Lusail Pre-Season 2 With Martin Darlington

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. Welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. My name is Martin Darlington and we've just had the MotorGP test and you're about to hear a series of interviews I was fortunate enough to be able to make with first of all Maddie Patterson and then Simon Patterson, the husband wife team, not only about MotorGP but also Maddie's telling us a bit about her new race team called Sekhmet Racing who will be competing in the women's championship that starts in May.

So really interesting chat and then obviously Simon particularly opines on MotorGP with some really interesting insights. And then finally we have a chat with our own Harry Lloyd who is now the head of marketing at PR and sponsorship for Repsol Honda and just a bit about Harry's journey from being a student and then getting on board with Motopod where he carried the flag for us along with Dave Neal for several years. The editing and content creation and then a bit more about the year ahead for Repsol Honda. So it's Martin with Motopod and joining us once again being a tremendous friend of the pod is Luce Cecchinello, team principal of LCR Racing. Luce thank you so much for joining us and first thoughts, just a general feeling on the season ahead.

I'm guessing you're probably optimistic. I'm pretty optimistic because let's say compared to last year I hoped that it's going to be better. As you know we had a fantastic start with Alex Reins, we won the Grand Prix of America and then unfortunately he had an injury and then it was a nightmare all over the season because we had to race with replacement riders and we came back but with a lot of pain and some limitation. Definitely this year should be better and I'm looking forward for a great season because also I can see that definitely our bike looks more competitive than last year. Sure, I mean Alex Reins is well known for being one of the deep thinkers amongst the riders but it looks like you've recruited another one in Ioann Zarko, definitely a thoughtful rider and hopefully he's going to help drive the development but I have to say that Castrol Green, if anyone hasn't seen it yet just google LCR Castrol Honda 2024 MotoGP, it is stunning.

Thank you, thank you and we are very proud to have this colour on our bike and to represent Castrol who has a great history and heritage on the motorsport. However, as you said we are about to start another chapter with Ioann Zarko. Alex Reins had two years contract, everybody knows but in case he would have got a proposal from a manufacturer he was free to withdraw from his contract and this is what happened. Of course he got a proposal from Yamaha factory which is a historical competitive team and definitely we had to find a replacement and we couldn't find a better replacement because Ioann Zarko won the World Championship last year, he won the Australian Grand Prix, he made several podiums and we are delighted and very happy to work with him. Sure, speaking of new chapters, looking in from the outside it's often felt for the last 10 or 15 years that Honda and Yamaha have viewed their satellite teams as customers whereas Ducati seemed to have created its one big team with different sections and it feels very much again just looking in from the outside that in the last maybe few months Honda especially have seemed to have really reassessed that relationship.

Do you expect or hope to be more involved in the development of the bike, more as a partner than so much as a customer? This is not an expectation but this is a reality because Honda realised that to get out from a deep crisis that they have to face we don't have to hide the reality. We've been all in deep trouble last year with our bike, many crashes, our bike not competitive and many problems and then definitely they put a lot of effort to reorganise everything, they put more human resources, they put more people into the project and now we can say that we are definitely part of the development of the bike and we are just like a unique team. Sure, one other question I had and the reason I'm asking you is you've always been very good at explaining things that aren't so obvious to the fans. When people are recruiting riders you can always look at their results in other series, you can look at their lap times or maybe in another MotoGP team.

How do you recruit your crew though? How do you know that a mechanic is going to fit in with the team? There's no sort of mechanic skill test that I'm aware of where you can see and also you know it's such a change of lifestyle. There might be a mechanic on a national series who's brilliant, he just doesn't like travelling or she doesn't like travelling. So how do you go about that process of finding and creating a team?

You get the point, it's very hard, that's why when I find good mechanics I try to keep them and I can proudly say that if you look at a picture of our team staff 15 years ago basically we have the same staff every year, same people is keeping working with us because for me it's clearly a value you know that I want to keep. When I have to recruit new mechanics, new engineers which is the case because every couple of years it happened that we either we need to implement our staff either there are some one that for some private reason we can stop working on MotoGP or move to another team. It's a matter that takes quite a lot of time to make interviews, to select people, to collect information from the paddock, this is very important because normally we do not take people from outside, we just prefer to take people already experienced people, already people that has been involved at least in the Moto2 category or Moto3 category at the highest level we are trying to of course to look at the CV and then of course we are used to make three levels of interviews, one with me, one with my technical director and one with HRC so we are going to and then we combine our impression and then we select the people. It must take a special kind of person as well who's willing to travel the world and I know a lot of fans will say oh you see these amazing places as someone who flies regularly on airlines because it's how I have to go home to visit my family and I'm not going on holiday I do it three or four times a year and I can find it really quite draining at times and you guys and the calendar now that must be another element you need a particular kind of personality. Definitely I guess you need a lot of passion, you need really a lot of passion and this is one of the elements I am looking for to get from my mechanics, from my staff, from my collaborators.

Passion is also one of the key elements that I try to to get a perception of how much passion he has because for sure he looks everything right and nice and you know with a lot of charm but in reality it takes a lot of sacrifice because most of the part of the year you have to travel together with your mates, you have to work together with your mate, you have to sleep together with your mate, you have to eat together with your mate, it's a you know it's a lot of time spent together so you must have a lot of passion and then also you must have a personality that fits with our team but this is good because so far I must say that we never had a big issue on that. I guess for you as well one of the challenges creating that family atmosphere where you really can all be honest with each other without people's egos becoming damaged yeah from everything I've seen I think you do a great job and one question I'm asking everybody I'm speaking to this weekend except for Augusto Fernandes because I forgot big rule changes coming in 2027 if the combination of groups that make the technical regulations came to you and said you can have one rule and we will incorporate it what would you like to see introduced or changed or got rid of? This is my personal opinion yeah I would like I mean I it's very it's very commendable what the effort that the motorcycle construction association together with Dorn FAM are doing for going greener yeah but means the sustainable fuel in our land. I would like to possibly have maybe another rule that imply implement stronger our commitment to go greener because this is where the world is going yeah and where we should say be here to develop the technology to give a contribution for the collectivity for the community. So lead the technology don't follow it.

Correct. Yeah that's interesting I was expecting you to say aero do all the riders said aero? I really would like to have for example the usage of sustainable material yeah why not imagine to to reduce the engine capacity and then eventually supercharge the engine it's something that formula one has done and it's something that it's common on the four-wheel industry because you can go in the market and nowadays you have a full of hybrid car you know with very affordable technologies yeah so I would love to see these technologies applied on on the two-wheel industry sure I mean last time they tried to reduce the capacity to slow the bikes down it didn't work very well you know in 07 yeah but uh in that period has been done a big mistake right because uh you know sure you understand about the engineering and if you do if you want I mean you can develop power by the torque or by the engine revolution yeah if you reduce the engine capacity you reduce automatically the torque that the engine is able to develop sure but if you do not put a cap on the engine revolution you just go higher and higher and higher and then this was a big mistake because we reduce the engine capacity supposing to reduce the top speed supposed to reduce the top power but the engineer made very simple okay we reduce engine capacity now we are going to increase the engine revolution and then we had to introduce the pneumatic valve technologies which are very expensive and then finally we got the same top speed and the same top power and with the very very expensive engines so let's say that on that period the ducati didn't want to to limit the engine revolution because the desmodromic patent technology so I think that if I talk about reducing engine revolution we should consider to make a cap on the so to reduce the engine capacity we should make a cap on the engine revolution yeah so don't just be one big interesting lucamarini said his choice he said not so much limiting things but make the technical regulations absolutely clear black and white he said because every time you make one the engineer and he didn't know the english for it but it was an italian friend find a loophole they find a way around and yeah it's the same in every motorsport that they make regulations how can we work away around that that's brilliant look thank you so much lucho it's always an absolute pleasure to meet you again i hope the flying's going well and you're enjoying it so you're flying at santa fe no no no no i'm just i'm studying i'm just studying the jeppesen charts yeah but for sorry for anybody who's lucho flies and i fly so we often end up talking flying as much as bikes but we won't go into great depth if if you want to google a jeppesen chart you'll see what we mean when you first see them it's terrifying isn't it yeah yeah yeah just just it's a word salad yeah brilliant lucho thank you so much and all the best for the season and we genuinely mean that look forward to seeing you right so this is martin from motobod and i'm sat with simon and maddie paterson uh who you will all be familiar with and maddie i'm going to start with you because you've just become a team boss in the new fim women's motorcycle racing series sec met racing i believe so i'm sure this has been a long time in the cooking but can you tell us how that came about and a bit more about the series and the team yeah um well i think in terms of how it came about actually it was a quite personal reasons and anybody who knows me well knows that i'll always put a leg out for my friends like i'll always be their biggest defense and um i was just kind of fed up with seeing athletes struggling to sort of pay for their own seat seeing people in the media marketing trying to get a job but you know nobody wants to be offered 18 grand a year when you're 30 years old and you've been doing it for a long time and myself to be quite honest i think i've gotten a little bit stale and dry in terms of what i was doing as a journalist and it was a bit run of the mill so i thought if there's not enough jobs and there's not enough opportunity what if i create some so nine months later here we are and it has been a labor of love every day for the last nine months my business partner denis battaly and i every day on the phone seeking the right kind of people to fit into our business was important i've never lost sight of why we started this so people that were important to me and were skilled and capable now have a job which is so exciting i get to pay my athletes they don't have to pay for their seat they deserve to be here they're doing a job to you know go out and get championships for us and then i'm just here sort of overseeing it all which is crazy it's really wild that that's the role that i have now i think everybody's in a bit of shock about that actually but that was sort of how the team came about and why we're here sure and for people who've probably seen the headlines but what's the time frame now for the season how many rounds i believe it's going to run alongside the world superbike program correct so we're running alongside world superbike we have six races of our own testing will take place in cremona on the 15th and 16th of may which should be interesting because we have never been to cremona but everyone has told me that the circuit's in good condition and we should be okay and our first round will be in mesano in the middle of june so we're all counting down for that we're only a six-round championship in our first year i think the feedback from jauner and the community going forward is that running a women's series has an inherent kind of skepticism if we look around at other sports so what was key about this sport was executing it to a point where it was successful so we can grow let's not start big let's start with the view to go big because ultimately if you like racing you'll like this series that's this all this is it's just another class and it's walking that fine line between being a woman being an athlete and actually getting people to see women in sport the same as we see anyone else athletes in their own right sure um i mean one of my daughter's best friends elise hughes plays football for crystal palace top score i think at the moment in the championship and elise is one of the first generation who'll make a living from playing full-time professional football and i mean the last couple of women's world cups have had enormous audiences so the audience is there but i guess the longest journey starts with a single step so it's a european-based six rounds to start with yeah and i think what you'll notice about our championship in particular is that although we're european-based we're very much the most multinational grid in the world at the moment in terms of who's taking part in this specific competition and i think dawn has been able to take a look at that while procuring people for this event and say cool we're not going global we're going europe despite the fact we're a world championship in our own right we are mostly uk and european-based so how do we get the world interested in what we're doing to have the opportunity to grow outwards in the years to come and i think that's reflected in the entry list because if you look at that list simon you posted the list didn't you and it was incredible it's like 18 countries 24 writers from 18 countries which makes every other championship we've got look to shame really because there's no one else that's got that range of internationalism yeah fantastic and i mean your background i believe was marketing and so you have that commercial experience so yeah very much so i think for me i come from an event's background and when i'm looking at this sport ultimately every place we go is its own event the team is a vendor at the end of the day we're here to procure fans give fans a show win respect you know respect our colleagues as well i think it's a really important piece of our mindset and our ambition as a team is that we respect talent and to be here's talent can you name your writers yes so i have mallory dobs out of the u.s so she's raised things like super hooligans and the baggers in motor america she's an engineer by trade and very switched on person and you know when you just speak to someone on the phone and you just she just ticked all my boxes in terms of i think what we want in a team and we have lizzie whitmore out of the uk from lincoln shears so she reminds me of a bottle of champagne you know you just open that bottle and it's all bubbles that is very much lizzie you know she's a road racer by trade she's raced in british superbike she's done things like olivers mound she definitely has her sights set on big things in the future and i always say that a happy rider is a fast rider yeah and these are two athletes that i've been able to give opportunities to who were kind of at that breaking point going what do i do now and is it a single make series yes so we're a single make series we're all racing on yamaha r7s there is a factory team in a single make series which i find quite funny in itself but that's okay just poke that bear madison poke that bear but um yes we're all out on r7 so in terms of the championship and the competition itself it means that it is about the talent it is about the skill because there is no differentiating between one bike and another it's not to caddy versus honda this is very much a yamaha show and in terms of single make championships yamaha really do know what they're doing when we look at things like the r6 which has all been run by john lucca and as is this championship so i'm looking forward to that yeah so may is the date where we can look out and see this start and i just hope because i mean moto e had a similar sticky start with a lot of negativity about or a lot of expected anticipated negativity it's been some brilliant racing and i've found it fascinating that people at the track side are saying you hear noises you've never heard before you've not heard knee sliders you've not heard tires scrabbling for grip so it has its own interest i think it's with all things new people are skeptical and i think specifically with the women's world championship what do i want to have done is again looked around at things like the w series and going why did they fail in the first year was it too much dependency on the sex of the person was it too much about you know that women as opposed to their athletes how do we actually make this a success as with anything new there will be problems there will be mistakes they are bound to happen you have to remember new world championships don't actually launch that often so between 10 15 20 years of launching new world championships or rebranding them there's inherently going to be a mistake along the way and that's okay yeah i think what's important is that when there is a mistake we're not just jumping to the conclusion that because the riders are a minority or the teams are a minority that it is their fault when in actual fact there's a multitude of things that could go wrong and it shouldn't all come down to us as riders and teams that could be anything from the organization to the promoter to the supplier and my thought was the television coverage because i find it very frustrating having been really excited about moto e to be able to watch the race and at first virtually nothing else well i think we had qualifying what they did the like the super pole one at a time so hopefully gets the coverage we're quite fortunate actually because all of our races take place before the world's super bike races which means we're in the ideal place in the schedule on a weekend and we're where we should be because we're not a support race we're a world championship and i think moto e again is another example of coming into what it is it's not a world cup anymore it is a world championship is it a grand prix no but it's still a world championship it is its own make of bike it is its own class and people are starting to view moto e in in this new light as well and i think dawner took a lot of feedback from motu and said we're not going to do that with the women's world championship because again we can call it the women's world championship or we want that is what it is but it is ultimately its own class of racing yeah and it is a world championship so it deserves its time in the schedule and it is broadcast which is amazing there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to watch it and the good thing is when they're in race kit with a helmet on and the bikes are banging fairings and you know nose to tail you don't care what the lap time is you just want to see good racing and we've seen that with the super sport 300 class i mean okay there's an argument that actually it's difficult for a rider to shine there because they're so underpowered but the r7 sounds like a perfect compromise i think the r7 class actually will set the new standard for yamaha i think we all know that the 300 sort of it's on its way out in terms of a class for a multitude of reasons it's actually not fast enough to be safe enough yeah which sounds counterintuitive but it's exactly how this sport works and i know that yamaha are looking to replace that sort of in the year to come actually and the r7 again it's heavier than a moto gp bike when the visor goes down you don't care who's on the bike you just want to watch good racing and i think that's what you'll see occur the stewards might disagree but in my mind rubbing's racing and i'm excited to see that unfold this is real road racing at its core and being able to give opportunities to people who just want a shot at doing that is an amazing yeah and i believe secmet was the egyptian goddess of killing people and then also healing them there's a bit of that apollo sort of duality thing going on yeah i mean with some clever marketing okay it depends on which historical source you read but theoretically she was the god of war and she was the god of healing so we've translated that into she is the leader in battle and the protector of friends and she was born from fire so that's some neat footwork there all of that you know language is malleable but if you know anything about my story there was a specific reason why we called the team that yeah it's really great to be able to take such humble meanings to our story because it is our story as much as it's mine and really put that out into what we're doing because we want to win races and i know as a team boss now which sounds so weird um that my job is to lead my team yeah and also to defend them when they need to be i would never not that's my job and if i've put people in in a role it's for a reason so i will have their back and that's gonna make i guess traveling and you guys are gonna be doing the my wife and i do it quite a lot you know the marriage by skype sometimes or zoom but look we did it for two and a half like throughout covet right i was in hospital i couldn't walk simon was on the phone with me nine or ten hours a day while i learned to walk again i was on a heavy load of medication sometimes his name was like ricardo other days it was simon you know we've been through a lot i think a long distance thing is not a problem for us and it's really nice to actually be in a different championship because he can support me yeah he's not he's not a world super bi journalist he actually doesn't have to be it's completely out of his sphere which is awesome all the while we get to be in this amazing industry and i'm now in a position where i can create jobs and roles and futures for people which i couldn't have done 12 months ago that's an interesting point so you'll be able to commentate on it as a fan that's the intention as opposed to yeah having that responsibility of objectivity i think i'm going to try and make it quite clear to people that i'm not going to be a women's world championship reporter and yes super bikes they're still crossover and i still write and report in super bikes but this is separate and off at least for the time being yeah at least until the maddie's riders start making it into moto 2 down the line it turns out that they're quite quick yeah i can still distance myself from it enough to actually cheer for them that's a nice segue into talking about why we're all here and the start of the season i mean it's staggering the lack of pre-season testing available now and you think okay we've got the rookie accoster is is a lad of intensive talent yeah there's no doubt but he's had sapin which is incredibly humid yeah and katar which is strange you know it's not straight it's unusual for the track terrible circuit to do pre-season test that to be perfectly honest because we're here right now track open to 2pm today no one is seriously going out until 5pm until it gets dark because otherwise the conditions are so dissimilar to what we race in that it's pointless yeah you're only destroying a limited number of tires so no one's going to go out until 5pm and by well we finish at 9 because at 10pm it's going to be damp when the dew coming in plus the track is super dusty because it's being really really windy this week as you're sure you know so it's going to be dusty people are going to spend the first few hours clearing a racing line on it i saw they sent me kelly pierrot out early of course they did of course they did i spoke to you should have had some big brushes i spoke to an unnamed crew chief earlier who referred to some of their rivals as the road sweepers yeah and it essentially means we've got eight hours over two days at least when this was a three-day test you got a little bit more out of it but at the minute it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity um i think we're here let's be honest because it's a cheap way to start the season because it's where the first round is a few weeks later and you only have to ship stuff once so it makes sense but it's not a good test in terms of and it's probably good preparation for race one but we used to get a harest pre-season as well and now well you know my first few years here we did uh we always did a supine test and i always did a lacille test but we did a mandolica test one year in between we did a island test one year in between i think one year we did we did put them out last year because it was the first round of course yeah but i think one year we did two supine tests before coming here so we used to have a lot more track time than we do now yeah and it's difficult it is difficult it makes life harder and especially we've we've had so many riders complete changing to completely new like we got rinsed now on the yamaha luco marini's gone across zarko's gone both of them gone decayed to honda i mean look at how tough a job that franklin marberdelli is going to have at ground one because he's made all of testing yeah and he's going from yamaha to just he's making a huge swap and he's lost all of his tests yeah i personally would rather have one race last and one test more yes you know it costs the same but it makes life a lot easier for the teams and at the end of the day you want life to be relatively easy for them because the more time they'll have on track the closer they're going to be yeah so it makes it better i guess the organization would say they don't make any money out of a test of course they would that's you know yeah i mean some make money unfortunately it's not a good reason but some relief i guess from argentina being cancelled and it's quite a distant difficult one to get to i believe it's a tough one i think south america deserves a race yeah because the fan base there is huge and it's super popular but termas is it's not an easy place to get to no uh you know it's a 15 hour drag flight from europe just to bonas and then it's another two hour internal flight plus an hour driving it's a small time you know if we want to track's hardly used is the tracks used for two events a year yeah and it like i'll give you an example just because it sounds like we moan about traveling there and we should never moan about traveling because it's a great privilege to be able to get it but if we wanted to book a hotel tonight in termas i've done all the research in this it's going to cost about 20 euros if i wanted to book the same hotel from rgp weekend as a european coming to cover the race it would cost me 140 euros yeah that's the problem that's the reason that you know you're looking at a thousand euros for a higher car for the week yeah you're looking at paying a fortune for all these flights and then with this year's calendar we're all having to go directly to north america so we're all having to leave right away to go directly to austin also it's a lot of travel sometimes makes you wonder if and i think there's a there's like a european thing of you know well japan thailand australia and they're all close together they're not thousands and thousands you know i mean maddie's just turned up this morning in qatar from from home in australia and you think oh you know qatar it's like halfway it's not it's a 16 hour flight to sydney from here yeah yeah i think people in europe sometimes miss the distances in asia and south america it's a long way away i remember talking to an american friend who said i've seen britain on the on the map so you know how far from the sea are you i said oh we're 20 miles he went oh you're right on the coast then i said well you're never more than 70 miles and he went what he said you guys drew all the original maps are you been cheating and make i said yeah they do when i was at school if you look at britain it's about twice the size of france well it's not it just isn't it's smaller so yeah you get this skewed idea of even for us to go to the us is like going to the us is probably some of the easiest and best travel we can do it's an eight or nine hour direct flight it's a day flight yeah barely you know and it's not like traveling from malaysia to australia which is culturally a very big change as well whether wise can be a very big change because you're changing hemispheres you know going from i think britain to the us is kind of like just easy flights didn't you have a weird flight recently where you went the wrong way around yeah i read some funny tweets about los angeles london dublin doha koalumpia in a day wow yeah because flying across the pacific is is insanely expensive so to go from la directly to to ko was going to be like three times the price right and at the end of the day we're freelancers for self-employed yeah yeah i've never done it again i want to say no i don't have any money we're halfway through the final pre-season test we're we're in poster races yeah i've done seven hours of flying this year yeah yeah and you were saying earlier we shouldn't complain about the travel but i was talking about this with lucho and the difficulty recruiting crew members yeah you know and you've got to find people it's almost like the forces recruiting submariners you need a particular type of person who's going to be able to there's people on this paddock who've been here for 10 years we're saying i've had enough of this now yeah yeah i mean i'd like a normal life i'd like to work travel back to uk three maybe four times a year and i find it draining and it's the waiting it's the getting to the airport and then waiting and going through the checks and you're sitting and you're waiting then you go on the plane i sleep on the plane but it's a six and a half seven hour flight it's not that bad most people when they i think when they're envious of the travel you guys get to do is when they fly they're going on holiday yeah and i don't take this job for granted we are so privileged um but we've worked really hard to be here too yeah i have this conversation with matt oxley all the time and matt and i always come to the agreement that to do this full time year on year every week you have to be a little bit broken you have to be you have to be that type of person that's okay not being in one place because you do you know i was in australia this week week my niece has grown like 10 inches and she's so tall now and the kids are going through school my other niece is graduating next week and my dad says to me oh when are you going to have a baby or are you thinking about children these are things you start to realize that real life really exists and living a life with people you love is just as wonderful and just as full of privilege of this life is but this can be all consuming and it is all consuming i mean simon and i agree they're a great example but we take our work home with us and we actually have to work hard and go we're not going to talk about work because we're full people um so it is a demanding job and i love it though i mean i love my life at the moment i think you know five years from now if we're having the same conversation things might be different um but that's for anyone you know it's a normal part of life but this is all consuming and it's a wonderful privilege to be able to do what we do for a living but in the same token it's not without its sacrifices sure i i can't think of any life job existence that doesn't have some pluses and some minuses and you hope that the pluses outweigh the minuses for you we wouldn't have met each other without this work we met in the paddock so there's plenty of pluses yeah um thinking more about again about this season and the the practicalities i know there's an oh i'm not going to start digging into the whole aero thing and all this but there's a lot of this stuff about the tire pressure rule and i know you've been quite vocal about it and we saw the anger when digi was dropped from third to fourth you know half an hour after the the end of the race and it's just that i believe that the reason is michelin say there's a safe lower limit and if it goes below that on a heavy break in the target strip from the rim yeah i don't remember and i've been watching i was watching ron haslam i was i don't really remember watching kenny and roberts and barry sheen but i was aware of it yes and then i got into it with sort of like the run haslam and then the schronz and the rainies and all that i don't remember ever seeing a tire come off the rim but i've seen plenty of low sides quite possibly due to an overinflated tire losing all its grip absolutely and it's it's such a messy situation because it's not anyone's fault but it's lots of people's fault um it's not michelin's fault because the riders from here completely and the teams are completely that this is a mess of their own making because michelin michelin bought the 2025 tire that's designed to prevent this to supine for them to try and none of them tried it because they were all working and setting up their new bikes so it's their fault it's also dornas fault because this is something that's being caused by the arrow and donna have allowed the arrow to basically escape their control in terms of the technical rules but also the teams bear responsibility for that because it's the factories that are designing this out pushing it further and further knowing that the tire is not going to catch up there's a lot going on with it but the end result is it's making the racing worse and moto gp is a sports entertainment business we're here to provide entertainment we're not here to provide a beautiful clean set of rules that gives everyone parity and you know allows for the the uttermost and technical development in every category are we hell we're here to put on a good show and the factories have forgotten that yeah and they need to be reined in a bit that that's you know where we're at now um it's it's kind of ironic that the two factories that are pushing the most to rein it in are the two that are arguably pushing the arrow the furthest which is a pretty nktm right they're the ones that want it restricted but it's because they've both got bosses and and pitbauer and and massimo rivola who know that you have to play the game yeah and and they couldn't say what they're saying about well we don't want this if they weren't putting any money in it because then they'd look like hypocrites yes so the reality is that they're saying we're doing it but we don't want to do it we're doing it because we have to um whether or not it changes this side of the big rule change coming in 2027 i don't know i don't see it i think that we're kind of sounds like they're looking at easing back from yeah like maybe lowering the lower limit yeah and making it a time penalty not a disqualification yes but we'll see right now it's it's still completely up in the air what's going to happen this season the one thing that they do have to fix though and it goes back to what you said about dj and waiting you know um i spoke to to frankie carceri his crew chief last season who's now with mark marcus spoke to him earlier he still has the trophy from the podium in valencia because they made the decision to strip him of his podium after the podium ceremony but once he's been all did then no one asked for the trophy back but but my point is it shouldn't be happening after the trophy no in horse racing when something like this happens they make the decision as they're coming back into the paddock yeah we need to be able to do the same thing we need to be able to make that snap judgment before is that a hoof inflation pressure or thing i don't know but yeah no i get your point decision made before they're in the winners culture not after the telemetry i can't understand why it isn't because no one trusts the telemetry that they've brought in and my argument because they have to go and physically check it with a manual sensor if it's over and my argument at that point would be well if you don't trust the sensor technology then should we be using it to disqualify people in the first place and yeah there's a rabbit hole yeah no it's it's a complicated one i don't like it in case you haven't figured that out i don't like it and you came up with a fascinating thing and i think it was the last show talking of the possibility of marquez going back to honda and movement but you suggested that a costa will move up to team up with brad bender and jack will go to world super bikes and that and you came up with a host of reasons outside the immediacy of just speed on a motor gp bike life becoming a parent absolutely because back to what we're saying about the people in the paddock it applies to riders too being in world super bikes at the minute is quite a nice thing especially if you live in asturias yes and and with their calendar jack you know he bases himself in andora for the european motor gp season it's not unrealistic that he can't do a world super bike season while still being based in asturias yeah you know it's 11 trips it's no they're all a month apart yes you know it's probably about eight trips whatever you can press it down yeah it's not that many less races when you're doing three in a weekend that's the thing yeah world super bikes going like this now it's definitely on the up end compared to where it's been in the past i think we start to see that product build out to be something really really exciting and used to come now it's going through a massive change yeah which is what it needed so actually if i was going to world super bike as a rider i'd be looking forward to that change it's a good place to be it's a fun paddock people smile it's quite when it when they used to come here you know it it felt more open yes it is and it's far more accessible yeah if you're a fan and you want to be able to get close to people and get close to the action world super bike allows you to do that i must mean i over the last few years i'd taken a step back and it's you cannot criticize johnny ray and karasaki but it was they were so dominant so dominant to the point where it wasn't entertaining yeah i kind of if you know johnny and they tried reversing the grids and johnny'd start ninth and by the end of lap two he's in the lead and i think okay i'll check in later see how much he won by you know differences as well it's the difference in the marketing and the commercial product because we could say the same thing about valentino the commercial the commercial reasoning behind that product at the height of valley it wasn't just right yeah you actually had this plethora of people who were really really great on the bike and entertaining to watch so it wasn't just the bike for first it was the bike for second third fourth fifth yes we were entertained and he did that brilliant thing of winning at the slowest speed possible so it always felt there was some jeopardy yeah exactly whereas in world superbike for a really extended period of time it didn't actually have that you know that friction that you need for to call it entertainment and that's no disrespect to ray or to kawasaki it's just the reality was it wasn't there and it's taken nearly a decade for world superbike to go how do we create some entertainment here and you know their tagline now is we make excitement because it is it's far more exciting than it was 10 years ago yeah and that's not to take away the the wins of anyone i think a win is a win and you take that and you enjoy it being a world champion is not something that everyone can say that they are but it's so good to watch this friction unfold now yeah the entertainment is there yeah i mean i'm not i'm not entirely of the view that you need conflict i understand a lot of the mojipi chanlis say oh yeah we want a bit of you know fisticuffs not fisticuffs but you know a bit of friction and i think rubbings racing yeah that's great but i quite like seeing the fact that they will be banging fairings and cutting each other's throats metaphorically speaking on the track and then when they come in they're quite good mates i understand that if you're a journalist it makes it much easier to write headlines and get juicy stories out if there's mind games and needling and and you know people are squaring up to each other in i don't even think it needs to be at that stage but it there are times when it's a bit too nicey nicey yeah it feels forced friendly at times i think right i think whenever whenever journalists in this panic say that we wanted to be a bit more you wanted to be a bit more honest right because this is the other thing there are rivalries in this championship in this panic and in the superbike panic there were people that do hate each other but they ask that they're all nice nice on camera and you know what the reality is yeah and you just want people to be a bit more honest and that's why you know we're really excited to share about pedro acosta coming in and it's not because pedro is an asshole he's not he's the nicest kid but he's honest he says it as he sees it and that is quite refreshing and he seems a bit of throwback in attitude because he talked about the rivalries of schwantz and rainy and things like he watched them it's crazy you weren't even a twinkle his his favorite rider he blew my mind with this recently his number one favorite rider in the world and someone that we're organizing a trip for him to see this year is michael dollop yes i think he mentioned this yeah i read this you wrote this yeah yeah so he's coming to tt with us to meet michael they've been messaging on instagram because michael heard and michael messaged him and i was all like oh because michael loves messaging him because he likes the old school what's gonna happen if he goes and says i really want to have a go at this i'd imagine that's not my responsibility yeah absolutely that's ktm's problem um do you have a tip for the season for the champion i think it's it's it's going to be a jacquard i i think heart says peco bagnaia because he's there um head says peco sorry i should say um heart says mark yeah because it's going to be the greatest comeback story in the history of motorsport from the third tier satellite exactly with an arm that possibly fourth tier you know depending exactly we need to see um he he isn't sure of where he is at the moment and that's we need to get an answer to that yeah but i i i think it's there i think that he's managing his own expectations more than anything else at the minute i think that the ability is there um we'll see what happens if anyone listening to this hasn't listened to the race motor gp podcast interview with mark marquez you need to find it and listen to it because i genuinely i do not think i've heard him being that he poured you commented afterwards you said often it feels when you talk to him he's got his answer ready okay he's on that topic this is my statement pre-prepared yeah a bit like the politician who just makes their own statement yeah and this time he paused and you can almost hear him thinking and it sounded incredibly reflective i really warmed to him actually i thought okay this is not i am the greatest this is not muhammad talking this is a thoughtful reflective self-aware guy yeah one of my friends messaged and said it sounds like the mark you hear talking to alex in the car whenever they're doing a documentary together yeah and it was i genuinely couldn't believe how sort of relaxed and everything he was with it and how honest he was yeah obviously got him on a good day and he talked about you know the fast kids are coming you know and he's an old man yeah this championship yeah that's very strange yeah interesting i mean with peco i quite enjoyed i loved watching joey martin race last year and at the blistering pace but i quite like seeing the thinking man win i always wanted to see dovey just get exactly it's like what you got we finally won his titles isn't it with peco he is the spiritual successor going back to mark mark with the raw talent and incredible intelligence as well but watching dovey do him again and again on the last corner at austria twice and the other races where he did it here yeah and it was that i just love the thing that i know what you're going to do because you can't help yourself you're the scorpion on the back of the frog of course he is you're going to sting me but i know what to do yeah and so so in that sense i'd quite like to see peco win a third but i just think the law of averages says he's because he needs you all every champion needs of course you need not to be unlucky well the it keeps saying this as well the um the luckiest guys are always the hardest working so there is no element of that you make your own luck yeah and that's something that pecos intelligence helps with yeah makes his own luck because of the position he puts himself in and sometimes for him our team makes his own bad luck by being a bit rash and a bit bullheaded like tie choice at philip island exactly because he's he's an animal yeah he is it was just an omit what you want in a racer don't get me wrong yeah but peco is very much the end of the yang where he's intelligent and he's more thoughtful it's it's mark versus dovie again yeah yeah i think it was gary play who said it's funny but the more i practice the luckier i get exactly yeah uh okay last question because you've been so generous with time 2027 big rule change coming and donna and urta and the frm they all they all get together and they say right simon you've been around this paddock for a while you can have one rule you can get rid of something you can introduce something or you can change something what's your one rule uh lack of visible protrusions on the monogy p-bag fairing straight right to making them look like yeah the 800s were terrible horrible bikes that did not want to enter riders by setting them but they were most beautiful motorchip bikes we've ever had so let's go back to looking like that yeah and at least have them look like your bikes fantastic yeah i gotta agree with that actually because they do look slightly like a transformers movie runaway maddie what would you do 2027 motor gp needs to change or is going to change i don't know give me a good entry fee just discount on the entry fee to compete motor gp what maddie really wants in 2027 is to be in a position that whenever all the satellite team contracts expire she can pitch for one of them we're looking out for segment racing keep an eye out i think we've got a few things to do before then fantastic i don't know rule change for me motor gp rule changes it feels like they change so often that it's actually hard to keep up on i'm always i always want to be in the court of my rider so if anything is for the outcome of my rider what's better for them is better for us i think um so i actually have to take a different view on things now as opposed to being a journalist because i have to think about what's best for the team sure which is interesting whatever this tire pressure rule is that one it's just hiddly piddly isn't it i just don't get it technicality luca marino's interesting he said i don't want to change a particular rule but i want the rules tight so they're black and white there's no gray areas he said because every time you create a new rule clever engineers find a way around it that's their job you know one thing one thing that formula one absolutely does better than what a gp is the way that they handle new tech developments is if you develop something new and it's a real gray area they let you run it until the end of the season so you get the season-long advantage from having developed it and then at the end of the season it resets we should have done that with ride height devices yeah that should have been done with ride height devices at the very beginning front and rear it should have been done with an extent to the aero but then similarly a pretty about you um a new hydraulic clutch last year that worked super well and they made like you know after struggling all year with starts they made like three amazing starts and then it got banned yeah whereas they should have been allowed to run it to the end of the season because it was a gray area so yeah i would like a rule like that where we have a bit more not flexibility but a bit more black and white but also things are clarified not yeah in advance and it comes back to testing too if we only have the opportunity to test twice a year how can we develop technology that works long term if we're not allowed to use it yeah so again it's it's making it black and white but barely because then it gives other teams in the championship an opportunity to go hydraulics what can we do with that yeah and we've gotten to the end of the season to use it and then it means that the f.i.m and dawner can sit down and go is this good for the championship yes or no and it still creates that idea of technology development because this is a prototype bike so of course it's always going to have tech development yeah so we need the chance to use it see it display it shock people with it and then choose to have it or not or how we continue to use it going forward yeah and it's a good point you make about how the bikes look a friend of mine commented the other week he's a huge world superbike fan and he likes the idea that he can go and buy the bike that he watches race which is not really true but he said one good thing about motor gp said at least they don't look the same anymore because world superbikes still look like motorbikes where he said i don't know what motor gp looked like but he said i'm sure i saw it in staff starship troopers or something anyway guys thank you so much brilliant on both motor gp and the women's championship which we're very much looking forward to watching and we will i'm sure be in touch over the season absolutely so it's martin here for motopod second attempt to do this properly and we are sat at the sale it's early tuesday evening the sun's just going down the bikes are out you can probably hear in the background and i'm sat with one of our own i am sat with motopods own former co-host harry loyd harry hello hello man it's quite strange being on the other side of the microphone but i'll do my best to deliver a good performance for everybody and it's great to be great to be back on the show you know have very fond memories of you know you me dave a little bit jewels doing episodes now almost 10 years ago i think it is i was thinking about this the other night is yes almost 10 years ago maybe even a little more for motopods trying to do all that stuff so it's been an interesting time for me personally so i'm really happy to be back on the show and uh yeah hopefully can provide some entertainment to everybody well one of the things i mean the show has evolved bob hey starts it just talking into a microphone in his study in 2006 up in oregon i think you know and then jim and jules got on board we got liam schubert was involved you know for a while they jim and jules brought me in because bob was away working for a year so they brought me in at the end of 09 beginning of 10 then after a few years i moved out here and started to step away from the show as the jewels life pressures and everything and you and dave came in and dave neil who now has the off-track podcast the off-track show and he's you know majoring on bsb but also very involved still keeping an eye on well-suited bikes and motor gp doing a super nice job and i think it's you know i think it's testament to bob to what you to what jim and what jules did that you know now pretty much everybody has their own podcast right but back in the day even when i got involved it was one of only two or three podcasts i think it's you know testament to to everybody who's been involved in it and also all of the fans who have listened along that yeah this uh sort of this behemoth is you know through different iterations uh kept going and yeah is is the podcast that sort of forged the way okay maybe there's some now that get a bit more attention but i think that it is really impressive what motor put has done for over a decade now well yeah i mean we're getting on it's 18 years since it started it'll be its 18th birthday i think it was laguna seca was the first race bob covered in 06 and i think olivier jacques was running and i think they got an interview with sylvanne gintoli who was tech toire at the time on dunlop tires and that really sort of sets it back doesn't it but now you've got skyler and jim and richard who have the same passion enthusiasm you know jim another american called jim who's an extra ace or himself so he can bring that aspect to it he's very good on the engineering side so yeah it's great bit of sunshine up the host's back sides there but what i find fascinating is harry started doing some freelance work for dawner and you commented on the cev and i remember harry saying to me and dave and jewels watch out for this kid quarteraro who i didn't really see till he came into moto three and i went yeah to be fair those first couple years him in moto three was a bit of a dud and then even even him in moto two was a bit iffy so what one race in dodgy conditions i think was his win yeah one race and then one a race and then got the qualified the tire pressure or something like that so yeah but he did eventually come good so you know after like five years i did look like i knew what i was talking about exactly but that's my point you saw something in him at cev level that someone else in the paddock saw and yamaha took him on but now you are the chief officer of sorry the head of pr marketing and sponsorship for hrc yes yes i am yes as of this year that's my new job role so uh yeah it has been a fairly uh crazy path i started with um hrc in 2019 having worked uh like you said i did some freelance stuff and some commentating in sev for dawna which is sort of why i originally left moto pod because it was quite a conflict of interest to to be to be fair uh then i did a year commentating world super bikes which was very interesting definitely learned a lot that year um then i went and worked for me hindra and moto three some stuff with bmw in the uk i did some stuff for grand turismo on their esport championship and then and yeah this is now my sixth year with the reptile under team obviously starting in 2019 was a pretty pretty memorable year for the team with mark dominating pretty much every single weekend and then i was more with poor hey lorenzo so that that was an experience and obviously not his greatest year and then yeah since then for the team it's obviously been some ups and some downs and now we're here and you know it's a new era and in a lot of ways not just two new riders new livery but also inside the team there's there's a lot of changes um you know i've now taken over fully from hector martin who probably a lot of people know he obviously came into the pad with poor hey lorenzo then worked with mark and then for i think it was like eight years maybe a bit more was with was with reptile honda and now now somehow it's me somehow it's me and you you know i know anyone looking into the mojb paddock over any period of time will know the name alberto puge and you know we don't know the man's character we do know he's an incredible talent spotter but i would imagine it's quite a demanding environment particularly when you're the under the umbrella of probably the behemoth of motorcycle racing manufacturers you know honda have a reputation for a good reason yeah no it is a it is a really intense environment i mean i think you get that at any factory team to be honest i'm sure ktm or yamaha or jucati are the same but it is a it is a super intense environment and it is one of those things of um you know we've had a few new people start in the team and something i say to them is like your worst day has to be an okay day like you you can't really have like a bad bad day where things just don't go right at all you know much like you know the riders are expected to perform the mechanics are expected to perform so even for the pr marketing people is you know we also do have to have to perform and there is a lot of stuff to do and especially now as i said with his new era no more marquez there's there's a lot of stuff to to grow and to change um but luckily i i like work i like working i like a challenge and there is there is a lot of stuff to to do and it is quite varied but it's a lot of fun for sure yeah i mean one of the the elements that you will have grown up with but some of the older team members might struggle with is i guess your job 15 20 years ago was arranging an interview with a print journalist a press conference for the embedded you know the press pack most of whom will be in print and television interviews but now i mean each rider needs to have a social media profile you know and someone needs to manage that for them you don't get you know i've watched jack and he tweets as he's as he's racing and i'm thinking okay that might not actually be jack yes uh to to reveal how the sausage is made a little bit yeah most most riders have a a social media pr manager who's doing that stuff for them but yeah like you're saying now especially from the pr and communication side is it is a lot more 24 7 is you know you are having to do social media stuff things can happen at any time also it's now much much harder to to hide things um you know during my time at reps off long we've had a few training injuries and things like that where you know maybe years ago you could hide it for a day or two to understand the situation but you know i remember my first year 2019 with lor hey lorenzo i was um i was at somebody's wedding and had woken up maybe a little worse for wear unfortunately and i got a phone call from my boss hector at the time saying that lorenzo's broken his wrist flat tracking and you know there's no real time to to do anything so i you know pulled out my laptop and had to write a press release so it is it is pretty full on and yeah with the social media stuff there's there's always something more to do you know there's always some other funny video some tweet to reply to or some some new news article to to read or some podcast to listen to as well because now six million most motorcycle podcasts yeah and and i are you expected to live or someone to listen to most of them to see what they're saying to check that their facts are right and yeah definitely that's definitely part of the the pr side um is i i have somebody who who works with me who's technically the press officer but yeah we get some like press clippings by by an agency for everything people saying in the news you know i have 20 or 30 websites that i was probably checking for moto pot anyway when i was doing that to get all the news that i'm reading through and then yeah trying to keep a little bit of an eye on what's happening on podcasts fortunately uh normally for the podcast thing where i'm only really paying attention if our riders have an interview which i've probably sat through anyway so it's not not too bad and to be fair this year both lucre and joanne are super super smart guys both obviously very talented on a bike but yeah they're they're really switched on and especially lucre is is a pleasure to work with and and really easy because yeah some riders can be a bit more uh difficult to control shall we say a bit more free spirited um especially when things aren't going super well on track so there is a lot of uh character management a lot of interpersonal relationships that you have to really really work at in this job to try and find a way where you know obviously a rider is never going to outright lie and say oh yeah the race is great if they're finishing p16 or whatever um but yeah it's about trying to find that way to damage limitation a little bit and to you know show the message that let's say for example with the past couple years with honda is that it is this process of of rebuilding and you know it's ridiculous to think that we're going to go out and suddenly win the world championship this year or something like that that would just be honestly completely insane for the riders to say so yeah it's about i think most motorcycle racing fans those who come back week after week generally are quite well informed i think if they see improvement they'll accept you're on the right trajectory it's when things are getting worse and worse and i think a lot of us feel that amazing success so hrc repsal under have had with mark him going kind of gives you a blank canvas to to start again without some of the restrictions that his presence might have created yeah maybe i mean for sure you could see that there has been a big shift in how the japanese are working um you know you look at juan himself said what the japanese what hrc has done within three months is incredible and they have really changed everything and yeah maybe some of that is sort of this maybe a little bit like cold water shock valve of mark leaving is that you know for a long time you know it was it was all about mark but speaking honestly the situation now in moto gp has changed so much even in the last you know three or four years i think that you know when when the pandemic came that shifted things and out of that you now have this whole aerodynamics era that's really really changed a lot of things maybe a bit more than lots of lots of fans realize like the game is now completely different in quite a short amount of time really yeah um i mean i'm i'm gonna guess and obviously i'm not gonna ask for any inside information on on when you guys knew who was coming and that mark was going but i think there were lots of rumors when it became clear that mark was thinking about going and then was going and would zarko step up from lcr and i quite understand that lucho chicanello was very keen to keep him in lcr which he where he stayed but there must have been quite a positive buzz i'd imagine when you're getting luca marini who okay he didn't win a race last year but he came pretty close and he does come across as a really deep thinking smart rider no yeah no lucas is um alberto did an interview yesterday where he said it's like he's a german you know very very methodical in in his approach and i think that that is the sort of character that yeah that is needed to to put in the miles and to work going back to your point about when when we knew various things i will say that probably it was probably two months or so where everybody was saying oh mark's leaving and all of this where mark honestly had not made a choice at all so i mean you know where there's where there's smoke there's fire sort of thing but but yeah there are a lot of times where i think that people get very very excited and maybe yeah maybe go much deeper down the rabbit hole than it needs to be needs to be done yeah yeah um just about going back to like your life i mean obviously you must do you must have so many air miles under your belt you could probably buy an airline um how long do you think can you can you sustain this sort of level or do you still feel the passion you have when you started it is a lot of air miles yes do i still feel the passion as when i started i mean you and i were speaking a little bit about this yesterday or or maybe it was the day before that you know back when i was doing moto pod i was watching world super bikes i was watching moto gp moto 2 moto 3 every practice session cev bsb all this sort of stuff i i don't do that now it's obviously now that this is a job it's a lot more involved and yeah maybe it is a little more of a job than it is like a passion project um like it was with moto pod but you know that's not to say that i i don't enjoy it i don't feel incredibly privileged and and lucky to to be able to hear to do it because you know it is it is a lot of travel it is probably more demanding and less sex drugs and rock and roll than a lot of people think it is um but it is still a very cool very fun and very and very exciting job it's it's hard work you know as as you were saying before there is a lot of there is a lot of pressure and a need to perform in a factory team especially with a team like the rep sol honda team but at the moment it's i can't really see myself doing doing anything else you know okay for sure there's a couple of times where you know there's some problem with oh man you know doing an office job nine to five see my girlfriend on the weekends every weekend would be it would be pretty nice but i will say as as maybe as corny and as cheesy as it sounds you know on sunday and now a little bit sad day with the sprints when when they go racing it is still it is still exciting like no matter even you know for the last couple of years where the rep sol honda team hasn't been in the strongest position it is still exciting you know when you see even when it's not a horse your rider right as in your team you know if you see pekka and martin you know going out of hammer and tongs out the front and you know everybody in the garage is getting cheered up and and you know saying comments to the tv or whatever you know it is like you're watching with with friends and there is you know still that passion there for basically everybody in the team so yeah okay fp2 on a on a friday afternoon it's maybe not the most glamorous thing in the world but yeah when you get down to the heart of it everybody here and and me you know do still really enjoy and do get a lot of enjoy yeah a lot of passion and excitement out of it and it definitely beats doing something more more normal i mean ask me again when i when i negotiate my contract but yeah um i think everyone listening to this will be getting the same butterflies that we're all getting with we are only three weeks away from the first race here it comes you know get ready get ready this is it's dying and and when you're actually embedded in it it must be even more now for the next bit i'd like everyone to block their ears off because i don't want anyone else to know this who's your tip for the season because we've got the we're going to have the motopod fantasy team going again on motorgp.com so i'm gonna set that league up as soon as it's going live and i want to know who to put in my team you can't you can't choose one of your own ideas i was gonna say the corporate answer should probably be juan mir um but speaking honestly if you had have asked me before the sapang test i would have said mark market 100 no doubt but i think for whatever reason maybe he's sandbagging but things don't seem to be going as smoothly as i would have thought for mark so i think you have to put your money on somebody like peco um you know i think that peco does have that consistency now has that experience i think that unfortunately for fabio yamaha probably haven't made the step or steps that they that they need to to get into a competitive position um outside of peco my sort of dark horse would probably be brand binda yeah um just because you know you do see this incredible raw pace that he has especially on a sunday but he's a little bit too inconsistent especially in qualifying and then you know there are some races where he's just sort of nowhere i don't know if that's him or or the ktm or or whatever but yeah i think at the moment it's probably pretty hard to see past peco but having said that i think anaya bastionini now that he's fully fit is uh is going to be in it for a little bit longer and you know having said that mark is having a bit of a shocker it is mark marquez after all and you know i remember that race in what would it have been 2013 in lamont his first ever wet moto gp race we're like lap by lap you saw him understand how to ride in the way and go from you know yeah being like a newborn giraffe to cutting through everybody and you know and do you remember jack's first winner ascent in the wet where mark was second and he started to close him down and then he just stopped and it wasn't jack maintaining the gap it was mark going i didn't he wasn't a competitor for the time i didn't need to try and beat him and i thought if i he's doing things that i can try but i might crash so and he just accepted second and again it's that capacity and this is the thing with with you know magnate versus martin it's that raw speed and talent of martin against the brains and it feels a bit like marquez and david cioso but i think peco's got dovi's racecraft and brains but i don't think martin has quite got marquez's talent and because marquez was a bright rider i think martin is maybe he is raw talent yeah i think that i think that if i had to rank aggressive riders i'd say that mark and poor hey martin are probably two of the most aggressive riders again with binda probably right in there yeah but you know if you told either of them to win the championship you have to you know crash your mother off her motorcycle they'd probably all go okay final question oh no two final questions so the penultimate question again you're not allowed to either of your your own riders if you were given an unrefusable job offer to be the personal pr manager to a current rider in the paddock or one who's maybe recently retired or let's open up and say or well suit my rider who would it be personal pr manager well that's a good question i mean i think the easy answer is mark marquez because um yeah because you know everyone comes to you to make a deal yeah it's mark marquez you said you like a challenge i do like a challenge uh yes i need to be a little bit political i'm not gonna i'm not gonna ask you to say andrea ianoni um but no i speaking honestly i think lucre is a really interesting character and i think there's a lot of potential in lucre not just on the bike but but for for everything and there and that yeah he he does still have a lot of room to to grow and i think lucre stepping away from that vr46 structure is a is a really good chance for him to develop not just as rider but also as a as a person and grow into something you know just anecdotally you can see on on social media that you know there is a lot of interest in in lucre marini and the final question which you'll probably anticipate because you've heard me ask it to both of your riders all the rule changes coming in 2027 for whatever reason they come to you and say the rule makers and say harry you can have one where you can either get rid of one you can introduce one or you can change an existing one what are you going to do oh yeah i'm definitely not the person to ask about this i'm uh almost zero technical so we have to do part of my job is to give little tours to to vip and sponsor guests of our garage i bet that's fun uh it is because most of the if you know people ask me what are the wheels made out of now i know the actual answer is aluminium but you know when i first get asked this question no idea and the mechanics and engineers always take great delight in giving me wrong answers um so yes i'm not the best for technical things but you know from seeing it a little bit i think that this whole aerodynamics thing is quite limiting and does maybe mask some some of the some of the bigger talents um and you know one of the reasons that you know spec electronics got bought in right was to keep costs down and now you've just opened up a huge spending black hole with aerodynamics whereas you know at least with electronics there was some connection to what people are going to buy for their honda scoopy or their fireblade or whatever it is but i mean maybe if you're a fast track day rider or a track day rider with cf moto have put winglets on their new 450 ss or sr i think it is in uk which is a i think an a2 compliant you know 47 horsepower so yeah that's interesting yeah probably looks very cool i'm not sure i'm not sure how it's going to help going around um reading around about but that does bring us back to what you were saying about luca marini i found his answer fascinating where he said i don't want to introduce a new regulation or get rid of them so much as just redefine the existing ones so they are absolutely clear because he was worried about the loophole which we all know we saw in formula one we've seen it we've been a little bit part of sport and part of part of life to you know people find tax loopholes all the time yeah so you know everybody everywhere is sort of always looking for for an advantage and especially when it's a competitive environment so i think that unfortunately you are now going to you know have always have people looking for loopholes sort of no matter what you do but yeah at the start it is it is pretty fun to to see you know crazy new stuff like like when honda bought the seamless gearbox you know that was something that basically nobody at least to my knowledge had thought of yeah and then you know jucati found this stuff with aerodynamics and the bright eye devices and the start exactly and it's one of those things controls you know there's for sure people in honda people in jucati people in ktm who are already thinking of other things that if this changes then they can do that and all sorts of things so yeah interesting stuff harry thank you for taking the time fantastic to bump into again and yeah we will follow you on your team's progress through the season with with great interest yeah make sure to follow hrc underscore moto gp on on all major social media platforms lots of impressions lots of engagement i i need to get those numbers up so every little helps and yeah did you like my perfect example of making a silk purse out of a salsier i don't i don't know if it was you who wrote it but it was it was last season the season before and it had been a it was when ikeleki ono was standing in and it had been a disaster weekend for both riders and and there was something like new knowledge gained during these 11 laps there's been a lot of knowledge gained over the last two or three years but i thought i'll help you out there that was some good some good spinning but i get what you're saying as well you know you can't go down the complete politician route if they've just been thrashed in the by-election they say well it's not much enthusiasm for the other guy and you think there's a damn sight more than there is for you you're not there but yeah let's not get political anyway fantastic thank you so much martin and thank you so much everybody for listening i will say i am excited not to have to sit and listen to my own interview and cut out all of the breaks and the umbs and the r's yes like i used to have to do yes i used to find i did that and i've probably done it here and hopefully jim or rich or whoever's editing will flatten it out on the other side of the recording of doing that i haven't said anything just to be polite i better say all right yes and it's just really annoying when you're listening go shut up no there's definitely lots of things that i noticed yeah because when i was doing it i was editing it so yeah i definitely noticed a lot of things about my my speech and i forgot a lot of a lot of them for a while and and my current girlfriend she's definitely pointed out some things to me again so hopefully yeah and i'll ask jim or rich to edit out the current bit out of that the current this is like is i think it was wc fields would introduce his wife is yeah this is my first wife yes in hindsight yes this is why you get somebody else to proofread your pr's before you send them i never had to edit anything till i did history by hollywood and then i was with an australian but an academic who was brilliant on knowledge just wasn't great on technical editing so i had to learn how to do it myself and it's audacity is the way forward yes lots of time in audacity anyway brilliant thanks harry thank you so much and we'll speak to you soon