Five Things and Wooded Spoons

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. Episode number 756. Happy New Year everyone.

Richard's with me. Richard from the UK. I haven't talked to you in forever, Rich. So it's great to be back talking again. Happy New Year to you.

Happy New Year to you. Thank you. So things are going well here. Rich has been flooding you with interviews from Qatar. There's still more to come from there.

I've got an interview that I want to add on to a show. Might be a special. But the idea here, guys, is that we're working hard behind the scenes. And to be honest, it's going to take for us to go places we need to rethink how we do and structure things. So with that, I am putting out a call to anyone in the US who would like to be a Moto America beat reporter for Motopod, if you will.

We're looking for someone in the US who could attend at least a round of the Moto America series. So we're going to go get some pit interviews. We'll get you media credentials to go in and you will be able to do Moto. You'll cover Moto America. I will sit in as the co-host, add color to what's going on.

But it's your beat. You're going to know all the inside information and do that. So if you are interested in being part of the Moto Pod team covering Moto America, please do so by emailing motopod at motopodcast.com. And please put in the subject line Moto America host. And then Rich and I will get back to you, see what we can happen.

And we will go from there. With that, if you guys could, Rich did a great job getting some interviews. Those don't come cheap. If you could subscribe to the show, that'd be greatly appreciated. Every little bit helps Rich get to the track, helps me get to the track, helps us get these interviews that hopefully you all are enjoying as well.

But if you can't make it's donation, we understand. I get it. But if you could just please go to your podcast player where you get the podcast from, give us a like, give us a comment, some feedbacks there, and that'll switch the algorithm, put us back on top. There's a lot of motorcycling podcasts out there and we want to try to be the best fan based podcast possible. And with that, Mr.

Rich, I want to think we should probably get onto news because I mean, you and I, we haven't talked about anything. It's been a long time. It's a long time. We've been listening to interviews and whatnot. So let's just whip through what's going on in the world of MotoGP.

Well it is launch season. So everyone is releasing their new bikes. Grissini released their new bikes, which are 2023 Ducatis. If you could spot the difference in the two pictures that was posted on Twitter by Matt Oxley, congratulations. I think David maybe might have put it out there too.

Pretty much the only thing I noticed was there's a cover on the disc brake was missing on the front and the rear stegosaurus teeth are different on the back. Other than that, that is the exact same thing. Other than maybe the numbers on the motorcycle. I'm sort of excited about just seasons coming along. We're getting close to testing.

I want to see what happens with Marquez on the bike. I think a lot of people, that's the big story there. But there was nothing I knew that I don't think that we didn't know already. Did you find any tidbit in Grissini's launch that tickled your fancy? I'm not a big fan of these sort of glitzy launch type dudes.

I can't bring myself to kind of watch them online particularly. I'm interested to see the pictures of the bikes and stuff, but it's all fairly kind of common year to year how they present that sort of stuff. I mean, the takeaway for the Grissini launch for me, Jim, was that the bikes look identical in terms of sponsorship and color scheme to last year. That's not to say things don't change when they roll them out around when in Qatar. But I think we were both expecting a lot more kind of Red Bull influence to come along with Mark Marquez.

And whilst both he and brother Alex have the personal sponsorship of Red Bull, very much prevalent, or crash helmets and stuff like that, there doesn't appear to be much coming on the bikes themselves. But as I said, that might well change. But it was a little bit surprising, not in a disappointing way, just as an observation, that not a huge amount has changed. Whereas you might have thought with Marquez coming, there would be a stampede of people looking to get their logos and copyright and all the rest of it on the bikes. So that was a surprise to me, Jim.

I don't know about for you. Yeah, I don't know. If he would have went to a different factory team, would the bigger people have come to play? I don't know. That's a question that I can't answer.

I really thought there was going to be at least a splash of Red Bull at the bottom of a fairing somewhere on the bike. It didn't because didn't Red Bull kind of say they were walking away from Honda sponsorship somewhat and scaling it back? I thought so. It was like they had divorced too. It's sort of like Red Bull had kind of gone away as well.

I think you've got more Red Bull money going to KTM and the KTM clones than what is going to be put in at HRC. I think it's tough to sell. I don't know if the economy is really technically bad. I know what it is here. I don't know what it is in Europe, but it just doesn't seem like there's bang for the buck right now.

There does seem to be new sponsorship opportunities for say the Formula One guys now. Is that because of Drive to Survive? Is it because it's an American company now because Liberty Media owns it? I do not know. But it just seems like there's the big money people are missing from this and I'm not sure why.

In terms of Red Bull contractually, it might be that their hands are somewhat tied because the KTM squad, as you say, that is officially a Red Bull KTM squad. I forget the exact name because they're so convoluted, but KTM Red Bull Racing, whatever it is. So it might be that beyond that, they can only really go down the personal rider sponsorship route in terms of major, major input and signage, let's say. So yeah, I mean, it's not a big issue, is it? As you say, it's trading conditions globally.

Sort of things improve a little bit and then other stuff happens, as we've seen in the last few weeks to upset the Apple cart again. So yeah, bringing big money into an e-sporting arena, I guess, is a pretty difficult sell at the best of times and it's not the best of times at the moment. So anyway, it doesn't seem to have affected the show in the sense that we get great racing and in a sense, I don't really think it would be necessarily great if MotoGP went kind of full on F1 in scale, I think, because that would have consequences. So I'm reasonably comfortable where things are. Yeah, the racing, I think, has probably been the best it's ever been.

There's so many guys that are competitive and can win that it's not like the 80s and the 500s. I think it's the right size field. There were some really small grids in the 80s and whatnot. So yeah, there's a lot more factories involved now too. So let's be happy.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's go to Ducati. They launched Levan... Is it Levan-o?

Ducati? Can't ever pronounce the computer name. Yeah. Lenovo. That's it.

Thank you. They are there. I don't think there was too much from that one either except that Gigi was saying that the fairing era is going to change before the season opener. And supposedly from what I've heard as a rumor, they found a whole lot more horsepower. So from what I understand, the gap between the 22 and the 23, the gap between those two motorcycles was fairly small.

There's going to be supposedly a very big gap between a 23 Ducati and a 2024 Ducati. Now, is that because Marquez is on a private bike? Is that just pure speculation by people? I don't know. We're not going to know.

And we're not going to know until they start testing. Interesting. I mean, Ducati have had their fingers burnt by making big changes in the past because of course testing is a problem now. They don't get a chance to find out if stuff's going to work or not. And this is where my technical knowledge or rules knowledge is perhaps a little bit less good than it should be.

But I'm assuming that they will have to freeze their engine fairly early. Yes. So they can't really afford to make a mistake. So interesting. I mean, the comment that I read and I think I picked up on X, one of the people that was at the launch was Gigi 10.

As you pointed out, Jim, that the bike was going to look quite radically different from a fairing perspective. So you wonder what piece of magic he's conjured up over the winter or well, it would have been last year sometime when they're not over the winter. But curious to see what that bike looks like when they roll it out for testing. Yeah, I think the aero boffins have been at work. I mean, it could be weirdly bulged side fairings or something.

So as you lean over at 60 degrees, you create downforce. It could be anything of that nature. The one thing is, you know, we're talking about the tire pressure rule now is in effect from the first race. If you're beyond, oh, gosh, help me out. I think it was like one point eight bar.

I think that was the minimum was something around one point eight bar, something like that. If you're below it at all. At all. You're done. Disqualified.

There is no appeal. There is no you are done. So is this fairing designed to create more feel on the front end to keep the tire pressure in balance to keep that or is it designed to cool that tire? So you're in traffic. Who knows what GD Dinlini has got to be.

He could come up with a million different things of insane cool that we're all going to drool on for a while. But it's going to be interesting to see what it does look like. And then how does it perform perform on the racetrack? If you've got if truly there's a motor change, that's a lot more horsepower and a big aero fairing change. I would think it would be very difficult to decide how to set up the biker to be a lot of ifs in there.

And you have really a compressed amount of time to try to sort out and come up with a baseline set up to a motorcycle to be comfortable with to go race to go win a championship of 22 races again. As you said, you got to be right coming out of the gate with this one. And the question is, would you bet against GD Dinlini being correct? My uneducated guess is along the lines that you just said, really, which is that maybe it's tied into this tyre pressure thing because that is a championship losing scenario. If you get that wrong consistently.

Now, no doubt, various people at various times through the year are going to fall foul of that tyre pressure rule. So has he come up with something that I don't know how that would work? You're not allowed movable devices. So, you know, I just don't know. But, you know, Gigi is kind of the Adrian Yumi.

We've said it numerous times in the past, haven't we? He always kind of steals a march on everybody else and finds something in the rules that will help them out. So, yeah, I've just well, I can't wait to see what rolls out in the Qatar test. Well, in fact, there's are they testing at Malaysia? I think before Qatar, aren't they?

So I don't remember. We need to check the calendar, but they'll be getting going soon. Although, again, I guess they'll keep the powder dry in some areas. But testing is so limited, they can't really afford not to test new stuff. So we will see it fairly soon, I would imagine.

Just because it's in my mind, Jim, yes, talking of engine power on the Qatar show that I put out, which was the long chat with Herve Pontural, we got a bit of a scoop on the fact that he mentioned the 2027 engine rig is going to be an 850cc. Did you pick that one up? Yes. 850s. We'll park that one for another day.

Yes, let's park that, I guess, because we kind of we've been here before, haven't we? Yes. So we're going to slow them down by displacement. Yeah, let's park that for a treacherous path. But that was I had it in my mind to just breathe.

Yes, I was shocked. We've agreed it's 850cc. What? A couple of people that I spoke to subsequently in the paddock after I'd had that chat with Herve said or intimated that that might be quite as locked in as he was making out. But I mean, he's the boss of Irta.

So he's about as far up the top table as you can get. So it was a fairly, I thought a fairly clear statement from him that that is the direction that they're going to go. And now, yes, it's true that some of this stuff will still have to be ratified, I guess, and put into the code for the 2027 and beyond regs. But that's a seismic shift again. And obviously, it's an attempt to slow the bikes down.

So well, between that and the green fuels, that's going to be a horsepower drop. Now, OK, you might have a horsepower drop for, say, one half of a season because you know, whoever supplying the fuels, whether it's Shell, Aji, Prepsol, whoever, is going to be working behind the scenes consistently to make a better product. Racing is the crucible of. It's the crucible of racing will give you a better product, right? It's technological warfare is what I call it.

Yes, it is. Isn't it? That's what it is. And so there'll be more power, more efficiency. That is what they will continually do, which will benefit us ultimately.

I mean, that's the whole point of sport, isn't it? In this particular regard, this is the test bench for the stuff that you and I get to ride or drive or fly, you know, ultimately. So, yeah, I have nothing against electric. I do think there are some shortcomings. I think there's some infrastructure shortcomings.

But in a motorcycle, the heavy weight of a battery just doesn't seem to want to work for me. Yeah, I mean, OK, I know. Oh, man, Titi, I get it. But those bikes are still heavy. And yes, they will get better, but it's going to be a lot longer.

And I think the green fuels may just be an interim stage. It might be a stepstone to full electric until the batteries are fully there. But we don't want this to turn into a Jordan Peterson podcast on politics and stuff. No, no, no. I think synthetic fuels are actually the future.

I think the internal combustion engine's got a long, long way to go. Electric in towns and cities makes total sense. All sorts of different reasons. In terms of heavy cargo, you can see hydrogen because packaging is less of an issue if you're on trains and stuff like that. Synthetic fuel for everybody else in terms of using infrastructure that exists and technology that's proven in practice for a century.

Why wouldn't you? So definitely MotoGP will play its part in helping to make that happen. I'm convinced. Yeah. So speaking of like fuels and whatnot, Repsol, are they going to scale back support for HRC?

Have they said that? I mean, I can't really point to. Jim, I saw something and I can't remember where I saw it. Again, I'm pretty sure it was on X from a reliable source, not just somebody spouting off in the way that people tend to do. But I definitely saw something that suggested that because of the sort of the market situation, Repsol were maybe going to scale back a bit in terms of their inputs.

And I'm sure I read that there was going to be a bit more of the kind of classic Honda, red, white and blue creeping into the Scala scheme. Now, we will see in a couple of weeks when the official launch happens. But I wouldn't be entirely surprised because again, oil companies presumably with the way things are going at the moment might be looking to scale back their investment as well in areas that aren't core to their business. So but that's a relationship that's been going on, as we said a few shows ago, since the mid 1990s, hasn't it? So I mean, I don't for one moment think Repsol will disappear from the bike, but I wonder if it will be a bit less for long this year and beyond.

It could be. I mean, the last all HRC bike was doing 94 Honda. And that to me was still one of the coolest paint schemes on a motorcycle. I thought it was brilliant. I still look at it and think it's brilliant, but it's also my happy place of childhood.

So nostalgia is a disease. So if it can be more red, white and blue, I will take it. It was that 94 was that interim year between Rothmans and Repsol, wasn't it? They had that kind of one year where there was no sort of prime brand, other brand on the bike. And yeah, I do distinctly remember that bike.

So it was at Donaton Park that year. Yeah, it's beautiful bike. It was it still is a beautiful bike. But then again, they're all beautiful in their own way. Right.

I mean, even the Ducati's with all their lips and wings and things are still. They're not sexy, but anyway, I'll say yes, the season will can start in Qatar on March the 8th, which will be preceded by the official test, the 19th to the 20th of February. And that concludes Moto GP news. I will give a shout out here quickly to Dakar, specifically to Ricky Braeback, the American, who has become a two time champion in the motorcycle category at the Dakar, having won in 20 and now in 23, which is a pretty slim picking thing to have won the car once, let alone do it twice. So again, I don't know.

Ricky's got the the ability to catch. I think it's Stefan Peter Hansel who's got five motorcycle tire, five motorcycle titles at the car. My Dakar knowledge is weak. So if I've got that wrong, I'm sorry, but it's possible. The Honda's really good in KTM.

I admit they've got a lot to catch up to those Dakar bikes. But with that being said from there, we'll move from the rally to World Superbike. Season starts, Pilep Island, February 23rd. Always love the island. Superbikes of the island is a great way to start too.

I think that's preceded by their test there as well. They normally have a test there. Yeah. Yeah. BSB starts in Spain on the 20th of April.

Is that true, Rich? Starting in Spain? Yeah. Really? Okay.

Yeah, because MSV, who own quite a few of the premier tracks in UK brands, Alton, Donington Park, I'm pretty sure they bought the Navara facility. World Superbike had a race there last season, I believe. So this is the first time BSB will have been there. I think some of the teams have been out there testing, obviously because it's better weather than in the UK, which isn't hard at this time of year. So that's where the season starts for the first time ever.

But it is a fair way off compared to the other two championships or the other three championships because we're going to mention AMA in a minute. But yeah, I'm just kind of keen to sort of reset the compass. And now that we're into 2024 and we haven't got too long, what is a month until World Superbike kicks off. And I know we tend to focus on this show on MotoGP and quite rightly so. It is the premier.

But I do love World Superbike and I can't wait for this season to start because top record on that BMW is going to be, I think that is going to be the big interest point in motorcycle racing or one of the big interest points this year. Because he is now firmly established as I think he's World Superbike now. I think all of the MotoGP talk probably is done and dusted now. The he'll be with BMW probably for several seasons, I would think. And, you know, we've got these new weight rules that have come in this year.

So the lighter riders are getting penalized a bit with ballast to kind of try and level the playing field. BMW has always been fast, but nobody's quite cracked it yet. And Top Rack might not, but might be the guy that brings BMW the success that they've been desperate for and investing tens of billions of euros in, I'm sure, for several seasons now. So that is going to be fascinating. I can't wait for World Superbikes to get going this year.

And again, we will try, although we'll be sort of talking about this over coming episodes, as you've alluded to, Jim, we'll be trying to get to at least one World Superbike around this year. Hopefully a couple, if we can get some more people involved. Plus some of the older hosts that step up from time to time. So, yeah, kind of try and up the ante a bit further this year with content. Yeah.

And lastly, MotoAmerica will start their season at Daytona with the 200 that is now a super sport race for 600s and not Superbikes. Because let's face it, Superbikes have kind of outgrown the idea of running around 31 degree banking. It's just kind of how it goes, guys. So with that, I think to kick off this first show of the new year, what better way to do it than to actually go backwards in time and kind of talk about some high points that are there in the MotoGP class from this year past. So let's start, Rich, by going back to Moto3.

I have compiled a list of five things that I think were of the most interest to the Moto3 class. And we'll go through the list and we'll talk about that. You come up with some wooden spoons for the class, I think. And after we get through that, we'll discuss who is our Rider of the Year in the class. So and we'll do that for all the MotoGP class.

So without any further ado, I'll start Moto3, five things that Jim thinks was rather interesting. I do have a five list, we'll count down. These could really be in any order. It's just things that I thought of as I was going. But number five is if you thought, and it told me a Honda Rider would win the world title over the KTM board, I'd have laughed in your face.

Yeah, that was against the grain. That was very much against the grain. The KTMs were a force this year. I mean, in all the clones, right? You had KTMs, you had the Huskies, you had the Gas Gas.

You had all those people all running at the front all the time. And you had to think at some point that it had to be someone from one of those teams was going to win. And with the way Holgardo started the season and the consistency that he had, you just didn't think anybody was going to be beating to that championship. It seemed as though it was like a foregone conclusion, especially after we got through maybe through Mugello and Le Mans, which is what mid May. I mean, yeah, the kid was looking on fire, just racking up points and podiums.

Yeah, first third of the season, he was just ripping it out, wouldn't they? And looked unbeatable. And then certainly the second half of the season, he had a torrid, torrid time. Poor lad. Yes.

Number four for me for the Moto 35 things. The arrival of Alonso on scene. This was a kid who had two previous wild card starts before he became a factory gas gas rider and would ride a whole season in his debut rookie season. Four wins. Third in the title chase.

And it has more in the way that he also had a podium. So he had four wins and eight podiums. He wound up third in the championship, which that's saying something. But for me, it's the way Alonso won races. He won them from deep in the pack, road to the front, and in a strategic way, would zap everybody with three or four laps left.

Like you, the race would be between a horgardo, Masi, Sasaki, and also, whoa, hey, Alonso just showed up on scene. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to win this one, guys. And he wanted tracks that he didn't really have a lot of experience at. He wanted Silverstone, which he'd never seen before until then. He was in Europe.

He was a Red Bull rookies cup. He ran the CEV. He was somewhat successful in those series, but he just sort of burst onto the scene. And I think everybody wants to compare him to Acosta as the last guy who burst onto the scene and was incredible. Acosta did it very differently than Alonso did.

Acosta kind of qualified in front, got out front, and kind of won out front. Yeah, okay, there was the race from behind in Qatar, and there was a seasonal slump there at the end that the kid finally put back together again and won a world championship. But Alonso did it so differently than the way Acosta did. And I was super proud of how he did it. Yeah, I mean, we tend to be a bit spoiled every year with Moto3, don't we?

Because somebody burst onto the scene. So to stand out in the way that Alonso did, given that context, really is saying something. And as you say, Jim, he melds real aggression with composure. It was almost a kind of stupid thing to say. How about surgical precision?

Because his passes are very tactical, very surgical, surgeon-like. He doesn't really bang anybody out of the way. He just simply occupies the space that you thought you had. There are some riders that when they come through the pack, you know that there's going to be some casualties involved. You know, you just have that suspicion that a few people are going down as somebody comes through.

With Alonso, as you say, he is much more calculating but ruthless at the same time. Pretty clean. And that is really saying something in Moto3, up the front, because that is, you know, real kind of knife fight territory, isn't it? So again, I'll annoy people by saying this. I mean, there's so much to look forward to in all of these classes.

But Moto3, once again, is going to be absolutely mega this year, I'm sure. And Alonso, with that season behind him, I mean, he's got a lot to live up to, Jim, isn't he? Is he a title favorite? He has to be a title favorite because he's got a season's knowledge under his belt. And if you're going to do it when you're young, season two or three is generally when people do it before they start moving up the classes.

So I saw him in Qatar. I didn't talk to him, but tiny little kid. But I guess he'll start to grow up a little bit physically as well as we go on there. But yeah, he was mega, absolutely mega. OK, let's move to number three.

Mine is Anshu's maturity and his breakthrough wins. Now, he won three races. That was pretty good. And in the form of winning races in Moto3, to win more than one is special. He won three.

OK, yeah, Alonso won four. But still, you know, his maturity has increased. His size has increased. And yes, OK, he mentioned to come and by maturity, I mean, kind of like what he would do off the bike, what he would say, like how he conducted himself. So he would complain, I'm the biggest guy in the class and I can't, I'm not fast.

But yet he eventually stopped talking about that and just started winning races to shut everybody up about it. That's maturity to me. And he won three. I think he did two on a row. Didn't he get like Austria and something back to back?

I don't remember exactly. I know he had three wins that much. I'm positive of. But I think his two religion, the in the I.O. squad, I think Aki I.O.

and them have really helped him to mature because he goes to Moto2 next year in the I.O. squad. So he's going up with I.O. again on basically, I think a bike that will fit him much better. He does have to get used to the bigger wheels on the bike.

That's one of the things going from Moto3 bikes to the 17s that are on the Moto2 bikes. But it's going to be a weird level playing field with Pirelli taking over as a sole tire supplier in the underclass. And I've been trying to think when last time Thumblap didn't have a presence in MotoGP and I can't remember when that was. A long, long time ago. A long time.

So I mean, I can remember from the 80s. So from there, I know it was predominantly Michelin in the 500 class, but the 250s were all Donlapschad and I'm pretty sure the 125s were too. So as that went up, it just sort of became the same thing. And now Pirelli has seized control of that. It's kind of impressive by Pirelli to get themselves in there for tender.

But yeah, I mean, Pirelli kind of other than the top class, they kind of rule the world in bike racing just at the moment. What's Moto America running on? Are they Dunlop? They're Dunlop still. This is a different Dunlop, I know, but a slightly different version of Dunlop.

But you've got Pirelli control tire in BSB and World Superbike and now in Moto2 and Moto3. You wonder how long it might be before MotoGP falls under the wing as well. I think it will happen sooner than we think. Yeah. Anyway, I mean, Dennis, have you had a chance yet, Jim, to listen to the interview?

I haven't gotten that interview yet. He's box office in the same way that Acosta is box office. Onchu is, he is a real hoot. He really is because we were talking about penalties and stuff and he kind of made this very sort of possibly unintentionally good comment that it's not getting a penalty. It's just which one is he going to get?

You know, he kind of said it like that. He's a very, very funny guy. He's a great attitude. And, you know, he, we spoke about his kind of change of mentality almost and his maturity that seems to have developed over the last couple of years. And he very much acknowledged the fact that the IO squad is the place to be to kind of further that part of your development.

As much as he acknowledged the fact that Hervé Pontural, because obviously Raid in the Tech 3 squad for several seasons is kind of like his father in the paddock. Although I guess there's a lot of people that would say that about Hervé. But yeah, Onchu is just a great, great personality. I think exactly the sort of person that MotoGP needs. And we will see him, I'm sure, in MotoGP adventure.

And I'd be very surprised if that didn't happen. And I suspect given that he's part of that Keenan software Oglou camp where he trains with Toprac, he trains with his brother. There's a younger software Oglou as well who runs a world super sport. I can't think of his name off the top of my head, so apologies. But there is, so that camp is full of talent and I'm sure that their training sessions on bigger bikes are pretty ferocious, I would think.

So my suspicion is that then this Onchu will adapt to Moto2 pretty quickly. Now that's not to say he'll be up front winning races or anything, but I suspect he'll be solidly around the top 10 fairly early on and throughout the season. So yeah, again, really looking forward to seeing what he can do. Okay, number two on the list. The pain of Sasaki losing the title or the many number of races he lost by, and I will call this, lack of aggression.

And I say that because that boy rode completely differently at Valencia after the title had been taken from him. And like, hello, where was that like 21 races ago? Oh, there's a point about being consistent in Moto3 because consistency does win UA championship. I will not deny that fact. But wow, that was kind of crazy.

And I mean, I like Sasaki. I mean, he goes on to Moto2, which is great for him. That's fantastic. But I feel like, you know, there was a real chance for the first Japanese little bike champion since like 94 or something like that. It's a long time.

It's been a long time. Yeah, in the small class. Yeah, golly. I didn't really have access to the small classes at the time, so I really couldn't tell you from personally like who it was. I somehow thought I was like somebody's shouting at their listening.

Yeah, of course they are. Write and tell us, motopod at motopodcast.com guys or reach out to at Richard Joud on X and at MotoRGV on X. Well, we appreciate the feedback. Yeah. So anything about Sasaki?

I mean, it's disheartening, but it's true. It's a big story. He's a lovely kid. I mean, very gentle. He comes across that way when you talk to him.

Again, when you get to the interview, you'll hear. I mean, Massey was a worthy winner of the title on his performance on track. You know, he won a lot of races and Sasaki was very, very consistent, but you just always had that slight kind of worried that or feeling that at the end of a race where he came second so many times that he kind of let a win slip through his fingers. I was easy to say that from the comfy chair that I'm sitting in. You know, Moto3 is a cutthroat class, but yeah, it kind of felt like one that slipped away somewhat, didn't it?

Yeah. All right. Number one. Do you think you know what my number one is, Rich? I don't know.

I mean, it could be anything. There's so much in Moto3. So my number one thing was the way Massey won the championship. It was terrible in my mind. The way that he clenched the title in Qatar.

The team tactics were brutal. Was it legal? Yeah. Was it unsportsmanlike? Yep.

And I mean, you know, wow. I mean, I get where you were, what you were thinking, but still that was you know, that was a bit much. I mean, I'm all for being ruthless on a motorcycle racing for a world championship. And if the two of them had gone down in a hump together in a gravel trap, I wouldn't have cared. But to just run in and push your opponent offline and, okay, hear me out.

I get that. That's a block pass to push them off so that you can maintain your speed and push them out a little bit. But no, you can see that Massey and Fernandez had no intention of turning a motorcycle in that corner. Their intention was to run straight and go to the edge of the track before they were ever going to let Sasaki back on. And I think that is wrong.

But that's what happened. Is Massey a worthy champion? Yes. Considering the fact that he had a bike that he parked against the rail in Austria with a motor problem, which that's like unheard of in a Moto3 bike. He won more races and that's what it took.

Now, Holgardo lost the plot. I'm not going to lie. I mean, I think he should have won it, but for whatever reason, the kid definitely just lost the plot. But that was number one. How did we think about that one, Rich?

I think it's a worthy number one. In the interest of time, I suppose, it's also one of my wooden spoons or probably my wooden spoon for Moto3 from a team perspective. And of course, we are speculating that this was a plan, but it certainly looked like it outside. It did look like that, particularly once Fernandez turned up on the scene and started his antics as well, because he didn't really have skin in the game, particularly, well, he didn't have from the point of view of the riders championship. Now, yes, you might say he had skin in the game in terms of wanting to maintain his position in the squad, because of course, he was a late season call out once they booted Suzuki out.

It just smelt rotten to me, the whole thing. It's a shame because, as we've acknowledged and you've just said, Massey was the better rider over the course of the season. And as you said earlier on, Jim, kind of the lone person on a Honda as well, pretty much. Very, very experienced, of course. So quite rightly, he should have been up there battling for the championship.

So don't begrudge him having it, but the way it was done in the end, it was kind of a little bit Max Verstappen, Abu Dhabi, you know, the way the championship itself was sealed, completely overshadowed all of the hard work that brought them to the point of being in a position to take the championship. And that's the problem. I forget exactly how I phrased it on a WhatsApp message to you, but I kind of said, you know, they managed to grab derision from the jaws of adulation, really, because he should have gone out on a massive high. And from a social media perspective, we commented at the time and it went on for several weeks because I was watching it every time, either MotoGP, you know, obviously, as the official rights holder or certainly whenever Leopard themselves put out a tweet about, yeah, you know, gentlemen, you're the 2020 champion. The hatred and vitriol was almost unanimous.

Now, that's not unusual on social media. It's true. But it was pretty much you would have had to spend quite some hours looking for a positive comment in support of that championship. And that's a shame, really, because he worked damn hard to win it. So, yeah, for me, that was one of the major wooden spoons of the season, because I think the team didn't really need to do it.

Because look at Sasaki's performance over the years, we've just been talking about in a last lap duel, you had to put your money on Masiya every time. So to do it in the way that they did it, yeah, just kind of was a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. And it's a big wooden spoon for me. So is that your wooden spoon? Not for Masiya, for the team, because I think it was a team tactic, which the riders engaged in, let's speculate.

But I think we can be reasonably sure about that. And they'll carry that around with them for quite a few years to come. Yep. So that's your wooden spoon for Moto3? Yes.

Okay. Yep. All right. So that means we're now at rider of the year for Moto3. You want to go first?

Yeah. Well, I don't think this is a left field one, but it might not be the most obvious one. But I'm going to go with Colin Vier. Good pick. Because there's a rookie, again, he's come through the Red Bull system, the rookies and whatnot, but really burst onto the scene.

Late in the year. Late in the year, Wanner Race was really consistent through that second half of the season, really kind of got himself together. I think he had a few injuries, he said in the interview that I did with him. Had the summer break, kind of got fit again, reset, took what he'd learned in the first half. And again, went on a bit of a tear, didn't he?

Culminating in that win in Malaysia, I think it might have been. I think so, yes. He was one of the Eastern, Southeast Asia races. Yeah, he was on one of the flyaways for sure. And was just consistently good thereafter, really.

And again, will be a guy to look out for. And I put the question to him that I thought was rather unusual, his physical stature, because he's Dutch and the Dutch tend to be, it's like generalization, but tend to be pretty tall and lean as a kind of nation. Let's say a national stereotype. He didn't seem to think his size was an issue at all because he's not heavy with it. He's very, very lean as they all are.

And in some respects, aerodynamically, once you are positioned and tucked in, there can be some advantages in that, certainly when you're going down a straight. So he just did a really, really brilliant job. So for me, although there are many people that you could pick for rider of the year in Moto3, because I mean, it is a wash with talent. But I thought he was perhaps not the most obvious choice, but I think he certainly deserves a shout out. That's a great pick.

Me, I'm going to go with Masiya. One, because he held up against the horde and he could have really packed it in when his bike packed it up in Austria. That was a, there was a pretty big point gap that he was going to have to overcome at that point. He didn't, he got back. He got back.

He got on with the show and won it around early. Okay. With some weird tactics by the team, but let's set aside a team tactic and talk about what he did. He won races. He finished consistently.

He held off the horde of KTMs, rode a lot harder than a lot of the KTM guys. He was much later on the brakes, a lot deeper. And he could have really lost his focus and crashed a lot more than he did, but he didn't. And that's how you win championships. It was the long reuniting with Leopold, who he had entered Moto3 with.

So it's sort of that full circle thing for me to win a world championship there. So I will give it, I will give rider of the year to Masiya. Honorable mention Alonso onto those two for me. So that whole guard, I suppose, who was really brilliant in the first sector of the championship. But I don't know.

Maybe I'm kind of weird about that. But I just didn't see. I mean, Hogarto was good, but he wasn't winning all the time. And it just didn't work for me to, I mean, again, I'm weird. I'm not like the, oh, your last races, you're the only race that means anything.

But Helgardo has got a little bit more to prove to me next year. Yeah. I think you might be misremembering the first third of the season. I mean, he did. He was consistently winning and on the podium.

As my point goes. Consistently on the podium, I remember. I had quite a lot of bad luck as well. I mean, he was taken out several races in the second half of the season. So that did not help him.

But there was just a general decline in form for whatever reason. Maybe it was pressure. I mean, you know, these guys are so young. Yeah. It's going to be hard as hell to try to grow up in the paddock.

Yeah. It has to be. Yeah. Because essentially, you're not doing what every other teenager is doing at that point in time. Right?

Exactly. Yeah. What were you doing as a teenager back then? Right? I know exactly what I was doing.

Okay. I was racing motorcycles. But I was also chasing girls. Well, I didn't do any good at motorcycles. Didn't do any good with girls either.

You got to focus on one or the other. You can't do both. The thing that was illuminating, Jim, actually, and I won't keep going on about I haven't been to Katana because people get a bit annoyed with me, but I'm still kind of basking in the experience because it was so amazing really to see it. But one thing I certainly took away from that experience. And with the Moto3 guys, because they are so young, in particular, is A, how busy they are through a race weekend.

Outside of riding the bike, I mean. And how unbelievably professional they are. I mean, bearing in mind these are like 15, 16, 17 year old kids. Not 15 now because of the rules, but say 16, 17 year old kids. I mean, that is not old.

And they're dealing with growing up. They're dealing with having girls. They're dealing with all sorts of different things. And having a job that high profile and that much pressure. And yet you ask them a question and they answer you in almost perfect English.

I can't speak to anybody in a foreign language. You know, my bad, but I can't. So, yeah, they're just phenomenal, these kids, you know, and you kind of forget that a little bit. And when you are in that environment for a few days, as I was very lucky enough to be, you really do get a sense of just how much is involved in what they do and kind of, yeah, it's a great lifestyle. I mean, it's dangerous what they do.

But it's a mega, mega way to spend your young years. But for every year, there's a young in there. And, you know, there's a lot comes with that on the other side of the coin. And they are stupendous, really all of them. Okay.

Let's look at Moto two and five things for me. So number five again, Tony Arbolino losing the plot mid season. And also sort of along with this, Chavez, Celestino Vietti. Where did those guys go? You know, as the season started out, there was this great racing between Arbolino and Acosta.

There was a great race that happened at Cota. There was a great race that happened in Le Mans and in Mugello. And then we got to summer break. And then Acosta just simply put his head down and started to win races consistently. Or was very close to the front all the time.

And Arbolino was like, oh, he qualified 12th. He qualified 8th. Whoa, what happened? It was just one of those bizarre things where both him and, you know, why? I don't know.

That was really, really wild. I don't know if it was the dream of chasing the Moto GP ride. That really caused him to lose his focus on what he was doing because as soon as he was like, hey, I'm staying with... Thank you, Mark VDS. It was like, oh, we're at the front again.

Okay, was it a pressure thing? I don't know. These guys are immune to that stuff, I think. But there was a distraction somewhere. I don't know what it was.

Again, you could... I think one of the things that top level teams do well is when they lose the plot as far as setup, they know what to take a bike back to. Look, five races ago or three races ago, hey, we put this on the bike and started there. We're going to go back to that because you like that. You finished second on it or whatever it is.

So I'm not sure. Just one of those mysterious things that happened this season. Of course, Celestino Vietti showed up, won a race and then disappeared again. Yeah. I mean, Vietti is almost to me more of a worry than Arbilino.

Arbilino had a good start to the season and it just faded away, didn't it? Perhaps, as you say, a little bit of a resurgence right towards the end. But I think that it's hard not to conclude that that was when the championship was gone and done. That release of pressure possibly just enabled him or maybe just turned to some tracks that he prefers, who knows? Vietti though, I mean, that is an enigma right there because, I mean, did he not win in India as well?

He just later in the season. No, Moto2 was the cost of one in India. But Vietti won a race somewhere around the middle or second, you know, the- Towards the end, yeah. I think he won it. Didn't he win at Thailand?

What's the new one? What's the new one? It might have been Mandalika or- Mandalika. I think he might have won at Mandalika. Yeah.

It was just one of those like, it'd been nowhere and then suddenly he wins a race and then he's nowhere again. It's like, what the hell is that? I mean, that must be so frustrating for the teams to have riders that do that. And you do see this quite a bit, but really hard to explain, really. And it's a worry really, because he was, looked like he'd be going up fast track to MotoGP a couple of seasons ago, didn't he?

He did. And it's, he's changed squads this year. He's not in that Fantic team anymore, as it's called, I think, or was called. So maybe a change of scenery will help. But I would say for Vietti, this is a make or break year, isn't it?

Because if he's anonymous this year, then you figure that probably people's patients will run out. I would have thought people's patients would have ran out with Joe Roberts too, but they haven't. Well, I suppose the thing that Joe's got in his favour is he's kind of the lone American, isn't he? So there's some reasons for him to stick around commercially. I'm a bit contentious on saying that.

I mean, I think he's got the talent to be there, but he does blow hot and cold. And it will be very interesting to see how he does back at American Racing this season, as we can now say. But Vietti's got a slightly different problem. He's an Italian and there's plenty of fast Italians around. So losing one wouldn't be such a big shock to the championship, would it?

No. Number four, you'll like this one, Rich. Jake Dixon wins. Not only did he just win at Assen, he then won again at Barcelona. And the Barcelona race that he won was well played by Jake.

It showed that Jake is really, his game has really succeeded. So I was very proud of Jake to win. British pride, British pride. Jake Dixon, and again, I'm probably going to be slightly contentious. He's very typically British in the sense that it's all very hard work.

And I don't think I've been too insulting, probably to say that. I mean, Jake is a supremely talented rider. Of course, they all are. But he's not kind of that generational rider that comes along. And everybody's just like kind of down on their hands and knees.

But he's a guy that just gets better every year. And he applies himself really hard. He's really hard on himself mentally as well. Beats himself up for every little mistake. But year on year, he gets better.

And again, it was a breakthrough year this year. As you say, Jimmy won a couple of races. So, you know, that's a big tick in the box. But when I spoke to him and it's on one of the interviews that went out a few days ago, he's quite down in the dumps about stuff. And that is kind of the British way.

He's a little bit like Nigel Mansell used to be. It's all quite hard work. It's sort of kind of like pushing water up a hill in a way. And it doesn't really need to be like that. Because again, I think if he starts off the season strong and builds on again, builds on last season, he should be a title contender.

Although, I mean, that is a stern challenge with some of the other people that he's going to have to contend with. But he's on the right team. He's on the right bike. He's in an environment that he knows very settled there. And he's got all the tools in the box to do the job, isn't he?

Now, so I think if he was just a little bit less hard on himself and let his talent shine a bit more and not be quite so down in the dumps about when things don't go absolutely right, he'd probably do even better. So hopefully that's what will happen. I hope so. But thank you for the British share, too. No, no problem.

Jake deserved it in my book. You know, that was a big story to me. That was a Jake Dixon all year was a big prominent front player. So, yeah, number three, the absolute mad racing all year. The class has been rejuvenated.

Moto two had some absolutely fabulous racing all year long. Yeah. OK, there were a couple of snooze fest. I'm not going to lie. India being the fact being the prominent one with Acosta being like 14 million miles up the road.

OK. Well, I almost want to sit there and go like, yeah, occasionally Acosta lets you see his true talent was India. This is how good the kid is. Kind of like Rossi. Rossi understood the show.

So Rossi would always ride in the pack for a little bit. And then with three laps to go, Rossi would take off in Rossi's prime. So let's be honest. And I can test and I've said this before on the show. I will say it again.

I will continue to say the only time Rossi ever rode 100% the entire time was Philip Island in like 2003 when he got a 10 second penalty for passing under yellow. Rossi just put the hammer down on the V5 and was gone. Yeah. Yeah. That could have been every race.

I could have been every race that he could have won by 50 seconds. He didn't. Yeah. OK. Rossi understood the show.

This class has been hot and cold when it first started and when four strokes, it was mad. It was crazy. It was insane. It was what you loved about the class. This year had a great mix of different people winning.

Different people being at the front. Barcelona was a great race that Dixon won. The Assen race was outstanding. Acosta and Arbolino at Cota was another fantastic race. Yeah, it was just those two out front, but it was still a fantastic race.

So we always talk about like, oh, this wasn't much to say in this Moto2 race. And then you kind of gloss over it. No, there was a lot that we talked about in Moto2. And it wasn't just Acosta being in the class. Everybody it's like the rising tide lifts all boats.

It was like there was an influx of talent that came in that caused everybody to up their game. Jacob, this game, right? You know, Arbolino came in. His game was at the top. All those things happened and it made for a really great season.

Is it going to be next year? Are we going to have a great season like that? I don't know, but I'm going to revel in this one because a lot of times that Moto2 race is a real snooze fest. The big unknown going into this season is obviously is again, the Pirelli Tires, isn't it? Because what you tend to find in any championship is if you have stability technical rules, things close up and so the field gets tighter and as a result, the race should get better.

So the big shake up this year is the tire one. But the Pirelli is from what I understand of these things, which is minimal, it's true. But you know, they are, you know, there's a much more feel with them. Not all sort of edge grip, the sort of squidgier type of thing. So it shouldn't, it should only help, I think, probably the racing.

So, yeah, I mean, Jim, a few seasons ago, particularly when towards the end of the 600 Honda engine version of Moto2, I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find a race you'd ever want to go back and watch in a season. This year, I'd say probably maybe half of the races were really, really very good. Yeah, there were some that were spread out and a bit of a snooze fest. I mean, I think with Acosta, he was so much better than everybody else that by the end of the season, people had almost kind of given up in a way because they just couldn't beat him because he's so good all of the time and he doesn't crash very much. It's virtually impossible to beat him.

Bear in mind, it was his second season, so he was well established in the class at this point. He'll have a tougher challenge in MotoGP this year, but and that's good for us. That's good for him as well and good for the championship. But yeah, Moto2 was really, really good this year and I was not expecting it to be. I have to say, I thought it was going to be pretty turgid and it wasn't at all.

Sorry, somebody's come home, so the dogs are barking if you hear that. Number two, this is a little weird here, but I'm going to talk about the maturity of Pedro Acosta. You saw a very different Acosta from his days winning a championship in Moto3 to this championship that he won in Moto2. The kid was much more composed. He definitely had understood that there are times that everyone is slightly better than you, so I will take the points and I will race the race that I'm going to race as opposed to push and put it on the ground.

He's got that magical mix of everything that you want, but it was just really interesting to watch him grow up in the class. He was a kid riding a Moto3 bike to now this kid who's matured as a teen, as a 19-year-old and getting ready to at some point be 20 in this first Moto GP season. That to me was really cool to watch. I do think he was really funny when he had the pizza box in the backpack at Mugello. That was funny.

I think he's going to bring some of that back because I think he will be there. It's going to take him a little time in Moto GP to get there, but he will start. I miss that Rossi had all the celebration things. A lot of Lorenzo had them too. Marquez has had some quote unquote ones.

The one where he stood up on the bike and he's got it leaned over almost 45 degrees. That was Marquez's thing, wasn't it? Doing something as he went across the line. I always found Lorenzo's a little bit hard to bear really because it was a bit too much trying to copy the Rossi formula. Man on the moon and Laguna Seca.

Rossi had already done all that stuff and Lorenzo tried to replicate it, but it was too close. I think Acosta probably can be the next guy that really brings a bit of joy back into things because we do need a bit of that. Plus, it must be said, he also in an interview that he gave, which I think is available on YouTube and stuff, did make the point that we've been talking about numerous times over the times that we've been doing MotoPod together since I came in, which is that he was saying that there's a little bit of needles, not a bad thing. It's all a bit friendly at the moment. I think he will go in there.

It'll take a bit of time to get himself up to speed, although he didn't look too bad in the Valencia test, I have to say, straight out of the gate, but it'll take him half to a season, I'm sure, to really establish himself. I think by the time we get into 2025, he'll start to ruffle some feathers and he will revel in ruffling the feathers because we've seen him do it before. He didn't really need to do it, I don't think, in Moto2 because in his first season, well, I think we all tend to forget, although we have said this before, that these kids have been on Moto3 bikes for many, many, many years. By the time they jump on the Moto2 bike, it is a big change. He crashed a lot in that first half of last season, if you remember, Jim, and then started to find his feet, broke his leg, although he didn't do that on the Moto2 bike.

I think that was a training accident. That's right. He did. That was training. You're right.

Sorry. But obviously, it set him back in his development on the bike because he missed some races and then had to take it a little bit easier, I guess. Last year was the learning year and this year, he just went for it. That's the talent right there, isn't it? He took what he'd learned and then just went on a rip this year.

Sorry, last year. I keep saying that. I'm assuming the same sort of thing will happen in MotoGP, but it will be a much tougher challenge in MotoGP because I think everybody's brilliant in MotoGP. That's where the mind games and the little bit of needle will start to creep in because that's part of his arsenal. We saw it in Moto3.

I mean, he really did get under Dennis Fodges' skin. No two ways about it. And he took great delight in doing it. Now, you can have a view on whether you like that sort of thing or not. I think provided it doesn't get out of hand, I think that can actually be quite good from a spectator's point of view.

And the championship, I think, will benefit from a little bit of rivalry again because Rossi Biagi, Rossi Lorenzo, Stonela, and Rossi. It all seemed to be Rossi was the common denominator, wasn't he? And then of course, Marquez. But Rossi put the needles on everybody. He did.

That was part of his game plan, wasn't it? And as you say, Acosta is very much out of that. I think he knows his history. He's one of these kids that probably has watched a lot of this stuff and has decided that's the way to go. So yeah, I can't wait to see that happen when that comes along.

All right. Number one in the Moto2 class, Speed Up wins. It had been so much Kalex dominance. In fact, so dominant that KTM quit building their own bike in that class. I mean, okay, KTM had bigger fish to fry, build a chassis for MotoGP.

I get that. But still, Speed Up won. In fact, they won enough that another team will have speed ups. Yeah. No, it's great.

It's great. That's great for the championship. It was huge, huge for the championship. And hopefully, Jim, it will encourage another chassis manufacturer. I think NTS had a wildcard towards the end of the season, didn't they?

Somebody did. Yeah, I think it's NTS. They were in the championship a few seasons ago. So if we get a bit more variety coming in, if people show that you can beat the Kalexes, then because obviously the KTM chassis is gone for Moto2 now. So that was good.

I mean, Aldegaard, Speed Up, Boscascura are my kind of shout out for Moto2 in terms of the one I would pick as my takeaway for the year. Again, you could choose any number of riders in Moto2, I suppose. And Acosta would obviously be the obvious choice. But Aldegaard really turned heads, didn't he, towards the end of the year? Yeah, you can make the argument that Acosta pretty much wrapped up the title at that point.

So he didn't really need to push perhaps quite as hard as he might have otherwise done. But nevertheless, Aldegaard was sensational. And he'd won the last four races on the bounce, I think, didn't he? So that's, you know, that doesn't happen very often. And he did it on a Boscascura as well.

And he did it in a variety of tracks and conditions as well. So it wasn't that it was just a certain low grip or whatever favor in the bike. And Alonso was good on the Boscascura earlier in the year. He sort of tailed off a bit. But Alonso Lopez, I mean, his teammate was really good all season for the most part as well.

So yeah, I mean, Speed Up had done a brilliant job. And that's why they're my shout out with Aldegaard in particular. Yeah, rider of the year for me, Aldegaard, hands down. That was impressive. You're on something different.

You have no other data other than your teammate, right? K-Lex, you got every LED else has got one. So if you're having trouble, it's you and not the frame, right? Everybody's got the same motor, same tires. It's how you set your chassis up.

And I thought that was just absolutely brilliant at the end of the year. I just it was it was huge. I think it's huge for the class. I think it's huge for people wanting to come in. Like you said, I think it's great that there's going to be four Boscascuras on the grid.

I think that's just absolutely fantastic. Yeah, perfect, right? Can I just say, Jim, just on Aldegaard, because again, I think he is going to be one of these people that we will really take more and more notice of going forward from here. Don't forget at the beginning of the 2020 or early in the 2022 season, where he was shown really, really well, he was being talked about for a MotoGP ride at that point. I think Aprilia was sniffing around him at that stage because this is pre Maverick Vinales being on the Aprilia, I think.

And then his form really sort of dived off. And through most of 2022, you probably would have said it was a bit of a disappointment. And so for him to come back in the way that he did this year. And again, he was actually on by Alonso Lopez, his teammate in the first half of the season. Then he got his first winner Silverstone.

And then he was kind of really, really, really great thereafter and brilliant by the time he's winning the last four races. So he's really picked himself up from some high points and low points. And now he's really on that trajectory. That's a bit kind of a Costa risk really, in terms of we know where he's headed. HRC wanted him on their bike this year, but he missed the get out clause date on his contract.

So Pascas Cura got to keep him, but it'll only be for a season I expect. I'm sure he's probably already got an HRC contract in his pocket. There'll be a letter of intent signs with somebody, I'm sure. Yeah. Yep.

All right. What's a wooden spoon for the Moto2 class, Rich? American racing for me. Simply because just the whole kind of rider management and contractual kind of fiascos that we saw going on there in the show that I'm going to put out tomorrow, which is my kind of last bits and bobs tip bits from Qatar. I kind of doorstep John Hopkins as he was walking down the pit lane.

He was a little bit reticent, talked to me actually. He didn't know who I was. He didn't know that I was British. And of course this was whilst the whole Rory Skinner getting dropped whilst he had a contract for this year. Thing was blowing up around American racing.

So it was only like a two minute talk because he didn't really want to talk to me, I don't think. But you could just tell, but that reticence told you everything that you needed to know about where that team is in terms of its media facing side of things. Of course they're very happy with Marcos Ramirez in the team because he had, as soon as he came in, he did really, really well. And they got Joe Roberts going back for this season. But the whole Sean Dillon Kelly thing that blew up mid season where he ultimately got booted out.

And then of course the Rory Skinner thing where he got dropped in favour of Marcos Ramirez who was subbing for Sean Dillon Kelly at that point, or had effectively replaced STK anyway. And that meant that they just took Rory out very late in the season, which is never good for a rider because you don't necessarily have many options on where you're going to go. And he had a contract with the team for the 2024 season. So all of that together, I just think from a kind of bad taste in the mouth thing again, wooden spoon. Sorry, American race.

I mean, great team, made good progress in certain respects during the year. And I'm sure most of the personal though top guys and John, John Hopkins, if you've read his book, he's a pretty decent guy, obviously. He did have a nice little chat in the end, but you can tell that there's bad feeling around that team in the paddock and amongst the fans at the minute. So could do better, must do better this year, I think. Okay.

Let's finish this off with Moto GP five things. Number five, Zarko wins a race. He won in Australia. He won after they was told that he was going to HRC. We knew, well, he was going to ride for LCR with an HRC contract in his pocket and he still won the race.

And quite honestly, I was impressed that Zarko finally got one. It was a big moment. Zarko won. Yeah. It was one of the moments of the season, really.

Cause I don't think anybody begrudged him that win. Nope. Not a person there. Number four was the officials finally let them race after all the track limits and rough riding and well, knock somebody off. It's a penalty.

If you don't knock this person off, it's not a penalty. They kindly finally got it right. They found that little sweet spot about where they want it to be and what they were willing to call sort of a little bit after halfway. They finally found their feet finally. And I think we saw some great racing at the end because there was riders who weren't afraid to pass anymore.

And I think what might've pushed them over the edge was Bender saying something about the effect of like, well, I'm not even allowed to pass anybody because if I barely touch them, they're going to penalize me. And I think that press, that statement, whether Bender thought about it from a tactical standpoint or whether it was just pure rider blah coming out that from that moment, things started to change. They made the right calls in my mind. In fact, we literally were starting to do shows from, call it maybe two thirds of the way in. I remember we were going into the races that were all the flyaways to end off the year, the last four or five races there, the two triple headers.

Right. So we were talking, I remember going in like, well, nothing to say about officiating. It was all good. Like they became a non-story where they were a story for the past two years. They were the story.

The story was track limits or why was this called me? Good grief. That's just hard racing. Please let it go. And they finally got it together to where they should be a non-story.

There should not be a story associated with the officials from every weekend that we're racing. They should be invisible. And if they're invisible, they're doing their job. And I think they finally got it right. And that was a big moment now across your fingers that we're going to continue with that type of officiating and we're going to see some really good racing next year.

Yeah. I'll come back to that in a minute, Jim, if I might. But, oh, there's a wooden spoon in there somewhere. I bet you carry on. Okay.

So number three, great riding of the Bizecki. The guy was on Rossi's team. He won races. He actually had a grand slam. He had pole position, fastest lap, sprint race, and the actual race itself.

Incredible. I didn't see that coming from that team. I didn't see it coming from... They had good equipment. They have a Ducati.

I understand. It's a year old Ducati, but still, you're putting a fresh team together, basically. Uccio was doing his thing, running the team for Rossi, and they were able to do what I thought was amazingly great. They almost outshone Grissini, who was the de facto non-factory-esque Ducati team. So the Ducati pecking order is 11.0 Ducati.

Right behind that is PreMac. They're together because they've got the same equipment. Then after that, it was always Grissini and then Rossi's team. I really thought this year that Rossi's team jumped over Grissini. I'm not trying to slide Grissini's team at all.

I'm not. It's just that's the way it seemed to be. They were more at the front. Yeah. And the VR46 team is pretty young, don't forget, in MotoGP terms as well.

So no, they did really, really well, didn't they? Bizecki, it's really telling to me that he turned down the chance to go to PreMac and stay put at VR46. I mean, that tells you a great deal about both Bizecki and the VR46 team, doesn't it? It does. It tells you everything you need to know.

Well, lumbered himself is absolutely not the right word because there's absolutely nothing wrong with being on a 2023 spec Ducati. But in making that decision, he is a step behind in terms of the bike. But as we've said numerous times, I think, just because it's a 2024 bike doesn't necessarily mean it's better than the 2023 bike. And the chances are that the 2023 bike might be better in the early part of the season, particularly if they're doing something radical with aero or they've done something with the engine, which may or may not be the best. I mean, who can forget Bagnari, spitting his toys out of the pram a few seasons ago when he was getting beaten by Bastianini on the Grissini at that stage.

And what was it Bagnari said? Basically, I'm just a test rider at this point in time, whereas he's riding my old bike that's sorted. That was kind of what he said. Having been beaten in the first race of the year in Qatar. So yeah, I mean, again, we can expect great things from Bazzacchi, who is kind of the re-embodiment of Valentino Rossi anyway in the way that he looks and he's very sort of hippie-ish and quite sort of fun loving by by MotoGP standards anyway.

So yeah, good show, Jim. Hmm. My number two is the big split, the divorce. Mark Marquez leads Honda in slash. How bad is it for the Japanese manufacturers?

And I include Yamaha there. It's all one story tied together that that look Marquez had at Saxon Ring, his playground, the place that he wins. That's his place. He owns it. And for him to crash his brains out on that bike and then walk over and simply slump over the guardrail and sit there in reflection for, you know, what seemed like a lifetime, but obviously wasn't.

It was, that was huge. You just didn't think it was ever going to happen. You're wondering like, what the hell happened to Honda? You know, hello people, they have peaks and they have valleys. And the problem with Honda, when they're, when they're on a peak, it's a very, very high peak.

And when they're on a low, it's an extremely high low. And it happens in a heartbeat because it goes from being a peak to being absolutely nowhere. But the climb back out is always the hard thing to do. And that was, he just thought that they were going to have to do it with their star rider. And quite honestly, they don't have their star rider anymore.

He's left and gone someplace else. So for them, that was hard to let him go. He had a contract. They could have forced him to another year. I think they did the right thing because I was beginning to think that Marquez was basically poison to the team.

And I think that, you know, again, this was from one of your interviews with Lucio with Rens. Rens figured out a different way, Hey, less traction control, less contraction control, more me working the throttle to get what I want. So if Mark is not there, they are going to have more feedback from people may listen to what's being said, as opposed to only doing what Mark wants to do and not listening to what maybe Rens is saying or what Zarko is going to say. They bought Zarko. They bought Zarko for one reason only he is the Ducati test rider.

Gigi Delini will tell you as much the parts and pieces of new stuff that they wanted always run Zarko's bike. Now Zarko has that given the might of Han Marini Jim. I mean, I think is a brilliant setup, man. I will give you that. Maybe not.

Dare I say not a racer. I have nothing to say for my comfy little chair that I'm in right here, but I think he's very good at being fast when the bike is correct. And if the bike is not correct, he's not fast. So if you're going to listen to him and he's going to drive your development, then by all means, yay. Right.

Let's get there. But those are two very strong acquisitions by HRC, which proves that they definitely want to come back. And I think, you know, how long had Marcus been there? He'd been there since when did he jump on a Moto GP bike? Cause he was, he was the youngest ever champion and he would did it at Cota.

I'm trying to think it was somewhere cause he did back to back his first time. So it was like, I want to say 13 and 14. I want to say 13 was his first year. So from 13 to 23, that's 10 years, 10 years he spent on that motorcycle. Right.

It's, I, I'm sorry. It's time for a different voice. Yeah. I mean, I don't think we were willing to admit that to ourselves. I wasn't, I wasn't, I'll stand up and say, I wasn't, but you, you had, they had to move on from each other because it was toxic.

Yeah. And without preempting the very short show that I'm putting out tomorrow with just a few of the sort of the ad hoc and tippity things that to finish off the catar coverage, I did a quick interview in the car because he was very kind to drive me to the track with Simon Patterson. And he made a great point, which is, I mean, we were talking about Marcus, but you could apply it to numerous riders through history. And he, the point he made was the stellar talents like that. They often are not good development riders because they don't need to develop the bike.

They just ride around what it is that's holding the bike back for other people. And so actually by having the divorce and particularly with the acquisitions that they've made, this might be precisely what Honda needs to do to get themselves back. Now they're not going to turn it around in half a season. This is a going to be probably two, three years at minimum, I would think. At least two, I can think.

But they almost had to put from each other, I think at this point, both parties had for different reasons needed to go their separate ways. And it probably is the best thing that could have happened actually in retrospect, as much as a seismic shock as it was when we found out it was actually going to happen after all the speculation, will he, won't he? And most of us thought he wouldn't, but he has, and they've put in place very rapidly, a really, really solid team of people to get them out of where they are. They've got some aero people now, they've poached some Formula One people, they're doing what they need to do. And Honda is a very different Japanese company.

Yamaha is going to have a lot harder time recovering from where they are than Honda will. Honda will simply just put money and people and resources behind it and they will get there. Yamaha is going to be very strategic about how they do that. And that's going to be the running on thing because I don't think the Yamaha is going to be much better at all next year. So if that's the case, you got to believe that Quattrora was going to be angling for any other bike.

And I'm wondering if he doesn't wind up on Aprilia somewhere. That's my take. I don't know. I don't know. I'm speculating and this is really throwing some on the wall to see if it sticks, but I just got a feeling he's going to show up at Aprilia.

I think Alés kind of steps aside and Quattrora goes right there. I see it. I don't know why. I just feel it. I could be completely wrong.

Although you can see an Altuquerque interfering with some of these plans because again, Altuquerque being on the new R&F squad, the true motorsports. I could see Altuquerque being there and then figure out what they're going to do with the Dignalas. I'm a bit more hopeful about Yamaha than perhaps than you are. They didn't have a good season. Of course they didn't, but Honda had a worse season.

That's sort of damning with faint praise. I don't know about that. I mean, Honda, Marquez had a lot of podiums and sprint races and stuff. So I would argue that Yamaha had a worse season. Didn't Yamaha finish ahead of HRC in the points table though?

Probably. I think they did. Maybe it's because their name is in the book all the more. It was slim pickings for both, but I don't know. They brought Rins on board.

Again, I mean, will they do some magic with that engine that they've been promising to do? They keep saying they are going to, but I made a terrible mistake actually the last time we spoke to him. I'm stupid and I don't know how this came out of my mouth. I mentioned that in the Valencia test they would have been a bit quicker, but they were running this sort of plastic fairing. I said, because they didn't want to waste money on a fiberglass one, not fiberglass, carbon fiber is what I meant to say.

Where fiberglass came from, I have no idea. But they were running a plastic fairing. So the point was made that they have certainly done some work behind the scenes on their aero and what they were running, albeit in plastic form, so as not to waste money on carbon fiber unnecessarily, was very much an Aprilia kind of aero ground effect type setup. So I think they are in the Yamaha way quietly getting on with stuff, whereas HRC is much more sort of high profile in there. So I'm a bit more, possibly a bit more hopeful, but if they can't extract a bit more power from the engine, then they will remain in trouble.

And we'll find out in just a few weeks time, won't we, when they start testing again in Malaysia. So all will be revealed. But the HRC, Marcus thing was a big one, if not the biggest one of the year, really. BD I've got one bigger, I think, than that. My number one is sprint races.

Through everything that I hated about it at the beginning, oh my God, this is going to be championship points. This is ridiculous. This is that. This is this. You're doing the Formula One thing, on and on and on and gosh, those were some great races.

I will stand here and admittedly, I was not a fan. I'm a fan now. It was really brilliant. And I'm going to tell you this straight, you can hate me. Benyaya would have won this title a long time ago if it wasn't for sprint races, because Martin was winning races there and keeping, and Benyaya didn't seem to want to be playing in that arena.

Now you can say, well, hey, year one was always going to be crazy, weird and wild in the sprint race. But what's year two going to bring? I don't know. I think it's going to bring the same thing. But you saw KTM's win there.

You saw Honda not win, but finish on podiums with Marquez. You had Vezeki winning. It was all kinds of weird. Alex Marquez, I think, won a sprint. There was all kinds of crazy things that happened in the sprint races that you just didn't think were going to happen.

And it was brilliant to watch. It was gripping television. There's a problem though with that, and that is that 90 minutes of lead up that they're talking about going into a sprint race, I just want to pull my air out. I wound up just fast forwarding it until I got to the race, because it was just mind numbingly boring television. And I have an interview with someone who we talk about that.

Why don't you do different things in that 90 minutes? Show tech segments, do things with Simon Krayfar that he does on Instagram. Do those kinds of things inside of that period where you have this 90 minutes of, hey, you do a little subset snippet thing. You go talk to a couple of people. You come back, do the same thing again.

Whatever. Okay. But enough of me trying to fix it. That's a hell of another interview. But that was where it was.

I mean, if Martin wasn't winning sprints, then Yaya would have been champion probably with one, maybe two races to go. But because he did have the sprints, he was able to be right there at the very end. And that is, I think, what they wanted. They wanted the racing to go down and be a showdown. I think it allowed them to do other things.

The medals awarded on the main straightaway, the one special paddock they went to in Spain or wherever it was. The one in Qatar where they were in the back behind the paddock, I think, Rich? Is that where they did the guitar? Yeah, that was, it might have been Mizano or somebody. Mizano had an amazing spot that they went to.

Could have been, I think it was before. The effect of Dan Rosamundo, I mean, not just him. Obviously, there's a huge team, but he's the guy that's in charge of pushing the championship forward in terms of viewership and engagement with fans and stuff. And so there were some positive signs and it did appear to be, although you have to be very careful and sceptical of data, of course, but it does appear that viewership is going up and the demographics around the viewership is kind of improving a bit as well. So, I mean, that's a long-term work in progress as well.

And for every kind of fan engagement down at the podium, there was a turgid kind of rider parade. So some things worked, some things didn't. I mean, Sam Lowe's and his interview that I did with him in Qatar made it very clear that one of the reasons, I mean, his time in Moto2 has kind of come to a natural end anyway, but he made the point that having lost the morning warmup, he's doing so few laps in a weekend that he'd rather go to World Superbike where he's got three races plus all the practicing and all the qualifying as well because he wants to ride a bike. So I lament the fact that Moto3 and Moto2 warmup has disappeared and the fact that the MotoGP warmup is what, 10 or 15 minutes? Yeah, it's like not a very long time.

Blink and you miss it. So I hope that they might alter some of that and go back. Yes, I know there's costs involved in it, but there are also some other things that we've highlighted in the past around safety and adapt into different conditions on the race day and stuff like that. So good stuff and bad stuff, I guess. But overall, I agree with you.

I think the sprints were in general terms pretty exciting. There are a few uninteresting races, but you'll always have that. And yeah, there's this ongoing problem around, you know, more racing equals more crashes and more injuries. And there were obviously some people that were injured frequently and out for long periods of time. Whether that's entirely down to the fact that there is hard to really quantify that a lot of the time, isn't it?

But because that could happen in the main race, just as easily as it could happen in a sprint race. And I don't think the sprint races were necessarily any more obviously dangerous in the first few laps than the main races were. I mean, once the green light comes on, they're all trying to win. Yes, they have a bit less time to do it in the sprint race. But fundamentally, I didn't see that it was kind of overtly dangerous.

I think the bikes are dangerous. I don't think the race format is dangerous. So I think it was I think that's a good number one, actually, Jim. Yeah, I think overall, the sprints were tough on the teams and tough on the riders, certainly. And I've spoken with Herve and Lucio on the whole is 22 races about as much as this championship can manage.

And they were both very much. Yeah, we're at the limit. So I don't know what else they can change really to sort of push on forward. But we're in a sort of fairly happy place, I think, provided things continue to grow in terms of fan engagement and stuff and that the viewership starts to go up again. Yep.

All right. Do you want to do your wooden spoon? And then we'll do rider of the year. Well, my wooden spoon from a MotoGP perspective was really the HRC Marquez split. You know, the fact that it had come to that, you know, although, as we've just said, and I won't go over again, it's actually going to be positive for both parties in different ways and for different reasons.

But you had something else you want you we were talking about the officiating and you were holding a thought. Yeah. Well, can I just say who my sort of my pit for MotoGP was in the year? Go ahead. I'm going to go with Fabio DiGiantonio, which again is a bit of a left bit of a left field one, but simply because there was a rider that everybody thought had no business being a MotoGP and any women's race at the end of the season and is kind of politically or from a sporting point of view has to be found a seat because he's kind of just suddenly emerged as a great, great MotoGP rider.

And I think a lot of the credit for that must go to obviously it goes to Digia, but it must go to Frankie Carcetti, his crew chief at Grissini, who will be working with Marcus this year. Yeah. Who came on board with Digia this, you know, at the beginning of the 2023 season and just gradually together they worked through and got to the point where by the end of the season he was and it wasn't a one off the Qatar race win. I mean, he'd been building up to that for several races and he was really, really good in the second half of the season and really put Ducati in the sport in a position where they just couldn't really afford the PR disaster if he hadn't to be out of a ride. So that took a lot of doing for him, his crew chief and the team.

Again, Grissini talk about punching above their weight. They always do it, don't they? And they might do it a bit more. So I'm hopeful. It's a very left field choice.

But again, I like it though. I really do. It's a little gem in the season and it was such a nice kind of happy story as well as opposed to a guy that looks as if he was going to be kicked out on his ass, you know, having not quite made the grade, you know, and it just goes to show that that latent talent is always there. The trick is unlocking it. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yep. I went with Jorge Martín as my writer of the year. I thought Martín had changed how he did.

He was always a qualifier, could just make one lap magic happen. And he still was, but you know, Martín did win races. He did beat, you know, the law. He did win the long races that he needed to win, things like that nature. I love that he was ballsy with the soft tire choice at Phillip Island.

I mean, okay, the Island had all the crazy weather, right? They ran the long race, the main race on that Saturday instead of the sprint. And then that was pure chaos at the end because it was one lap too long for a soft tire. I loved his spirit of like, screw it, put a soft on, let's go. I'm going to go win, whatever.

I love that about Martín. And I mean, I'm sorry, any guy who's now dragging his shoulder, I got to say is pretty cool. So yeah, it's probably the safe choice for me, but I just really thought Martín really kind of shook things up. I was prepared for a very boring Benyaya route of the season with sprinkles of crazy Marquesism thrown in somewhere just for good measure. But the crazy Mark Marquesisms came from a guy named Jorge Martín who made, I think, things interesting.

So I'm going there. Fair enough. I just have, it's not a wooden spoon really. It's just one other thing I just wanted to pick out as a slight negative in the year. Although again, there's a positive as well.

I'm a bit peeved at the Dorna website and particularly the app that you use on your smart tellers because somehow they've done this magical trick of taking something that worked really, really well and making it worse. Much worse in actual fact. Even the search engines don't work. The other night, because through this off season where I crave racing, so I always go back into the archive because I've got the MotoGP Dorna pass thing. And they always used to have a really brilliant archive of stuff.

Now it is still there, but if you want to go and look for a specific race, I wanted to watch Acosta's Moto3 racing Cata where he came from the pit lane to the win. Can I get the search engine to find that race? No. And the whole thing is just kind of on some sort of like a beta trial version depending on what platform you run it on, whether it's a smart telly, which might differ between what sort of TV it is in terms of brand, whether you're on your tablet or your phone. The whole thing is a bit of an embarrassing mess really, which doesn't really reflect terribly well on a company that's a media company.

So that's a negative for Dorna. The positive for Dorna is that- Can I stay with the negative first? Yes, please. So my complaint is if I watch it on my computer, I can have different camera views all running simultaneously. That's the great way to watch it.

However, I much prefer to watch the racing on my really big television. Why can't I take the app and have three or four cameras running? Because it would be great, in my opinion, to be on my big screen TV. The bulk majority of the screen would be say the commentary feed, but hey, I want the helicopter in the upper left. The lower right is going to be Marques's camera.

I want to have Acosta's camera in the upper right and I want Bender's camera in the lower left. I can't. I only can have the one feed in the app, whether it's smart telly, Roku, Apple TV. Take your pick. That's my negative.

I raised a question through the email channels that you can have for the tech support and stuff. The response you always get back is, well, just plug your laptop into your TV. It's like, well, really? There's an app that you can download on your smart TV, but it doesn't do the stuff that your computer does. So why is that?

It just doesn't seem very professional to me. So I'm hoping that's something that they will get on top of this season. Because let's be honest, it ain't a cheap service. It's very good value for money in the sense of the amount I use it. Because I watched, as we've said before, many of the practice sessions, usually the qualifying sessions and all of the races.

But for a more casual person, I'm to stamp up $200 or 200 euros thick end of, although the pricing policy seems to vary wildly as well between different people, which again is not great. So work to be done to improve things. But on the flip side of that, I must again say a huge thank you to Dawn on behalf of MotoPod for the access that they have given us and the fact that after a lot of begging, it must be said in a few sort of terse words between us, they actually are starting not just for MotoPod, they're starting to acknowledge podcasting as a genuine form of media. I mean, it's 2023 for goodness sake, but it's 2024 now. You would have thought that this would have been a bit more of a thing in several years ago.

But anyway, they gave us access free of charge, you know, although it costs a hell of a lot of money to go to Qatar, getting into the paddock was a press accreditation that they gave us. So and hopefully that's something we can build upon with Dawn. They did it for us in World Superbike as well. So we've opened that door, a jar. Now we want to push it open a bit further, but that's where we'll come to in future shows in terms of talking about what we want to try and achieve with the show and the engagement of the listeners and stuff.

So great credit and thanks to Dawn on that side of things, but please, please sort out the app because it is the pain in the ass. It really is. And it used to work brilliantly. You could go in, select what you wanted, all the races from that year would come up, each class, pick it. Now you have to search, put it in a search bar.

So you put in Qatar 2021 Moto3. It doesn't even bring the race up. Well, not on my TV. It doesn't. I've tried it several times.

So yeah, terrible. Okay. I had to start the year off with a rant or two. So there we go. All right.

Well, that's the show, guys. Hopefully you enjoyed a little look back, five things, some wooden spoons, a little bit of news that we had there as well. Obviously there's going to be another interview that I have that'll come out after this show, probably Rich has got some other interviews that's going to come out as well. And we're going to look forward to having a pretty good, as Martin would say, best season ever of 2024. Remember folks to interact, email us, motopod at motopodcast.com.

Questions, comments, concerns, anything like that. Please do share it with us. We want to make the show as good as we possibly can. If you want to reach out to Richard myself directly, I am moto at moto RGV, Instagram, X threads, and you are Richard Jowett at all same platforms there as well. Follow us on X, follow us on Instagram.

We're really trying to boost our social media presence and many thanks to Rich for doing a lot of that slug work to get that done. And with that, Rich, I will say ask everyone to ride safe. Cheerio. See you next time.