders on that bike on a temporary basis? Now you could certainly see that happening because they'll open their checkbook to make sure they don't lose one of these riders, particularly if it's a Costa. So is that a possibility? You caught, he rules that team.

Are they, would you, would you let Pedro Acosta get on your bike so that he could go back to KTM and tell you how, how good it were? I wouldn't. Well, money speaks volumes. Money speaks volumes. I'm not saying it's not inside the realm of possibility.

No, I don't think they, they, they clearly wouldn't put Acosta on the Gcati, but they might, they might try and put Augusto Fernandez on, on a Gcati if they could cut that deal, perhaps give him a bit more time to learn and because they can't risk the cost of going anywhere else. Although at this point you'd say, well, where else is he going to go? But because there aren't really that many seats available unless something like a, you know, John Meir gets tiffed out of HRC and HRC make a play for Acosta. That would make a lot of sense. So there's still a lot of, lot of chips to fall, but I mean, a lot of this was predicated on the fact that Morbidelli just prior to the Silverstone round announced that he was leaving Yamaha.

That was then very quickly followed by Rins saying, that's where I'm going. So the LCR seat became vacant. So this is all kind of tumbled into place, but there's still a lot, lots of play. And we were talking about the Pramak or the Muni seat, who is going to be there. Well, as you've written in the notes there, Jim, much of this now revolves around what Marco Buzzecki decides to do.

And certainly over the Austria weekend, several times they said that Valentino, who was in Austria that last weekend, conveniently was putting a lot of pressure on Buzzecki to stay put in the VR46 team. So I think that's possibly why it's taking this long for an announcement to be made, because I think he obviously has a sort of a divided loyalty now. Does he stay in Valentino's team, but on a year old bike? OK, next year it would be a 2023 bike, but or does he jump up to Pramak, which will be a full works 2024 bike next year? So that's the, yeah, that's the decision he's wrestling with at the moment.

I don't know. We'll know more later. This is this silly season is going to be a long, silly season that will determine it's figured out for a long time. That will determine where Mordeli lands. So because clearly, although there's still some talk about Mordeli heading over to the World Superbike, I personally don't think that's going to happen, because again, like Zarka, he's very much sees himself as a front running MotoGP pilot.

So and he is part of the VR46 camp. So it's obvious that they will try and find him a spot. So that's the bit of news that we're waiting to hear. Yeah, we don't know what's going to happen until Buzzecki makes up his mind. Then we're going to put the rest of the pieces of this puzzle together.

The weird part is the square peg in a round hole is Acosta. And where does that get beat into by a KTM? That's the outlier. Somebody is not going to be happy. And I do if I'm KTM, I'm going to piss off.

Miller or I'm going to piss off. Um, Augusta Fernandez. Yeah, I'm not going to piss anybody else off. I'm surely not pissing Acosta off. No way.

No, there's no way. No, you, you have, you have found that. Golden boy that can take you to that higher level. And I mean, they've got Bender resigned. I think they think Bender mentors Acosta for a year and then Acosta just takes off.

Yeah, it's very possible. Bender's resigned up to is it 27 or the end of 26? I thought it was 26. Yeah, I think it's a two year extension on what he had, which was to the end of next season. So yeah.

Um, yeah, there's lots of stuff to play. And the other, the other one, which I thought was made me smile. And I don't know if it was a statement based on fact or just being a little bit cheeky, but Takenaka Gami said he was looking forward to having Zaka as his teammate next year. So well, Agur is not going anywhere. Agur is staying in Moto two.

So that is official though, that Agur is staying in Moto two because we thought he'd be up. I haven't seen anything that's officially that he's there, but I don't see him moving. I mean, this year has been somewhat of a write off because of that wrist injury that he sustained in the preseason. So it might well be that he wants another season in Moto two, but because he's only just starting to come back to his form that we would have expected all year. So that perhaps makes sense.

But so maybe Nakagami will retain that seat for another year. I think he does. Well, enough of riders and where they're going. Let's talk about other things like, oh, I don't know track limits because we seem to talk about that all the time. I saw this from the race that track limits may be a thing of the past because Hareth has put in help me with this one, Rich, the candy bar.

Is it tubularone? Toblerone. Toblerone. Sorry, we don't have that kind of candy here in the US people. But it looks like a bunch of to me, it looks like alligator teeth or shark's teeth.

Serrated sort of thing. Yeah. To where they they're on an angle. So if you were to come out of the corner and you go onto this area of rumble strip, they're very low. But as you go farther out, they become much more aggressive in height and in depth, to which I'm wondering, wow, wouldn't that just really destroy a motorcycle?

But if it keeps guys out of avoiding track limits, then yeah, that could be a thing to do. But we do know that it costs Hareth 150,000 euros to put these in. And it wasn't at every corner. It was there's like three corners that don't have it. But they are 100% legal.

They are built to a standard that is in the FIM technical regulations for track homologation. That's a tough one. I can't not even go there. So yeah, that's the that's the thing is like they're legal and the FIM says they're legal. Does it fix this track limit problem, track limits problem that we're dealing with?

I don't know. I certainly hope so. I have said to you because I'm tired of hearing about it. And it's like we were in Pittsburgh for the Motor America race. And I have some friends with me who they listen to the podcast and we were sitting around, I think it might have been Thursday night and they say, man, why are you so why are you so on about Fray Spencer?

I thought he was like your motorcycling hero. Said, yeah, he is my motorcycling hero. I said, well, you rip him apart for being a for for for saying that people are a millimeter or two outside of track limits. Like, yeah, I do. And they're like, well, did you see every piece of video that they see?

No. Do you know everything that's going on inside of that room? No. So aren't there like three people in that room? You told me at one point.

Yeah. Do you think maybe Freddie's against it and the other two are for it? I'm like, no, you guys might be right about that. So, yeah, I need to be not less harsh on Freddie, I guess. Well, in defense of your view.

And again, this is something that you read quite a lot from some of the from some of the journalists, but they would do themselves a whole heap of good if they were to actually make their decisions more plain in terms of the reasoning behind them. But a lot of the time, there's no interaction or, you know, not justification. That's wrong word. But rational, let's say for a decision that has been made, which on our side of the screen looks a bit strange. So maybe I think perhaps that culture is changing a little bit in terms of engagement with the writers and the journalists and ultimately the fans as to why certain decisions are made.

But, yeah, cutting back to the Toblerone curbs, as we'll now call them. Yes, I'll have to say that word. Yeah, if it stops people straying out there, then OK, job done. But as you say, Jim, they are pretty fierce looking pieces of, I don't know, concrete or composite, something or other, I guess, in terms of what they're made of. And they don't look very friendly, A, to bodies that might be sliding over them, and certainly to bikes.

So they're quite they're quite high ridges, aren't they? So they are. The concern would be, does it kind of launch equipment or people? And then what does it launch them into? Because we know the other conundrum is if it's gravel, well, that isn't always good because you can dig in and that's when limbs get broken and stuff and bikes can sort of start to cartwheel.

But equally, if it's tarmac, then you're just sliding and nothing's really abating the speed. So there's no sort of really perfect solution to any of this. But if it stops all these in race penalties and stuff, then I think that would be pretty much for the betterment of everybody. Yeah. My wonderment is, are the car guys going to be upset by that?

Because you have a lot of races that are shared. Sorry, racetracks that are shared by Formula One and MotoGP. If they did that at Kota, are are all the guys that race cars at Kota going to hate that? Same thing if they did it at. Silverstone, right?

British Grand Prix is there for Formula One, because I'm like, man, if you go over that with Formula One car, you are going to destroy the bottom of that car. Well, we're going to find out pretty soon because I'm fairly certain in that article it said that they've installed or they are installing these things in Qatar. So and Formula One is going back there later this season, whether that's before or after MotoGP hit town. I'm not sure because that's in the middle of November. Is it or early part of November?

So we will find an answer to that question. But you can't envisage that a Formula One car sort of dropping a pair of wheels over those things is going to do the underside of that vehicle much good. But I know I don't really care about Formula One cars. I'm more interested in motorbikes. I am too.

I am too. It's just it's going to be interesting because I think trying to find a solution that works for both series because you're not going to make money at a racetrack by doing just motorcycles and you're not going to do survive just doing cars. You have to have a track that can accommodate two wheel and four wheel and be safe for both of them or as safe as you can make it. And if I look at that and look at those curves and I got. Even if it was just a GT3 car, I'd be like, hmm.

I mean, if you had a track day Porsche, would you want to go around the thing with those curves? I wouldn't know. I'm either going to destroy a wheel or damning something on my Porsche. Not going to do that. Why didn't somebody pattern a raiseable and lowerable curb on a track?

Yeah, I it's that's I mean, how do you think that's going to be difficult? But I mean, one of the things I thought you could go back to, but I've also talked myself out of it was if you took you can see it in Austria, some places there's there's it's like the grass creep. It's like herringbone pads that have grass growing through them. Yeah. Well, if you have that, there's going to be less grip there because grass is growing through it.

So is it enough to deter you as you can't go fast on it? But if you ran there all weekend long, you would have rubber built up to where you would be. So it doesn't really solve that problem. But does it give you enough of an indication that you can't be out there? So you learn to not ride out there?

I don't know. It's a it's a curious conundrum. And believe it or not, actually, still a Formula One podcast where they're talking about the same thing like they're what could you put? They're talking about could you put something in that deters a Formula One car, but yet could be removed for MotoGP, which is kind of fascinating. But they're talking about as well as us.

I get the whole thing about, you know, a track has its limits. It's often it's a white line, let's say. And I understand that. And I also understand that in some, I would argue, probably reasonably rare cases, you might go off the track on a certain corner. And it is a quicker way to get around the corner.

I accept that. But for the most part, I think the minute you're off onto the current green with the sensors in it, you sort of going off the track. So are you going to pick stuff up on your tires in all likelihood? And you're going you're traveling further. So I'm not quite sure if the sport hasn't just made a bit of a rob for its own back on this one, enforcing rules that aren't that important.

Because the whole thing about some riders even say just bring back grass and then you're definitely going to slow down, you're definitely going to, you know, ruin your tires for half a lap. So that is the penalty right there. But then the counter argument is, well, if it's wet, then it's dangerous because you're more likely to crash, et cetera, et cetera. So there's no perfect solution. But I would have just thought, I don't really see the issue with the track limits thing, to be honest, unless you are, unless it's a corner where you're quite obviously gaining an advantage.

But if you're traveling an extra 20 meters, then surely that negates part of the advantage that you're gaining. I don't know if you can carry enough momentum through there to carry a few more K's out of the corner. You're going to carry a few more K's at the end of the straightaway that you're going to. So, yeah, even if you're going farther, I mean, but you got to have enough to make up for that. Who knows?

We're not going to solve track limits. No, we'll move around anytime soon. So let us just go to what we really are here for. And that's talking about what happened in Moto GP. So let's go back to the British GP.

British summer, it was typical British summer. I saw people sitting. Yeah, they saw people there on Saturday, literally with snorkels and scuba goggles. And yeah, it was like it was pure misery. That's a form of aqua lung.

Yeah, that would have been good. Yeah. And cold. It was cold. It was very, very cold.

That's for sure. But they did race regardless there. If we look at them, let's just start with Moto3 race, Rich. Yeah. Quickly, the top six from qualifying, it was Masiya, Scott Ogden, Holgado, Rossi, Kelsow and Artigas.

This wasn't a very wet qualifying that happened. So the Brits came to the fore, stiff upper lip and all that good stuff. But then it becomes race day. Now, we only had damp patches at the Moto3 race early in the morning. But poor Scott Ogden, middle of the front row.

He stalls the bike, Rich. I got I was gutted. I was gutted for the poor kid. I don't know if it was something that just happened to the bike or if he did something wrong, but they were able to get it off. Hold that thought, Jim, because obviously we had Scott on the show.

In the off season. So I've got the ability to sort of message Scott a little bit now. So and he was quite open and honest. I wrote to him the following day to say that really bummed for you, mate. Sorry that that happened.

Do you know what happened? And very interestingly, he said, well, he said the team. I don't think I'm throwing him under the bus on this. I think this is a reasonable thing to report back. The team or Honda more likely wouldn't let him see the data, but that he had been told by the team that he let the clutch out too quickly because he did move off the line and then the bike cut.

But as to precisely why it did, he hasn't been allowed to see or they aren't able to see the data. Now, read into that what you will in terms of what a manufacturer might want the team to know, because I don't think those are current this year bikes either. I think they're probably year old bikes, those ones. I don't know because he's like way down on top speed, Scott, which is a problem. He is one of the taller riders again.

That's definitely, definitely the case. But so I think there's probably a little bit more to it than the eye. You certainly didn't just stall it on the line because he did move forward. And then it kind of stopped. Hmm.

Interesting. Hmm. So that of inside information there. There we go. Well, I'll go.

He said, well, they told me I let the clutch out too quick, but still waiting to find out. So, you know, hmm. A lot that goes on behind the scenes that we never really get to find out about. You know, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot in there that there's a lot you get.

I don't know. Anyway, can I can I just also say, Scott, being British and very pragmatic, did go on in this message back and forth I had with him. And I'll quote this directly. So to be honest, if I started second, I think he got off the line the second properly. I think it would have been difficult to hold position in the group.

Just lacking straight line speed compared to some others. So that's kind of I think his view would probably have been he might have dropped out of the top 10 anyway. So. Just realistic appraisal of where that team are at. Now, I did.

Again, it was to me, it was just I was just gutted for the kid just because he put so much effort into qualifying to be on that front row. I didn't expect Scott to finish on the podium or anything like that, unless a torrential downpour had happened at some point during during the race, then I would. Well, sure. Right. Because you say rain is a great equalizer because you just can't put the power to the ground.

Yeah. You either way. The key thing just to finish off on the Scotland thing is that what he did on the Saturday really showed what he's capable of, because the conditions being as they were, it negated that any shortcomings in the bike. And it's not criticism of the team. But if if it is a year old bike, let's say, then it's going to be a bit behind some of the others out there.

So the rain, you know, the weather, they all say is a massive leveler, doesn't it? And it allows talent that would otherwise be a bit hidden away to rise to the top. So even though it was a very disappointing outcome on Sunday, he still did himself a world of good in terms of that performance on the Saturday and I'm sure would have got a few teams attention or at least reminded people that he is as good, you know, as that. Hey, Leopards, you need somebody to ride your other bike. Well, the Massey is not going to be there, is he?

Yeah. And Dorne is again, Dorne are really pushing to cover at least a few Brits in the different classes, ultimately to satisfy, you know, a large UK audience. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was a good attendance at Silverstone.

I did. Yeah, it was 110,000 over the on that was the three day total, I think, was that the Sunday. I forget now it was about 10 to 15000 more on the Sunday than it was last year when I went. And if you remember, I commented that it was I mean, it's easy for Silverstone to look empty because it is vast, absolutely vast that place. And as I said, I thought the ticket price was stupendously good, really 110 quid for three days.

I mean, that's some sort of good value, really. But clearly the weather, a lot of the people that would have opened the curtains on, you know, the Friday morning thinking, do we go for the weekend or looked at the forecast a week ahead and thought, do we go for the weekend? Probably the forecast did put people off. So that is always a problem in in Great Britain, unfortunately. Anyway.

The race. So the usual suspects now become out come to the fore on to Massey, to Holger, to Sasaki, on our total and Rossi are all in this lead group. It's the normal guys that are up front, but there became a new player who came from dead last on the grid to the front within all, I don't know, four or five laps, his name David Alonso on the gas gas. I mean, the Colombian kid shows up. And from there, this thing became a battle royale.

If you want to show your friends why you watch Moto three, go back to this race and put that race on, because it was a lot of times six bikes wide going in Silverstone's wide circuit. It's so appeals to that. It was six bikes wide. There was drafting, there was passes into maggots and beckets that you just didn't see anybody else trying to do or make. It was up and down.

The Dutchman Vire was doing absolutely amazing to hang on to where he was. He had a great race inside of all that. There was actually 19 riders in the lead group. Yeah, pretty much all race. Yeah, that was the whole race.

But if you made a mistake, you paid for it massively by going down seven or eight positions in the group. People went back and forth. I literally have my notes that this that every corner is a three, four, five wide. And it was insane with somewhere around like seven or eight laps left in the race. It was a brilliant race by everybody.

I mean, even Fennady had a lead and he rode around the outside of cops and maggots into chapel to do it. Now, we know Fennady rides on a different line than anybody else, but still around that absolutely incredible riding going on there. We had we had track limits warnings because all the Gardo got those. I mean, we threw everything out that we could get. It's the sock he was leading towards the very end of the dove.

Viar had a massive moment at Mac. It's I don't know how the kids stayed on. Yeah, that was crazy. Like, whoa, you should have been going to the moon. You should have looked like one of the World War Two aircraft taking off there, sir.

But somehow you held on to it. I don't know how you did, which was crazy. It was insane. It finally got down to the end. It was great racing to the end because now.

We must remember that they decided to move back to the Formula One paddock, which means that you have the Abbey chicane at the end of the lap, which gives you afford you a great place to overtake in the run back to the line, as opposed to Woodcott and the whole big Woodcott complex there, which is sort of one line as it unwinds itself and you get on the gas. So Anchi made a move, I think, at the end, and so did Alonso. It was absolutely crazy. But Alonso would get his very first win on a Moto3 black. He did it from the last row of the grid.

I don't remember if he was truly last, but he was the last last row of the grid. He beat Sasaki, Hulgado, Ortolla, Munoz and Salvador to the victory. A stunning ride by the kid. And there is a new face in town. It was what the first Colombian to win a Moto GP race, I think, or at least a long time ago, there was one.

I don't remember. Colombian in the in the paddock would have been Yanni Hernandez, I would guess. I don't know if I think that's right. Maybe. But obviously he wasn't, you know, I don't remember him winning in particularly.

I mean, my notes just say epic race. Epic last, epic last lap. I mean, just Silverstone. Yes, you can criticize some things about Silverstone. Hopefully people listen to the chat I did with Stuart Pringle a few weeks back.

And, you know, he was defending his venue. Very staunch, as you would quite rightly expect. And that's what he said. I totally agreed with. There are one or two things about Silverstone that I'm not so comfy with.

It's true. But, you know, you always get pretty much always got good race in there. And we'll compare and contrast this with the Austrian round, which for me was mostly a pretty turgid weekend of action. Whereas all three races at Silverstone were brilliant. But the Moto3 race was just something else.

I mean, it really was. All four. Four races. Thank you. Sorry.

I still haven't got used to it. Yeah. So Alonso, 27 places he made up and in the run over the line on the last lap, 1.572 seconds covered the top 15. I mean, it's just crazy, crazy, crazy stuff. And a shout out to Diego Marrera for his Senna tribute crash element as well.

I made a note of that in my notes as well, because that was cool. That was very cool. So all in all, a very cool Moto3 race. Show your friends. If your friends aren't watching Moto3, have them watch that race.

And then they're going to understand why you watch Moto3, because absolutely just phenomenal racing there. Let us move to Moto2. So in Moto2, on the front row, Acosta, Altegr and Van de Gorbard. That was a 17 and 18 and a 19 year old. If you don't think the changing of the guard is coming, just look at that front row and those kids.

They combined ages like 54, 55. They're just barely older than us, Rich. Yeah. And they're going fast. So they're and they're good.

So that was your front row. Then it was Arbolino Lopez and Canett. On that second row, it's suffice to say that poor Scott Dixon did have a moment in qualifying on the wet track. He threw it away. Sorry.

Go ahead. You just said Scott Dixon. He's an IndyCar driver. Jake Dixon. Just for.

Sorry. Just to be. Oh, I got to get you on the brain. I got tickets to go to Indianapolis, folks, for a car race. So I've got Indianapolis on the brain.

I'm sorry. Sorry. My apologies to to Jake. Yeah. But Jake had trouble with qualifying, threw it away.

There at the last turn was like 18. Very sad that he was he was just going for it. He was riding the momentum from the acid wind home crowd. He was pumped up. Those things are actually going to happen.

It's not that big of a deal. But when we get into the the actual moto to race. It was chaos in the back at Village Skinner was down. Lopez, Aldiger and Acosta were out front. But there was some carnage that happened as we went through the first turn there.

It's just that funnel effect, right? Everybody was going fast into a small area that requires a lot of braking. Since the re redo of Silverstone, that's like the tightest. I think they take that in first gear. I think I think so.

Yeah. So they have to slow down a whole way. It turns out that it was Skinner had some help and he bumped into Dixon and they both go down and Binder Darren Binder was in there. And he got along that penalty for his effects on that. And, you know, let's say that there were some unsavory comments about Darren by Jake at the time.

And just because we're going to do Austria, we'll just go forward a little bit. I press conference in office in Austria. Jake really did do a phenomenal job to come back and walk his statements back. I was hot on the collar. I was bothered by it and I let it go.

And that's not really true. That's you know, what are they? I forget what they actually as there's a one for that's something like a talent is temporary, but class is forever. And, you know, that was a very class act move because they didn't ask Jake at all about that incident. He simply stopped the interview after the first question and said, I'm going to go say this.

So, you know, right, proper bloke, as you would say, I think. Right. Yeah. I mean, he was bang out of order with what he said, you know, in the heat of the moment. But then it was not probably you could maybe blame the broadcaster, whoever it was.

It would probably have been TNT, I guess, as the host race. But sticking a microphone under his nose right at the moment when that's just happened. You know, that's he's bound to be sort of pumped full of adrenaline and likely to say something potentially out of turn. And I mean, say what you like about Darren Binder and he's got a reputation. But I mean, he was utterly blameless in that because, I mean, Jake was going around the outside of him, of his line of sight.

So he had a little bump, a little wobble in the corner. Best end of the first lap, if you recall. And, yeah, just tag Dixon and down he went. Very, very unfortunate. But really, Jake did himself no favors by starting what, 15th or 16th on the grid because of crashing in qualifying in the wet.

So you can understand all of those things. But, yeah, a little bit unfortunate, but very much made up for, as you say, Jim, by what he did voluntarily in the next round. So we'll come to that. Yep. Can it got out front?

He actually started to open up a little bit of a gap. But basically, Outager came along for the ride and Outager would wind up catching like Acosta and he would grab. Acosta would hang on to him. They would go find Kinet and they would start running, running away with at the front. It was a three rider race, basically there for all that.

Basically, it was Outager, Kinet and Acoba. Now, Roberts, I had hope for Roberts. He was looking, Joe Roberts was looking the best that he's looked in quite some time on the Moto T bike. Hopefully he was going to catch on for a podium. That unfortunately did not happen.

But we did wind up with it with the fact that Kinet had to drop a place because he had gained an advantage in a turn. So instead of giving a long lap, we get the whole you got to give back a place. So we did. And that was well, I think that was what for the crash at turn one and passing under the yellow, I think is where the advantage was gained. In that regard, something to that effect.

I know something goes on in that point in it, but it basically out of your winds up running away. I mean, that fast flowy Silverstone nature suits that Bosca Cora. Can that we're in on the second Acosta was had tired, had tires. He couldn't hang on to it anymore. Can it would then get back by him after having dropped the position?

Roberts would stay in fourth, then Gonzalez and Balthus figure it out at the end. That is really where it goes. That race was it was a good race. It was intriguing, I think, because the fight between Kinet and Acosta was really good, but once Aldegar got to the front, Aldegar was definitely on a different level. Yeah, he was definitely tuned in and he was riding really well.

It was it was a good race. I mean, motor to his tradition. And don't forget, motor was the last race of the day because that is true. They will shake the order up at Silverstone. Yeah, because of TV time, right?

Because they're trying to keep everything at like two o'clock. Yeah. In time or something like that as a fringe benefit, it probably helps with traffic management a bit as well, because some people will leave after the Moto GP race. But I mean, I mean, I supplied by but so it wasn't a classic race. It's true.

But it was a very good one, because as you say, can it was out front early on and then I had a sort of warm down, got out front. And I would have actually did his fastest lap on the penultimate lap, I think, because you could see the team sort of wishing he would slow down a little bit. You know, given that his first racing was coming up and I didn't want him to check it away. But no, it's good sort of tactical race that one. Yeah.

Yep. If you like the strategy, it was it was more like a cost to hold anybody off. His tires were gone. And you just like, is the kid going to push it? Is he going to take the points?

Where is he going to go? Because our Molina was well down the list. He was he did pull a little bit of a rabbit out of his hat to lessen the damage. But our Molina has not had a good run of form in the last couple of races where Acosta has been on the podium now. Acosta is in the world on fire by winning races.

But you got to be consistent to win a championship. I think we learned that one from Augusto Fernandez. Yeah, yeah. So was it Silverstone where Acosta had hurt his ankle in a training crash as well? Because he didn't get to race Silverstone last year because he had broken his femur last year, but this year he was also nursing an injury because he took his boot off on the slowdown.

Was that Silverstone? I think it was. I think it was. Yes. I forget where he did that, too.

But yeah, he was nursing an ankle injury of some kind. So, you know, given that all in mind, you know, to finish third was, you know, yeah, you grit your teeth on those days, don't you, I suppose, as a rider and get back the points. So, yeah, Nabilino just for whatever reason, hasn't been able to really kind of take advantage of any of that. Loses. It kind of loses the plot, sort of like Lowe's always does on that bike.

This is something about the setup that they don't have for some reason. And it just depends on that. I don't think that the Mark VDS bikes work in a cooler environment, because if you look at it, they go to the races where it's relatively hot. They are fantastic. You go to where they're cooler.

They're not so good, but who knows? The interesting thing, you know, that's an observation of me. I, you know, not saying the team's not doing their best to make the bike as good as they can, but. Either way, the sprint on Saturday for MotoGP, I will not call it a race sprint. No, it's a sprint race.

Whatever it is, what it is. So we have it. We was declared a wet race. That's for sure. So you could ride, swap out at any time for that and and change your bike whenever you want it to.

But I didn't think it was going to dry out, at least not in the I think it were going like 10 or 11 laps, I think. Yeah, I think it was medium wet, so it's like, yeah. Have a slightly more durable wet weather time, because it was obviously going to dry out to some extent. It was just how much is it going to dry? Correct.

Yeah. Were we going to find any dry patches or anything like that? So from a qualifying the Zeke Miller and Alex Marquez are your front row, having gone through all the qualifying second row is Benyaya Fernandez and Marini. So there's your top six as it starts out. We get into the sprint.

Miller jumps out in front. KTM always seems to have like a very good whole shot action. Again, I think they're using some kind of hydraulics to slip the clutch and find a bite point to get that. Peko is 12th. I mean, he winds up going all the way down.

He was bumped out wide by Zarco in there because as Miller and Martin are out front, basically those guys were out front. But all of a sudden here comes Alex Marquez, like roughly halfway through the race, Alex Marquez finds form, rode to the front and then rode away, which was absolutely impressive to watch Alex win like he did. He just rode away the middle section there. Once Alex Marquez is gone is just Bizecki and Vinales there. But what you find out is that here comes Zarco.

Zarco always with the late race charge, especially in rain races, like it takes him three or four laps to bed the tire in or to figure out where the grip level is and where the water puddles are, or whatever it is that Zarco has to do in these first four laps. He suddenly just turns it on at the end. Zarco came rolling through it like, who could he even get to Alex Marquez? No, he really he he couldn't. You wanted him to.

He did do his best to get up there. He got to within a couple of seconds or something. But literally, Zarco took took like six seconds out of people, you know, which was just, you know, he was going like from 65 miles an hour losing like 65 miles an hour, six seconds off the Brembo brakes. That was a cool graphic that they showed there during the wet. But I didn't think he could actually get there.

But Zarco actually went by Miller at like Stowe, which is a really, you know, fast turn to try that in. And he did. But it wasn't enough. Alex Marquez would win his first sprint race. The Zeki would ride home to second.

Then you all is a good race on the Aprilia. The Aprilia looked good in both the wet and the dry that had been going on. Alisha Sparger would even wind up being in the top six because of the second three were Zarco, Alisha and Martins. So you had the two of Aurelia's there. Look, look good.

I mean, Alisha been saying he had pace, but he was tempered by the rain. And so did Vignola seemingly have pace. I mean, before it rained, those guys were fast. So kind of backed it up. They were both ways there.

But it was an interesting sprint. Just good to see Alex win one. You know, it may need to be seen if he wins an actual Moto GP race or where he or his career is going to go from here. But he seems to now, given the troubles his brother is having, he's sort of come out of the shadow of his brother. And proving that he actually is.

A pretty damn good rider in my mind. Yeah, on a very good bike, it must be said. True. Yes. You know, he's won a race, so and or a sprint.

Let's call it a race. And, you know, don't give those away, do they? So that play to him. Rather extraordinary. The only couple of things I got to add to it, really, Jim, is given that it was sketchy ish conditions, not a single faller in the sprint.

Which was interesting. And any other note I made was a bit of a horror show for the Japanese factories. I mean, they were just nowhere. It was just European bikes everywhere. You could see really.

So but yes, Aprilia, having really struggled in the sketchy conditions in Argentina. They had a brilliant Friday. I think it was in Argentina earlier in the season when it was dry and warm. Saturday or Sunday, you're both turned up. Pretty cold and damp.

And the form of Aprilia just vanished. So it was good at Silverstone to see that the that the conditions did not result in the same thing on the Saturday, at least with Vinales, who's a bit of a Silverstone specialist, it must be said. But I bet the Spargrove as well finishing. What do you say was sixth in the top six? Yeah.

Alisha Spargrove. Yeah, Alisha was he was. It was fifth. Fifth. OK.

Yeah, then I was. Vinales had the sprint podium and then then Zarko interrupted it because he got a lace at the very end because he was he was Zarko was just the fastest man on track. Right. Right. The end.

Yeah. So yeah, but hopeful signs over Aprilia in terms of being able to have a wider operating window. Bright sunshine greeted the Moto GP race on the Sunday. But the question was, how long is it going to last? There was all this dark clouds were looming every which way.

That was there. We started again. Miller got a whole shot. This is kind of becoming the norm here. Qualify well, be on the front row, get a whole shot.

Martin was like, way why he had a touch with Bender. And that wound up getting into where you had a lot of crash damage. Wings got broken. Things were all wiggly, wobbly. And I wrote in my notes, it's like we are starting to see these wings become damaged by riders trying to get position on the first couple of laps because we've seen now that we don't we are not able to pass.

Due to the dirty air, due to the effective arrow. And these wings are now starting to become broken. And my question to you is, when are we going to see somebody suffer a cut tire like we see in Formula One? I'm scared of the wings coming off and cutting a tire, because if you're doing I forget what they had on the bikes at the end of the hanger straight. It was like I want to say close to like 225, maybe 230.

It was it was well over 200 miles an hour. I know they are well over that. They're well over that. I do not want to see a tire come undone because it has a carbon fiber shrapnel that had had to ride through you on the first lap when people bang wings, because I do not want to see another Barry Sheen Daytona incident. I mean, I get it.

Barry survived and went on to win world championships and stuff and races. But I mean, we do not need that. And I'm really, really scared about that. If you're going to get rid of the aerodynamics, you're going to have to do it on this. You have to say, look, you don't have the four wheels.

You can't have a tire that's going to be puncturable by these carbon shards. So if and I don't think Michelin or. Pirelli or whoever are going to be able to build a tire to withstand being cut by these things, right? So in my mind, if we want to get rid of the wings, then we're going to have to do it from a safety grounds. And if I don't think it will happen until you get one bike that has a truly definitive tire that.

Deflate slash explode slash whatever it causes the rider to crash because they ran over the debris. Then you're going to see something done until then. There's you know, it's not going to happen. Certainly your point about, you know, all these sort of extremities or appendages that kind of sprouted over the years. Was it I'm just trying to think it was a Lacey Spargo, the Asen ran, wasn't it?

Where he rode pretty much the entire one of the races with the one of the wings kind of flapping in the wind. I mean, I was very surprised he didn't get the what they call the meatball flag, you know, the orange circle on the black background to come in and get that sort of properly ripped off. Because, I mean, again, that was that's quite a big wing on the Aprilia, isn't it? Well, they all are these days, but certainly on the Aprilia, it's really very big. And if that kind of detached and just flown through the air and hit somebody, I mean, that doesn't really bear thinking about.

But it is a known fact, as you say, Jim, in carbon fiber is extraordinarily strong in the direction that it's designed to be operating in. But put it in a different situation and it crumbles and flakes. And it's very, very sharp. So as you say in Formula One, OK, there's a lot more carbon fiber and the cars are big for tires to touch stuff. So I suppose the chances of it happening on a bike are lower.

But it only takes one nasty accident to kind of create the situation where they have to do something about it on safety grounds, but you would hope that it wouldn't get to that stage. But as you say, in the MotoGP race at Silverstone, it was good. Another very, very good race. But there's quite a bit of bumping and boring going on. In my notes, I got on lap three, you know, Vignale is really I think it's really barged Miller out of the way at Cops.

Yeah. And again, I think that was wing damage as a result of that. And you don't you don't want shards of carbon fiber lying around on the track, as you say, because it will cut a tire eventually. I mean, just I mean, we've seen it happen. I mean, what if that wing gets kicked by another rider up by another bike and it hits a rider in the head or in the shoulder?

Or that's going to be a serious injury. You know, again, I'm I understand the aerodynamics make the bikes go faster. We're talking about the idea that these are prototypes and the idea is to build a motorcycle that is to go as fast as it can go around a race track. But I think we have got to add some common sense into this somewhere. We got to find a happy medium in some way.

I mean, whether they wings become smaller, you know, whatever it may be. I'm just concerned. So I'll leave it there. We we've ranted about that stuff before. And there's no.

Yeah. The only thing I want to say, Jim, is and I suppose we'll come to this, but interestingly to me, Silverstone, a very fast track, some very high speed corners, not too many really, really heavy braking points. So I don't think you can get away from the fact that if you have tracks like Silverstone, you tend to get good racing, irrespective of the fact that there's aerodynamics everywhere. They are helping the bikes be more stable in those fast turns. Cut forward to a stop and go track like the Red Bull Ring.

And it's pretty boring stuff. I mean, people really struggling to overtake because it's all about on the brakes all the time and out of corners. So I'm sure there's a happy medium here somewhere in terms of track design and aero and stuff like that, unless something gets banned on the safety ground. But yeah, I mean, it was a good race at Silverstone. And the sprint wasn't the most exciting because it was wet, dry affair.

But the Sunday race at Silverstone was really, really good. I mean, we haven't stopped talking about the race yet and what happened at the end. So yeah. Where were we? Oh, we had we were about three laps into the race.

And it was starting to get very dark. The question was, was it going to rain? But Alish from his lowly starting spot was starting to come. He had got by Alex Marquez. He was sort of the man to watch.

He was the guy who was turning the fast laps. And you're wondering what's going to happen because we had our typical Biazzi, Bizeki out front. Then Alish was there as well. Bender was in the mix. So these are sort of like the new normal.

It's the bees, right? It's Banyan, it's Bizeki, it's Bender. They all seem to sort of be at the front now. It's like the killer bees somewhere up front. Both the Aprilis were looking really good.

And of course, here comes Zarco up as well. Now, these guys start to try to change and go back and forth. And it's interesting, Banyan leads for a long time through this middle section of the race. But everything behind him sort of changes in flux and goes around. Alish was looking very strong.

He had talked about it that they had pace. Even Vinyals denoted the Silverstone specialist was up at the front, too, as well. So it was becoming a pretty fascinating, raining, pretty fascinating race. And we got to about eight laps to go when the rain flags appeared. It was starting to sprinkle a little bit.

The worst thing you can do, it's hard enough to see it on your visor. Is the next time I come back to this corner, is it going to be so wet? I'm not going to be able to stay upright on slicks. Was anybody going to dare take the bike swap? You were allowed to because the white flag at the corners was being wiped, indicating that you could change your bike if you wanted to.

But we were focused on the Aprilia battle that was happening between the two teammates. Alish and Vinyals were going back and forth, back and forth. Bender would go by like both the Aprilias in a draft, and he just sucked along. He would go by. It was really, like I said, it was really good racing.

It comes down to it gets to like to be the very end. I mean, we even had Olivera on the on the satellite Aprilia, who shows up at the end of the race that he gets there. And then Bastionini and Marquez renewed their friendship in the gravel trap, shall we say, because they, you know, again, Marquez pretty much just runs right over Bastionini. Now, admittedly, Bastionini did have a bit of a whoops moment, whether it was a bit of too much throttle, a little too much wet, whatever. And then Marquez really, in this case, did not have anywhere to go.

But the two of them wound up knocking himself down. Interesting, Marquez has not scored a point yet at all on the Honda. I don't think he's finished a race yet this year on the Honda. So tough times, as we said, for the Japanese. Quattrora would crash into Marini.

He would run into Marini and crash. So, again, Silverstone was a horror show for both of the Japanese manufacturers. Olivera had got himself the third before just the end of the race. But the question is, was Olivera got caught by Benyaya because he actually was leading a little bit. There was a Lace was there in the last between the last few laps.

It's an all out war between Benyaya, a Lace, Olivera and Bender. And a Lace puts on a hell of a move through Maggots to take the lead and then runs. I thought for sure that Ducati was going to run him down on hanger straight. It did not. Lace had enough power to stay out in front.

Benyaya may have been thinking points. I don't know. I'm not inside of his head. But Lace would go on to win the race over Benyaya, over Bender, over Olivera and then Yala's and Martin. And again, you have a whole slew of European motorcycles.

But this time it's only two Ducati's. Benyaya and Martin, you had one KTM and Bender, but you had three Aprilia's in Olivera, Lace and Benyala's. So it was a really weird turn of events. Did the rain have a little bit to do? Was Benyaya just worried about his points lead?

Maybe possibly. But of course, as soon as the race ended, the sun in typical British fashion came back out. I thought it was a great race. It's a great MotoGP race to watch. There was just so much good action.

Yeah. And the that little sprinkle of rain, as you say, I think it spooked a few riders. I mean, the big surprise there, actually. One rider you would probably have put money on to be spooked a bit by it and to slow down a bit would have been Alessio Spargrove. And yet he kind of he reveled in it.

Clearly, Olivera came like a freight train in those conditions as well, because he's just brilliant in those sort of sketchy conditions. But yeah, hats off to Alessio Spargrove. I mean, it was proper cat and mouse. He was it was all about that last lap, wasn't it? He was just staying close, staying close.

Banyaya possibly thinking about points a little bit, because what we didn't mention, actually, Jim, was that on what was it like 15? Possibly aero related, but Buzeki tried to put a move into Stowe on Banyaya, lost the front, the knee and went down into the gravel. So with him being Banyaya's closest challenger in terms of the points, I'm sure the team would have informed Banyaya following a lap on his pit board that Buzeki was out. So perhaps, you know, as you say, perhaps he was just playing playing a little bit cautious when Alessio went by on the last lap. But nevertheless, I mean, it was a brilliant ride by Alessio Spargrove very much made up for the disappointment of the year prior.

If you remember when he was absolutely on fire all weekend and then had a mother and father of a high side in the Sunday morning warm up. I think I think it was the Sunday morning warm up. Or was it maybe it was FB3 or something and he really bashed his ankle and it kind of he didn't win. Whereas I think everybody thought he would have won the race last year. Obviously, there was no sprint last year, but it's very much made up for the fact that he had that disappointment last year.

And the Aprilia just for whatever reason, it just works. Certain tracks and Silverstone is one of the best examples of where the Aprilia is good. So nice for that team, you know, to get a bit of get another win under the belt. Agreed. Agreed.

I really got nothing else for from Silverstone. We'll go to the more boring racing. We transition from the high speed, high flowing, only one really slow corner that exists at Silverstone to a point and squirt circuit of the Styrian Mountains in Austria. For the next round, we'll start with Moto3 on the Sunday from qualifying the top six Colin Vier, who is on fire. I can't help it.

I have to use that line. Nicely done. Thank you. I got that from Matt Bird. Anyway, he was had his first pole.

Orgardo was second. Anshu was third. Then it was Masiya, Rueda and Rossi. Rossi showing it gets form and qualifying, but really not able to do much when it hits the races. This race is the race of the weekend.

It is the best race of the weekend. They proceeded from that point to go downhill after this one. Like nobody was nobody was able to keep up with how good these guys were. As it started, Holgardo got out front with his team, with Anshu behind him. They are not teammates.

I thought that I was going to get Bari to say that, but no, Holgardo is in the Tech 3 squad and Anshu is in the actual factory squad. Vier was then there. Alonso, who had won in the Columbia, who had won prior, Masiya and Rossi. The race here was pretty amazing. They had a train of seven bikes running around.

Holgardo leading for much of the race. Now, there was stuff going on in the back that people were trading back and forth in places and swapping some in and out. But you got to remember, Holgardo basically stays out front for about the first two thirds of this race. Masiya has a bike problem. The Honda quit on him and Sasaki, who had come from the back of the pack, just clips him when the motor dies for whatever reason.

Don't know why it acted like it just turned itself off. Like it was truly an electrical problem that there was just no fire. Great save by Sasaki just to keep going. Now, this made the front group have about a one and a half second lead, which was basically just Holgardo and Anshu and Vier. They were the three that had gotten away because of the incident that happened back with Sasaki and Masiya.

But that didn't last for long because the guy who was on the gas was Alonso. So Alonso starts to drag Sasaki and Rossi to the front. Vier eventually about 10 laps in, about halfway in, had gotten to had displaced Holgardo at the front. And those two sort of kept swapping it turn for turn. If Vier would pass him at turn one, Holgardo would go by at the chicane.

If Vier would go back by at three and then it would be four, Holgardo would be back in front. These guys were running really hard at the front and swapping. But when they do that, you know what happens? The train comes up and catches you. So now we put about a seven rider train together.

But it was still being led by Holgardo for most of it. Alonso finally to get to the lead, he led for a little bit. And then he promptly threw it away at the chicane. He was riding that bike so hard, he just left it just that fraction late. I mean, we're talking millimeters in front end went away on him.

So that ruined his chance for at least a podium podium there. Sasaki would be a second to Holgardo. Ortola now was the man to watch because Ortola was in the second group. He had gotten himself through everything and he was on pace to try to get to the front. He was having a say he was two and point seven seconds behind the front group.

But you just was there was only roughly about six, seven laps to go. He was turning laps that were almost a second quicker than anybody else. But I guess the tires gave up because before he could ever get to the pack, they just he couldn't carry that momentum any farther forward. And Ortola was doomed to finish down the pack a little bit. The race to the front got great in the last few laps.

It was Holgardo versus Sasaki versus Anju. Again, they're just going back and forth at each other. It's truly a great race. But that last lap is just one for the books. Holgardo goes by Sasaki at one.

Now Sasaki has got it figured out. If he leads through seven and eight, he wins the race or he thinks he does. Yes, that's his plan. Sasaki's plan is to be out front while Horgato ruins that by going to the front. So Sasaki then tried to go by at three, which he does.

But guess who go by to Anju comes with him. So that relegated Sasaki back one more. And then they pushed Avair out of the way because he was coming coming as well. So Sasaki had then become fourth. Then Holgardo dove in it.

Then at the very end, Holgardo is in the front. Sasaki has now worked his way back to like second. Anju's third, Vier's behind him. Holgardo throws it in at turn 10 in a last ditch effort to pass. But when he does that, he forces Sasaki wide and he also loses his drive.

But the man who played it smart was Anju because Anju was out really wide. If you look his race the whole time, he was always over on the curbs coming into 10. From nine to 10, he's always on the curbs. He's flirting with track limits, but he was always out there. He senses it.

He turns it in and takes the shortest distance. You know, he he turns he takes a late apex to turn it to go to where he could go full throttle faster than anybody. He goes to full throttle and he beats. Holgardo by five thousandths of a second. Which was amazing.

I mean, it was so close. Then poor Sasaki was third and Vier or Tola and Rossi was your top six. That last lap, you have to watch people. If you haven't seen it, go watch it. Watch it again.

I watched it two or three times. It was just Anju played such a cunning race. I thought it was really a brilliant race by him. He was really starting to show racecraft. I think that's sort of kind of what's been missing a little bit with Anju.

I think we expected Anju to win a whole lot more races. Now he's physically bigger. Maybe he is a little bit too big for a Moto three bike. But he knew what was going to happen. He read the tea leaves perfectly and just had enough.

And that finish line is one foot farther. Holgardo wins. But it was an absolutely brilliant, brilliant race. Brilliant move by Anju and a well-deserved win at that point. So it was very much shades of the Moto GP race a few years ago, wasn't it?

When Olivera snuck through to win, when who was it that tangled with each other in the last call? Marquez was going after. I'll tend to say Miller or something. No, no. Doby, him and Doby.

Was it OK? I think it's that one. But I mean, there was many a year that it was Doby V. Marquez in the final turn and Doby won a couple that way. And I know Olivera won one that way.

So, yeah, but it does as much as what we can opine about the track not being anything like Silverstone. Given the right bikes, you can have a pretty good last lap because that last turn allows you to run different lines and different strategies. So it does make for an interesting race. I mean, let's face it, some of the early Moto GP races there were fantastic. You had to wait for the last lap for the magic to happen.

Three wins. There are weak races in between, but, but, you know, Moto3 never disappoints. No, I mean, Moto3. As I've said many times, it's pretty regularly the best race of the day. And it certainly was the best race of the day over the course of this weekend that we're talking about.

It was but obviously with a smaller group out front. But nonetheless, I mean, the lead was changing. Again, it was one of those like we always say, don't bother making notes, because by the time you've written out, you've just gone into the lead. They're in back in fifth or something. So it's just typical Moto3.

But yeah, great race. All right, let's go to Moto2. Do you not want to do the championship now that we're kind of caught up? I was going to do all the championships right at the end, or we can do it now. I don't care.

I've got it either way. Let's go to the championship. Let's do that. So with the Moto3, with the win here, Hulgardo went to 161 points. Sasaki is on 135.

So Hulgardo has now built his lead back up. It's now a 26 point lead. So he could take a race off and he'd still be leading the championship. Anshu is on 124 or Tola is on 118. Anshu is on 124 or Tola is on 118.

I think Tola's championship is pretty much done. At this point, Masi is at 109. I think he crashed at Silverstone in the race. And then his motor failure here left him down. And then Marrera is only on 94 points.

I think the championship is between Hulgardo and Sasaki, although Anshu has that outside looking in thing. And there's no pressure on him. So... Well, other than the fact that it's a bit... I suppose it's not great for Anshu in the sense that Hulgardo...

They were the ones that did the bike swap last season, if you remember. So Hulgardo got dropped out of the IO team and went to Tech 3. And Anshu went in the other direction. It shows you that it takes a mix of people and rider to get the best out of it, right? Absolutely.

We never saw Anshu reach any of his potential in Tech 3. Yet you put him with the IO team and suddenly his potential has been reached. Hulgardo didn't seem to have any chemistry going with IO. And you put him over at Tech 3 and you let Gekulam talk to him. And suddenly, boom, he's at the front and been there the whole time.

It shows you just how much of a mental... The rider has to be happy, right? If you're comfortable, you'll go fast. Jeremy Burgess said it the best. If he thinks he needs gold-plated handlebars to go fast, then give him gold-plated handlebars.

It's kind of that. Which is really keen to see. You don't see that too much in car racing, but you really see this in motorcycle racing. Yeah. Now, it's interesting the way that that's swapped, isn't it?

But yeah, I would agree with your summary there. I think Anshu just about still in the running here, but kind of needs... Help. Yeah, a bit of trouble to beset Hulgardo or Sasaki. I mean, probably Sasaki, he just can't get a win, can he, at the minute?

I mean, at least he didn't finish second again, although I suppose he wishes he would have done from the points point of view. But it makes a change for him not to finish second. But yeah, obviously there's a win coming somewhere in the near future for him. But he did have his elbows out and finished him on this last lap. I think I wrote it in my notes.

Like, can Sasaki do it? Is he going to be tougher on this last lap this time? And the whole Gardo, I mean, it was a bit of a desperate dive bomb, really, wasn't it, on that last corner? And you kind of could see that coming. And as you say, Anshu just read it perfectly.

Absolutely, just right. But as soon as that kicks off in front of me, or if it does, I'm in position A. And so he was. So good, yeah, good stuff. Good on him.

Moto2 race. So if we look at Moto2 from qualifying, Acosta on pole, he had great pace all weekend. After that, it was Ogura Vietti who sort of magically showed up. Where has he been? Hi, welcome back.

Will the real Celestino Vietti please stand up? Yeah, the guy who we thought was going to win the championship last year and then vanished without trace almost. And then suddenly, like you say, it's like, where the hell is this performance from? Suddenly returned or whatever. He obviously had a good summer holiday.

Yeah, I guess. Dixon then, and Chantra and Arbolino. And then Arbolino was like, sorry. The qualifying was Acosta, Ogura, Vietti, Dixon, Chantra, and Outagur. Arbolino was seventh.

I got it moved around there. Sorry, folks. So Arbolino just off on the back row there. So we knew something was going to come on with that. The race started and Acosta shoots off like a rocket ship.

He is out front. The race is basically between Vietti, Dixon, Chantra, and Ogura. That's the battle. And there's back and forth. Loews has a crash.

He crashes with Bender at turn three. But it looks like this time it was Sam ran into or something happened to the bike and he just clawed at Bender. I think he lost the front end. I very weird, very strange. There was something definitely weird that happened in that one.

But that happens. It's racing. And Sam put his hands up right away. My fault, bud. Made sure Bender was OK.

Well, actually, I'm not sure if it wasn't the other way around. I got a feeling Bender crashed and Sam ran into him. I didn't see from the replay that I had privy to. It could have been either way. Yeah.

I know Sam was very concerned and went running over as if he was apologizing. But I think it was more concern. So I'm not quite sure about that one. But as you say, you didn't really get a very clear replay on it. But yeah, I mean, Bender.

Bender is just having a horrid Moto 2 season. Yeah. I don't think he's finished a race. I mean, seriously. Barely.

If he had barely. It's just terrible luck, I guess, for everybody in there. Agura goes by Dixon. But then Dixon would go back by. Arenas falls down at turn three.

The front just caved in. Dixon and Agura have a really good battle. They go back and forth. Different turns, different times. Really, definitely there.

But Acosta, by the way, is just creeping along. He's out front. Don't worry about him. He's out there. Joe Roberts would crash at turn three.

Arenas would crash for a second time at turn six. Again, a bad day at the thing. Knet down at turn nine. Well, when isn't Knet on the ground, I think? Man, you know, buddy, you talk about not being considered for a Moto GP ride.

Well, maybe if you stayed on the bike. Now, if you have a bad bike and you're pushing it and you crash, I get that whole thing. But I don't know what's going on with Knet. But then again, I don't know what's going on with Vietti either. Right?

Vietti suddenly shows back up and Vietti, who was nowhere really in the beginning, all this just sort of like took a light switch and just went click on. And he just started moving through like he had he was going almost a second faster than Acosta. Acosta had slowed down to like the 142s or high 141s where Vietti was like at the bottom end of the 141s. And he was moving. So he winds up riding through Dixon.

He rides through a girl. He goes past Chantra. He goes all the way to second. You're like, well, can he catch Acosta? Like, is this even possible?

Like, I don't know. But his pace says that he can. He had eight laps to go. And I wrote, can he catch Acosta? Well, you know, Arbolino was running back and forth with Slatch.

Isaiah was getting comfortable with his new teammate. You know, they were learning each other's things. And then the dreaded track limits warning shows up. Acosta's got to track limits for me. Oh, good grief.

Here comes Vietti. And you have to be inch perfect now for the final five laps. Otherwise, you're going to be told to go take the long route, the long lap of inconvenience here, that you're going to lose this race. I really thought that Vietti was not going to get to Acosta. I thought Acosta had something left in the tank.

I really did. He was out front. I was proven to be wrong because Vietti went by Acosta at turn four and goes on and wins the race. Yes, I said Vietti won the race. Just to clarify for you all, I was shocked, completely shocked to where that had come from.

I think Vietti was completely overwhelmed emotionally that he had gotten himself back to not only just a podium, but had gotten himself back on top of the box. Acosta, I think, had some tire issues. I think he burned him up or just wrong compound or just didn't work for him for the length of the race. Take your pick anyway that you want to go. But he did manage to continue on to get to second.

Agur would finish on the box. Dixon just off of the box. Then Chantra. And then Arbolino saving it to Kimlam six, which is there. But it goes without saying, you got to finish first.

First you must finish. Acosta is doing the consistency thing now. He's been on the podium, on the podium, on the panel, Arbolino has been off the podium, off the podium, off the podium. That's not going to get you to a championship at all if you keep doing that. So it was a good race.

I don't want to say it was a great race, but it was not the Moto3 race for sure. No, absolutely not. And I mean, Acosta didn't sort of give it to Vietti. He did track him for quite a while. And at some point, I think it was towards the end, lap 21, I think in my notes, he very nearly tagged the back of Vietti into nine.

And after that, I think he just thought, okay, let's just drop this back a little bit. But I know he tends to blow a lot of smoke up Acosta's backside, but I think with good reason. But when you consider he's been nursing that ankle injury and that was probably still affecting him a bit. He had a cane still, I think. I saw him with the cane in the pits, I believe.

So bearing that in mind, not to mention all of the stuff swirling around about his future in terms of where's he going to be next year. I mean, that is all very, very destabilizing potentially. Well, that kind of happened to Acosta in Moto 3. Cause everybody like he ran off, he was leaving the championship and he got into a spat where he started to visit tracks that he didn't know. Gosh, I can't remember who was running for the, Foggia was running for the championship.

Foggia had been there, Foggia started to piece together a season there towards the end. And then Acosta finally got back to Europe, places that he knew his contract was settled. He was going to Moto Moto 2 and he turned it right back on again. The kid was 17, he got distracted. He hasn't been distracted, he has had issues, right?

He's got an ankle that hurts, whatever, but he has not lost sight of what he's trying to do. And that is winning Moto 2 world title. And he's succeeding at it because he's being more consistent than his main time to chip rival who happens to be Arbolino. And now you've got people like Agura who has sort of got his game back again. Chantra has always sort of been a specialist at Austria.

Dixon's the wild card and all this, right? For where he slots in between everybody. So it's going to be a fun championship to watch the rest of the way. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, with Acosta, just to finish off my thought on that, as I say, he didn't give it to Vietti, but at the same time, we know he's quite a canny operator.

I mean, he's got a pretty wise head on young shoulders. Vietti's absolutely nowhere in the championship, despite the fact he's just won the race. But so Acosta's just playing the game, in terms of Arbolino's who he's looking out for. And he was several places behind. So yeah, he is the real deal.

Yep. In terms of the championship, Acosta gains another six points on Arbolino. He's got 176 to Arbolino, 164. So that's a 12 point lead. Dixon's on 117, Canett's on 96, Dixon's on 192, and Silac on 84.

It is between Arbolino and Acosta for this title. My money's on the kid. Yeah, yeah. Well, form, you can't ignore form, can you? And as much of a talent as Arbolino is, and he is a very, very good rider, but he's just had a dip for whatever reason.

Again, that might be partly with the stuff that's been swirling around about his future until the last few days when it's been announced that he's staying put for next year. So maybe it'll be interesting to see if he kind of steadies down a little bit and gets back to the, a bit back towards the front as a result of his future being, or short-term future anyway, being resolved. Just to pick back up on the Dixon thing, it transpires that over the Silverstone weekend was when a lot of this MotoGP, is it happening or not the stuff was kicking off or getting resolved. So that must've been a distraction for him, plus the weather, plus the home race, the crowd, et cetera, et cetera. So you can understand why things unraveled a bit.

It was a shame, but to come back and score a solid fourth place on the back of that, having been very sort of contrite and polite in his apology to Binder and the team, I thought that was a sort of a creditable return, immediate return to form for Jake. And hopefully he'll still bag another win or two. Jim, one thing we haven't mentioned is that Sean Dillon Kelly appears to be out long-term with arm trouble. Do you know what's going on there? I tried to find out from some people who might be in the know.

When I was in Pittsburgh, no one seems to know. The guess is it's arm pump, but I don't have anything 100%. And he's just missing. He's definitely had a second corrective procedure done to previous, is it carpal tunnel syndrome? I think so, yeah.

And then they have surgery done to remove a membrane or something, don't they? But I hope it hasn't got some sort of nasty lingering or longer-term infection going on there, but it sounds as if he's out for quite a few races. Seems that way, because he's been replaced. Which is odd. Yeah.

Because normally they come back from that sort of surgery fairly quickly, don't they? Yeah. So you hope that there's not something a bit worse that's gone on there, but we'll have to obviously try and find out. Yeah, I'm scared. I'm scared for him in the idea that he won't have a ride, which means selfishly he'll be back to Moto America where he'll definitely have a super bike ride.

Somebody will put him on a super bike. Yeah. Which given the state of where things are at play, that would be great, but I'd much, I want him to succeed in Europe, but maybe not on the cards. Obviously, next year, because I hear that he's added to the Italtrans team, but I don't know if he's been confirmed to be riding somewhere else as of yet. I have heard nothing about where he may ride next year, other than he's splitting with the team.

Again, you've got that Moto America rumour, but I don't know if there's enough room for him and Sean Dylan Kelly, so I don't know. Okay, we'll have to keep our eyes open. It's part of the silly season, stay tuned, right? We just don't know the answers to the questions yet. Just before we move off motor to, I know we've got to do the championship, but one piece of news I read on the motor, so I don't, I think this has probably come out in the last couple of days, Cito Pons and his team are, well, Cito Pons is bowing out of the championship after nearly 40 years, I think.

Oof, wow. At the end of this season. I believe his team has been bought by another operation, but we do know that Kinet is out of the Pons team next year. With the change of the team ownership, who knows what that means with contracts. I mean, Sergio Garcia is having a really good year for a rookie, but on the other hand, Kinet is having an absolute nightmare, really, isn't he?

So where he lands next year is also up in the air at the minute. Okay, let's look at the Moto2 World Championship. Acosta now leads on 176 points. He is 12 points ahead of Arbolino on 164. Then it's Dixon, Kinet, and Lopez and Solache.

All right, MotoGP sprint, Rich. This won't take long. No, Benyaya wins. There you go. I just don't know what else to say.

I mean, it's shameful, but Benyaya was on pole position, followed by Vignales, Bender, Miller, Alex Marquez, and Marini. Now, Vignales being there is interesting because this has kind of been like a little bogey track for him in times go by, but to be there on the Aprilia with his teammate nowhere even close to him. Again, Gary loves this. Here's these times when he's almost unbeatable and times where he's nowhere. The conundrum that is Maverick Vignales or the mystery or the what do you call it?

The enigma. The enigma. Thank you. That's exactly the right word. Yeah, good to help you out for once.

There you go. Touche. Yep. Literally, that's the race. I mean, I'm not kidding people.

It was Benyaya took off and he was gone. Bender would follow him home in second position. Those two ran away from each other. Martine has a clumsy race whereby he knocks. He goes by Miller and he outbreaks himself and he's sort of off the track.

He comes back, finally gets by, gets back. He takes Marie down at the chicane. There was no penalty on that one. And that was really weird because I thought he left that one so late. I don't know.

I was shocked at first. I saw different angles of it. I kind of went back and went. Martine really doesn't know these there because Martine hangs off the bike a lot farther than anybody else. So that's a rubbing his racing's instant.

If you're on the outside, you're going to lose. So maybe that one is correct with no penalty. You have a thought? I thought it was a racing incident. Fair enough.

I mean, I think Marini possibly could have given it up. But he tried to hang it around the outside. And a little tap, all it takes to put you down on it. So it was a tough one. It was a hard move by Martine.

Bearing in mind what had happened at the start, which I think you've just alluded to. But I mean, we ought to perhaps go into that a bit more. So off the start, Martine again, bit clumsy, go sort of pile on into turn one. There are so many riders involved in this. Not helped by a very, very slow start in Maverick Vinales, as is his usual way.

You can't get off the line. And so that took Bezeky down, didn't it? Yeah, Bezeky, Quattroraro, Olivera and Martine are all there. Like Martine goes way up the inside. He bumps Quattroraro in the sandwich, which knocks Bezeky off.

And then it's just chaos. It's just weird. There's again, Vinales, he says Bezeky, you know, he doesn't. There's no penalty that was given there. They said, well, we're going to look at it after the race.

Like, yes. Well, OK. Hold on a second. Why? I don't understand this.

Well, we're going to look at it after the race thing. I'm sorry. Make a decision about whether it's pertinent or not, because. I'm sorry, if there are two different things, which they are, it's a sprint race, half the distance of a regular race and a race on Sunday. Why do I have to carry my indiscretion that happens in that race have anything to do with the race that I'm going to go to tomorrow?

It there's no bearing on it unless you unless unless starting positions were to be determined based on how you finished in the sprint, then yes, there is a huge bearing that's going to happen over there. So, yes, maybe then you would you postpone a penalty to the next race. But I don't like that. And I, you know, eventually it did come around to where Martin got a long lap penalty to be applied in the next race or in the race on Sunday, I should say. Yeah.

Again, this is the weird part of the we've been off and on about this all year. Consistency. I have no idea. I just. Yeah, it is very strange how they couldn't make a decision on that until after the race, and yet they made a more or less immediate one on the incident with Marini.

No, OK, there was only two bikes involved in that. And I suppose there was more analysis to be done in terms of the the incident off the start line. But. It's not as if they had anything else to look at in the race, is it? I mean, it was a pretty boring affair other than what Martin was up to.

So, yeah, curious as to why they couldn't sort of rule that he would take the long lap in the sprint, because they had I would have thought plenty of time to do that. But unless unless there's some rule in the rule book that if it's a start line incident, that one they would I don't know. In general, they let lap one kind of go, which I get. But there are ones that are just egregious, right? Like you can see from the helicopter, this dude was just way late on the brakes.

And now we have bullying for riders. So, yeah, you got to do something about that. But they chose not to. Yeah. Well, I don't know.

I didn't see if they released a statement as to precisely why they had given him the long lap, but whether it is, you know, over ambitious riding or one of those sort of things that we we chuckle about. But it didn't go in too hot. No doubt about it. Sorry, didn't mean to catch off there. But Martin does get a long lap penalty in the race.

And it was for the bump that he put on to Quattraro in the beginning of the race, in the beginning of the race, which, yeah, you know, OK, fair enough. You decided to put that in there. But that's really all that happens in this race is you're getting ready to go to the main event on Sunday afternoon. And I don't know. Can I put this can I put this delicately?

It's a carbon copy of the one on Saturday. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, talk about nothing written down in my notes. Hardly anything at all.

Other than Maverick Vinales, again, goes backwards off the start. That was notable. Other than that, I mean, yeah, nothing much to say, really. It was it was it was it was bad. I mean, Binder and Benyaya get out front.

And that's it. And Binder does pressure Benyaya at the beginning. He really does. He does try, but. He's in the air wash, the front tire now is heated up and Binder can't do anything about it, so he has to drop back to a safe one point to one point three second gap to keep the tire underneath of them.

And they ride around in formation. Yeah. You know, there's there's something. You know, it had to be a bad race when they were showing you the race for 10th, 11th and 12th. That's what they were showing you.

Well, there was nothing else to say, was there? No, I mean, there was a good race. There is good racing there. There's good racing in the back of the pack. I'm not against us being allowed to see that.

Not whatsoever. But it's just as a point of reference, it was just a snoozefest to where we're back in there. Olivera did show up in the pits. He was in there. According to Simon Krafar, like a wheel weight had gotten off the front end of the bike and it was just vibrating violently, which, yeah, that's bad news.

That's a bad, bad feeling. And I've had that happen when I never technically had a wheel weight come off of my bike when I was racing. But we did have there was. It's a construction issue is what it was. It's the construction done that builds tires in the United Kingdom and they build tires here and I think in New York somewhere.

And the sidewalls for the tires that come from Great Britain were, at least back in the 90s, were way safer than the sidewall constructions that done lap out here because we have a lot more bumps in our racetracks. And boy, I would get to just some weird chatter, vibrating oscillation, and it's just super scary. So I totally understand why Olivera chose to be in the pits and bring that bike in a super scary incident. And luckily, it was only just a wheel weight. I had rather hope that he withdrew just so he didn't have to showcase that godawful special paint livery scheme Barbie film thing going on.

Now, I thought it was so embarrassed to be seen on the thing. It was absolutely vile to look at. So the fact that he did pull in, I mean, he doesn't have it will look back on this year and think if I did, I do something wrong in a previous life, won't he? Because, I mean, he's just had literally no good luck at all this year. Poor old Olivera.

And when he has finished, he's been good. I mean, look at Silverstone. But yeah, I mean, it's not been a happy year for him, has it? And rumors abound about the R&F team getting into sort of financial difficulties and stuff. So you hope he's got a safe seat somewhere next year because he's a top class rider in my view.

But that bike was just egregious to look at. Really dreadful. Miller did his usual thing. He went backwards. He lost three places in like one lap.

Yeah. Apologize for the dogs there. It's that was just crazy. I mean, I don't know what else there really is. I mean, I think at one point, Bizecki was trying to get around Alex Marquez and went wide at turn one.

He went too deep. But I mean, there's really nothing that happens in this race. It is. It was bad. I mean, I'm a bit crushed.

Oh, yes. Like he's always I don't think he's finished racing the Honda at all. Terribly. Oh, and Marquez. Marquez scored points.

He actually got four points. He finished 15th due to attrition and he stayed on the motorcycle. Yeah. He's the only person who stayed on the bike all year, except for, you know, Renzi Kota. I'm like, wow.

Oh, that was good. That was good for Mark. Yeah, I think it was. I think it was good for him just to not fall off. We're being very glib about this race, but there was really not much to kind of make it noteworthy in any way, shape or form, other than the fact that it was, you know, again, a pretty dominant result for Bagnari, but it does.

Again, I don't want to repeat what I said earlier on, but it does very much highlight how track to track. You get very different results or different races with the same bikes out on track. So it's interesting to compare and contrast again. Silverstone for all of its well, not for all of its for its few faults. So it's done.

Well, I really like Silverstone, so I've been there so many times. But yeah, compare and contrast and two completely different races. One, a real kind of right down to the last lap, literally down to the last lap. And then this one where you just couldn't wait for the last lap to come. So and for it all to be over.

So hopefully better things await when we go next time to Catalonia, I think, isn't it? Catalonia is. This coming weekend, it's September one through three, and that coincides with Labor Day holiday bank holiday Monday for you guys, Richard, in your terms. So that's going to be fun. So at least you got an extra day to watch.

And we know bank holidays tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, is it? Thanks. Yeah.

Not not next weekend, unfortunately. But I mean, I was I never I just for whatever reason, I'm not a big fan of the Barcelona track. I don't know why. I just don't remember it really ever producing terribly great race in that one either. Although it's probably somewhere in the middle.

If you compare it with, say, Austria and Silverstone. But let's see what happens. But GKAT is on that straight. They're going to be hard to hard to contain, I think. Yeah, I do think that the people who've got a chance to run with them are going to be probably the KTMs.

And you might see a repeat. You might see you might see a bend. Ben, I have been bender combination. Do you think? Yeah.

Not to go back to silly season, but I'm going to ask this because I'm curious. Do you think Bastiani's got a ride on the factory team next year? Well, you do wonder if there's a a strange thing going to come along in terms of you got to also sort of have a bit of a conundrum in terms of who to put where at the minute, don't they? I can see Bez going there and I can see Bastiani sliding back to to pre-MAC. I rate Bastiani, I rate Bastiani.

I mean, it's just been terrible luck now, whether you call you. I don't know. I'm just I'm just curious. Yeah, I deep down, I think Ducati will honor his contract, partly because he was, again, very badly injured with that shoulder. And that might well still be quite troublesome for him, because shoulders are notoriously hard to fix over the short term, at least.

So maybe they'll they'll stick with it. But it really hasn't been the kind of inter team battle that we hoped and expected, has it at all? And there were a couple of people saying that Bastiani fitted so well within that Grissini set up, that sort of family atmosphere. And a few people in terms of journos, I don't know if it's Matt Oxley or something like that, kind of questioning how being in the works team, how that would either suit or not suit him, because it's very different. There's a lot more commitments.

There's obviously higher expectations. There's more money, but a lot more pressure and a completely different sort of atmosphere. Now, we haven't really got to see because because he was out. That was the first weekend, wasn't it, in Portimao, where he got taken out by Marini and bust his shoulder. And so far, he's the shadow of the rider that we saw last year.

So, hmm. But I mean, he did all that on Grissini bike. If he went back to Grissini, he had the same bike that he has this year, and he may become that rider again. Well, yeah, you never know. Again, it's people and it's people and rider and how they gel the onto all guard a thing.

Yeah. You do kind of get the feeling now. And it's obviously with the benefit of hindsight, but with the sort of year that I had a clumsy weekend in Austria for sure. But Martin's had a good year. He's kind of stood up, got his shoulders back and said, OK.

I mean, he's on a work bike. For goodness sake, he's just not in the full fat works team. But there's lots of support there. I'm sure lots of Ducati technicians operating in that Pramac setup. So he's not been given the particularly short end of the stick.

I don't think. But you can see why he would be feeling pretty smug about the fact that he's looking over and thinking, yeah, you should have put me there. I mean, possibly would be given Bagnard more of a run for his money. You can say I mean, that's happening in a parallel universe somewhere else. But that's not the scenario plan.

But yeah, but you do wonder what's going to happen with these Ducati's. I kind of deep down, I got a feeling Buzeki might stay put in the VL46 camp, you know, even if he will be on a year old bike. But it doesn't seem to have been a big problem for him this year. And you don't see why it would be a big problem for him next year. So in which case does Mourbidelli then slot into Pramac?

I mean, that's a big, big move if Mourbidelli ends up there, really, because he's coming off, what, two horrifying years on the Yamaha. But still highly rated. So on the best bike in the championship, you know, you never know what will happen. No, speaking of championship, let's look at the points. Yeah.

And finish this one up. So Benyaya is on 251 points. He leads Buzeki by 68 points. Not to look like a done deal, and it does seem like it feels like it. Anything can happen.

Anything can happen, but it sure feels like a done deal. Bender's on 160 and third, Zarko's on 125 and Marini's on 120, which is interesting. The only factory, the only factory Ducati is Benyaya, right? Because Buzeki's on a year old bike at Mooney. Zarko's on Pramac, and that's a factory Ducati bike, but not.

I don't think it's the same spec as Benyaya's. No, it's probably one step behind. One iteration of parts. One tiny step. Yeah.

Yeah. One small step. Bender's the factory KTM and the Marini is the other Mooney Ducati. Now, if you look at that from a championship standpoint again, I could see this happening. I could see Rossi getting full factory bikes next year.

It's plausible. It's plausible. Simon Crave, I did ask, oh, what's his name, is it Paolo Tribati? Oh, the tour guy. I didn't hear it.

Did ask him that at some point over the weekend. And it was a fairly clear cut. Now, we can only do four works bikes. I didn't hear that. So I take that back.

But I take your point. I mean, it is odd really that Valentino Rossi, I mean, you know, the goat, depending on your point of view, doesn't get works bikes in that team. It's always struck me as slightly odds with what you would expect, really. But, you know, contracts are there already with Pramac, I suppose. So if Ducati genuinely cannot produce another two and support two more full fat works bikes, then OK, there's your reason.

But then you got to ask yourself, does Rossi as the goat go someplace else? Well, yeah. I mean, if R&F, this is really speculative. If R&F can't put bikes on the grid, do you don't think Aprilia would want to be associated to Rossi? Oh, I'm sure he started out his career riding Aprilia's.

Yeah. Now, I believe from a historical point of view, Jim, arguably his relationship with Aprilia, as you're just alluding to, is better than Ducati, because I mean, the Ducati experiment when Rossi was riding did not go well. Yeah. But he did sign a deal as a brand ambassador for Yamaha. Yes, true.

And we were. What does that mean? I don't think that they would be on Yamaha's, wouldn't we? But maybe that is yet still to come at some point in the future. Once Yamaha.

Another new story I saw going back a couple of weeks now is that Yamaha, I think I don't know if Cal Crutchlow's wild carding at Mategi later in the year, but he's bringing kind of a next year's bike to run out on as a wild card at Mategi. Nice. The photo didn't look that different to this year's bike to me, but it's not really how it looks. It's what's underneath the key point there. But so we'll get to see a glimpse of what Yamaha have.

They could literally they could literally move, put an offset in the triple tree of one degree and it may solve everything. Yeah. Along with a millimeter of of of change in rear suspension. And it would solve the entire problem. And we would never be able to see it in pictures.

Crutchlow hasn't been pulling his punches in terms of what he's been saying to the press, he kind of said, I think something along the lines of this is Yamaha's last chance. In terms of what they give him next year and then he'll be gone. Where he goes is a different question, but he's not putting his punches. That's for sure. I mean, it's hard to say.

I mean, I get his desire to have a competitive motorcycle. You're wasting your best years. I get Marquez's desire for a competitive motorcycle so that he literally can finish off his years and try to get. He wants one, if not two more championships. Yeah.

I think we all know why. And I just don't know, are you are you willing? You know, I don't think there's any room at the end for it for those guys anywhere. The only one that you could maybe see happening is Quattro leaving for Prelia because Alasius, Alasius isn't going to ride all the time. Well, I think Alasius said he only wants one or two years maximum, and then he wants to retire.

You must go to a test rider and wild card or something. I think often cycle competitively like some of these guys do. But he's made it clear that he's not around for very, very much longer. But the thing is, if you're Prelia and you had a chance to snatch Quattro, would you? Yes, you would.

But what are you going to do? Are you going to throw vinyals out the door? Yes. Because, OK, Gary, would Gary would agree with you? Well, again, all you can do is much better weekend in terms of where you qualified.

But if you can't get off the line and we're always saying this, even back to the Amahd days, vinyals had difficulty getting a bike off the line, which is kind of curious in terms of how what a robotic exercise it is now in terms of all the electronics and you press this button and you just hold the throttle open and dump the clutch. So it's hard to understand really why he's consistently so troubled with his starts. But going back to the to the Valentino thing, I think the only thing we can say with absolute 100 percent car style and gold clad certainty is that he would never run Honda's as a satellite. That is never happening ever. Or not until he gets his NSR 500 anyway.

Yes, that's true. He promised and never got. So that might be a point to wrap up. But yeah, that's the only thing we can say with absolute certainty is that you will never see Honda in the VR46 garage. Not at all.

All right, folks, that's a very long show for two races. Hopefully we get you all caught up and we promise to do better getting shows out. It was just one of those things where Rich and I could not get together. And then you were at the Snedderton, I think, rich for BSB or Colville Park. Snedderton, I went to a little bit earlier and then I was at Throckston.

Throckston. OK, so it's Throckston. I was at Moto America in Pittsburgh, so that's a weekend that we lost there. But we'll get back to those on the next show until we come back to you again on the next show. Remember, everyone rides safe.

Cheers.