It rains in Spain?

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk. Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 765, May the 1st, 2024, the Haereth Race Review.

I'm Jim McDowell, hosting the show. And from an undisclosed location, very far away is Richard Jallett. Good, I would have to say, is it still morning for you, Richard? Yes, Jim, it is. Very early morning for you.

So Jim's going above and beyond call of duty on this one, listeners, because I'm in Cape Town at a conference for my work this week. We were meant to do this last night, Jim, weren't we? But unfortunately, I think it was something peculiar to the hotel that I'm staying in, but the internet service was basically out pretty much all of yesterday. So our plans for last night fell through. So Jim, I'm guessing it's what, around 5 a.m., where you are now?

4.30 in the morning, but that's just about half an hour earlier than I usually am up, so no worries. This is the sacrifice that it takes, everyone. This is normal for me. This is how I watch MotoGP on weekends. I'm literally over this time to watch it.

Cape Town at the minute, it's 20 to 11, so this is certainly favoring me on this occasion, Jim, so thank you for changing the arrangements. No, no problem. Not a problem. Guys, if you, if we have so many people who are subscribed to the show that have subscribed to the show, I should say, but there are many more that are downloading. We are in need of assistance monetarily.

If you can, please go to the site www.motopodcast.com. There's page pow and Patreon links. Please throw some money in if you are capable. That being said, we appreciate everybody who is subscribed and is donating to the show. With that done, let's just jump right into the racing this weekend from HaRef.

I thought this weekend was kind of wild. It was kind of crazy. Lots of things going on, but we'll start with Moto3 qualifying and roll from there. By this time in Moto3 on that Saturday, we still had a fair bit of wet track. There were damp patches that were there.

Now, this qualifying session will start underneath of, with everybody going out on slicks. There wasn't too much that really happens in this first qualifying session. What we do learn is that Rueyda is still not able to ride. If you remember back, he was diagnosed with appendicitis and COTA. From there, he had an emergency surgery to have an appendectomy.

He was going to try to ride this weekend. He wound up with an infection in a testicle, I think, which does not sound fun no matter who you are. That ruled him out. Again, he was on some very heavy antibiotics. Hopefully, he is well enough to race in Le Mans.

However, in that first qualifying session, the people who came out of it was Picaris, Carrera, Ferraro, and Adrian Fernandez. The interesting note here in this first session is both lay apart Hondas. The preeminent Honda team were both in this first qualifying session. However, they both were able to move out and move forward. In the second qualifying session, Helgardo was down at the high side at turn five.

This would become a theme for the entire day, was turn five biting everybody. With Helgardo down there, then Rollstein was down at turn five with a high side as well. At the very end, David Alonso would be on pole. Alonso was flying the entire weekend. He was a good second ahead of everyone.

David Munoz would go to second on the list. That was because he was following Munoz on a hot lap and was able to get, I think, within eight tenths of him, even with a toe, which gives you to show the dominance of what Alonso was capable of doing. Vier, the Dutchman, would be third. Then it was Kelso Yamanaka Picaris who came out of that first session. Ortolla Esteban, Suzuki, and Carrera.

Carrera, also coming from that first session, was qualified in 10. Interesting session with the high sides there, Rich. Yeah, not small crashes, were they? It's a fast corner anyway. I think as we would find in the sprint later on, there was quite a gusty wind blowing, which was catching people out as well.

So that was a heavy crash for Helgardo. I think there was initially some doubt as to whether he might be injured enough to be in trouble for the rest of the weekend. But the only other thing, really, from my side to mention is Munoz pops up this weekend, having been a bit absent in previous rounds so far, it seemed to me. Kelso, in that team, seemed to be shading him somewhat. And suddenly he does what he does.

Munoz, he sort of pops up and is all over the top three at all times. So he's a curious rider, this guy. I can't quite figure him out yet. Very inconsistent. He's sort of got like a Vietti reputation right now.

He shows up some days and he's absolutely amazing. And most days he's completely absent. Yeah, that's a good lightning to Vietti. Yeah. So we get to race day, which now it's bright sunshine, everything's dry, and really things should be A-OK.

Yamanaka had some sort of a technical issue as he went out on the siding lap. He rolled back into the pits and I'm not sure what it was. I'm not sure if anybody told us what it was, but it might have been – it could have been anything, a warning light, something. But the bike was running. So whatever it is, his crew rushed down to the end of pit lane.

They were told, hey, whatever you do, just get it to – it's running. Get it to the grid and we'll worry about what happens after that. So that was sort of this kind of rush that was going on just for Yamanaka to get there. When the race started, Munoz had an excellent start. He would get the whole shot ahead of Alonso and Yamanaka.

But it took all three turns for Alonso to be out front. And at this point, I really thought this is going to be it. With the pace that had been shown by Alonso all weekend, he should have ridden off into the sunset. However, he crashed off into the sunset by falling at turn – that turn 13, the very last corner. He simply tucked the front.

I don't know if it was just youthful enthusiasm, but he seemed to be in there deep, maybe a bit late with the brakes. There was never a sign of the lockup on the front. It just sort of folded under. Maybe the front wasn't completely warm yet. I think they were on mediums for the Moto, three guys.

So maybe it just needed one more lap of heat because that's the left-hand side, which is the side that is the least used of the tires. So he just basically tossed it away at that point. I was just shocked. I think it was a classic case, Jim, of just that unfortunate thing when you've been so imperious all weekend, nobody getting anywhere close to him. He made it into the lead.

Let's just remember that off the starting grid, Munoz elbowed Alonso out of the way really aggressively. But like you, as soon as Alonso was back in front, you thought, well, this race is over. He'll be up the road by 10 seconds by the time the chequered flag gets out. Yeah, so I just think he was so on a high, so confident that he just pushed that wee bit too much, which is just a bit of youthful inexperience and a bit of bad luck, I suppose. Because he didn't appear to do anything wrong, did he?

Yeah, as you say, Jim, I guess he was just that one left side of the tire, not quite at optimal working temperature and just let go. He's probably pushing just that wee bit too hard. So anyway, he did rejoin. Yes, he did pick the bike back up again. But Munoz was now out front, followed by Vier and Ortolo Yamnaca-Kelso.

Ortolo would then move up to second. Munoz was by Ortolo for second. So they were having a bit of a back and a forth. But really, the race settled in. It just became Vier, Munoz, Ortolo, and Yamnaca.

And then they started to gap. By halfway, they started to gap Estiman, and they were gaping Kelso. I was sad to see Kelso kind of falling off because I thought this was Kelso's chance to have that podium. But it didn't seem to be that way. With 10 to go, Munoz had gone back to second.

Then Ortolo went back in front again. They're having a bit of a back and a forth, which was some good racing. But really, it's just not much happening now. At this point, because Vier is out front. I mean, he's led since he got by with 19 to go.

Vier's been out front. He's been riding an impeccable race at this point. Alonso was 12th from being absolutely dead last. Helgardo was 8th. I think he was still a bit shaken up from his really bad high side that he had.

I don't think he was the most fittest that he's ever been. I think the bumps, the bruises, the contusions, all that stuff were playing on him. And I think he was definitely playing hurt as he was only an 8th. I would imagine it took him a few moments to get out of bed on Sunday morning. Let's just put it that way.

There were a few sore patches here and there and everywhere, I should imagine. I don't even think a good masseuse could have figured out everywhere he hurt, to be honest. But the race finishes with Vier winning the race. Impeccable ride by Vier. He withstood all of the advances of Munoz without any trouble whatsoever.

Munoz would finish second and be on the podium, or Tola would join them. So it was a Dutchman and two Spaniards on the podium. Yamanaka was then fourth. Kelso stayed fifth. And there was a huge gap between Yamanaka and Kelso.

But Adrian Fernandez would come home in sixth. He sort of just appeared on scene. Having had a terrible qualifying by it from the layup hard rider, he turned it around and got himself to the front. We didn't see much of it as how he got there, but he did get there. Hogario would finish seventh.

Carrera would be eighth. Nepa's ninth. Picaris would get tenth. Alonso would finish twelfth and give him, or eleventh, I'm sorry, and give himself five championship points, which was important for him. And that's where that all finished there.

It was not the best Moto3 race you've ever seen. It was definitely almost boring at the front because nobody really had anything for Vier. You were hoping something was going to happen, but nothing ever did. And I don't want to criticize the TV producers at the time, but there was a lot of good racing that was going on in my mind down grid. But everybody was waiting for the anticipation of the chaos that would have been at the front.

But I figure we'd been watching this race for a second if Alonso had been out front because he'd have been about five turns up the racetrack by the end of this one, Rich. Undoubtedly. I mean, as you say, Jim, if Alonso had not crashed that, I think he would have won it by seconds, many seconds in actual fact. As it turned out, it was just a bit of a slow burner, which never really caught fire, wouldn't it, really, properly? Vier continues to amaze.

He was absolutely noteperfect for the entirety of that race. I don't think he put a wheel an inch out of line at any point. So with Munhoff behind you, I mean, that's not a pleasant kind of place to be. I would venture to suggest because Munhoff is known to be a pretty aggressive, go for it kind of a guy, but Vier just didn't give him a chance. So I'm interested to see how Vier is going to do this year because obviously he came off last year with a very strong finish to the season.

He'd won a race or two, didn't he, last year as well. Certainly one of the championship favorites this year. And this is the first real sign of him kind of showing that form. So will he continue? I imagine he will.

But he's a very tall guy. If you remember, I spoke to him in Qatar last year and I sort of questioned him on that. He doesn't think it's any sort of a disadvantage and it doesn't appear to be one based on that performance. But I'd be interested to see if he goes into Moto2 next year, which I would imagine is a strong likelihood. So, yeah, but just a race that never really kind of delivered quite what it promised, really, was it?

And remarkably few crashes as well, which is unusual for Moto3. I mean, obviously Alonso went down, but he rejoined. And apart from him, I'm struggling to think of anybody else actually went out of that race. Yeah, I don't think anybody did. I don't have the actual full sheet here to know who wasn't classified.

Suzuki retired with the technical, didn't he? He had some sort of steering issue. Yeah, wouldn't turn left or something. Just a very peculiar non-Moto3-ish race, really. And outdone by the race that would follow it.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think things got better as we went along for the day. So let's look at the points. Elgardo holds on to the championship with 74 points.

Alonso, having not won and only gotten five points, shrinks the gap to six for him. Vier with his 25 jumps up to third in the championship, but he's a full 28. So he's a one-hole race win behind both of these guys. It's early, early, early days here. So no need to get concerned about who's where yet.

But it is not as it would have been. I think it would have been if I could. Alonso's lead by a point or two had he been had he been able to win the races we think he should have. Fourth in the championship is Ortolo followed by Kelsa Munoz, Picaras, Yamanaka, Nepa and Rolstein are your top 10 as of now in Moto3. We'll move to the Moto2 qualifying session.

Again, this was the latest race on the day on latest race, latest qualifying session of the day on Saturday. There were some heavy hitters who were in this first qualifying session. Arbolino was there, Marrero there, Alcoba, Vietti, Anshu and Bo Ben Schneider were all there. It turned out that Arbolino, Vietti, Marrero and Alcoba would get out of that first session. Again, tricky session on slicks, damp patches on the track as well.

But the second qualifying session, Lopez was down at turn five. Again, somebody falling off at turn five in qualifying, which was wild. Van de Gorborg would crash at turn five there as well. And then Roberts had a very big moment at turn five, but he was able to save that one. At the end of qualifying, our good friend, Furman Altegr, now I think with a Ducati contract firmly in his pocket and back to believing in himself, had a very nice pole position, followed by Albert Arenas.

Now Arenas got a toe on the last lap to jump from his fourth place to jump Dixon to get to second. Dixon with a very fine qualifying session. Good to see Jake back on form after his horrendous crash in qualifying at Qatar. Then Gonzalez, then Marrero, then Sergio Garcia taking on your first, sorry, first six positions. Joe Roberts, having been the fastest person in Moto2 combined sessions, would qualify a lowly 11th.

From being incredibly up on Joe Roberts, I went to the absolute bottom of the heap. I was having my Garry Chavitte moment with Maverick Vinales. Of course he's done this, and now he's gone back to being who he is. But I just so I happen to remember all of what Hopkins said about Joe. And like, look, he's really got it together this year.

I'm thinking, well, this is the test. You are 11th. What are you going to do on a track that is difficult to pass? Just because there's really no, there's no rest. It's always turning and it's a very short straight from five to six.

But there are opportunities to pass. Five, six, turn six, turn nine and turn 13. So you've got three places there. And I'm thinking, well, it's going to take a good start. It's going to take some luck.

Well, we'll see what happens here as we roll into Moto 2 on Sunday. Now, can I just say we lost through practice. I didn't get to see a lot of practice because I was flying to South Africa on the Friday and then Saturday was a busy day. So I kind of caught a few bits and pieces. But did can I crash at some point through the practice and break?

Oh, yes, I forgot. Yes, I was going to talk about that here. He's a big player that was out of the game. That's true. Round or two by the side of it.

Yes, yes. So Kinet would not take part in the race. He did not take part in qualifying. He had an absolute belter of a crash that was at turn five and he broke his ankle, his left ankle. That one's going to be hard because you shift with your right.

I'm sorry. You shift with your left, idiot. It's early in the morning, guys. You just got to cut me some slack on that one. So, you know, you're going to have to have that mobility back in there.

I think he did it at I think it was at turn five where he crashed in practice. I think that's also the corner that got doing and ended doing his career with his shoulder. But the clip of the crash that they showed before the race was brutal. So Kinet was just while cartwheeling through the gravel trap. I don't know how he broke his ankle.

I don't know if it was broken because of his cartwheeling and it just was in the gravel and twisted or it was caught somewhere when he hit the airbag. Because him and the bike went all the way to the to the airbag. I haven't seen it. So yeah, yeah. Or he got very close to it there because there's I mean, there isn't a lot of runoff at her.

Let's let's be honest. But her ref does have airbags everywhere, which is a godsend. So that's a big dent to his championship. If he misses Lamont, I know he's going to come and try and ride. I think we all know he's going to try.

I just don't know if he can do it. I don't know if he'll pass fit. Yeah. So that was the that was the big part to just for there. We had no Sasaki starting the race.

He had double arm pump surgery just before Koda and he was declared unfit to ride as well or decided he couldn't can continue. And he would not go on. We started the race and we had Gonzalez with with a with a whole shot. He got off the line and taken the lead over out of her quickly behind him was Garcia. He was up one and then Dixon, who had a not great start, and then Aradis, Aranis and Ramirez.

Aegis has a crash. Boban Schneider was down at 13. So the track was taking victims already again. Roberts was was sixth. He had he had gotten from 11th to sixth in the first lap, which showed an aggression that I had not seen from Joe Roberts prior to to this.

He then would go by Dixon to take fifth, which I'm thinking this isn't wholeheartedly that bad. Outer gets to the front. He's there. Then there is this great fight back and forth between turns five to turn 13 with the guys up at the front as it's back and forth as they're trying to get themselves there. Dixon would fall at turn 13 last turn of their Garcia was wide at 12 and out and onto the grass, which he made a great save.

This allowed Roberts to close in on Garcia because Roberts was was there in that fifth spot, had gotten to fourth. That little mess up by Garcia, which isn't very much running out and onto the grass, was just enough to unsettle him to allow Roberts to close in. And then at turn five, Roberts and Garcia are battling it out with Roberts getting the upper hand. We then had Esmeralda crashed at turn 13. The bike then continued to ghost ride back across the track and smashed into the pit wall, causing I think it was some of the lay apart people to dive under the wall that was coming.

How everybody missed Eskrig's motorcycle was crazy as it rode on, but it somehow was all missed there. Let's see. Ramirez was then down at 13. So Ramirez, he was having a good ride, went down at that point. This now put Roberts past Garcia, put him to third.

So that was a podium position for Joe at third. But you're like, wow, he didn't seem to want to lay down and die there and just ride it home. Roberts kept on pushing and had to buy the next lap. He had moved himself to second. Altaguer was untouchable.

He was the man that we've seen before, and he's now reappeared on scene. He has and can do things with that Bosca Cora that nobody else seems capable of. But he would win the race. Roberts would finish second, which is three podiums on the trot for Roberts, three seconds in a row for Roberts. And then Gonzalez would finish third because he would get by Garcia on the last lap, I believe that was.

Then Arenas, Ayagura, who had a horrible qualifying spot, he was out of the top 10, rode his way to sixth. Is he finally coming to grips with the Bosca Cora to make you understand what he wants to do with it? Hopefully, because we need eye up at the front, I think, for even better racing than what we're seeing right now. Then Arbolino was seventh, Alcoba eighth and V80 ninth was Chomkat Chantra in tenth. That's the Moto 2 race.

Anything there, Rich? A totally different race to the Moto 3 race, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, it was. It was an utter crash fest. I mean, just weird, really, how different those two races were and how you would expect them to be the other way around, really, based on what normally happens.

So, I mean, my thoughts are, Jim, that we're in Moto 3, you can see that the top three in that championship are going to be the three that battle it out. I think it's only starting now to become clear to me. I think this is really going to be an Aldegaard Roberts fight for the championship this year. That's how it feels at this early stage. Now, it is quite early in the season, it's true.

But I mean, Roberts coming through the field like he did, he clearly understands the Pirellis and he kept those tires alive the entirety of the race. Now, obviously things will change from track to track, but he is doing really, really, really well, isn't he? Yeah, I think he was on the medium rear Pirelli. There was something that was different about what he had as a choice. I think, or no, maybe everybody was on the medium mediums and it was one somebody who was on soft that I don't remember that.

But all credit here to Pirelli. The Moto 3 guys were faster than they'd ever been around Harath. I think Moto 2 was also at or near track record pace with Pirelli. I mean, for coming into the sport, and yes, Pirelli has a huge amount of data, whether it be from the real roads at the Isle of Man or any of the races that happened in Northern Ireland to Moto, sorry not Moto, but to World Superbike. I mean, you could even throw in there.

They may know something about compounds and constructions just based on their former the one efforts, right? Somehow they have found some magic that we have not seen from tires in the series. And it seems as though everybody can really ride them because we sort of have the same fast people where they should be at the front still. We're just going faster, which is incredible. So Pirelli is my unsung hero so far this year that they've done that.

You are right. Roberts does seem to have. He's obviously the best Kalex because otherwise it's basically it's all it's all Basque Coras floating around. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. If we look at the championship, Joe Roberts leads the championship on 69 points. There's some kind of symmetry there because that's Nicky's number. Nicky was the last American to lead a championship. Joe is leading a championship now.

First time he's led the championship and he's on the same number of points that Nicky has. Stars align. I don't know. Go with what you believe there, people. Garcia on the Basque Coras is on 64.

Aldegar now is on 54. I think it might be a three rider race. I think it might be Aldegar, Garcia and Roberts for the championship. Just like I think possibly Garcia might just struggle bearing in mind how early in the category he is. I know he was in Moto two last year, but you know, he was taking a big step up this year.

Yes. Was he in Moto? He was in Moto two last year. Yes, he was. I was thinking Moto three.

I screwed you up there. That's my bad. But I think, you know, having taken a big step up that he clearly has done this year, maybe he'll just struggle to maintain that consistency. I mean, I may well be proven wrong and I hope that I am, but it does feel to me as if, you know, because Vietti, I mean, AWOL, Arbolino, AWOL. Now, whether they just are struggling to get to grips with the tires or, you know, they've been in Moto two for a while and they're just kind of petering out a little bit, that happens.

So it kind of feels like a Roberts, Aldegaard show at this point in time to me. You know, we saw Aldegaard struggle a little bit with some bad luck and then the long lap penalty because he jumped the start in one of the earlier races. And he clearly did have a couple of issues coming through the field and burning his tires out. I think that's what happened to him in Qatar. He never really kind of showed up at the races in Qatar and then had issues and a bit of bad luck in Portimao.

So he's coming from a bit further behind. It's true. But and obviously they're learning these tires now and whilst it will change track to track. I mean, Roberts was just particularly awesome on the front end on Sunday. I mean, he was braking so late and so deep and he really was looking, as you say, I mean, by far and away the best K-Lex and taking it to the to the bossy skiers, wouldn't they?

So, yeah, I really can't wait to see the Moto two race in Le Mans. And while since I've been saying things like I can't wait for the Moto two race because they haven't tended to deliver outstanding racing in previous seasons. And as you say, I think a lot of this is down to the brilliant job that Pirelli are doing. Yeah, we're going to Le Mans. Joe himself proclaimed from the post race interview, going to a track I love.

Man, if you could pop a win there, that's a statement. Yeah, and he's good in inclement weather and Le Mans is famously cold and wet at this time of year. So there's every chance the weather might throw a bit of a curveball in there as well, which may well play to his strengths. Yeah, it's a week later, I think, than previous years. Is it?

I'm thinking. The weather's still awful at that time of year. I always remember it being like that first weekend. Maybe. No, I think it's right because it's be Mother's Day weekend here in the US and it's always around there.

I mean, Le Mans is you can never rely on good weather there. Let's put it that way. I mean, it might be a nice bright sunny warm weekend for we know, but equally it could be freezing cold and driving rain. It happens frequently. Yeah, let's finish the order of the championship and then move to Moto GP.

So the after out here in third, it's then Gonzalez, I agree with Lopez, Canet, Aranis, Vietti and Ramirez are the leaders in the motor to change it with that last. Yes, I just before we move on to Moto GP, because you mentioned we're going to have a quick talk about the test at her at the end here. I a girl completely totaled his bike in the test yesterday. Did you see that? I did not see it.

I heard I read that he totally I didn't see it yet. There's a picture of a picture going around on social media of his front wheel and forks attached to the catch fencing about six feet up and the rest of the bar. I mean, thankfully, he is OK. Again, it'll be battered and bruised because again, it was a turn five whopper. But yeah, completely destroyed the bike.

So yeah, that will set him back a little bit. Yeah, it's a turn back a little bit. So let's get into Moto GP, which I think Moto GP just did not disappoint by any stretch of the imagination this weekend. Yeah, I mean, I think we all know what happened. We've all seen it.

So it was absolutely crazy. One quick tech note from Jim on the racing. I don't know if you noticed this, but the KTMs who pioneered the long exhaust. So the exhaust that comes from under the bike then went up the side of the bike and then finally exited itself at the tail section of the bike has been replaced with a cut off short pipe that barely extrudes from underneath the fairing. So KTM has changed their exhaust on their bikes.

All of the bikes had that change to that. So they've found something, figured something out. To me, it looked like they just were had thrown something at the kitchen at the wall to see if they had any issues. They had thrown something at the wall to see if it would stick because there was no identifiable rock guard on the end of that exhaust down there. Like they didn't have like they made an exhaust for everybody to try.

Oh, we like that. And oh crap, we don't have enough caps. A little mesh mesh mesh guard over across the board or it's farther down the tube, the pipe than what you could see from the side of the bikes. But it's interesting that they that that has gone where Honda's now got a long one. Yamaha's got a very long one that goes very long, very, very long pipe that goes up there.

And KTM has gone away from what they've pioneered there. So it's changed now that puts them more in line. And then all of the Kati, which has got the one exhaust under the seat for the back cylinders, the front cylinders to come out underneath the very short pipe there. Actually, the KTMs are shorter than the Ducati's. The Ducati's have a bit of a bit of a megaphone that appears from under the under that.

So just a tech thing to look at and see is like, oh, there's something obvious at KTMs changed. And so let's see what what happens there. So we woke up to we had overnight rain that happened overnight. What was described as a torrential downpour that evening, which left the track extremely wet for that morning warm up for the morning practice sessions. They were all wet sessions.

We got to the first qualifying session and it was still raining for the MotoGP guys. Everybody goes out in the first qualifying session on the soft, soft rain tire that was there. So some of the people that are in this first session are Bender and Miller. So the KTMs are in there. Rens and Quattraro and the Hondas, of course.

So the two KTMs being in there are the outlier of this. I wouldn't have thought both of them. No, one of them maybe. But there was some rear rear wheel problems for Miller, like they couldn't adjust the chain out because they were moving something between the bike. They did get Miller out, but he was like five minutes late to the to the party.

It was never conclusively said what what the problem was that they were trying that they couldn't do. Now, I don't know if he Miller wanted to use his primary bike and said, I want that bike, but I want with wets on it. Well, OK, now that's going to cause you a bit of a problem because and this is the only thing that I can think of is that the wets are a larger diameter tire. They have a bigger circumference. Right.

So it's a taller footprint because you've got tread that you wouldn't have in a slick. Consequently, that means that you're geared kind of tall. So you would have to take teeth off of the rear sprocket to put you back to where you would be for your slick. That being said, if they had to change that sprocket and then put it on there, they would have had to have moved to try to move the tire and the swing arm. And if that isn't where Miller wanted it, they would have to remove chain links or something or replace the chain to get it there to get what they wanted.

That's the only thing that makes sense to me. But they did get him out. I mean, Miller didn't look too flustered by it, but it was definitely something that just sort of set back in there. At the end, more morbid Delhi and Bender go through. So the thing that we also learned was that Bender set his morbid Delhi only barely pimped Bender at the very last lap.

So he got that last man standing the tracks always going to be its best after the checkered flags falling. So you want to start a lap like literally one second before the flag comes out to have the best track at the time. Morbid Delhi had that time right. But interestingly, Miller did his time on a medium rear because the track had started to dry at this point. So we go into the second qualifying session.

The sun has come out now and it's basically all on now. Prodrosa or sorry. Yes, Prodrosa went out on a medium was there and he looked like he was heading for a pole. He had learned what what Bender had done with the medium and went right to it. Acosta had gone out on a soft front, soft rear, did a lap, came back in to change and went with a medium rear just as Bender had done.

But Acosta then is flying on the medium rear. He's flying like it's a time that's seconds faster than anybody else. Up until the point when Pedro Acosta crashed at turn 13. Had to happen sooner or later. You knew the kid would have to throw.

I mean, I'm just sitting there thinking like, oh my God, this kid gets this pole position. This is going to be absolutely madhouse because it was in it was on a motorbike. It was in I would call very iffy conditions. It wasn't bucketing down rain, nor was it dry. It was somewhere in between that you don't want where the brakes are way more powerful than what the grip is.

And you have to have all this feel and touch and sensitivity to it all. And the kid's flying. It's like this is his fourth race on the bike. Like fifth time he's ever rode it. First time in the wet.

It doesn't matter. He does nothing fazes him. I'm thinking this is just incredible. And it all fell apart at turn 13. Little too much brake down he went.

I know I know exactly I've done that. I've done that. Road America heading down, hurry down to the bottom. I was so close to the front. I was like third.

I was going to pass the guy for second. And I had to figure out where I was going to pass the guy for first. I had it all planned out in my head. Just a smidge too long on the brakes. Just a smidge late which required a smidge more brake pressure.

Bolt at the front went right under. Same thing for Acosta. You're not saving it. It's just gone. This is the moment that we knew was going to eventually arrive for Pedro Acosta.

Midnight kind of ran out for Cinderella at the ball, right? Yeah. I mean not a big crash. And he didn't injure himself, didn't damage the bike particularly. But you just know that this moment is going to come because every rider will go through this.

Because he's been on such a crest of a wave and almost looking straight into alien territory to use the old terminology that existed a few years back. And you know that these riders have to go through a phase of crashes. And some kind of come out the other end better riders and a bit more mature and perhaps a bit more cautious. And others really struggle. And this would now go on to be what you might call a bit of a character building weekend for our young Pedro.

But we'll come to that. But up until this point, I mean he was fine. I mean he had a bit of wet experience in the earlier rounds because it rained in Qatar, didn't it? And it was a bit iffy I think at times possibly in Porto Marais. So it wasn't as if this was his first experience.

True. I forgot about that. The half-half conditions. So he's got a bit of track knowledge under those conditions. But not at Jerez it must be said.

I was interested Jim, I'm sure you know this, but on the MotoGP feed. Oh, I'm tired like you. What's the... Simon Crafer. I had the wrong Simon in my head.

Simon Crafer was explaining that the harder of the wet tyres is effectively their version of a cut slick in terms of its durability. Because I was watching these bikes out on what was clearly quite a dry track in places, but a bit wet in others. And I was thinking how the hell are these tyres hanging on because wets are notorious for just chewing themselves to pieces, aren't they? So they obviously have quite extreme soft versus hard tyre choices there, don't they? And if you go with the B, is it called?

The harder one of the two. It's effectively like an intermediate is what he was saying in terms of its grip and longevity. Yeah, it's just a much harder compound. I think they use the same tread pattern. It's just a harder compound.

It looks like a wet, doesn't it? It looks wet, definitely. It's got a lot of grooves. Yeah. So yeah.

Like a cut slick or an intermediate, which is what they use in World Supers, for example. Yeah, definitely. It's a different philosophy of how Michelin looks at it versus how Pirelli looks at it is where it is basically. Yeah, I've always been kind of interested as to why they haven't had an intermediate. I didn't know if it was because they didn't want another container or two of rubber to have to ship around the world.

So they've just gone down the route of having a much harder wet tread. It's possible. I mean, that's a logistics issue slash money issue slash that. We don't care. This is what we're doing issue.

Pirelli is a different philosophy. That's for sure. I wrote on Dunlap wets. I wrote on Pirelli wets. I would much rather write on a Pirelli wet.

They are phenomenal, mainly because they are soft like a true super bike Pirelli rain, at least in the late 90s when I had them was a gumball. You need it. It better be raining hard and it better be soaking wet for that to work. Otherwise, it would be gone in three laps easily. Even on my 600, it would have been destroyed in three to four laps.

So I think that's why they have a more intermediate because I think they have a very soft compound wet. They've got a harder compound wet to go sort of the distance, if you will, in a full super bike race. And then they've got this intermediate for like these conditions like we had here. So I'm assuming that that's still what they're doing, what Pirelli is still doing and what Michelin wants to do with it as well. But the thing of it is it's equal for everybody because everybody has a Michelin and that's what's available to you.

And Pirelli has these different ones and they're all available to you. So the game is equal. It's not like, oh, Pirelli is battling against Michelin. And so, hey, well, we're going to do a tire warm. We'll bring an intermediate and a harder wet and then a really soft wet to qualify on or whatever.

But I know we can't belabor this point too long because it's early in the morning and you've got to go to work. But I'm trying to remember, did Bridgestone only have slicks and wets as well or did they have an intermediate when they were supplying into MotoGP? I've got a feeling they didn't have an intermediate either. So whether it's just a rule thing that they don't want that middle tire perhaps. Maybe somebody can chip in online and tell us about that.

Yeah, my recollection was when Bridgestone first started, there was an inter. That's my recollection. When it was Michelin v Bridgestone, Bridgestone had an inter. I think it forced Michelin to have an inter as well. Then it got to be single tire supplier or it became, I don't know which came first, single tire or we're going to race MotoGP flag to flag.

At that point, then do you need an inter? That's a good point. Because you are now across that path where, hey, it's dry enough that you can chew that soft rain up, jump on a bike with a soft slick and do what you're doing. I don't know if that's... Somebody knows exactly.

That's just my memory. So let us know. MotoPod, motopodcast.com if you've got the right answer for that. So back to qualifying for MotoGP. Marquez would make a lap that would be quick.

He did have a bit of a fluff on the next lap that he did save. He was then, you could tell he was disheartened because he had blown what he believed his chance to be at Polo. Because then he didn't have enough time to come and get one more lap. However, nobody would beat the time that he posted. And it was fascinating to see him stop and watch himself on the big board to see where he was.

He's looking for where his name is to find that he did claim pole. In fact, he claimed it ahead of Bizecki and then Jorge Martin, Brad Bender, DJ Antonio, Alex Marquez, his brother. Then Benyaya was seventh. Benyaya was not having the best of times in those tricky conditions of the patchy wet that it was. And then Bastianini, ninth.

Acosta would then be tenth. Vinales, eleventh. And asparga would be twelfth. That's how they finished off. It was the 93rd pole for number 93 on a Ducati.

First pole on a Ducati. So there was quite a dilation there. The scary part was like if it was going to be dry tomorrow, we all believe that it was going to be given the given the weather conditions was that Marquez's pace on slicks was extremely quick on use slicks. Marquez was very, very fast, but we have a sprint race in between the two. So we'll talk about the sprint.

It had dried more because, again, qualifying has happened for Moto three and Moto two. They were done on slick tires. So we're going to start this race on slicks. It's declared a dry race, but there are wet patches lingering around every which way. From the start, Bender just gets an absolute flyer, heads to the front as per usual.

KTM has it figured out on how to get the bikes off the line that they do have in spades. Then Martín was second into the turn. Marquez was third. His brother, then Alex, then Bezeky, then Benyaya. Benyaya is showing the typical non-aggressive Benyaya that happens in sprint races.

I get the impression he really just hates sprint races. Quite honestly. Doesn't seem to be his forte, does it? Yeah. You know, Martín is the sprint master, as it were.

So it stayed as Martín, Bender, Mark, Alex, Benyaya, and Bezeky because Bezeky had made a mistake, I think. Went wide somewhere, slightly tucked the front. But then Marquez would go by Bender. Then Bender went back by at 13. They would just light up the back, him and Mark.

It was crazy to watch all that. Because then Marquez went back by at turn one, and then Benyaya was down in turn one. So you have this crazy sequence of Bender and Marquez going after each other. Bender is kind of in a backwards mode here. Benyaya is trying to come forward.

So he's got the Ducati power. He goes by. So Bezeky is sort of on the racing line, but slightly wide into one. Bender is going in to go past Bezeky, but he can't see Benyaya. He's on the outside of Bender.

Well, that squeezes Benyaya into Bezeky's bike. Then Benyaya gets picked up by Bender, who then bumps Bezeky, then goes into the gravel, tumbling into the gravel trap, who was not a happy camper, to say the least. Again, he doesn't like the sprints, and this is probably why. Well, make a better start and qualify better, and you're not going to be in the position you're in. You're kind of starting having your own problem.

The best part about this for me, Rich, was they looked at the incident. The stewards looked at it, and they said it's a racing incident. Hallelujah. What a great call. I thought that was a good call.

It was the right call. I mean, that's the important thing. The old adage, three into one doesn't go, is a perfect one for this scenario, isn't it? And this will just happen in a frantic race from time to time. I don't even necessarily blame it on the sprint format.

It's hard to overtake at Ha'rath, and that turn one is an overtaking opportunity of sorts. And if you get two or three people battling over the same bit of tarmac, that's a likely outcome. So it was unlucky, actually, for Bagnar. As you say, he was understandably pretty miffed about it, but it was a racing incident. And thank goodness we didn't get some silly penalty coming out for Binda, who was unsighted.

He was actually trying to get around the outside perfectly legitimately. I mean, he puts off in more danger by trying to do that anyway. And poor old Bagnar was just squeezed in the middle. So just one of those, I'm afraid. Yeah, I love the fact that they even made it in the statement Binda was unsighted.

So there was actually even an explanation that was you expected to come like, look, guys, he can't see what's over there. It is one of the things that the 60 degree lean angles are way super cool. I don't think anybody's ever going to take that away from MotoGP. But if you could only have a 45 degree angle, you would be able to see what was over there. So being unsighted does have a big issue.

I mean, you're unsighted even when you're doing at 45, but not as bad. You do have some. But I'm not turning their head into the corner as well. Exactly. The racing technique, isn't it?

You're looking where you want to go. Yeah. You're looking down track at an apex that's way far away from where you are at the time. One of the things they teach you is you might be the third guy in line, but you're not looking at the guy right in front of you. You're looking at the guy who's the second guy ahead of you.

You're looking through two people. And quite honestly, I had been doing that all my life before I ever got a driver's license to drive a car. And that was a really hard thing for me to try to figure out in a car because I would look through the two cars ahead of me all the time. That was just that was what I was used to. It's like I'd always have the instruction on brake.

Oh, yeah. Damn. There's somebody there in front of me. It's like I needed a little L on my helmet like in a car like Pager has on his. But anyway, let's not forget, you know, race control in the past have got these sorts of judgments in our view.

Yes, they've been wrong. Wrong because of people being unsighted. So interesting that they have now for whatever reason, you know, not realize that sounds very pompous of me to put it that way. But they're making allowances now that they were not making before. They're also giving a better explanation for what it is.

Oh, that was irresponsible writing. What the crap? He knocked the guy off. I can see that. Oh, hey, he bumped him offline.

That's not irresponsible. That's racing. So they've made a distinction in their definitions that help us to understand where their mindset is. So, I mean, let's not cut them too much like there's still a lot of anger about the fact that they don't still don't provide access to journals that, you know, to be questioned about decisions that they've made right or wrong or give written explanations often or detailed explanations. So there's still some way to go.

But things are markedly better than they have been in the last few seasons. I think that that is, I think, reasonable to say. I'll take it as I'll take it as a as a positive, much as I have money plaudits for Pirelli in their tires. I'm going to give plaudits to the race direction because they have really right at the ship that was definitely sinking fast. Yeah.

Oh, where were we? We were sprint racing. Sorry. Let's say Digia goes down then here after Benya was down, then Acosta and Marquez have track limits warnings. Well, track limits warnings.

OK, as long as we don't have a penalty from it. But Marquez was closing in on Martin. He was definitely trying to get there. He got by Martin as Martin made a small mistake at turn seven. Bender, Bastionini, Alex Marquez, then all crash with four laps to go and always saw the big was, hey, there's a crash.

They said, well, here bikes crashing in our head. So we get to see the replay and we think since it's all three of them down at turn five, we're thinking, OK, they've all gotten together somehow. Bender had been racing close with other people. What the same thing might have happened when they show us the replay. All three bikes crash simultaneously without ever touching each other.

My first thought fluid on the track. I steadfastly believe somebody had dropped some amount of fluid onto the racing line. Now, that at that point, I'm like, you need a red flag. To my mind, there should have been a red flag because obviously there was fluid. However, there wasn't one.

So I'm going like, what's going on here? Three guys fall like that. That only ever happens when there's fluid. I mean, all the times I've been around racetrack, somebody's leaked some oil, some something, right? I never thought about there about it being the wet patches.

Now, Simon Crafer said, hey, look, the wind's gusting and it's coming from different directions. It's possible that the last time these guys went through five, which is a quick corner, the wind was either behind them or at a side or something. And this time it's changed and it just took the front ends out from underneath of them. Well, OK, that's plausible. But for all three of them to make that mistake, I thought that was a bit of a stretch.

But Simon's on the ground. I'm not. I've never been to her wrath. I'm going to go with that. It was only later on.

So we're sure. Let's let's hold that for a second. Let's finish and we'll come back to that. Sounds as if you know something that I don't. I'm going to wait to hear what you got to say about this.

So they all then crash down. Well, then Marquez goes down at turn nine. He loses the front. Acosta has now somehow from his 10th starting position has come to second place. Guadjara has come from a 23rd starting position to his to a third place position.

That's a crazy sprint race. This is all happening in 10 laps. Then Vinales is down. Yeah. Then Vinales is down at turn five.

Then Marquez is helped off with helps. He's you know, Marquez kind of remounts, gets going in. Marquez then kind of basically hunts Mir off the racetrack. And he was told to drop a place to which he did on Olivera. Then basically bullied his way back past Olivera, which I'm going, maybe this one should have been a long lap penalty.

Maybe I'm not sure. But the race order finishes as Martin Acosta and Danny and at the time, Fabio Cuacharrara. So let's pause here. We then learn from Marquez and everybody that the problem was why everybody crashed. Was the wet patches at turn five.

You're going uphill and going uphill. You couldn't see the wet patch. But if you were at the top of the hill looking down, you could see the wet patch. So, you know, people were saying how great this race was. It was all full of action and everything.

I disagree. This is my take. Sorry. A great race to me is great passing, great overtakes and two guys. Or three guys duking it out.

Not a bunch of people crashing in chaos over a track that has some really iffy conditions, especially considering the fact that you couldn't see these wet spots. Fair enough. That's. That's a say what you want. You can make the argument to the track safe or not safe at that point in time.

Just it's I I'm used to being in America. And if there was something like that, that could be a problem. We'd have fired up a jet dryer and Lily gone and drive the track. That's just how we are here. I know that equipment generally isn't there in Europe.

But I got I got to take argument with people who were saying that was a great race. I don't think it was. I think it was. It wasn't farcical, but it wasn't a great race. Not to me.

Rich, you thought? Yeah, I'm not as down on it as you are, clearly. That's why my view is that it was a it was an interesting race. I mean, it wasn't a great race in the sense of it wasn't kind of like unlike the following day. It wasn't kind of like a massive battle that defined it or lots of battles that defined it or somebody coming through.

I mean, OK, you could argue that across started way back in the Finnish second, but he picked up places because other people crashed or dropped out in front of him. So in that sense, he was quite lucky, I suppose. I mean, I think there would have been compelling reason for race direction to have red flagged it when the three riders did go down in turn five, because at that point they didn't know if fluid was down or, you know, oil or something out of a bike, which would clearly have been very, very dangerous, especially so in the context of turn five. So that you might say was slightly surprising. But I don't know.

You have a different and a better perspective in many respects than I do, Jim, because you've raised and I haven't. But, you know, lots of people were going through that turn and not crashing. So quite what peculiar circumstance occurred for that really bizarre all three to go down exactly the same, but separated by several meters, whether a little gust of wind pushed them onto a bit of track that they had previously been avoiding that was a bit damper. Because, I mean, it's going to take a tiny fractional change in a corner like that at that lean angle at that speed. And if you get just pushed a few inches onto a different bit of track and there's a bit of dampness, then you're going to go down, aren't you?

There are no margins of error. So hard to say, really. But interesting that Marquez pointed out the wet patches thing. I hadn't heard that. I just assumed it was a gust of wind.

Oh, me. Sorry. OK. You had said, look, here's why everybody's going down to there, which Marquez made a comment later after that that said I was 10 centimeters different on my line and I crashed. And it's like.

I understand if it's a wet race on a drying line and you move those 10 centimeters. But to Mark's eye into my eye, I have a dry racetrack and me moving 10 centimeters should never have caused me to crash. Now, the track is the track. We cannot change the track. And I understand all of that.

I just I'm not saying there should have been a red flag. I thought there should have been a red flag, but race control knows more than what I know. They're in contact with the people at the corners. Now, those people at the corner, because, yeah, there was a big gust of wind and these guys just missed it. That's fine.

That's racing. But what we didn't know is that what really was it if it was a fluid that had come from a bike, that race should have been stopped. Yeah. Oh, 100 percent. Yeah.

But again, it's easy for me to sit here and armchair quarterback. It's like one of those things. Would you have raised? Hell, yeah, I would have raised. If I fell off, I fell off.

It's just just part of the game. My whole take on it was I saw so many people on social media talking about how great that race was. I just didn't think it was. It was a crazy result on that. It wasn't a great race.

You know, with race being the operative word there, it was a compelling, crazy sort of a thing that unfolded. And like you, I don't like to see people having massive crashes, particularly when they're, you know, almost impossible to avoid, really, in a circumstance like that. I mean, I was going to say, Jim, in terms of the track itself, and we know it had had a huge amount of rain overnight and whilst it looked dry, Acosta was having numerous front end moments, I think in turn nine. Yeah, that's where Marquez went down. You know, that series of corners there.

So whether, you know, it was a sort of differing amount of dampness from lap to lap, it's hard to know really because, you know, there's a lot of grass around the edges of the track. And if it's saturated, then the tarmac will, I guess, vary a bit in terms of where the moisture is going, particularly if it's windy. So, yeah, it was just an uncomfortable watch at times because people were clearly struggling with grip. Now, you could argue why they could slow down. But as you say, they're racers.

They're not going to slow down. They're going to go as fast as they can unless they crash. So that's the my I've got mixed feelings about it. I'm not quite as down on it as you, but I don't think it was a great race. It was sort of somewhere in the middle for me.

And I wouldn't have been surprised if race direction had stopped it. But they chose not to. And like you say, they have a lot of information coming in from various different sources on the ground, close to the scene. So they obviously had better Intel, obviously, than we do. Yeah.

I'm not down. I don't want to sound like I'm down on the race. It was an interesting race. It was a very tactical race. It was a very strategic race that had some crazy consequences for people who strayed just ever so slightly from it.

Like it was the race of perfection to which no one can be perfect. So you suffered dire consequences as a result of a minor imperfection. And I'm like, that's not a great race, people. That's my only take on it. So we now got to flip back to the second part of this, where some three and a half hours later after the podium celebrations, after Quattraro has a bronze medal, do we say, do we realize, oh, hey, what?

Guess what? Quattraro, your front tire pressure was illegal. Therefore, we're giving you a five second or an eight seconds penalty, which drops you from your third place podium to a fifth place position, to which all credit to Fabio Quattraro. He then autographs the bronze medal and says, here you get. Sorry, this is for you or something to that effect.

I'm paraphrasing what he wrote on there and gives it to Danny Pedro Rosa, which I thought was the most class act that anybody could have possibly done. And then KTM, to their credit, had their own private podium ceremony for Danny Pedro Rosa. Sorry, Daniel Pedro Rosa, as he now wants to be called. I'm sorry. He's always going to be Danny to me.

Yeah, it doesn't sound right. It doesn't work. But he's fully entitled to be called what he wants to be called, I suppose. Yes. It doesn't sound weird after all this time.

I agree. But after all this time, I think it does. He has matured, I guess, because he's 40 now, something close to that. Wow. Anyway, so that's the actual podium was Martina Costa and Pedro Rosa after we had Stewart's intervention with the dreaded tire pressure rule that's now making its way felt.

That's the first of an ongoing potential earthquake that's going to rattle through this paddock. That was just the first little trimmer warning, I think. Yeah, we sort of dodged this bullet up until now, haven't we? And it's kind of like, well, maybe this rule is just not going to be an influence in races. And then because it wasn't just Quattrora that got hit with it, I think.

Yeah, somebody else. Yes. Yeah. It doesn't affect the podium or the immediate points standings. But a number of people fail, fail at that penalty.

But like you say, the problem is you alluded to it a minute ago, Jim. And this is what's really bad about it. Three and a half hours later. I mean, it's just the part that sucks. This is not good.

I mean, this can't go on. Either they scrap the rule or they have a way of determining this much, much more quickly because it will materially damage fans interaction with the sport, particularly new fans. Oh, yeah. And this is a time when, you know, there's been big news. We won't go into liberties and stuff like that.

But there's clearly huge opportunities open it up. You don't want to sort of confuse people at this moment in time because that will turn just turn people away. Agreed. But I would have done like Quattrora did. I would have ran the lowest air pressure I could have got away with because that would have given me more tire squish, which would have made it warm up faster on a wet track.

I would have done the same. I would have done the same thing. So, I mean, that's just where we are. I'm not going to go there because it's not worth it. This is just like I said, it is something that's going to rare.

It's as rare as Ted. It's poked itself out from behind the hay bale. And this is not going to be good. Luckily, lucky for the sport that, as you said, Jim Quattrora took it in good humor. Oh, my gosh.

And I just take a Jim did their little kind of post the podium thing. So that's brilliant. Great for social media. Great for their image and stuff. But if this keeps happening regularly, people's patience will soon run out and then we'll be into backbiting and, you know, negative stuff on media.

And this will quickly turn in the wrong direction at a time when you absolutely do not want any of this going on. So not to say that we don't need a tire pressure rule. I mean, I'm OK with that. If we do, we do. We just need a much quicker judication system.

Yes, you do. Sorry to, you know, to make any changes that have to happen, which is still going to be unpopular because if your favorite riders just come third and then suddenly, you know, they arrive in part of Fermi and they're told, no, go back to your garage. People are not going to like it. But a rules of rule in the same way that they can't rock up with the 1200 CC engine. I mean, you have to have rules, but you just have to have a very good, quick way of enforcing them.

So that's the challenge that they've got to try and meet now. I would much prefer instead of saying, well, you can be under pressure for 50% of the race, I would much rather have here is the minimum pressure you are allowed to run by Michelin that dictates it. It's their tire on that day on that track and that temperature. This is the minimum you can run. And then there should be an official with a Michelin guy and they should go to everybody's front tire and check the tire pressures right before they go off for their warm up lap.

So you say, hey, look, if that's if that's going to take you 10 minutes to go through everybody or you got to have seven people or eight people or however many people you need to take tire pressures or whatever. Right. You say, look, by six minutes to go, you have to have your tires mounted. Crews have to be done because at five minutes to go, we're going to go by and we're going to check everybody's tire pressures. And if you are found to be suspect and be low, your bike is going to be rolled into the pit lane until you can fix it.

That solves this. That it's a done then as opposed to this wacky. You get 50% or whatever. I'm ranting. I got to stop.

I have to go to work. I think you're totally right. You know, I get it's clever that they can monitor this through the right and stuff. But as we saw in both of the races, you have no way of knowing what sort of size pack you're going to be and how long you're going to be behind somebody. You can clearly see people trying to get out into fresh air more now to try to give the tires a bit of literal breathing space, which could be an issue in terms of if you're having to go offline, you're going on to a dirty part of the track.

I agree with you and I'm really interested to know what other people think about this. I think you've just nailed it, Jim. They should measure it at the beginning. If you're compliant on the grid at the start, a minimum or maximum, whatever the rule is, you're fine. You're good to go.

And then what happens during the race? Well, you can affect it to some extent yourself, but there will be circumstances that come up which may interfere. But that's again, that's racing. You can't plan and predict every last little thing. And if it means that you're going to have this kind of three hour delay and then rules change at the end, that's just rubbish.

I'm sorry. It's just rubbish. No. All right. Let's move to Sunday's race.

We'll start with the fact that in morning warm up, Pedro Acosta had another big crash. The kid literally threw it away at turn seven and pretty much destroyed. Okay, Jim, I haven't actually seen that yet. So I need to go and have a look at that. Have a look.

He's hauling in and he goes by, bike goes by right after him into the airbags. They go. He was perfectly fine. They had showed him at the race and he's having a laugh about having gone into it or whatnot. So he was definitely now a battered and bruised kid to go along with everything else that's happened.

So again, as we said, maybe perhaps Cinderella had turned to midnight here, but it's all learning and he will come back better from that. So Mark Marquez would get the whole shot, followed by Martin Bezecki, Ben Jaya, Bezecki. Acosta would get off the line at 17. Then Ben Jaya went to second place as he went around the outside of both Bezecki and the other two. So he went around the outside of both Bezecki and Martin.

It was an incredible move around the outside. It was, I think, going into sixth, wasn't it? It was. Down to the back. I mean, out and around the outside.

That was just, again, suddenly the aggressive Ben Jaya shows up in a race when there's 25 points on top, but he can't have half the aggression for a race that gets him 12 points. I don't know. I'm not his keeper, but that seems wild to me. Talk about putting faith in your front tire halfway through the first lap of a race. I mean, by me, I mean he breaks so… Where was his tire pressure, Rich?

That's the question. You know, that's where people – I mean, come on. That's where people are going to go with this. Ben Jaya couldn't have done that if he had the proper pressure in his tire. Well, that's a good point, isn't it?

I hadn't really thought about that. But no, just before we go too deep into the race, I just – we cannot pass by Gary's email. Oh, yeah. So we've got to talk about Maverick, who kind of just didn't have a particularly good weekend, it has to be said. And I'll just read – it's only one line long.

An absolute pearler, classic from Gary. Oh, yeah. He says – he emailed us on Monday, having thought about the race weekend, and said, yep, Vignale has got back home to Spain and remembered that he's Maverick. Yes. Ouch.

And then he replied back to that one and said, well, at least he didn't disappoint you this weekend. Yeah. It was not a good weekend for the official Aprilia team. No. Trackhouse looked good.

A bit better on the satellite squad, but overall pretty poor really. Yeah. Let's see. Thank you, Gary. You never disappoint.

No, he's the master of the one-liner. I'll say that. Oh, so Benyaya is now out front. So he is out front and leading, which is nice. But Benyaya would go wide at turn 13.

Maybe the right-hand side of the tire was up to temperature, but the left-hand side was not. We'll look at it that way. So Martín goes back to the front. Bizecki would get by Marquez, and Marquez is now fourth in this list. So it's Martín, Benyaya, Bizecki, Marquez, and then Binder.

Alash and Zarco go down. Alash basically knocked Zarco off. They were going to review this one after the race. I do not know what was the outcome of anybody has a penalty out of that one. I can kind of say Alash probably deserved one somewhere like that.

He'd probably get like a three-place grid penalty is my guess from that one. I do not know that for a fact, people. We'll find out. I don't know if I just missed it or somewhere. But then we get to the big moment.

15 laps are left in the race, and Martín went down at turn six. He literally just folded the front. It was a bizarre crash by Martín that you don't necessarily think that he's going to have, nor do you think that he would have this crash given it was a perfectly dry track now. We don't have these patches of water. This used to be a phenomenon that happened at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 500.

They called them weepers where the water would come back up to the asphalt and weep through. So I think Jerez has a bit of a weeper problem on the track somewhere. I just think this applies to Bagnar as well, although less so these days. But he and Martín in particular spring to mind of the people that have a tendency to crash out of leading positions. They do.

Now, again, I'm sure I'm not criticizing. They're leading the MotoGP race, for goodness sake, and they're absolutely putting it all on the line to be in that position. I mean, Martín didn't appear to do anything wrong. I haven't seen anything subsequently that, as per the Marquez crash in Texas that suggested there was a brake issue or anything like that. I think he just probably just broke a little bit too late, bit offline, a bit too much pressure as you were talking about earlier on.

Just a peculiar crash. But we've seen him do this on numerous occasions as well as other people. And it's perfectly understandable. But he will be kicking himself dropping out of the race in no circumstances because he hasn't done this for a while. I think the last time was was it Indonesia?

Yes, it made the mistake where he ran wide or something. I had speculated that maybe sweat had gotten into his eye and he was blinking and missed. Yeah, that's right. He just sort of got himself off. It was Mangelica, wasn't it?

He was way up the track. He was seven seconds up the road, and he just lost the front again and threw it into the gravel. So similar to the situation, and he does have this tendency, and he does need to iron this bit out. But you can understand why they crash. It's interesting.

They're the two fastest guys, and they sort of have – I'll say it this way. They don't have the resolve to stop that crash because you never saw Rainey or Dewan or anybody do that, leading like that and just go away. It's more commonplace with them than it was with – I'll call it my heroes of the 80s and the 90s. Different bikes, different times, different tires. I get it.

The racing has moved forward. But it is – great riders tend not to crash like that. It will happen. They tend to go through a period of doing it, and then maturity and skill and experience – well, not skill because they've got that in spades right from the minute they jump on two wheels. But I would think these guys have been around this class and these bikes long enough to not make that mistake.

Yes. I think that's the point I'm trying to make without being overly judgmental and critical because I'm in no position to criticize. But I only wish I had a fraction of the skill that they've got on a bike. But you can't be winning championships and doing this. And Banaya a few seasons ago famously dropped out of race-winning positions in this manner.

And he sort of has managed to iron that out by and large. But Martín is still doing this from time to time. And although he's got a fairly handsome lead in the points, he's dented his championship now by doing that, and he'll be kicking himself for it. Back to the racing. Marquez would get by Bezekia at turn six.

And you had a feeling, well, it's on now because now Banaya, who was up the track quite a bit, you were wondering, okay, is Marquez going to be able to close him down? Is this worn tire pace that Marc Marquez had, is it going to work here? Well, we would have to wait and see on that one. Marquez does slowly close this gap up, but Morbidelli and Miller go down at turn five and Miller was literally pissed. He was hot about that one.

Again, another accident that would be investigated after the race. I would expect that Morbidelli will get a three grid price penalty. Again, speculative by me. But again, Morbidelli might reasonably argue that he's leaning off the bike looking right and just doesn't realize where Miller is at that particular point in time. He might argue that he should be more aware of it, and that's a fair argument.

If there was a gap, he'd go for it. Again, there are circumstances that you can argue that one either way. Yep. So we watch Marquez wheeled on by the crowd, which you could hear them this crazy. I mean, what crowd?

What a crowd. Yeah. You realize they made a mistake on attendance, right? Yeah. That's a bad, bad boo boo.

We'll let that go. I'm talking about racing. Well, they claim it to be the biggest race weekend attendance ever beating Le Mans last year. Yeah, and that's not what they said. Yeah, it was not.

It was it was closer to two hundred thousand. Yeah, you missed it by a hundred thousand. How the hell does that happen? I don't know. Continuing on.

Continuing on. We'll let that one go because I don't even get into that statistical anomaly. Anyway, Marquez is now gaining on Benya and you're just waiting for it. You somehow you're in the back of your head. You've got the Jaws music coming like this is going to be crazy.

Marquez makes his makes his move in turn nine. He was faster through the third sector. He goes slightly wide. Then you I guess back by. OK, we come back around.

You know, it's coming. He's going to do it at nine again. Sure enough, we go into nine. Marquez this time keeps it a little bit tighter. Benya is still able to get back under up of it.

And they go through the next three turns with Marquez on the outside of Benya and neither one wanting to yield. It was literally probably one of the greatest one lap one lap of racing you're ever going to watch in your life. That is why I'm so down on people's thoughts about the sprint race. Oh, it was a great race. No, it was an interesting race.

It was a crazy race. It was a wild race. This was a race because you had two guys with hyper skills now going after each other in a way that you hardly ever see. You don't see two formula on cars go side by side for many turns like that. If you do, it's absolutely positively rare.

You don't see this happen in an Indy car or, you know, M.C. you may see a little more often or endurance racing, but not as much. But this was incredible that those two guys hung it out like they did. And Marquez actually had this huge patch on his right shoulder where if you watch the onboard of Marquez, camera from the tail of his bike looking forward, you see that the wing of Benya is bike is over top of Mark along with tire marks from Benya front tire. And again, Jim is going to say the wings have to go because if that wing would have hurt Marquez or hurt any rider collapsed or something.

And again, if somebody did have a crash and that wing was now flapping and this happened, now you get a raw edge. It's going to cut somebody's leathers and hurt somebody pretty bad. This arrow has to go. I'm going to stop there. Hopefully it will at some stage.

I hope so. Yeah. But yes, can I just say a couple of seasons ago, that move would have resulted in a penalty for one or other rider because Benya shoved Mark pretty hard in his defense. So there was proper rubbing, which is racing and race direction. Absolutely.

I haven't bitched and moaned about them and some of their decision making in the past few seasons. Again, credit where credit's due as I see it. And as I want to call it. Great. No action, not even an investigation because that was that they were knife fighting each other for a lap or two.

Let's be honest. But after the race, they were both grinning, hugging, loving the fact that they just had a full on fight with each other. Both stayed up right. It was about as close to the edge as you're going to get in terms of aggression. But that's what they're there to do.

And that's what we love to watch. It was a fair fight and race direction. I had nothing to say about it. And again, much credit that that was the case. And I love the fact that everybody was smiles and happy.

Marquez's point as well. He's like old times, old times and just loved it. Right. It harken back to 2002 World Superbike, Calami, Bayless, Edwards and Noriki Haga and Bayless and Haga just have this bash fest that was interlocked handlebars at the fastest part of the circuit. And it's just elbow out racing and Edwards is in it, too.

And at the end, they're all they all huddled with each other like, oh, my God, that's the greatest race I ever rode. It was hard. It was that it was that style of a race. If you can remember that race from Calami 2002, I always use that as, hey, look, these guys have no roll cage. They have nothing around them.

And yet they get off the bike and think it was one of the greatest things that ever happened versus somebody barely bumps somebody in a Formula One car. And they're mad as hell at somebody like, dude, you're sitting in a carbon fiber tub and a survival cell. Don't give me that crap. And again, you know, from a TV perspective and from a social media perspective, it's actually gold. I mean, OK, there weren't 300,000 people there over the weekend.

I don't know what the race day crowd was, but it was probably 150,000. So but you could hear it, you know, like really loud coming through the speakers on the TV. So, I mean, to have been there on that on that hill, because that's where all this action unfolded. That's why people spectate from there, of course. I mean, this is just gold for Moto GP.

And thank God they didn't then shoot themselves in the in the head by giving one of them a penalty afterwards. So we've got Pete, you know, saying this is the right direction to travel now. If people do things that are deliberately obviously dangerous or misjudged, OK, but racing is this is what racing is. And so this is what we want to see. So, yeah, great.

Absolutely brilliant. It is absolutely brilliant racing. Benyaya would go on to win the race. Marquez would be second. Bezecki is now third.

Marquez's brother Alex was fourth. Then you had Bastini, Bender, Gigi, Antonio, Oliver on the track house. Vignola is ninth, not disappointing. Gary this weekend. Acosta would finish tenth, which was great for him.

That's your top ten as it goes through. From there, you look at the championship standings with Martin having crashed and scored no points. He stays on 92. Benyaya is on 75, which puts him only 17 down. Bastini retains third.

He actually moves back to third, I think, because Acosta had slipped, had jumped up to third, but now fell down. Acosta is only one point behind Bastini in fourth. Then it's Vignola's, Marquez, Bender, Bezecki, and Gigi Antonio. And that is your race weekend from Bereth, which was a great race weekend. Definitely a lot of things happened, a lot of fun, great racing, great calls by the officials.

It was a good weekend. Liberty's got to be sitting there going, genius. Well, yeah, yeah. Whereas the previous race weekend, the story really was all about Acosta, wasn't it? This weekend, I think we're starting to see Marquez really starting to get to grips with the Ducatium.

I think he still has a fair bit of a way to go probably in terms of understanding the bike and the change of riding style and one thing or another. And of course, it is the year old bike, which is an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your perspective, I guess, to some extent. But, you know, again, I've always said I admire Marc Marquez. I don't love Marc Marquez. I'm not, you know, like a 93 t-shirt wearer.

I very much admire him. And I particularly admire the fact that he's jumped on a different bike and in a satellite squad. I mean, there's been a lot of chatter on social media again about Ducati not favoring him because I'm thinking, well, he's riding in a Cressini squad. I mean, they're a private team. Effectively, they have a degree of support from Ducati, but they're not like Pramac.

So Marc's just sort of doing his own thing and getting to grips with it. And on the evidence that we're seeing as the year's starting to unfold now, he's there or thereabouts, isn't he? So this was where I thought probably this year was just going to be a sort of Bagnier-Martin show. Maybe with Brad Binder turning up from time to time. You know, the Hondas and the Amahas are not in the fight this year.

So if Marquez does truly get in the mix, I think that's only going to be good for us. And on the evidence of Jerez on Sunday, let's hope there's a few more of those to come because it's great TV. It is. It is. I mean, Gigi Jelena makes a lot of trips down to the Cressini garage to talk to Marc Marquez.

Yeah. And we know that Gigi Jelena runs the show. What are the odds Marquez has got either a factory 2025 motorcycle or he's wearing red next year? Yeah. Well, I mean, people were talking about that potential before the season even started.

So it's only cemented more now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you might argue. I mean, I still struggle to understand if that is good for Ducati to have Marquez in red because, you know, he doesn't take any prisoners.

And obviously they've got Bagnier already on contract there for next year. So one would imagine that Bagnier wouldn't be terribly positive at the thought of having Marc Marquez as his actual teammate. But from Ducati's point of view, I mean, yeah, I can see, sort of see why it makes sense. Yep. It's going to be very interesting because I think we know Martin's leaving Pre-Mac.

Is Pre-Mac leaving Ducati becomes the question. There's too many more things to answer there in silly season. We need to get to testing here real quick. There's not much on testing. Testing happened on Monday afterwards.

The interesting point to me was that Brattle had and raced the new Honda that they built, given some of the direction that all the riders had input into. Yet the two factory stars never raced that, never tried that bike. It was Zarco and Nakagami from the LCR bike. When asked about it, Mears said, I prefer to go the way that I am with the bike that I have because the bike that I rode that bike somewhere at the designated test, I don't remember where off the top of my head, and said, it's not an improvement at all. Yeah.

Whoa. That's an Nakagami was not exactly. Nakagami wasn't happy about that thing. So apparently whatever Honda decided, Brattle made it look decent. I'm not saying it was perfect, but I thought I had some hope that Honda was moving in an appropriate direction here.

Apparently not, but I don't know when the next season test is. Is it all the way to San Marino? Well, don't forget the new concession rules. I know, but I was just trying to think of like when the next time was that they actually would be testing on a track. I think it's San Marino.

I think it's that because they always use that as the final lies what they're going to build in the off season. I think I could be wrong. Definitely there's that one. There could be one in the middle somewhere. I think I don't know.

I think it might be one at Mugello possibly, but I need to double check on that. I don't think there is, but it could be. But either way, there are concessions and they're going to do and test other things. But for Honda to be this wrong compared to what Yamaha had. Now, you look at Yamaha, they're in the same boat.

They look to have made some progress. They looked like they had some actual progress. Quattraro seemed to be upbeat. They're like, hey, look, we have a lot of things. We prioritize what we wanted to do.

We feel good about this. And they seem to come out of that test looking positive. Yamaha seems to be turning things around quicker than Honda, which I would have never suspected given that it's Honda. I still don't think Honda will get it wrong. I just don't think Honda is going to get right until you get the new engine.

Yeah. And I think Yamaha started making the changes quicker than the Honda. Yes. Started to make changes in the side. I think they're sort of ahead.

But the challenge for them was perfectly encapsulated by an interview I quickly watched last night that Alex Rins gave at the end of the test where he said he tried the new aero package, really likes it, feels it's a big improvement, tried a new chassis, didn't like it. He didn't like it. His current chassis is still better. So you can't just change one thing, as we've repeatedly said on this show. And this is Honda's problem.

They're starting from so far back. It's going to take them a huge amount of effort and money with new concepts to try and figure out which bits work and how you then combine those best bits to make an overall package that is better than what they've got. So but this is the reason for the changes in the concession rules. So they get a lot more time to test with their factory riders and try and figure this conundrum out. But they've got a long way to go, clearly.

And I mean, you would expect different riders to say different things. But the overall vibe I was hearing from the interviews from the Honda squad was that they haven't, despite a huge amount of effort. And most of the riders were acknowledging the fact that Honda are really trying very, very hard and doing a lot of R&D. But so far, nothing really. I haven't found a golden bullet in any particular area, have they?

No, not at all. Vinalis got a one lap wander to go to the top of testing, saying, hey, having not been able to race my primary bike is the reason that I wasn't as good as I could have been. Sure Gary's giggling about that one. Well, Gary did email again, didn't he? So he said, it seems that Vinalis was saving his best for test day.

Quite what he said, but that's what he meant. He just missed out on beating Digi Antena. Good job, Maverick. Lower in the race weekend and then second in the test. Yeah, so yeah, it's a situation normal there.

I think Gary's a bit hard on Maverick. I know you really hate him as a rider. I mean, we see the Maverick that we like, and I hope Gary appreciates this to some extent, you know, in terms of his performances at Circuit of the Americas and then last time out. That's the Maverick that we want to see more often. But he does have this habit of disappearing in a race weekend and then winning the test.

So I think it was otherwise, I think it was like I think everybody was where we expected them to be. I think Gucotti has now kind of figured the chatter problem out. Acosta just simply rides around the chatter. He doesn't care. And, you know, and he was, you know, I think the kid has come down to level here a little bit.

Interesting to see what he's going to do when we get to Le Mans. But that's all I got for testing. If you have anything else, Rich, that's all I got. I didn't see where Pedro Acosta came in the test. I didn't either.

It was down the list. I mean, you mentioned about the fact that you had a big crash on Sunday morning in the warm up, and he didn't really he didn't really make any progress in the race. So whether he was a bit sore, whether it dented his confidence a little bit, I don't know. But these are the sort of the character building days that he will have to go through to eventually become a GP World Champion, which I have no doubt he will be at some point in the coming seasons ahead. So so it was it was less of an Acosta day, more of a Marquez day Sunday for me.

And the test. Yeah, not nothing much more to say than other than what we've already said, really, which is more about how the Japanese guys are factories, I should say, are getting on. If you're a fan of the Japanese teams, it's going to be a while before they figure it out. And if yours again, I know the controversy, if you want to think of a to me, it's like I think there's a big rule changes that's going to take away a lot of the gizmos. They might keep the era, but I think the gizmos are going to go away with the 850 cc bikes.

In that case, then you're going to put Honda back on a footing that they're and they're going to want a lot before because that's what they're going to want to go back to. They want to go back to a pure here's a motorcycle. Here's a motor. Here's some fairings that are on it and go. Is that what can happen?

Don't know. But Jim, one of the commentators over the weekend said, I think we can start to expect an announcement about the detail of the regs, even as early as Lamar. It's going to be some official communications to what the regs actually are. Clearly, clearly, it is all agreed now. Numerous people have hinted at the fact I mean, have a control said it to me if you remember, which is a bit of a scoop.

I mean, I remember last year that he does when the 850 thing first emerged, because I went straight back into the media center after he said that to me and mentioned it to Simon Patterson, who obviously I spent a lot of the weekend with. And he said, well, I think they're still arguing about that. Whereas at that point, they made it sound as if that was a done deal, which I think it is. I think it is a done deal. But in terms of electronics, aero, you know, ride height devices, this is all obviously detail that we're going to find out in an official communication.

As I say, I'm pretty sure somebody said it might be released as early as Lamar. So we haven't got long to get the detail on that. But for all the Honda and Yamaha are going to toil away, spend all this time and money getting trying to get themselves competitive right at the point that they do or might have a chance to do. The wrecks are going to change. So it's a bit of a thankless couple of seasons ahead for them, really.

Well, it reminds me a lot of Honda in the 800 era, right? You came from 990 to 800, they sucked until the very end. And it was like the last year and they looked good. Then it was like, oh, we went back to thousands. Okay, Honda, I don't think Honda cares about spending the money.

I don't think they do. In a perfect world, in Jim's perfect world, you would have very limited aero. One set of, I'll call them, strakes, rakes on the front to control wheelie. You would be allowed a whole shot device to lower the front of the bike by a mechanical means, not by any kind of hydraulic pressure, no rear ride height adjustment whatsoever. And that would be what we would race with.

So I'm hoping for that. I think that would give us better racing. With all that, I've got to go to work. So we're going to get out of this podcast. Rich, enjoy the rest of your day.

And with that, I'll remind you all to ride safe. And just before you go, Jim, I'm just going to say, before I forget, just to obviously, this show will come out in a day or two. I'm going to be catching up with Carl Hunn, who's a guy in the UK who's going to come in and start doing some BSP related coverage with me. Just so we can try and keep a bit of a better grip on the BSP side of thing. I'm also starting off doing some stuff with Tag Honda, as we've shown on the social media channels.

We're going to be doing a deep dive with that team this year, with Charlie and the riders and the rest of the team. And thanks to Scott Bolton, who was at Road Atlanta for Round 1 of Moto America a weekend or so ago. He got a bunch of interviews whilst he was there, Jim. He spoke to Sean Dillon Kelly, Hayden Gillam, Blake Davis. I think maybe one or two other riders as well.

I need to go and download all the stuff that he's posted. So I will edit that stuff up for Moto America because we're going to try and check in with the Moto A stuff a bit more regularly this year as well. So that we obviously we focus on Moto GP, but we want to keep track of the big national series where Superbikes and obviously World Superbikes as well. And I'm going to be speaking again to Greg Haynes from Eurosport as well to catch up on his thoughts on World Superbikes. So yeah, busy few weeks ahead.

So with that, I'll say cheerio and ride safe as well, Jim. And I'll see you next time, mate. See you in a couple of weeks.