Qatar Special #4: Last Of The Paddock Chats

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. Right, so here we are, race day, in the car with Simon Patterson from the race, as many of you will know, and we'll see on Twitter or X, whatever you call it these days. Simon has been unbelievably generous and kind to me, chaperoning me around, driving me to and from the circuit, so thank you Simon very much indeed for that.

You say that, but also you have to put up with both my driving and Katari traffic, so I'm not quite sure that it's a win or a loss in the balance of things. Certainly the traffic is quite alarming at times here, let's just put it like that. But a couple of questions to MotoGP Simon. Honda for 2024 are assembling quite a skill set in terms of the riders that we, well, one of whom we believe will be there. I don't know if Marini is official yet, but I think that's pretty much a done deal, isn't it?

Yeah, it sounds like it's pretty much a done deal, like they're just finalising things. Yeah, on the face of it, it's a bit of a strange choice to fit into a bit of a strange line-up, but I think whenever you look at it, actually the three riders in particular that they have in Zarco, Mir and now Marini, it's actually a really strong line-up, because they all bring something to the project, I think, that maybe even Marques didn't, in terms of traffic trying to take a struggling project out of trouble and making it successful again. We know why they signed Zarco, he comes with a mountain of experience, he comes with proven race winning speed now, which he didn't even have when they signed him, but it's been there since. There's a lot of good reasons for him being there. But actually, speaking to him and Mir about Marini over the last few weeks, both of them made quite strong endorsements of why they'd send the Italian as well.

Zarco's way of putting it was that, first of all, he said that Marini is, this is a very Zarco thing to say, because on the face of it, it's an insult, but it's not meant as one. He said that Marini was not one of the most talented riders in the grid, but that he was at the same level as everyone else in the grid, and that had to mean that it was due to hard work, which is exactly what Honda needs right now. They need a hard working rider who really, you know, understands what he's talking about. Zarco also said that despite Marini not having as much Ducati experience as he does, he thinks that he probably understands that he does Mercedes better, which is quite an interesting take as well. It really sort of lies to, you know, he's got that Valentino Rossi skill of really studying a bike and really spending hours with the data guys and the crew chiefs and the engineers.

And I think we're starting to see that in his results at the minute with the VR46. And I just say it was very noticeable on Friday evening when the riders came into the media center to do their debriefs that Marini was the only one that came in still leathered up. So he'd obviously been in the garage that whole time. Exactly. Which is exactly what you're talking about.

And that's normal. That's every day that we speak to Luca. He's most likely to be the one still in his leathers at kind of any point in the day because he's not left the garage yet, which is quite funny. There's a random Amola walking in. The things you see.

Then talking to Mir, Mir's point was a, I don't want to say it was a dig in Mark Marquez because it's more state than a fact, but the point that he made was that Marini's, we know, super smooth rider, super sensitive rider. And that that's the sort of writer that's able to give really good feedback because they understand exactly what the bike's capable of doing. And then he said, unlike some riders here just complain animals and the brakes and ride around all the problems on the bike. Mark. So like I said, not a dig because we know that that's what Mark Marquez's riding style is.

And we know from history that super talented riders are not the best riders to develop a bike historically. So what they've done instead is they've got someone the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of less talented, more hardworking. Not that Mark Marquez isn't a hardworking rider, but you know, he doesn't have the same studious reputation as Marini because he doesn't need to have it. Yeah. So they've done really well to pull together a really strong team kind of out of nowhere because, you know, there's no two ways of looking around it, is there?

Mark left them in the lurch essentially. Yeah. And deciding what three, four rounds to go that he was leaving and leaving them to find someone. And actually it's worked out pretty well for him. And do you have a sense with Marquez out of the HRC picture from a development and bike characteristics point of view?

I mean, it's very interesting to see what happened to Joanne Meir going forward from here, but with this team that we're talking about, do you have a sense of where Honda are going to try and go in terms of the characteristics of this bike? I mean, for me another reason why Marini is a good fit for the bike is that fundamentally one of the issues with the RC213 is that whenever you look at it, it looks like the same bike it was 10 years ago. Yeah. It still looks like a bike that was physically built for Danny Pedroza. It's small, it's compact, which is all well and good whenever we didn't have aerodynamics and ride height devices that have kind of fundamentally changed how you need a MotoGP bike to be physically.

Yeah. The fact that they're putting Marini, who's the tallest rider on the grid, onto the bike, it can only be a positive. He's going to force them to make changes to it. It's going to have to become literally bigger to fit him onto it. Meir was quite amused at the concept of seeing him on it for the first time.

He said, there's going to be knees and elbows stuck everywhere. And it made him laugh. It's going to be Ben Speasish. It is exactly because Luca is a big guy and the Ducati barely fits him. That for me is a change that Honda needs to make.

We've been talking about how they're still building a bike for the 2018 road book. Essentially, they're building a bike that doesn't play to the strengths of what the rules allow you to do. Now, that's something that Ducati well, Ducati are the guys that wrote those rules, basically pushed them forward. Aprilia and KTM have done very well to adapt very quickly to following those rules and slowly, slowly, slowly Yamaha are getting there in their own kind of uniquely Yamaha way. But if Marini's literal physicality is what can drive them to make it a bit better, then you know, it's another reason why signing him is the right move.

Yeah. One other thing, because I know we need to concentrate on driving here, not getting lost a bit at the circuit shortly, but this whole debate and for over front tire pressures and the rule that exists now, how did we arrive here? I mean, the easy answer is COVID because the European manufacturers were able to keep developing all the way through COVID and build those right head devices and those wings that have changed the whole nature of the sport. Michelin were kind of slowed down a lot in their development during the same process. And I think for the first time, the first time that I can recall, we've ended up in this weird situation where bike development has moved far, far faster than the entire development has.

So the end game is that the front tire just can't cope anymore with the forces that the bikes are, but no, we're breaking later. We're accelerating earlier. There's more pressure, there's more force. And yeah, the result of that is that tire development has been left behind. It doesn't help that the rules really, really restrict what's available in terms of testing time.

Cause we've got like six days of pre-season testing, seven days, whereas 20 years ago you would just send a rider with a big mountain of tires to a circuit of their choice and let them ride for as long as they wanted until they were comfortable with a new tire and Michelin had loads of data. But we can't do that anymore. And when we go to tests and there's a new tire to test or there's something for Michelin to try, what we inevitably hear is we ask at the end of the day how it was. And the rider says, Oh, we didn't have time to try that. We were too busy working on our own bike.

And that's the nature of restricted testing time. We needed two years ago, whenever we came out of the COVID bubble, we should have added one day onto every test and said, you're only allowed at a Bentley and if you're using whatever Michelin tell you to use. If we'd done that, the new tire wouldn't be coming in 2025. It would be coming in 2024. And then we'd be in much less of an issue.

I'm worried about next season and what it's going to do to the level of race. And my worry is that it's going to just make it very, very processional and boring the way we've seen in quite a few races this year already. It's worth pointing out, I think that Martin, is it fair to say he kind of deliberately ended up in what was it fourth place at Sepang because he just could not risk that front tire and getting another, what would have been a much harsher penalty already been on a warning. Exactly. It would have been a three second penalty that would have cost him even more points than taking that calculated risk to finish where he finished.

Yeah. No one wants to see races decided that way. That's not fun. You know, I think tire degradation and managing tires through race distance, I think that's part of motorsport and it's interesting, but I think having to essentially gamble on what your pressure is going to be before the race starts and then hope that it all works out for you is everything else is headed to boring. Yeah.

Well, that's very interesting. Thanks for that insight, Simon. Just before we sign off, I just want to take this opportunity again to thank Simon for doing lots of taxing with me around because that's been a great help and saved me on lots of Ubering over the last three days. Simon is involved as some of you might have seen with a campaign where they raise money to provide medical equipment and now ambulances in fact, to Ukraine, a very worthy cause. There's a website racing for Ukraine.

I'll put a link up to it through the socials. If anybody can put a few quid in that pot, like we always ask you to do in the Moto Pod pot as well, that's an even worthy cause naturally. So if you can do that, please do. Hopefully after Valencia, once I beg, borrow and steal across the MotoGP paddock, there'll be a quite a few bits and pieces going on eBay as well to auction off to raise some stuff. So if you fancy a pair of riders' boots or pair of gloves or even a set of leathers that we've been promised from one in particular, it'd be a great present.

Absolutely. Yes. And again, that all that information is available to see via the website that I mentioned and that we'll sort of tweet out, put on the website and so on. So yeah, Simon, thanks. Great talking to you and enjoy your off season.

You've definitely earned it. Thank you very much. Cheers mate. Stuart, morning. Richard from Moto Pod.

Hello. I bumped into you in the BSP paddock a few times. People might be interested to know, sorry I'm recording this, I hope that's okay. I've been trying to get you one day, so people probably don't know the extent to which you take part in race direction on the MotoGP side of things. How often are you up in the race control?

I think this is about my seventh or eighth this year, so I'm actually part of the stewards, which obviously they are coming for a fair amount of stay by a function called the appeal panel. So basically if a rider or a team is not satisfied with the penalty that's applied by the stewards panel, which is the one that Freddie Spencer people probably know sits on, then certain penalties are able to be appealed and then I would hear that independently. So not particularly a frequent thing, but I mean Qatar's quite a relevant one. I mean, a few years ago, I think 2018 or 2019 was the big event, host event, where everyone protested the Ducati aerodynamic devices that were on the bottom of the fairings. So that was a very complex regulatory, pseudo legal thing which landed on my desk.

So that's kind of my role. So it's much different to what I do with BSP, which is seat in the pants race direction. This is more sort of legalistic. So I'm not sure, like the on-site lawyer. Without wishing to sound pompous, I didn't know if your involvement perhaps was behind what seems to be a, and credit where credit, Stuart, a slightly better second half of the season where some of the penalty decisions have gone.

I mean, I think probably anecdotally that might be the case. I've read some of the stuff and I think like anything, any judicial referee person, any sport, I mean, you've got to go look at the football premiership. I mean, there's a big crossover with motorsport and football, but I mean, VAR and referee decisions and things like that have been really contentious. You get it in boxing where it can be a split decision. So they're always going to be in the firing line.

And motorbike racing has always been inherently different to motorcar racing. Whereas even at club level car racing, judicial stuff and penalties is right for every category of car racing. And in bike racing, I mean, just using BSP as an example, you might get half a dozen to a dozen contentious points across an entire season. The same happened in Medigep, I mean, I go back to probably the mid 2000s and I was running a Donington Grand Prix and it was the one where Rossi over to the yellow going into red gate and was docked 10 seconds post race. And I think that year that might have been one of only two or three judicial things that happened in an entire season.

Now the whole culture is, and I mentioned this on another podcast the other day, there's judicial scrutiny from the teams as everything's moved up and the margins of performance are so narrow. Everyone is fighting for everything on every lap of every corner of every practice session that Rider X might have disturbed Rider Y, which is just the path that professional sport unfortunately or fortunately is on. And when that happens, the championship has to react and perhaps the championship hadn't been best equipped to do it, but now it's getting there. But I mean, using the comparison, the Formula One of Medigep, I mean, the US Grand Prix in Austin for Formula One happened three or four weeks ago and they were still investigating track limits last week. Now I would say looking at both disciplines at the Medigep level of technology and consistency on some of those things is actually like years better.

But for sure, I mean, look, the culture of motorcycle racing from teams, riders and the fans, we're all rebels at heart, don't like much authority. Those of us even in authority don't like other people in authority. So when something's applied, there's a natural reaction and like anything in life, there's going to be people that agree and people disagree. I mean, what is quite telling is, and this is stuff that wasn't particularly well reported, but part of the improving the relationship between the Medigep riders and the stewards panel was, right about the time of the French Grand Prix, the Medigep riders were given a set of recent on track transgressions and basically said, what would you do? Right.

Yeah. And obviously they had the luxury of knowing what did happen, but the balance of opinion from the riders ranged from being wholly shouldn't have done anything to the other side, which is what people hung and then a solid middle ground, which wasn't too far off the opinion of what the stewards were. So that kind of told you that it worked too hard. But what is important is consistency of decision, understand the explanation of decisions and having a framework and these statistical protocols where, you know, it's a bit like if you go through a red light on the highway, it is what it is. If you get done for 32 miles an hour in a 30, you get three points.

And if you do 60 mile an hour in a 30 and it's outside of school, you go to prison or you're losing your license, but you'd know every time. And that's the stage we get into. But, you know, there's 2021 occasions in a year to refine, move on and improve. I think they're on the right path. Interesting what you've said about there being a kind of a perhaps a bit of an overcorrection with the amount of penalties that have been dished out and now a sort of a re-correction to bring it to a slightly more stable position.

I mean, obviously in BSB you tend to get things right all of the time. So I must just ask you very briefly because I don't think you've got a job to do whilst you're here. Well, firstly, congratulations to the team in Macau who had a great result Just on the phone today, I was friends in Vegas watching the Formula One and they got the Macau Grand Prix here and it's just started recovering to like 23 hours. Let me just ask you, I mean, BSB could not have gone any better in terms of how it finished up last lap of the last race. Just terrific, wasn't it?

No, it was a stellar season. I mean, the death of competition, the knee doing, obviously it was underpinned by a load of unforeseen tragedy and emotion and then some legacy emotion obviously with the Breibald family. So that whole mix of everything delivered a season that won't be forgotten for very many years. Well Stuart, thanks ever so much for stopping and talking to me. It's a great pleasure to do it along with us.

Nice to meet you. Thanks a lot. Cheers. Tony? Hi, MotoPod.

Hello, how are you? I'm very good. I've just bumped into Tony Elias in the pit lane. Tony, welcome. Are you coming to all of the races nowadays or just visiting Qatar as a guest?

No, I'm working for the Frenzini, we start this race, Qatar and Valencia and then we'll see. And what is your role with the team? Coaching and also helping to the crew, riders and crew chiefs, keep the harmony and good atmosphere. Using your experience to help. Yes.

What do you think about MotoGP with the sprint races now? Is it something you would have enjoyed when you were riding in this class? For sure. It's always very difficult races because they are short and you don't have time. Maybe it was not my strongest point, not the first part of the race.

I always liked the long races and my strong point was at the end. But for the show it's amazing. I love it. I follow all the championship and we had a great time on TV. During the off season when it's quiet, I love to watch the Portuguese race in 2006.

It reminds me everything that was great about that period. That was super great. It was the best day of my career and always will be a great memory. Great to meet you. Thank you for talking to us.

Thank you so much. Cheers. Thank you. So I'm sitting here with Bjorn Essman. Bjorn, we bumped into each other in the BSB paddock, probably three years ago I'm guessing now.

And then I saw you briefly at the NEC motorcycle show and then I never got around to being able to organise the time to have a chat with you. But quite a lot has changed for you in that period of time. So are you doing any competitive riding at the moment? Obviously you're here in your capacity as what exactly within the Red Bull Racing KTM team? Currently I'm Brad Binder's personal assistant for 2023 and going into 2024.

Right. So yeah, a lot has changed since we caught up that day at the NEC. I guess back then I was still racing competitively in the British Superbike Series in super bikes, which is great. I really enjoyed my time there for many years and made a lot of good friends and contacts and have a lot of great memories from those times. Sorry about this noise in the background.

The noise in the background. Yeah. So for now that's sort of behind me and I'm working closely with Brad and hoping that I can help to bring him and the team the goal, which is a world championship. As for competitive racing, I did a couple of wild cards this year in European Classic Endurance, which we won at Brands Hatch and I did one in the BMW Cup, which was fun. Didn't quite get the results I was looking for, but that's another story.

But yeah, for now the focus is Brad. And so what does a typical weekend look like in terms of the sort of work? Are you out on track doing some spotting for him, doing some kind of rider coach type activity? Is that part of what you do? No, the team actually have Mika Kalio doing all of that stuff.

So I'm just directly assisting Brad with preparations, a bit of his nutrition, what drinks he's having, what food, when to eat, what to eat. In the box I sit and I write all the split times, record all the laps data just on a clipboard for him so he can see when he comes in. Just make sure generally that he's ready to not worry about anything else except putting the bike that needs to be it, which is at the front. Yeah. Well, quite a big change I suppose for you.

What prompted the move away from BSB in the first place? I think it was never getting easier to race. I mean, we all, everyone feels the same, team owners, riders, whatever, you know, it always comes down to the fact that it's all revolves around money and sponsorship. I mean, I had some fantastic sponsors along the way, Catfoss, Everquip, a lot of personal sponsorships, Make It Happen, Solutions Pro Air, so many guys, I can't even, you know, I'm going to leave them out now, but these guys looked after me so well and I'm so grateful to each and every one of them for their help because it allowed me to continue. But when this opportunity came, it just seemed like it was the right time to take, if you like, the next step and prolong my career in motorsport, which is my passion, and to do it alongside my great friend and a great rider in a great team.

Well, that seemed a perfect next venture. And impossible to refuse offer, I guess. It was very hard to turn down, yeah, very hard. Obviously, you're from South Africa as well. Did you grow up racing against Brad?

I mean, obviously you've known him quite a long time. Yeah, we've known each other a heck of a lot of years, but we grew up racing right at the end of my time and both our times, because he went the MotoGP route, I went to British tube bike. But Brad is a couple of years younger than me, so I'd already been racing there for a while before this new kid on the block turned up and was mixing it right at the front with all of us. So everyone could see that Brad was a talent right from the beginning and it's clear to see now that he is an exceptional talent, and I'm really proud to stand next to him and give my best for him and represent South Africa together. I mean, Bjorn, anybody that ran in BSB at the level that you did, I mean, you're a bloody talented rider yourself.

So what is it when you look at somebody like Brad, what is that extra that he brings? Can you kind of put that into any kind of words? I wish I knew because I would have implemented this. Yeah, no, I think that I think a lot of riders, a lot of us are all, you know, we're capable and we can go fast and all those things in your moment and on your day. But I think the difference between a rider like Brad, for example, and the rest of the MotoGP riders and all the other top riders is they just seem to have that X factor where they can deliver constantly.

Consistency is key and they just seem to be able to do it time and time again when maybe other talented people just can't seem to find that level of consistency and keep on taking, you know, minimal step by step, bettering yourself. And I think that's probably where it comes down to making that little extra bit of difference. I like to call it relentless progression. Yeah, I mean, and that's what it's all about. I mean, any sport, it's always progressing.

So if you can continue that progression and every time you jump on a bike or whatever you're doing, you'll always be one little half a step ahead of the rest. And I think that's the difference. Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen, it's been great to talk to you. I mustn't keep you too much because it's getting towards the end of the day here.

Busy day for you, I guess, Thursday at the beginning of a Grand Prix weekend. Yeah, it's a set up day. So for me, it's pretty busy. But, you know, take it all in the stride. Now I'm having a great time with what I'm doing.

And I'm very grateful to Brad and the team Red Bull Cates Impact Racing and everyone that's made me feel very welcome this year as we approach the end. Perfect. Well, it's good to catch up with you along, Lars. It's something that took me so long. Thank you.

It's a dating like the ideal opportunity just to see where you're at. So, yeah, Bjorn, nice to talk to you and thank you very much for coming on. Thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. Thanks for the time.

Cheers. Just had the pleasure to bump into Randy Momola in the pit lane. Randy, how are you, first of all? I'm good. What do you think of MotoGP 2023 with all these ride height devices and things sprouting off the fairing?

Are you a fan? What do you think of it all? Listen, you can read pretty much everybody's story from older riders to the newer riders and so on. Obviously, the riders that have to run it, it's part of their game. Things are about technology and you have to live with it.

It's just how do we police it now and how do we continue to go down in the future? Obviously, you need the same ability of the people that can police it, of understanding aerodynamics and things like that and about motorcycles. I just think that they need to sit around and do that. But the race has been good, exciting. We've still got a great championship going right down to the wire.

I think one of the biggest things more than anything else has been the tire issue because am I going to be in traffic today? Am I tire pressure going to go up? Imagine just going to work and thinking that. Do you not think that there's a simple solution just to alter the limit that they're having to run out at the moment? I'm not an engineer, so don't ask me that.

But if you think of things like this, why doesn't Michelin put the same air in everybody's tire and then no matter what happens? Well, when you have people who brake really hard, you have people that are in traffic with four or five bikes, it's going to be completely different. And then it makes it hard to make the things work for, obviously, the towards the championship. But, you know, we're continually to learn on how to manage things. Fascinating insight.

Thanks for your time. Good to talk to you. Cheers. John, you got two seconds for a question for MotoPod. I just wanted to ask you, I mean, fantastic result for the team last time out with that podium.

How's the team feeling? Yeah, it was good. Yeah, it was well deserved on Marco's part. He rode well and yeah, the team obviously has been working really hard, but I think he did do a good job and it was well deserved on his part the way he deserved it. He's been fast on the bike ever since he came into the team.

So are you seeing something different that he's doing to elevate the performance like this? No, well, I mean, it was a crucial point in his career and, you know, it's multiple years now he's been in the paddock and I think we've always offered a competitive package. But with the rookies that we've had on board, the last couple of years, it's made it a little bit more difficult, you know, result wise, but I believe our package has always been quite good. Yeah, nice to talk to you. All right.

Thanks, buddy. I think you've been on in the past, yeah, probably some years ago. And by the way, anybody that hasn't read John's book, let them buy it and read it because it's brilliant. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks, man.