The Divorce is Final!

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 744. I'm Jim McDowell with me as always, Richard Jowett.

Richard, things are happening. It's like a news flash episode. Yeah, well, we kind of thought best to get this out because we've been waiting for certain bits of news to drop or things to become clear for what months now really and then all of a sudden it happens within the space of a few days, which is probably not coincidental. So we thought we'd just jump in before the triple header gets going. Parking the super bike special, that will come, but this kind of takes precedence really.

So yeah, here we are. Yeah. All right. So since we got a little bit of time here, I want to thank everybody who donates to the show. We haven't done that in a while.

That's our fault. But I want to thank Keith Kovach, Nick Saban, Alan Fleming, Gary Sheveet, Steve, Monk, Paul Lang, Hudson Kai, Cooper, Darren Andrews, Rob Freetis, Kyle Clark, Jacob Brower, Jeremy Bernich, and Dennis Kinnegan. You guys have really helped us out. We appreciate it. And it's our fault for not having a shout out there.

Remember, guys, if you like the show and you have a little bit of spare change, you can donate to the show. You can do that by going to our webpage, www.motopodcast.com. There's a donate button on the right-hand side. You could also do it from Patreon. So that's www.patreon.com forward slash Moto Pod.

And with that, Rich, let's just get right down to it. The divorce is now final. All parties have agreed to part ways. Mark Marquez is no longer a Honda factory rider, which we knew this was going to happen. The problem was, was he going to forfeit a year of money?

What was the deal? Where is he going to go? So we have all that to talk about. I guess we should start out by saying that officially no one has said where he is going. Mm hmm.

I have seen at this point for a point of reference, this is October 11th that we're recording this show on. So I think we all know that it's Grissini because that's the last spot that's available for him to go. There's no other room at the end at all. Well, it wouldn't make an awful lot of sense for him to go to the remaining LCR Honda seat, would it? So a Grissini really is the only place unless he's got some crazy plan to go and ride a Peticini Kawasaki or a super bike or something.

But I suspect we can pretty much work on the basis that he'll be a Grissini rider next year. Yeah. Given what we know, I think it's the logical option. Grissini's got the seat. Grissini's held that seat for some time.

So I think this has been in the works for quite a while to go there. And it's just taking its time to run through its course of who wants the house? Where are the kids going to go? Do we have to split the 50-50 on the sale of the house? What about the property we own?

I think it's one of those things that's happened. Now we've all gotten to that point. But as amicable as what it was talked about early on that Marquez would leave and basically Honda said, if you want to go, that's fine. We're not going to hold you to the contract. Apparently they've made some exceptions to the rule for him to leave.

And now he's started to get a bit of blowback from Alberto Pugge, who was all for all of this, but we're not going to keep anybody who doesn't want to ride our bikes. Now suddenly he's, you know, I don't know if this is true. I've seen it on a couple of different websites. We all know how the internet is, but that Marquez told them when he left that, hey, if you got a guy that finishes in the top five in the championship next year, I'll come back. Like, okay, that's, huh.

That's a scratcher moment. It always goes into overdrive, doesn't it? Obviously we're guilty of it as well, because we speculate endlessly on the show. I mean, that's part of the show, of course. Yeah.

Where'd you start? So, I mean, I don't think anybody really knew until the announcement came out which way this was going to go. I mean, we flip-flops, I think Jim, to be fair, haven't we? Thinking that he was going to leave and then thinking, no, he's going to stay. I mean, obviously we had the last round in Motegi.

The fact that there was no announcement that he was going to stay, you know, made during the Japanese Grand Prix weekend probably told everybody that this announcement was at last going to come. But it's still a shock when, you know, that press release came out on social media and through all the various channels. I mean, it was a genuinely shocking moment because this guy has never ridden another bike in the MotoGP class. So, I mean, it is a seismic shift. Now, I think without wishing to sort of pinch from other podcasts that I've listened to in the last few days, but one of the things that appears to be the case, although again, it's not official, but it does sound very much as though all of Marquez's crew at HRC stay put.

So whilst Honda might have been prepared to release him, they're not prepared to release everybody else that has such intimate knowledge of the inner workings of that team and the bike. Because obviously another rider has to come in and slot into that position as hard as that is going to be. So Marquez no doubt has had to give up certain things. And maybe that was obviously part of the negotiation that took place. He'll take a shed load of sponsorship with him to Grissini.

I mean, I'm no doubt there'll be truckloads full of cash of Red Bull money going to Grissini. So those bikes will probably look a bit different next year in terms of the sponsorship on them. And even though it's a year old bike, it's going to be a great bike, isn't it Jim? So I mean, the racing we've kind of, or I have certainly felt it's been a bit stayed at times this year, but I think we can really look forward to 2024 with Marquez even on a year old Ducati, because that is going to be a good bike. I mean, it is a great bike.

With him on it, I don't, I'm not going to sort of rush off and say he's going to win the championship, although I think he suddenly becomes a very strong contender for the championship now. And he's definitely going to be up there Dice in the top five virtually every weekend. I would suggest, I don't know what you think about this. So I mean, it's great news for the championship. It's obviously bittersweet for both parties in terms of the divorce that's happening.

But I think for the overall good of the sport, and it's a promoter's dream really from Dorne's point of view, I mean, this would be a great story, wouldn't it? If he's a genuine title contender and winning races next year. So there's much of this to look forward to, I think going forward. Well, there's a lot of things in there. So if I miss one of the things that you asked me about here, remind me as we go through.

First, I saw it on Crashnet that his crew can't go and because he wanted them to go. And the way it was written and applied, it wasn't Honda saying you guys can't go. It was DG Delinia saying, no, you guys aren't allowed to see what makes that bike tick. Now, they're saying that because KTM stole, hired away, however you want to take it, a lot of people who had intimate knowledge of how Kottis work. And suddenly now KTM is the second best bikes on the racetrack.

So apparently that knowledge has been used to make the KTM a much better motorcycle. Look at how they're getting away with their starts, their front end, the whole shot devices, obviously, probably more than likely a direct copy of what Ducati has. The rear ride height, probably a direct copy, if not very close, very close. So you have that. So that's the first thing, I think.

Second thing was like Dorna's dream. I'm not so sure about that. Dorna seemed to be very adamant or was, quote, tried very hard to work things out between Honda and Marquez. So they seem to have been some intermediary amidst all this, which from what I've read and can infer from multiple different sources, some of the journalists that we follow on Twitter are X, things like that. But the way the announcement at Motegi was basically Dorna showing up saying, hey, look, do you guys need all these concessions?

And we'll give these things to you. We'll somehow ram rod it through if you stay, blah, blah, blah. Now, I don't know how much of that's true or not, because I think Dorna's worried that Honda leaves much like Suzuki left. And there's no one to replace them. Now, I in no way, shape or form think Honda would ever leave MotoGP.

I personally cannot see it. I'm not saying that it won't happen or could not happen, but that has been something Honda has been in the world championship since what, 55 or 56, somewhere in that range. So it's been continuous through the worst of times, through the best of times, through the worst of times, through the best of times. Take your pick. They have been through it all and they've never left.

So I don't think that they're going to leave. So that's sort of a moot point. The promoting dream it does make me think that next year is going to be fascinating because you listen to a cow, Crutchlow says, he's like, hey, it's more than likely you're never going to know which way Marquez went if he was on Ducati. And he says, as a guy who rode with Marquez on the same bike that Marquez has, he says, I know what he did. I can see the data.

I know what he did. I know how he did it. I couldn't do it. That's pretty, I mean, I get it. Crutchlow is a test rider for Yamaha, but just the plain fact that he would even admit that Marquez could do something with a motorcycle that he could not do was definitely not even remotely in what I would think he would say.

I can't remember, but Matt Oxley has an article about the divorce and he talks about, I can't remember if it was a rider or if it was an engineer. I might have to look it up real quick while we're talking, but the person said no one's going to see which way he went. If Marquez has a sniff of being able to be near the front, he's going to win or come close to winning. The thing of it is that he's got to learn how to use the rear brake on the Ducati, but you do have to throw it in sideways, which Marquez is more than capable of doing. And you use that to turn the corner because if you look, the two guys that hang the back end out, well, I'm sorry, I'll say three guys that hang the back end out the most, Martine, Benyaya, Bender, and those are the guys that have been consistently fast.

Now, speaking of those three guys come next year, the mistakes that Benyaya has made and the mistakes that Martine has made, not Mir, cannot be made if Marquez is on that Ducati. Even if it is a year old Ducati, he will ruthlessly destroy you because if you make that mistake, he is going to take the maximum points and he is going to make it hurt when you do it. I feel like this season, both Benyaya and Martine have had golfing term mulligans, some do-overs that they've kind of gotten away with. Cota being one for Benyaya that stands out, obviously. That's not going to happen if Marquez is on that Grissini bike.

Now, all the money, I'm guessing that there will be a huge influx of cash from Red Bull to Grissini, but I also think Mark is probably going to throw some money in himself because I think the money that he was stood to earn, again, this is from Maddox, no one knows exactly what he gets, precisely or who it's from, but the number that's always bandied about is he gets 40 million euros a year. Now, I'm assuming he's getting that money from Honda, even though he's not going to ride the bike because of their mutual agreement, maybe that's part of what it was because he wants that money to fund his fun on Grissini's bikes. I don't know, but either way, what this does set in motion is an incredibly complicated, silly season that will start in Qatar in 2022. Or no, where does the season start? It will start in Qatar.

Even though we're going to Qatar at the end? Really? Yeah, because it's the only reason it's so late in Qatar this year is because they've done all this big redevelopment of the pits and all the facilities there, so they'll be back to their usual opening spot again from next year. If that's the case, then yes, we will be talking about silly season early on. Fascinating, to say the least, of what this does.

This puts into motion some crazy things that are going to happen. I just don't know where to start. I mean, so many thoughts go through my head in terms of things I want to say really, and I'm sure the listenership will be the same. I mean, there'll be so many different opinions on this. What's clearly going to be really fascinating as the season unfolds is we know that the 2023 bike that Marques starts the season on next year, at least equal best to what the 2024 works to Qatar will be, because that will just be a minor evolution of what they've already got.

So the interesting question for me is, as the year goes on, does satellite bike start to suffer? Because although Marques may well take some of his own money or certainly a shed load of sponsorship money, I don't necessarily think that translates into extra stuff coming across from Ducati. It probably translates into more personnel in the box, probably, just to bolster the overall effort. Although Grissini is a very, very professional, well-functioning squad, as we've seen for years now. So then the question becomes, if the bike starts to fall behind a little bit in the development path, how much does the Marques factor make up the difference?

And does he continue that fight all the way to the end just by dint of his pure talent, which has never gone away? Yeah, he's a few years older and he's been knocked about a lot. We know that. But I mean, this is Mark Marques we're talking about with the prospect now of winning another championship on a different maker motorcycle with the distinct possibility that this could be a one year deal. And then he jumps on the KTM and does the same thing again in 2025.

So, you know, he's got all of that in front of him. And if he's looking to cement a legacy, I guarantee you, Jim, he's doing this for free at this point, because he doesn't need any more money in the bank. Of that, I'm very really convinced. So let's talk about 2025. Let's get Silly Season started here.

I think everyone will agree that this Grissini deal is a one year deal. There's no way around this. Because everybody's contracts are basically up at 2024. There is rampant speculation across all sources from everybody that Marques is going to figure out how these Ducatis work and take all that knowledge to KTM or whatever. And he's going to be on a KTM.

The reason this kind of is being talked about, even though it's kind of a wild and crazy rumor, is the fact that previous to this, Jack Miller was told, hey, you better step it up, bud, because your contract can be revoked too. And that just added fuel onto the fire that he's going to KTM as well. I agree with you. If he somehow magically wins a 2024 title, jumps to KTM and somehow magically would to win a title on that, call it a day because you've done something no other person has done. You would have won back to back titles on different bikes.

Okay, yeah, Rossi did that. So that's not the point. But you have done it on three different machines, which Rossi did not manage to do. Rossi did not manage that trick. I don't know.

That must be a big target for Marquez to get that box ticked. That's a huge motivation for him. People will be saying, well, hang on a minute. Why would Ducati let him do one year on the bike, even if he wins a title and then go? But Ducati don't necessarily have a huge amount of input on this, although they've been saying the right things over the last few weeks.

But I think that's more of a fait accompli kind of situation because Christina can hire who the hell they want. From their point of view, even if Marquez is only on that bike for a year, if he was to win the championship on it, that would be just mega for them. So with the exception of the Ducati factory, this works for just about everybody, I think, even if he was only there for a year. So a lot of this stuff does make logical sense to me. I think the KTM rumors will be, well, we're already kind of speculating on it now and we're not the first to do that.

It's going to just keep going, isn't it? And if he is really effective on the Ducati early doors next year, even if we haven't heard anything about signings, I'm sure KTM will be swooping in there to get him because again, it's a PR dream and factoring the Red Bull factor as well. It just makes sense, doesn't it? There's lots of things that have to happen in the correct order before we get to that, but that is a logical progression that I could see happening. Yeah.

So let's talk about who potentially replaces Marquez at the hole that's there now in HRC. You have to wonder if Zarco goes there to partner Mir, perhaps. But if you were Honda, and I'm putting my Honda engineering hat on here for the moment, if I wanted to develop a bike in public, I wouldn't want to do it in my factory team. I would very much like to do it with Johan Zarco in the LCR team. That's where I'd want to do it.

So perhaps maybe Zarco does not move up to the factory team and he simply stays put. That's one scenario. If Zarco stays put, the question becomes, who do they get? Well, it has been branded about that Olivera is the leading candidate to take that, leave the RNF squad, partially because we believe through other new sources that Olivera's contract with RNF has a get out clause if a factory team comes calling. So if a factory team wants him, he can get out of the contract and, hey, go there.

We know Mir's staying. If you put Olivera next to him, that's probably not a bad combination of guys who I think could work together well to sort the motorcycle out. So that's there. Now it's also been bandied about that Lekawanna is going to be moved to maybe the LCR team if Zarco gets put up. But he's also supposed to still ride World Superbike.

So I guess he rides an LCR when he can and commits to World Superbike. And when Lekawanna can't, Rattle substitutes for him at LCR. Well, I was having a little exchange, a very good-natured exchange with somebody on X about this. Oh, the Racing Arm chair. He's a great contributor on X.

If you don't follow him already, go and look him up and subscribe. He sort of put out the shout, who should HRC take on? And I immediately said, my personal view, and obviously it counts for nothing really in the overall scheme of things, is that, well, let's just backtrack a little bit. I've read a few things that have said that Lucio Ciaccianello is being quite firm over the fact that whilst Zarco is an HRC contracted rider, he's contracted to ride at LCR. So if Zarco is to go over to the work squad, Lucio wants him in return.

Cash probably. Yeah, not for himself, for the team. So the Zarco thing is possibly a little bit complicated. And I agree with you, actually, Jim. I think Zarco could pick up his traditional Ducati role of being the Uber tester and do it slightly more quietly at LCR.

But that doesn't change the fact that the dynamic in the work squad now changes massively that Marquez is going, or let's say will be gone. Do they galvanize around Joanne Meir? Does this sort of become now the kind of the Suzuki-ish type squad that we thought might happen when Ken Kawaguchi joined the squad and obviously Meir who he engineered to a world championship a couple of years ago, or 2020 was it? 2020. But who do they put in that other seat?

Personally, for me, my point that I made on Twitter, sorry, X to the Racing Armchair, was I think they just go and shop for somebody that's exciting in moto too, because I don't really see why it makes a lot of sense for Olivera to go across. Yeah, I know it's a works bike, but I think he's in a good position with Aprilia, and there will be one or two seats in the work squad at Aprilia coming up in a year or so's time. And I just think Honda needs a complete reset really. Yeah, they need to get busy testing, and Darko is a good guy to help them with that. But at the same time, I think they just bring a young gun in.

My vote was Alonso Lopez, because as much as I find some of his antics on track a bit distasteful, and I do, I've always said the same thing about Mark Marquez. I think you just bring somebody in that's got the talent, got the desire, doesn't know anything about the MotoGP bike, so just gets on it and rides it, and hopefully it develops in a certain direction with Mir and Koichi kind of perhaps starting to lead that now, maybe kind of making it, well not making it a Suzuki, but because you can't do that overnight. But do you know what I mean, just kind of trying to take it away from the Marquez direction and turn it into a bit more of an all-rounder. That I think is what Honda want to do, and I suspect this might have been part of their kind of position on the whole Marquez issue, which is that look, he's not going to be around forever, he doesn't want to be here anymore, so let's just stop this nonsense and let's go off in a different direction. Yeah, they lose a bit of face over it, but at least they get a chance to reset.

So to me, oh and the other bonkers one I saw was that Honda were going to go and try and get Maverick Vinales. I mean that makes no sense to me whatsoever, again for him and for them, because he's kind of making sensible progress on the Aprilia, isn't he, but it's all a bit kind of shaky in terms of the race day performance, and I just, he's not known to be a development rider, and would he do any better on the Honda? I think he'd just have a season throwing it up the road personally, as Mir has found. So yeah, that's my kind of view, Jim, but it's a tricky, tricky puzzle to solve, the HRC one, because they are in such dire straits, and by the way, something you said earlier on, I think is absolutely bang on the money, Dorna were actually desperate for Marquez to stay, because they do not want HRC leaving the championship. Now I'm with you, I don't think that would happen, but Dorna know more about it than we do, so there's obviously something to that, but hopefully HRC just see that the riders on the wall now, they've just got to go back to sort of the beginning almost, and look towards this being either run the clock in terms of the new regs coming in, and you can bet your bottom dollar Honda have got plenty to say about what the 2027 regs are going to be, a bit like when the four stroke category first came in, I mean they will look at this as an opportunity to reset the playing field, somewhat in their favour, so either they run the clock, or they just do genuinely now try and kind of stop trying to do things their way, and do what the KTM have done so effectively, and what Aprilia are starting to do so effectively, and that is look at what Ducati have done, say right, let's do some of what they're doing, and recruit the people that need to do it, and take the technical direction in that direction, Suzuki did it very effectively, and so they've got a couple of lynchpins in that team now, which they could now start to leverage to get them somewhere on the road towards that level of progression, so let's see.

Yeah, that's a lot there, I mean yeah, I think this is a case of Honda needs to take two steps back to go forward, I think we've seen that before at different times, and occasionally they get their sums spot on, I give you the five cylinder at the beginning of the 990 era, that was like no one saw that one coming, but hey, if you're the people who are writing the rules for four strokes, you're going to ride to your advantage, and they did, the question then is how much say does Honda have in the 2027 regs, as a team do they have the power to say hey, we don't want rear ride height adjustment, we whole shot device, okay fine, wings need to be sort of cut back to like a couple of rakes that are on the upper fairing, and they got to be located in a very specific area, and so no more of these things that are starting to sprout up around the swing arms and off the brake covers and all this other stuff there. I do like your thought of Lopez being taken from Moto2, because he's on the Bosca Cora, correct, and he's obviously driving some of that development to make that bike what it is, so he might be a good person to look at as far as that. It's just so much, there's so much here that's going to unfold, but I think that's like the basis of it, I think we've covered pretty much all of it, I think about Marquez, is there any major point we haven't talked about yet? I don't think so, I mean as you said right at the very beginning, this is not official that he's at Grissini, but of course this is what is going to happen, but what all the intricacies around it are we are yet to find out, and obviously a big part of that will be how does that team shape up for next year, and I mentioned this a couple of episodes ago, I feel a little bit for Alex Marquez in a way, because he's going to be so sort of thrown into the shadows on this one, I do wonder what he really feels about this deep down, we'll never know, and I mean I'm not suggesting for one moment, even though Marquez kind of said it a few years back, but I don't think Alex is the rider that Marquez is, he's a very good rider and he's won a sprint race this year, so he's proven that, and he did he had a few decent performances on the Honda for goodness sake, so you know that puts him a cut above a few other people you could mention, but none of this sort of plays terribly brilliantly for Alex Marquez I don't think, but on the other hand brothers in the team they obviously love each other and spend a lot of time together, and you know I think they might even live together actually, so although I'm sure they don't really kind of occupy the same space because I'm sure it's quite a large property, but with the means that they have at their disposal, but so the whole dynamic around Grissini next year I think is going to be very interesting to see how that builds up, and I hope things transpire as the year goes on in 2024. Yeah this is one of those things where I would like a very well done insider documentary series a la Drive to Survive, because seeing this dynamic inside of Grissini would be fantastic, alas if we were not making that.

Well I'm not so sure, I think Dorna will be doing everything they can so that every other person in that garage has got a camera attached to them, because they will milk this Jim for everything that they can possibly get away with won't they? I mean let's face it they're still living off the Rossi kind of shadow at the moment to some extent, so with Marquez back towards the front or at the front they'll just milk it for everything it's worth, and why wouldn't they? I mean you know he's box office isn't he? So and we need it, I mean the championship needs it as good as the kind of the Bizeki, Bagnari, Martín thing is, it's very Marquez in it, I mean unfortunately and I'd say that with inverted commas, you know it's another Ducati which is the only sort of negative point of this I think, but who's to say KTM don't come out with another big development next year or a significant evolution of what they've currently got? I mean the carbon fiber chassis clearly that is a step forward, we're going to talk about KTM now I think aren't we?

Yeah we're going to go we can't rule them out, particularly with some of the talent that they've got now that we know what's going on, so I guess that segues quite neatly. Yeah so we finally figured out the math at KTM, how you put five into four, well you eliminate Paul Spargeroe and you throw a pager across on a gas gas, I feel sorry for Paul that he is being tossed to the curbs because of a cost is contract and mainly you know, hey he he he tacked yeah how does this he suffered massive injuries in an accident that's not it's well beyond his control like he couldn't do that right he had no control over it and for him to be basically thrown out under the circumstances is a little difficult to see but to be honest, Paul's time at HRC really diminished his power to dictate where he was going to go right he went back to tech three so he went back to a satellite team hoping to like rekindle the magic that had happened that got him up to the HRC right you know saw something in him put him there but that that's not back it hasn't come back I'm not saying it won't come back but he is going to get a bunch of wild cards to be able to wild card and you know kind of stay there because along with the cost of going there KTM still is after LCR to have two more bikes on the grid KTM wants more presence on the grid than they have and they have one more brand that I guarantee you they want to have out there they want a set of pristine white and blue motorcycles out there let's say Husqvarna on it they do that is what they want they you know they're looking around at Dorna and you almost have to wonder if somewhere in all these conversations of Mark and Dorna and LCR and KTM and HRC if it isn't bandied about like look we'll put you know KTM's in hey look we'll put two more bikes on the grid and we'll but we get Marquez and Acosta heck Honda can have concessions you know we'll somehow figure it out with Ducati you know that we'll you know you can't have these you will get concessions for these guys so they're the intrigue is almost as good as Formula One nowadays into the back door rooms that are going on because KTM wants to be a power player in this series and you know they feel like they've bought their seat at the table and they've ante'd up and they want more so I'm not sure where all this goes but I am looking forward to seeing Acosta on the big bike that's for sure yeah it's a rough deal for Polis Bargrove but without wishing to sound too kind of unkind and he's been in MotoGP quite a long time now I think it's 10 years it must be approaching that I was just trying to work it out when he first arrived because of course he started off on the Tech3 Yamaha didn't he customer bike and that was a properly customer Yamaha at that stage so okay you wouldn't but he came in as the reigning Moto2 champion didn't he haven't come across from the Pons team which he won the championship on again forgive me I can't remember the year so he had two or three years on the Tech3 Yamaha from memory serves because he was teammate to Bradley Smith for most of that time then both of them went across to the fledgling KTM works squad the two bikes when KTM first entered he must have been on that for three years I reckon if not four and then obviously had the all-fated two years at HRC and now back in KTM on the Tech3 bike so has he had top line equipment no because he's either been on customer bikes or developing a works bike so he's kind of had the rough end of the stick a bit but he is notorious for crashing and he crashes big as well so and whilst I totally agree with you Jim I mean the Portimaire crash in was it free practice too or something it was late in the afternoon it was cold yeah he's just got a cold cold cold tire and hit a barrier that nobody thought a rider would ever reach so and that was a very very very serious accident as well that he had and he's probably still not really fully fit certainly not mentally probably recovered from that that would take some time to get over so you know I mean the word that keeps coming up when you listen to people more in the know than we are is hubris when talking of KTM because they clearly thought they could just buy or get two extra bikes on the grid no questions asked and you know they've been put in their place so they kind of landed themselves in this position where they had contracted riders and not enough bikes to put them on so they've got serious egg on their face and unfortunately Paul Aspargaro is the victim of that now if the rumors around kind of LCR or if the can or if the talks about another two bikes onto the grid keep going on and eventually dawn of relent I mean that could still happen I suppose then perhaps there's a route back for poll you know on one of those seats you know because they if they've got another two bikes and they can shuffle the riders that they've got or if they can't get LCR you know maybe Jack Miller goes back to LCR where he started off when he first came up you know on the on that kind of very sort of customer Honda sort of the road bike ERCV if you remember yeah when he first arrived so again there's all sorts of different connotations to how this sort of shapes up but none of this really reflects terribly well on KTM as we've said several times because they've just got a terrible reputation for you know promising people the earth and then sacking the mid-session or or just reneging on contracts you know it's not great really but like you Jim I think they will continue to push very very hard for those two extra bikes whether they get new grid slots or whether they just buy another team I cannot understand why Dorna will not let them have the two empty grid slots that makes no sense to me you can attach your your Dorna you can attach any kind of little you can amend the contract or whatever again we talked about this I think about Dorna says it's got to be a full factory however Husqvarna isn't a full factory it's just KTM KTM's got the money so just tell them hey look you can have this but we are not forking out what was it the 10 million euros that Dorna pays the satellite teams to to be there like no just tell them no they'll find somebody to pay it I mean it just really seemed to be well take it out of the Husqvarna marketing playbook or whatever I it just seems so ludicrous to me that they're holding steadfast on that because if they would if if some buzzer candy nets we all have a very merry christmas but if they would have relented and if they would have allowed two more bikes on the grid and they would have been Husqvarna's Acosta goes to a Husqvarna with Marquez right next time that's that is like that's like a I mean if you want marketing greatness there's I think that sells a few more seats slash more bikes if it's that versus being on a Grissini I am not trying to downplay Grissini as a team that is not the point of this it's just I think from a marketing put people in stands and sell motorcycles I think it's a little better to go that way. You know what though Jim I've thought about this a lot in the last couple weeks we keep talking about this don't we this this kind of conundrum about why the two extra stocks and we've kind of speculated well maybe it's because they want BMW to show up when the new regulations come along if the if those regs are kind of palatable to another big company like BMW I mean I don't think we can let's say underestimate the significance of top rat razzgatti oglu going to BMW because there could be a MotoGP ride at the end of that or being spoken about but I just wonder if Dorna are taking a as you would expect them to do and they should do taking a very sort of strategic i.e long-term view of this and thinking to themselves look do we really want to end up back in the kind of late the 80s and the 90s where we effectively had two factories and that was the championship you know i.e do we just want this to be a ducati versus ktm battle you know with the risk that they've lost Suzuki you know Yamaha in all sorts of bother at the moment a Honda you know perhaps not quite as dire and things depending on how they handle things as we've just been talking about but it is still a risk so I think Dorna are running scared that the Japanese might just bail completely at this point because that's you know they have really fallen behind for various different reasons which we've spoken about a lot and I just wonder if Dorna look at the championship and think it's basically a ducati cup at the minute as does we like to say with an occasional interloper do they really want it you know to give KTM that much sway and that much power and giving them another two bikes has given it to them I just wonder if they think that's just a bit of a step too far and they just want to kind of not disenfranchise the remaining Japanese factories too much and at the same time they also want to try and entice somebody else to come in that feels as if they might have a fighting chance of you know doing something worthwhile because look we've lost Suzuki we lost Karasaki so I mean you know companies come and go I mean that's just the nature of championships but you know they don't want clearly Dorna do not want to go back to that situation where you basically just have two factories and if you're not on one of those bikes you're out so I just wonder if that's part of the calculation that they're making that which is that we've got to look very long term here and we've got a new set of regulations coming and we need some other blood coming in here and we certainly don't want to lose what we've already got because we've lost enough already yeah I you have you make an excellent point and it's very possible that that's what happens they again we don't know all the inner workings of what's happening but very logical argument and well placed to be honest with you BMW could come there's no question about that I wouldn't worry about Honda leaving as much as I'd worry about Yamaha giving up the ghost well I agree yeah that's that's where I would be with that one anyway that's the KTM fiasco slash so a problem solving session there with pit buyer we'll just go on the chest of a few more tidbits of news Bizecki broke his collarbone while training at the VR 46 ranch it was pinned and plated and he's traveling to Indonesia in an attempt to ride but I even if he did ride he's going to be if you could pull off the superhuman effort of one Jorge Lorenzo from asin in 2015-ish time frame and we're to somehow magically even be able to finish fifth it's his championship is over considering where he lies in there it's interesting that Luca Marini also has a broken collarbone same thing same same surgery plate pinned and going to Indonesia as well for the next race if Bizecki cannot ride there will be no reserve rider there will be no replacement rider I should say not a reserve rider although well it was so interesting just to see everybody go oh Rossi's gonna ride on his team in a one-off guys did you not know what car racing show that Rossi's doing that car thing he he's kind of got a job racing other things and hey they're on the same day yeah and he's doing pretty well yes he is as well yes he is now so be happy that Rossi has a team that he has a motorcycle team and be happy that he occasionally shows up to watch his team and just enjoy that because that's all you're gonna see of Rossi in a motorcycle that has passed he's racing cars and that's that he might even be racing a BMW hypercar at Le Mans next year just for that speed so speaking of cars rich there was a Formula One race that happened at Qatar and we know that Qatar had restructured the curbs there to the FIA as FIA yeah the FIA FIM specification of the tuberone style shark t curb whatever however you want to look at it and that caused a world of problems now when that first came started out the weekend Lewis Hamilton's goes F1 has a track limits problem much like MotoGP has a track limits problem right we maybe don't have it to the extent that Formula One has it but they have it. Hamilton said hey with these new curbs you've definitely solved it because we cannot get out there on the curb you go too far on the curb take too much curb the car just gets pounded by the by the interrupted teeth of the curb in fact they were getting pounded so bad that the there was a harmonics issue with the sidewall rubber that Pirelli has on the car to where they said look you guys can't do any more than 18 laps on a set of tires so there's a huge problem with that curb and those Pirelli tires now Pirelli did not test there with those tires for Formula One I will say that but it does make me think when MotoGP goes there I what's going to happen with those curves we've all we all looked at those intently when it came out that this was being done and we all said I mean think about if the Formula One car is getting a set of harmonics through it what the rider is going to have I mean we're talking about it being let's not call it dangerous let's call it unsafe that like you create a harmonic that becomes a big tank slapper that you can't save so we have more crashes I don't think the tires are going to be an issue like the Formula One cars are but I do think that going to Qatar is going to be very interesting and I know you're going to be there so your job is going to be try to suss out as much as you can about the curves and what they what is being done said etc about it because that's apparently might be a solution but it may not be the proper solution for everyone. I booked my flights yesterday Jim as it happens.

Did you? Excellent. Look a little bit later than I should have done it but yeah so we're definitely going. I'm not entirely sure that they're not going to change the curves. I think that they were a sort of a very extreme curve for Formula One and that the FIM version is a little bit less extreme which is a bit bizarre that they would then have to take all those curves out on however many corners they are and replace them I mean that's clearly not something that could be done everywhere because there's a huge cost involved in that.

But yes that will be something to look at because I mean those Formula One curves I mean as a rider if you fell off your bike for one reason or another or you had to come together with another bike and you're sliding down the road you do not want to be going through ridges and valleys like that with arms and legs flailing because they will just you know that is not a good outcome so I can't envisage that those curves are going to be acceptable to any any formal bike race and let alone MotoGP but we'll certainly keep a close eye on how that one plays out because as you say Jim I mean it was a bit of a farce in the end wouldn't it really in terms of what happened in the Formula One race because as you say the time my understanding I'm not obviously not a kind of a rubber material specialist but the the rubber was breaking down at the molecular level because of the sheer amount of stress that was being put onto the rubber compound over those curves so what as you say whilst that wouldn't necessarily be such an issue for the tyres on a bike certainly you wouldn't want to be departing from your bike and going over those curves because that is not going to end well so yeah we'll keep an eye on that. I'm trying to think what that point started off as because we've strayed into Formula One territory which we also we won't do but so. We had talked about car racing with Rossi and so that prompted me to remember that happened. That's how I drug us into this whole despair that we are in now. Yeah and BMWs are cars too.

All right so the thing I'm thinking about is I'm trying to think if there is a world superbike race before MotoGP goes there I do not know. They don't race in Qatar anymore. Okay I know they used to. Yeah they don't any longer. You can't tell who's on off schedule anymore it just seems to be rather ridiculous but I think that pretty much covers everything we wanted for this show just a quick wrap up of news which wasn't quick.

No it never is. So I think with that we will end this show get this out for you guys before we go into the triple header we go to Indonesia the Malika circuit then we go to Australia then to Thailand. Correct. Then it's a week break and then we go to Malaysia Qatar Valencia to round out the season on three on the trot. So with all that said I'll remind you to ride safe.

See you next time.