Magnifique Martin

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 767, May 13th, 2024. We're going to be discussing all the racing from Le Mans and to do that I will have to have my friend Richard Jowd with me.

Richard, great racing from the weekend. I'm still tingling from it, Jim, to be honest with you. Four great races and yeah, really looking forward to talking about them because there is much to discuss as always. Yep, shout out to the Le Mans crowd. Almost 300,000 people packed in there for a weekend of racing.

That's commendable people. I, you know, plus it was great weather too. I mean, usually it's break out the raincoats, the wooly hats and everything else, but they were blessed with great, great weather. So, well, that's what we're going to talk about. But guys, hey, we still would love to have more people subscribe to the show.

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Leave us a like. That'll help us get back to the top of the algorithm again. And with that, I think we shall move on. Oh, a quick shout out. We did have some conversations with Jacob Rowler on there.

Yeah. Very kind words were spelled to us. Jake, thank you very much. I really appreciate the comments about the CODA interviews. That was me being very much outside of my comfort zone, although it doesn't sound like it.

It's just I have a rough time just walking up to somebody and saying, hey, we're going to do this and talk. And so it was well worth the pain that I suffered in doing that. And helped me to grow a little bit in a way that I was not used to. So we appreciate that feedback. Also, Jake, Jake informs us that if you have HBO Max, their coverage is not the Dorna coverage.

It is actually BT Sport, I think, who is on there. So if you are in America, or I guess technically, I guess you could be anywhere with HBO Max, and you want to use that to watch the races, you have a choice. You don't have to listen to the Dorna feed. I'm so ingrained in listening to the Dorna feed that I don't do it any other way. I haven't listened to the BT, well, it's called TNT Sports now, isn't it?

So I haven't really listened to that coverage for quite some years. Like you, Jim, I'm just ingrained into the Dorna feed now. People tend to be a bit hard on the Dorna commentary team for some reason. I mean, I think they're great. I like listening to them.

But again, I'm used to that, their format and their delivery. But certainly the BT Sport or TNT, as we call it now, is very, very good as well. So if that's available to people outside of the UK, then that is definitely worth checking out. Yeah. Great.

Oh, with that, we will talk the news. So before the weekend began, we had the drop of all the rules for MotoGP for 2027. These are quite interesting. We will start with what we already knew or had assumed. I think maybe we even had a little exclusive on this one.

They are going to 850 cc's. Now, to quell everybody's fear of the 800 and corner speed mayhem, they made the very wise choice and said, the only thing we're changing is the bore. The stroke must remain the same. So when you do that, you can rev a little bit higher, but in theory, it should be a torqueier motor that they should be able to ride. Because we are trying to work on containing the revs and whatnot.

And there's also less gearbox options that they'll be able to put into the engines as well. We also get one less engine per season. So it's six per rider in the engines. There's a fuel reduction as well, which is we are now going down to 20 liters from the 22 liters. Now, if that sounds familiar, we were that way with the factory bikes for a while, where factory bikes were limited to 20 liters.

Everybody else got 22 liters and that was with CRT and then Ducati was running a different electric was running the standardized electronics package. So they were allowed 22. Now everybody's got sort of a standard electronics package. So we're all going down to 20 liters. I don't know what this one's going to do with it because 20 liters is tight to make some of the more thirsty racetracks.

People among them, one that jumps out is Japan at Motegi. That is a very thirsty circuit. Even at 22 liters, these guys had some trouble making it there. So this is going to be interesting to see. That's going to be the interesting take of all this right here.

It's for that. Okay. So that's the motors for it. Rich, anything on the motors you'd like to add to any of this? No, other than just to reinforce what you said, Jim, which is that they clearly tried their best to learn the lessons from the 800 CC era where they didn't put certain restrictions in, which kind of led to those very peaky revvy engines, which kind of encourage high sizing corners, which was exactly the opposite of what they were trying to achieve in terms of safety.

So hopefully this will go some way towards to learn people's fears that will go back to that kind of a situation again. Yes, hopefully. I did forget to mention that we will be 100% sustainable fuels. I will not get into how they define sustainable fuels. We'll let that slide because there is no bearing on what we're doing here.

We're racing motorcycles and that's all that we care about. Well, that's an emerging technology in and of itself anyway, isn't it? Oh, yeah. So a few years down the line, it might be different again. So again, yeah, when we get there, we may know more of exactly how they're talking about how they're actually carbon neutral and sustainable, which we don't know the whole details as, again, the process that you would use.

I'm fascinated from an engineering standpoint. I really want to know, but they're really kind of shaky on what's going on. So we'll leave that. I believe the precise wording involved the use of the term specifically non-fossil fuel related. So yes, so it could be algae.

It could be any kind of plant based. It can be all carbon capture types. So who knows? Yeah, I mean, God only knows, but we'll find out. Well, that's the answer.

That's that part of it. Okay, so let's talk about the more cool parts of this. Now, I think everybody and their brother, we've did it on the show. I think you and I both agree. We've won at ride height devices banned just for the pure sake of it.

I think they were so close to a disaster with a couple of failed ride height devices that it had to go. And they did. They did ban all ride height devices, including the whole shot device, which I would have made a concession for. I'm not going to lie. I would have said fine.

You can have a one time use only mechanically locked holding the springs of the front forks there like they do in motocross slash super slash super cross. I would have been okay with that. I would have allowed that the riders, from my understanding, lobbied for it on grounds of safety for the starts, you know, so they won't take and flip these things over backwards on themselves. However, no go. Every ride height device is banned starting in twenty twenty seven.

I think that's a good move. Yeah, I mean, I'm delighted about that. I think possibly some riders might have been in favor on keeping the front device for starts, but I guess I would imagine probably not all right. And like all these things, I mean, once everybody's got the technology and the devices, there's no inherent advantage in having them at all. Really?

Obviously, G Katie had that sweet spot with both the front and the rear where they did maintain some advantage because other people didn't have it. But I just think getting rid of it is the right thing to do now. It has no real application on the roads unless it was done in an electronic format. Obviously, electronic suspension is not allowed in MotoGP. So, yeah, I'm just pleased to see the back of them.

I think they make the bikes hideously ugly as well. So there's no real benefit. And obviously they are making the bikes faster. So part of these new rules are to slow the bikes down. You know, both in terms of top speed and in terms of arriving at corners and exiting corners, because both of those things affect top speed and safety.

So I just think it's the right thing to have done in this particular case. I think also my take is that you banned the ride height devices. Now, if you let them have a front ride height device, you know DigiDolini would have came up with some way to work around that, and it would have been actuating on the track somehow. So if you just ban the whole thing outright, then no one's circumventing the sport. How do they say that?

The intent of the rules, right? No one's running around there. It's gone. It's gone. Hey, you can't have that.

So I think that keeps us out of a gray area that we need to stay out of. Now, there are some concessions. Aero has been allowed to stay. However, the Aero is now based. The wing goes from 600 millimeters down to 550 millimeters.

So that's as wide as they can be on the front. I think that's a good idea because I think we've seen enough evidence, especially from Haaretz, of that wing crawling over Marc Marquez's shoulder, from Benyaya's bike wing over Marc Marquez's shoulder. Not that it got close to his neck area anywhere, but you can see that there is that potential. So if you bring them in a little bit more, that's going to help. Also, the rear seat is now part of the standard Aero kit that you have for your motorcycle.

There is now no more freedom to put wings and flip ups and all these other things on there throughout the year and change them as you go. You have one seat that you're going to homologate, and that's going to be your Aero package, if you will, for it. We've also had limits to the weight. The minimum weight has been lowered. Is it lowered, rich, or raised?

I can't remember which way it goes. It's gone down to 153 kilos. We went from 157 kilos to 153 kilos there. GPS data sharing will be amongst everybody's going to get GPS data, which is going to be very interesting. This is a scary part for me because when we had 800s and we only had 20 liters of fuel to get us somewhere, what did they do?

They started running different fuel maps based off the GPS data of where the bike was on the track. Evidence by the horrendous high side that Jorge Larento had at Laguna Seca. There was some other instances, the shortcut at Mugello that caught the bike out because it wasn't where it thought it was. I hope that this data sharing is something that is being policed by Dorn. I believe it to be.

I think Dorn has given you all of this data as opposed to letting the teams harvest that data themselves, which they would figure out a way to cheat the system. But I think it's Dorn. I believe it to be Dorn at control. Am I right Rich on that one? Yeah.

My understanding again on this, and there's a very good article on motorsport.com by Matt Oxley, of course, where he goes into this in some detail. Back in the 800 days, of course, they were running their own electronics. The systems were much, much more advanced, whereas they can't do that with the standard ECU. The GPS data is not going to be available live during a session. It will be given to the teams afterwards.

Now, I'm not quite sure completely what benefit that is to the teams, other than checking what lines people are on and stuff. But according to Matt Oxley, the main benefactor of this information is going to be the safety aspects of this so that they can more accurately measure crashes when they happen, whether they start, what was the trajectory, what was the speed of the bike, where did it end up. So they can go into much more analysis on this kind of thing. Again, with trying to keep tracks up to date in terms of safety barriers and protection, and et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's the more primary reason for it.

But quite why the teams get to have dibs on each other's GPS data after a session is finished, I'm a little bit unclear on that. So that's maybe something we'll have to try and dig into. Yeah, I think we might have to. I could see where teams may want to be able to have that data. They could figure out a top speed of everybody else's bike.

They could look at different points of acceleration and know where they are losing. So if you have that data, I think there's a lot you can gain from it, from a team perspective, to figure that out. But we'll see how this all goes. Again, we have years to go. No one said that these are definitely in stone, to my knowledge.

This is what we were told. But as with all things, I think you could, if they want, it could change something along the way. I guess, I guess. But I think that would be possible. Quite a bit of agreement between the teams and the manufacturers, I would think, at this stage, because this is official now.

But as you say, Jim, we don't know over the course of the next, what, two seasons or just slightly more, all sorts of new things might emerge that might cause these to have to be revisited. So I mean, in that sense, I take your point. Well, I was thinking perhaps maybe some of the arrow may be tweaked along the way for the new rules is what I'm thinking. I also think that the concessions are going to be tweaked because as it stands right now, in the rules that they explained to us, was that all the current teams are moving to a tier B concessions. So Honda having these extra extra days to test, to take a test with their team, that will be eliminated in 2027 for Honda, for Aprilia, or Kausaki, Aprilia.

I was trying to somehow put track house together in there. I don't know why, but it came out. But all those teams, KTM's, all those will all be at a tier B. So that means that they're obviously anybody who's new that comes in, they get a full set of concessions. Now, the only people I think that are coming, who may be coming, would be BMW.

Although I don't know if that helps or hurts BMW's cause. But we can always hope for another set of bikes on the grid. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense to me as an opening gambit. You know, it's a level playing field for everybody that's already here. But if you're coming in completely fresh, then you are going to need that extra help.

So it kind of makes sense to me. Again, like you say, it might get tweaked a little bit as we go forward. And it depends if anybody new does commit to the championship. I mean, I'm hoping I've got everything across that BMW do come. So I think they would be a great catch for MotoGP, you know, to replace Suzuki, who don't appear to be coming back anytime soon.

And given what World Superbike and Kawasaki are up to, highly likely that Kawasaki are going to show back up in the MotoGP paddock. So there are not that many candidates that could come or will come. So yeah, but it makes sense to give anybody that does come absolute full concessions for one or two seasons, whatever it will be. So since you mentioned World Superbike, we'll move to World Superbike news. If you haven't heard, Kawasaki is essentially leaving World Superbike.

Well, how should I put it? They're going to give motors to Bermuda, who Bermuda is going to build a bespoke bike around that engine. And then they're going to come to play in World Superbike. I think it's Kawasaki getting ready to leave, is my personal opinion. Well, that was my thought too, Jim.

I don't want to preempt too much the show that I'm going to put out after this one goes out, where I have a long chat with Greg Haynes. And see, I was completely unaware of the fact that Kawasaki bought Bermuda some years ago. So that is part of the Kawasaki Heavy Industries, which is obviously a ginormous conglomerate. So again, I don't want to go into too much detail now because it will come out in the show with Greg. But effectively, this is their way.

Bermuda will build a very expensive road homologated special, which will then be eligible for World Superbike. So it will go up against the V4 Panigale basically, which is a 50 grand motorcycle, depending on what version of it you get. And you know, Kawasaki have been trying to compete with something that's much, much cheaper and is purely a road bike. So the Bermuda thing, I think, is a bit of a clever way of homologating something that you'll only have to sell 200 versions of or whatever the rules are these days. It will be fantastically exotic and expensive, and it will be eligible for World Superbike.

So I don't see it as Kawasaki getting out because they own Bermuda. It's a bit of a kind of technical marketing masterstroke potentially. Are they, but is the factory Kawasaki team still going to be there? Well, it will effectively be what's there now, just rebranded. But so, so to me, that's it's semantics, right?

Kawasaki is leaving because there isn't going to be a Kawasaki on the grid. There'll be a Bermuda, which, OK, maybe is owned by Kawasaki with a Kawasaki engine. But OK, anyway, listen for Rich's interview with Greg Haynes. That will be out after this show. So you can do that.

BSB is this weekend. They are in Donington Park and you will be there. I will getting wet and cold again and blown over in the wind, no doubt, because the forecast is hideous. But yes, I should be there at least some of the time and will be looking to get into a bit more depth with the guys and girls that tag Honda Racing this weekend. So as well as keeping an eye on all the racing that's going on, which would be good because Don's part always is.

Yep. Barbara Motorsports is this weekend's spot for Moto America. Mr. Bolton will be in attendance again. And there will be episode 766, I think, just dropped today, which is all the interviews that Scott got for us from the guys in the paddock at Moto America.

The Northwest 200 took place last week without any serious injuries. There were three Superbike wins for Erwin, two Superstock wins for Davey Todd, and Super Sport wins shared between Cooper and Todd as well. So we are now in the warm up to the Isle of Man, which is the last week of May and the first week of June, I think. Normally, yes. I'm assuming the dates are consistent with the last few years.

Just by the way, Jim, in my notes, the JM on the podium again, so that's John McGuinness. First time he's been on the podium, that's why I think getting on for 10 years because he had a huge crash and broke his leg really badly a few years back. Maybe it was 2016 when that happened. Yeah, great to see Pint back on the podium because I think it was quite a surprise to him, but a great pleasure and a great surprise for everybody concerned really. Because if you want to talk legends, he's always in the conversation.

Easily. So yeah, but good to see that the Northwest 200 went off without any nasty incidents. I mean, there were some crashes and there were a couple of kind of bigish ones, but thankfully, to my knowledge, no serious injuries, which is always a relief. With that event, and hopefully the same will be the case with the TT as well in a few weeks. Yes.

Okay. So with that, let's do what we do best and talk about MotoGP from Le Mans. Yeah, let's start with Moto3 qualifying and we'll work through to the big guys at the end. Not going to sugarcoat this one. The first qualifying session was a snooze fest.

Rollstein, Linetta, Ogden, and Suzuki all come out of that to get to the second qualifying session. To be honest, the second qualifying session was a bit of a bore as well. It was Alonso V. Holgardo, each of those taking their shot at the fastest time that they could produce. It wound up with Alonso taking a pole position over Holgardo with Jose Rueda third, which remember Rueda was absent from COTA, absent from PAREF due to one, an appendicitis that was emergency surgery in the US and then a serious infection that he received as a partial as of the operation, which is now all claimed.

First of all, amazed that he's riding. Second of all, I was also wondering, gee, I wonder if the kids are going to be strong enough to actually take on the rigors of racing a motorcycle for the full distance in the race, which we will find out that later. From there, it was Adrian Fernandez being the first Honda, then Colin Vier, who got sort of, I think Vier got mixed up with some yellow flags and some other things that happened during that time. He didn't quite get the run that he wanted. I think Vier would have been farther up the grid than he was, but that's how the cookie crumbles or total would be six.

Our friend, Gil Kelso was seventh and it was Munoz and then Picaris and Yamanaka were your top 10 there for qualifying. That's how they would go into the race. Now in the race, the morning of we learned that Fernandez would receive a double long lap of inconvenience, as you like to say, Rich, because of his transgressions that happened for him with putting around in one of the free practice sessions that happened. As the race took place, Alonso got a whole shot over Holgardo, over Rueda, and Munoz, who was flying. Munoz was up to second very quickly and Holgardo passed Alonso to actually lead.

Then Picaris, my gosh, that kid has some large attachments as we like to say here on the show because he was around the outside of a couple of people in the Dunlap chicane, which is crazy to think that he was on the outside doing that. He used that to make his way to fourth. Vier would move up to third and then Picaris again on the outside of everyone at Dunlap as well. It was amazing riding there at the beginning by Picaris showing why he was a rookie that was highly touted coming into this season. Just from that, 15 to go, we had Holgardo out front, followed by Munoz, Vier, Alonso, Picaris, and Ortola.

This seemed to be the normal thing that we've seen from Alonso now. He's back in that lead group. He's in his spot. He was just stuck there, but it was like, well, was he stuck there or did he not have any pace? Did he learn his lesson from Jerez that if you go out there and you run out front, you pay the price sometimes?

But Holgardo was out front where he likes to be. Holgardo, we know, likes to control a race from the front. Now, with about 13 to go, Ricardo Rossi had moved his way up to fourth and was zooming fast. It looked like he had an extra two horsepower than everybody else. It was bizarre that he was that quick.

Vier had moved himself to second and then Rossi would go down at turn 11, having been helped by Munoz. Munoz would then receive a double long lap penalty for the indiscretion. Rich, good call, bad call. I thought it was a harsh call, particularly it being a double long lap. I mean, when you have contacts and somebody goes down, you can pretty well guarantee there's a penalty coming.

But I thought it was a marginal fighting for the same bit of track. I didn't see any malice in it. I mean, Munoz, I think perhaps is a bit of a victim of his own reputation from time to time in a way that we used to say about Denis Anciu from time to time in Moto3. So whether that played it shouldn't play any part at all. I mean, each incident should be judged purely on its merits.

But in the circumstances, I thought a long lap might have been just about OK, but a double long lap I thought was very, very harsh. And that might have been more about sending him a message than anything else, which if it was, I think that's wrong. Yeah, when I first saw it, I was instantly thought that's a load of crap. And I didn't want a penalty out of it at all. I thought it was two guys racing for the same bit of racetrack in that fact.

And then they showed a couple of other views and it's like, that was a bit much in my opinion. And I kind of I will land on the same position as you that the penalty did not fit the crime. A single long lap would have been sufficient, I think, for it. And I agree with you wholeheartedly there. But I also think, as you rightly said, he's a victim of the reputation that he has around the paddock.

Any message was sent like, look, you can't do this kind of thing again. But that didn't do that. Well, we were all well, I was a whole about trying to figure out who was at fault in the penalty. Viar moved to the lead, which, again, he had pace from the practice sessions. You expected him to be there.

And he was sort of the outlying qualifier just because of the way the yellow flags came out. But normal service was he doing with Horogordo going right back again. I think he is he is of the Troy Bayless ilk. If attacked, re-attack. If you don't attack again, attack again, again.

And if it's not the next corner, then do it two corners later. Who cares? But get back to the front when at all possible. To enforce the fact that you are the fastest man on the racetrack. Yamanaka had now joined the lead group of them because it wound up being Horogordo, Viar, Alonzo, Ortola, Piquera and Yamanaka.

Viar would go back to the front again. And he and Horogordo had a big coming together at the turn one, turn two area of the track, the very high speed first section as you peel into the Dunlaps you came. Now everybody goes out way to the left to bike right or left to get onto the curbing to change the angle of approach and carry that speed into it. And that's where Viar was. He was really on the quote unquote racing line.

Horogordo was running a tighter line and the two of them met at the exact same spot in time. It was quite the save by Viar. I really thought it was amazing. He actually stayed on the bike at first. I thought for sure we're looking at given Munoz's situation that there's going to be a long lap penalty coming for Helgardo.

They did not do that, Rich. Why? Because, and there's been a fair bit of chatter on Twitter X about this. Not necessarily to do that incident, but certainly some stuff that's been going on in MotoGP where I think some of the more senior riders and there'll be one or two in particular who tend to be quite vocal about this sort of thing, criticizing race control and the stewards again. And we've been singing their praises a little bit recently, but there is this underlying current of, what's the right word, angst, I suppose, that they are penalizing outcomes, not intentions or near misses and stuff.

My initial thought like yours, Jim, was that was quite a hard collision between Viar and Helgardo. I'm not suggesting, I don't know which one was quote unquote to blame because they're racing hard, they're going very fast at that point, but had one of them gone down at that point, that would have been a very serious accident indeed. My initial thought was, well, if you're going to penalize Munoz for what happened there, I don't see how you can leave this, but there wasn't even an investigation, I don't think. I don't remember one. Again, because it wasn't an outcome or a bad outcome of it, race control tend to let these things go.

And I'm not quite sure that's correct really. I mean, I don't know if you have a different opinion on that. I'm guessing you probably don't. I'm with you 100%. Again, they judged, in my opinion, Munoz's penalty based on the outcome that he took down Rossi.

This one, they shoved off as, well, that was just great racing. Admittedly, Helgardo even realized that what he did was wrong with the quick wave. Like, hey, look, I didn't really mean that one. That was like, I got sucked in there. I didn't think this through kind of a thing.

And he quickly did it. Now, conspiratorially, did he get off because he tried to actually, hey, look, I was in the bad and quote unquote held his hand up and said, look, I know what I did was wrong. If that's the case, then you have a problem in race control where you are, again, you are penalizing an outcome and you're not penalizing the intent of what happened. And I'll leave it there. Yeah, I just think it's a slippery slope.

I mean, if you can't treat similar things differently just because they end in a different way, because every single incident will always end in a different way. And if you're only going to penalize people if somebody goes down, well, I just I don't see how that's tenable really. So, I mean, Helgardo was very lucky to get away with it. And as you say, he did acknowledge the fact that, you know, that wasn't quite right. Let's put it in fairly gentle terminology like that.

I don't know what Vi had to say about it. I don't think I heard him say anything about it. He didn't really say anything much about it at all. I just, I think he assumed it was racing. I mean, again, for the same bit of track and that close quarter racing at that speed, incidents will happen.

But David Munoz could quite easily say exactly the same thing. And yet he got a double up long lap penalty. So I just think that's a bit uneven, that sort of thing, when it happens. Agreed, agreed. This late in the race with five to go, the front three are who we expect.

Ortolo is running fourth. Esteban has now joined in on the fun. So is Yamanaka. And Picaras has fallen down to sixth. Munoz then crashes at turn 11.

So his race was done at that point. And it was all over. Ortolo would move his way to third. Vier would go past the Helgardo. And then Alonso would lead.

But Helgardo would go back by. Well, somewhere like two to go. And then with one to go, Alonso leads again. And then they touch coming through the chicane there. I think it's through the Dunlap chicane they were touched.

There's, you know, again, true Alonso style. He leaves it to the very end and wins the race, having had Helgardo do all the donkey work, leading the race the whole time. He sat back, cruised, and just showed up when he was supposed to. His, I think this is his fifth win, I believe, fifth or sixth win, something like that. It's something small.

But I think every one of those wins were always last lap passes or within the last two laps passing to win. It's very reminiscent of one Mr. Rossi, as in Valentino, in the early Nautis, if you will. Rossi would just hang around in the pack. And it was like five to go.

Rossi would be like, oh, it's time to race now. It seems as though Alonso has that same sort of mentality as well. And he can pull it off too. He is a phenomenal rider. And he is of the generation of Pedro Acosta.

So I'm looking forward to seeing Alonso move himself into, you know, be potentially a Moto3 world champion, potentially a Moto2 world champion, and then be fighting with Pedro Acosta in MotoGP for years to come. And that's a very tasty proposition, I think. But to continue where we were, Alonso having won, Helgardo being second, Vier on the podium, then Esteban being fourth, which is a career best for him. He seems to have started to come together to flourish now to be at the front. We'll see what happens in the next races.

Then Ortaulo and Fernandez from my two race, two long laps early in the race, would make it all the way to sixth. After that, it was Yamanaka, Rueda, Suzuki, and Picaris, props to Rueda for making it the whole way. I know Carlos Sainz in Formula One had his appendix taken out, won the very next weekend or whatever. It's not the same thing sitting in a Formula One car as it is racing a motorcycle, people. Let's be honest with us.

For Rueda, and I think Rueda's whole situation was way worse than what Sainz's situation was. For him to be back in eighth, I thought was a fantastic ride. And Picaris would fall back to tenth, having been in that lead group most of the time, victim of circumstance basically, with all the crazy aftermath of everybody going every which way. I think Picaris was more caught up in that chicane coming together of Alonso and Algardo as everybody dove around to figure out how to get out of there. Picaris was on the wrong end of it, which happens sometimes.

But a very good Moto3 race, it was again, you're waiting for it all to happen in the last few laps, which is the norm. It didn't disappoint, for sure. Alistair Duggin Other than the couple of incidents we've talked about, it wasn't a scintillating race. Although there were a few really good passes, as you pointed out. But for me, the real takeaway is Alonso, he's learned from his mistakes, doesn't he?

Because I think it was in Parc Fermo when he got the pole position on Saturday, he did make the point about going easy in the early part of the race before his front tyre was up to temperature. So he's learned his lesson from Jerez, where he did look as if he would just bolt out at the front, which is not what we tended to see from him. As you say, he tends to do the hang around in the front pack somewhere in the kind of second to 10th kind of region. And he has just outstanding racecraft, doesn't he? I mean, he's so clinical in the way that he gets past people.

I mean, he pulled off a mega pass on the penultimate lap, I think, he went past two bikes. I forget where that was, but I made a note, you know, just an incredible pass and you just know he's coming on the last lap, don't you? So he's formidable. And I totally agree with you, Jim. I think he is already marking himself out as a kind of a cost level talent, who I would say is going to be favourite for the championship this year.

You never know what's going to happen to people in Moto 2. But yeah, he does look really, really, really promising this kid, doesn't he? And yeah, he just keeps doing this, doesn't he? All of his wins, as you say, they're hanging around in a pack, just biding his time, waiting for other people to mess themselves up or burn the tyres out and then he just pounces with two to go or one to go and people just can't deal with him, can they? Yeah, no.

Very impressive. Again, I hate to beat this drum, but it will. Props to Pirelli. I realized that it was very nice temperatures, it was very pleasant in Le Mans, but it was not like everybody was throwing it down the road at Dunlaps-Chicanes where the tyres are cold, having been, you know, because that's the first time that you're going left after a secession of rights that you can definitely cool the tyre off in. So props to Pirelli again for this, because they have done phenomenal work to do this.

I'm not trying to beat the drum for Pirelli in their marketing or whatever. I'm not suggesting we all go buy Pirellis and put them on our bikes. It's just, think about that. These guys had all been on Dunlaps for years, years and years and years and years and years and Pirelli came in and have not only, I think, given them a better tyre to qualify on and to race with because they've been breaking track records, then what Dunlap gave, whether Dunlap didn't want to do the development work or whatever. I don't know the situation there, but all props to Pirelli for what they've done.

Yeah. I mean, if Pirelli want to turn up as a show sponsor, that's perfectly fine with us, Jim. I could check some tyres at our subscribers. That would be no problem whatsoever. But no, I mean, well, I'm not being jokin'.

That would be not quite nice if that was to happen. I'll shield for Pirelli. Why not? There were not any crashes in Hereth. And I think, obviously there was a crash with Moon Off and Rossi, but that was a collision.

One or two people might have gone down, but there have been remarkably few crashes, actually, this year, which would tend to imply again that there's a lot more grip on Off, which we know to be the case with the construction. Or Field. And well, and that as well. It could be either or, or both. Yeah.

Take a pick. So all of which just points to the fact that they're doing a tremendous job and I'm sure we're going to keep on seeing it. Yep. So quickly, the championship, Helgado leads one point ahead of David Alonso. They're on 94, 93, respectively.

Then Vier is 32 points. He's 31 behind. Okay. There's no need. This is not a two horse race yet.

They're still in it because all Horgado and Alonso have to do is put each other down, which is very possible. And then, and have Vier win and these right there in the mix of it. Ortola is fourth, Kelso fifth, Munoz is sixth, then Yamanaka, Stabon, Vicaris, and Fernandez. And with that, we'll move to Moto two. Now the Moto two qualifying.

Again, it's probably not the best qualifying that you're ever going to see. Although, Kinet was in the first qualifying session recovering from the broken ankle that he had at Jerez, which is his left ankle. I think of all, if you have a choice of breaking an ankle, I think I'd much rather have my right ankle broken than my left ankle broken, but it's his left ankle. I mean, he started out the weekend having to be assisted onto the bike and then was able to walk himself. I don't know, hobble.

Hobble himself onto a motorcycle after that. He would get through the first session along with Zalta Van de Gerberg, Santa Agis, and Guevara. Then we got to the second session, which Ramirez was down at the last turn in the session. So he would start way down. Jake Dixon had a tip off next to the last corner where he was just way too deep into that one, lost it, and away that went.

Arbolino had a point where he couldn't get the bike started for a little bit. It was as if, again, I'm speculating and I don't think it's possible given how the systems work, but it sounded like it was kind of like the old school vapor lock on a carburetor. It was hot, it sat, it soaked, it basically boiled off all the fuel and couldn't get any cold fuel in it to start. Though they did switch out the different roller. They had two roller systems.

Maybe one of them just was low on battery or something. But Arbolino did have to get off, and his mechanics then did start the motorcycle, and then he was off again. That whole episode just seemed to be very surreal that that was happening to Arbolino. He's just not having a very good year, is he? No.

It just seems to be going wrong. Yes. I mean, dare I say it, he's becoming the Celestino Vietti-esque, where he just disappears for long portions of time and then will magically reappear for a moment in time, which is very sad. Jim, it occurs to me, actually, bearing in mind both Moto2 and Moto3 have had the switch onto the Pirellis. Moto3, the competitive order, hasn't really been terribly affected by the change of tyres.

If anything, people, as we were just saying, are doing tremendously well. And whilst the lap times are lower in Moto2, there are some people that are clearly struggling and have vanished from trace. I mean, Aldegaard had a tricky weekend. I was going to talk to you about this. You're going to come to him.

We'll do it now. Whereas, conversely, Joe Roberts is taken to these tyres like a duck takes to a pond. But Vietti, I mean, he's out because he crashed in the Harathtesa. He had a broken collarbone, or shoulder injury. So he wasn't even in the Mon.

And yeah, I mean, what's going on with Arbolino? I mean, he had a poor second half of last year. We know that to be true. And he completely fell away in the championship. But he is in all sorts of bother at the minute.

And whether that's tyre related, obviously, we don't know for sure. But he is certainly a person that looks in jeopardy in terms of maintaining a ride, I would say, beyond this year, if he's not careful. Well, he's got a two-year contract with Ducati. No, no, Arbolino. Oh, Arbolino.

Sorry. Yeah. I somehow stuck on Aldrich. Sorry. I mean, he's a quality rider.

So he's not going to disappear. But I'm being over dramatic. But, you know, I don't think he's a danger of losing his Mark VDS ride. Yes. Now, does that mean he shows up on a TaoTran or Fantic or something else?

Take your pick. Don't really know. Right. So, yes, I agree. Well, let's kind of come back to all this after we get through the race, because there are some very valid points and questions I want to ask you as well.

But I think we need to see where results are from that. Qualifying guess. Oh, yeah. Where were you? Oh, yeah.

Iagura had a bike problem. It appeared as though the chain was loose. Apparently, there was some spacer problem. I'm like, wow, that's KTM had that problem with Miller's bike. At Haaretz and now Iagura.

Okay, you hear me out here. I think it's inexcusable at KTM because there are two bikes. This can happen given the high pressure intensity environment that you're in with a single bike. But still, you know, we've never really had a spat of these kind of little niggly problems either for one of two reasons. One, we've either never known about them because of the coverage or however, or because of the rigors of a 22 race calendar, people are tired and are now making mistakes.

Possible. Because if, you know, one of the things, again, Formula One analogy coming here, people, when Formula One was testing all the time and you were allowed to test all the time, they had 18 each night, maybe 20 races. And then they had, they stopped all that because it required you to have a full time test team of mechanics because the strain was too great for the people who were traveling with the cars. I don't want this to be the case with MotoGP, but it's been agreed upon that, what, 22 is the limit and there can be no more. Hear me now, Liberty Media, no more than 22, which gives the MotoGP guys 44 races in a year.

Anyway, all right, sorry, I'll jump off the soapbox. Jim, that reminds me, just to, not correct, but to go a bit further on the new NGP, new engine rules where we said that it's going down to six per rider. That applies if there are 20 or less races in the season, if there are 21 or 22 or more races in the season, then the engine allowance goes up to seven, just so that we're absolutely 100% correct and clear on that. I meant to say earlier on, I forgot. So, yeah.

So anyway, continuing with Moto2 qualifying, I swear we'll get through it together. Canett actually crashed as well. He was literally hopping on one leg to get out of the gravel trap there. Canett crashed. Then we had Altegr, who turned up to be 13th.

And because of all the crashing and all this, we wound up with Canett on pole. Robert was second. Garcia was third. Aranis got really shortchanged. He was on a very good lap, which got canceled because of the Canett crash and everybody else crashing at the very end because Selach bumps into Aranis at the end, at the very end of qualifying on the top of the hill there, past the Dunlap chicane.

And very weird. Again, that was always when I was racing. My fear was at the end of the race because some guys want to close the throttle as soon as they're past the checkered flag. Some people would want to carry that to the first turn and go, okay, we're all going to break here. And then mind your way back to the pits or whatever.

So, always a tricky spot there. I always tense up at the end of the race because I'm just expecting somebody to do something really dumb. I've seen it happen a couple of times. Again, it's club level. But last year in Le Mans, at the end of the Moto3 race, when Joel Kelso went piling into the back of somebody, it felt the same reason.

I think it was. Not sure. Somebody closed the throttle off and he went looking down or looking at the pit wall of his team. He just piled into the back. So I'm pretty sure it was Le Mans.

The second row was Aranis, Lopez, and Gonzalez. Then it was Guevara, Aegis, Selach, and Arbolino finishing the top 10. Jake would be 11th. I think Jake had a crash in qualifying too, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, he had a crash there.

So it was crazy. We'll come to Jay car, I guess. Things did not improve the following day. Yeah. So we get to the Moto2 race and we learned that of all the riders that are the top riders, Joe Roberts is on a medium front.

Everybody else is on the S1 compound front and the SC1 and the SC0 rears. But Joe's on a medium front and I'm thinking, at this point, I'm going, it's either a master stroke or it's the stupidest thing you've ever done. It was like it could only go one of two ways in my mind. But at the start, Garcia grabbed the whole shot from the inside, the dirty section of the racetrack. Fabulous start to be that way.

Roberts was second, then Gonzalez, Lopez, Arenas, and Boulvarra. Kinet went back to eighth. We never mentioned where Outaguer was. Outaguer was 12th for qualifying, which was again, yellow flags and everything else affected Outaguer's final couple of laps. So I'm thinking Outaguer is going to make a charge in this race as well.

But Outaguer was in ninth, so he'd moved up a few places. Gonzalez was in fourth and then Lopez was pushing him wide. And that's how all that started. Baltas would go down at turn 14. Kinet would make his way to fourth.

Broken ankle and all, he'd make his way to fourth. Gonzalez went down at 14 and then Kinet got by Roberts at Dunlap. And then Roberts went back, was also passed by Lopez because Joe had to slow down as a result of what Kinet had done. Kinet basically parked it in the middle of the chicane, so Joe lost all of his drive and that let Lopez get by. But Roberts did go back by Lopez.

So there was the fight back from Joe, which I was glad to see at this point because honestly, most times you don't see Joe fight back. He's there and he gets passed and he kind of stays there or then the next guy passes him. I don't know if it's like a, I have no speculative point, but maybe it's just a psychological thing for him that he would just like to get passed. I can't do what I want to do with the bike and then the next guy passes and then it just gets worse. Here at least, there's some mental fortitude.

I'm fighting back. I'm going to get on with this. And I was glad to see that part of it. But I wonder, Jim, can I just say, I wonder if that's because he has so much more confidence on the Pirellis. It's entirely possible, which is the other speculative point that we will talk about as well with all this, because I think all these things tie back in onto all that.

But Garcia is basically gone. I mean, he's starting to get away at this point in the thing. Canet has gone by Roberts and then it's Lopez after that. It's Ranis. It's Guevara.

They're there. And then Lopez just barged his way past Roberts at 13. I mean, it was pretty much like, again, not to rant about the officiating, but if Munoz gets a penalty for what he did and Elgardo doesn't get a penalty, well, then I guess it's consistent that Lopez didn't get a penalty because he didn't crash Roberts, although he did take seven tenths out of his lap time, having been in the dirty area of the track there where the cars actually meet back onto the circuit. At this point, I wrote, I wonder how far back Roberts is going, because at this point, I felt like the medium front tire was definitely the wrong choice, given how everybody else is going on their front soft tire. And I was like, oh, gosh, here we are.

We're going to go backwards. Well, it's in the go. We had Roberts in fourth. The front three are Garcia, Canet, Lopez. Aguera and Chantre have now made their way up, which was surprising that Aguera, gosh, Aguera was way back when he started.

He was 17th off the grid. And he running through the pack to this point. And still you've got good grief, 10 more laps to go. Nothing really changes here until there's four to go. When I when I Aguera gets past at turn 13, he uses that breaking point to go past Roberts.

Like, oh, okay, that's not great. Then Lopez goes by Canet for second. And when that happened, it was like everything came together again, except for Garcia, who was so gone, he wins the race by a mile and a half. But that whole attack that happened by Lopez and Canet, those two guys having gone at each other instantly brought Roberts, Aguera and Chantre right back into the race. So now things got really interesting as it wound down.

I mean, by two laps to go, everyone's trying for second place. They're all trying to figure out who's going to be on second place. I Aguera got by Canet when Canet went wide and I Aguera went to second, followed by Lopez, followed by Roberts. And Roberts was up a little bit. He then fell back again, got repast.

But the race would finish with Garcia winning. Then I Aguera. So that was a one-two for the MT helmet squad. That's a one-two for Basquecora. And then Alonso would beat out Roberts to take the podium, which meant all three bikes on the podium were all Basquecora's, followed by Roberts and Chantre Canet, who went backwards.

I think the pain that he must have been experiencing was off the charts and he still held on to finish sixth, which is an amazing ride. I mean, Canet was almost destined to win the thing, it seemed like. But it seemed like the other time he had a broken leg or something, he had a very strong race. And he just has an amazing threshold for pain, apparently. But then Arbolino salvaged in eighth, followed by Arenas and Gulvarra.

The point here is that the Basquecora's look amazing on Pirelli tires. And people that we don't expect to be at the front, Joe Roberts, Chantre, right, are doing really well on the Pirellis. But people like Altegr are doing horrible on the Pirellis. Arbolino, horrible on the Pirellis. Arenas is hit or miss either way, so I don't know if you really want to classify that.

But given that data set, you got to think there's something about the Pirellis that are causing this problem. What do you think is the issue here, Rich? Well, I don't think I'm really probably qualified to give a terribly informed answer to that, Jim. I mean, I think you got to have an opinion, right? I think possibly Le Mans as a track plays its role as well, because there are a lot of long, radius, fast turns.

It's got a lot of heavy braking. So stability and feel is clearly something that's key there. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of ironic, isn't it, that the MT Helmets riders were a little bit peeved to find out they're on the Basquecora chassis, because that was a late switch by that team. Very late. I mean, they're probably not feeling too peeved about it just at the minute, because I mean, Garcia is starting to look as if he could seriously be a title contender, isn't he?

I mean, leading the championship, albeit not by a huge amount. But I mean, he's been a revelation, really. And he had a strong year last year, but suddenly that, yeah, the car is doesn't look like the chassis to be on at the moment, does it? So whether people said before, although there are only two bikes, I think last year, weren't there? It's a bike that's very sweet handling.

It's good in the turns. You have to take different lines. And I just think that in combination with the extra grip and the feel from the Pirellis is starting to look like a problem for the Calyx runners by and large, because this is not an outlier race. We've seen this quite a bit. And the only person who really appears to be having a bit of a struggle with this combination is the wonder kid, Fermin Aldegir.

Unless with the GK contract in his pocket, maybe he's not so worried about it now. Although I doubt that that is the case, because he would want to win the Miratis Championship before he goes up. So yeah, it's a little bit of a quandary at the moment. And I think we need a few more races to try and figure out a bit better what's going on. I think one of the issues in this is the lack of dry running at the beginning of the year for the guys at the Pirellis.

Some people are going to gravitate to it. It's going to work for their style. Some guys need more time with it. I also think that because the Bosca Cora is this sweeter handling type chassis, but it takes these bigger radius corners. I'm going to speculate here a little bit because I know Pirelli, I don't think has changed their motto of how they do things, but Dunlap makes a very triangulated tire, especially for the front.

So they want a lot of grip on that front when you're in the corner. Pirelli has a more rounded, they do a triangular type, but think of it as a triangle with big radiuses on the points, if you will. So it's a completely different feel and they're softer tires. So you've got a chassis that provides feel. You're going to be able to go faster on it because that's the feel that you're looking for.

You're getting everything back to the handlebars and you can make these decisions about what you're going to do, which that's where I'm confused. I think that explains Garcia. I think it explains the Bosca Cora as being all there. It certainly has improved Lopez being on the Pirelli. He couldn't come anywhere near Aldegar on a set of Dunlaps, but as soon as you put the Pirellis on, he's amazing with them.

Roberts on the Kalecs, which I think is the stiffer of the two chassis, which that chassis was more developed around the Dunlaps. There's a lot you have to change to get between the two. Ride heights are really important. Those things change the bike. It changes its rake and trail because if you did measure the circumference of a Pirelli, it's smaller in circumference than say the Dunlaps, especially the fronts because of that triangular shape there.

So given all of that, that's kind of where I think it is with this. But again, this is not a knock on Pirelli. This is making this series look really good too. Track records are still there. My gosh, you saw Aldegar come from 17th to second in a 22 lap race.

That's crazy. We didn't see that anywhere before. So I'm really not going to complain about it. It's that oddity. I thought at the beginning of the year, Aldegar was dealing with the whole contract thing.

I thought, okay, it's out in the open now. Aldegar's got a contract. We all kind of knew he was probably going to Ducati, yada, yada, yada, whatever. Okay, fine. And then I thought, okay, he's going to get it together.

So what? Because speculatively, if Jorge Martins is not, I'm not going to be at PreMac next year, there's a spot there that I see Aldegar sliding into, whether it's Morbidelli's or whether it's the vacant spot left by Jorge Martins. I'll spit it out. I swear. He's going there.

I think that's where he's going completely. Yeah. I mean, just on Aldegar then, I mean, we've said in the last couple of review shows, he's been dogged by a bit of bad fortune and a few things have kind of conspired against him. So I think we can give him a bit of a free ticket on a few things. But this was the first weekend where other than Friday practice, where he was towards the top of the time sheets from Saturday onwards, he just didn't look comfortable.

So there is something going on there. And he just didn't, I mean, I know he didn't finish too badly in the end, but he was quite a way off the pace and quite a way back, really never really looked like he was going to fight his way through to the front, for example, or to the podium, at least. So there's definitely something going on. But, and it's weird because, you know, you do hear this more feel an edge grip with the Pirelli front. And if so, if you've got a softer chassis, like the Bosco Skirra is a bit softer than the K-lex as you say, Jim, then you would think that that would suit somebody like Aldegar.

But I don't know, really hard to explain at the minute. And again, I think we just need a bit more, you know, experience in terms of races to come to draw any further conclusions on any of this stuff. Yeah. It's something to watch guys. I think it's definitely watch what's happening to Aldegar because that's the question mark, because I don't think we know what's going on yet, but we need a few more.

Let's look at the, sorry, go ahead. So I just got a couple more things on because this was actually a really intriguing race and a good race at that as well. But with Roberts, I just wondered whether or not he's so confident in that front end, but I think he just maybe felt he needed the slightly stiffer construction of the medium to get away with some of the moves. Because he's kind of the guy, well, in the context of that race, he's kind of the guy turning up to a gunfight with a knife, in terms of the bike that he's on or the chassis that he's on. So he's possibly having to do more on the front end than the others are having to do.

So whether that was part of his decision, but I mean, it didn't work out badly for him in the end, did it? No, I mean, he finished fourth still. This is his string of podiums are over, but. Yeah. Okay.

Just as a kind of, I don't know, rubs salt in the wings, Jim, but I do wonder what Cameron Bobie would be doing on the Pirellas. Had he not departed? That's a great question. It's a very good question because the US Dunlaps are softer than the European Dunlaps. They don't have, their sidewall is definitely not as stiff at all.

So it's, you know, Cam would probably be well in tune with this and would probably be somewhere in the same zone as Joe Roberts. I would think so because if you look at what he did on the BMW in Moto A, you know, he's really hard on the front end of that bike and he tended to be a bit of a front tucker as I recall in Moto two. So again, I think that lack of front end field with the Dunlaps that used to be there in Moto two was against him. And I think he would be doing quite well where he stood in the Moto two championship. I'm not going to go to him.

I mean, he left for perfectly sound reasons, but it is slightly bad timing. He will tell you that the KLX chassis is incredibly stiff. He will tell you that. Yeah. But other than that, the only other thing I just wanted to say was let's not underplay Connett's performance over the weekend.

What he did was just really, I mean, again, he's a guy who's really hard to figure out and he can put in a performance like that with a cracked ankle. And bearing in mind how much pressure they forced through the foot pegs to get those bikes turned, that must've been excruciating. So I mean, huge credit to him for that. And Yves-Anne Gravara, this is the first time we've ever seen him towards the sharp end, as I can recall. And this is what his second season now.

So maybe, you know, one performance doesn't sort of suddenly turn his Moto two career around, but you know, you do sometimes see these sort of little incremental steps start to occur, particularly in the second season. So yeah, good, good to see him up front because let's not forget he's an ex Moto three world champion and he hasn't done anything in Moto two before this weekend. I mean, I think he finished 10th in the end. So not outstanding, but much better than we've seen. So that was something I took note of.

With that, the championship swings, Robert's goes from being five points ahead to being seven points behind Garcia. So Garcia is on 89, Joe is on 82, Altegr is on 63, which is, you know, again, this is looking sort of like a two horse race, but one mistake from Garcia or Robert's puts and an Altegr win puts him right back into contention again. From there, Altegr is fourth, then Lopez, then Kinet, then Gonzalez, Arenas, Alcoba and Ramirez round out the top 10 in the points. So we go on to Moto GP. Oh, this is, this is wild.

I'm telling you. So in the first qualifying session, we had Vashti Mark Marquez, Bender and Alex Marquez. Wow. First time Marquez has had to go through Q1 with the Ducati. Okay.

Just shows you that. And Vashti is there as well, which okay, didn't really think that was going to happen. Bender had some sort of a technical issue on his bike and he gets only one chance to get through, which didn't, which I think he just didn't work because he crashed it. And so, well, he would start like dead last, I think. Marquez had a really good, really had the mother of all front slides going into the Dunlap Chicane.

He laid a blackie there that was just insane and he caught it. It was like the old Marquez and the old magic had come back. Like you're just like, yeah, that's how he's, that's how he's supposed to ride. And it just was fun to see him. It's just fun to see Marquez with a smile again, where he didn't, he just didn't have that smile.

But worth pointing out, Jim, that he's having remarkably few crashes. I mean, imagine if he'd been on the Honda again this year. Oh, I mean, Ron Mira, I don't think has finished a race yet because of crashes. I'll include sprints in that too. But it tells you something about the Ducati, doesn't it?

Now Mark's starting to get to grips with it and he's starting to push and he's having some of these moments, but he's by and large, he's catching him. You know, his skill is starting to come through as the Honda, it would have just been a collection of parts in a bin, wouldn't it, by now? So, and I heard this on the commentary, I don't know if he picked it up. They tried something with Sassip on the Friday and they kind of blew Friday effectively by going the wrong way. So he was really on catcher from that point onwards.

And so Saturday just couldn't quite get it together to get through to Q2. But, you know, I know you made that pretty true in the weekend. Even Augusto Fernandez went down, but it was Olivera who bumped Marquez out. So Marquez would start 13th, Bascinini had moved on to the second qualifying session. Now, the second qualifying session, Jorge Martín put in the first sub-90 second lap around Le Mans and he did it on his first hot lap that he did.

Martín is something special when it comes to qualifying. I will take nothing away. That guy can qualify. He can hustling motorcycle and then once he did that, he promptly crashed and turned four. Okay.

Hey, I'm not one to judge, but it happens. But you know, hey, Benyaya was second because he got close, but couldn't get past Martín. Then Benyaya went down at turn nine. Like, holy crap. So then Alex Marquez was down and then Miller was down.

So there was all these yellow flags that were all over the place and that ruined Bezeky's lap. It ruined Delay Spargaro's lap. It ruined Pedro Acosta's lap. It helped Bobby O'Quadraro to some extent there, but qualifying was Jorge Martín having got pole crashed. Francisco Benyaya, you know, Peco second having crashed and created a yellow.

Vignola somehow snuck through all of the yellow flags to become second. Gary was probably cursing at the TV set. And then you had Digia was in fourth, then Bezeky, then Aleix, then Acosta would be seventh, right? Then Quadraro in eighth, which I thought was brilliant for Quadraro. I mean, it seems as though Yamaha is making some progress, whereas it looks as though Honda is making none if not going backwards still, which is tough to imagine.

Tough to do. Then it's Morbidele. Bastianetti would be 10th, Miller's 11th, Olivera is 12th, Marquez 13th, right? So that's how we go into the sprint. Now, the sprint, Martín got the whole shot.

Benyaya had a very vicious wheelie and Marc Marquez would go from 13th to 5th in the first couple of corners. Watch that one again when they highlight and isolate Marc Marquez. He just picks the right way to go at each point in time. I'll get out on the outside of the first chicane there at Dunlap, which was risky but paid off, which was amazing. So it wound up being Martín Bezeky, Aleix, Vignola, Marc Marquez, Miller, and then Benyaya was 15th.

He had had a runoff or a crash. Do you think he just—no, he ran straight off into the gravel at the museum corner and then rode slowly around the outside and promptly parked the motorcycle because it was his backup bike. He did not start the sprint on his bike that he qualified in because his bike was damaged and qualifying. He said he had zero grip and zero stability in the motorcycle. Wow.

That's weird because in theory, those two motorcycles should be exactly the same. Now, there are going to be small differences and the best of the best will tell you one motorcycle handles differently than another motorcycle despite the engineer's best efforts to have two sets of forks that are identical, two shocks that are identical. It's down to the welding and the heat and all that. It all matters. At this level, it all matters that just a few microns of more weld causes that much more heat that changes something that makes that bike feel different to the guys that have this kind of talent.

So while surprised that Benyaya's number two bike wasn't quite as good as his number one bike or his preferred bike that he wanted to race, I am shocked that it was that far apart from each other. Unless, Jim, it was some weird electronics gremlin. That is possible. Because you had that weird little bubble off the line. I thought he didn't quite have the set because he really did bad.

Yeah. That can happen for all sorts of different reasons, but there's all sorts of engine braking and mapping that's part of the electronics package. So my take probably was that, well, we'll certainly never know officially from Ducati what the problem was, but it's hard to believe that it was kind of like a radical problem with a chassis or a tire or anything like that. I suspect there was something electronic gremlin going on somewhere, which just made the bike unrideable. But that was as much as we were ever going to find out.

One small frayed line or wire can cause all kinds of havoc in it. So we don't know, but that's where we are with that one. Did you do where? Alash jumped the start. So he does.

He got a double long lap of inconvenience. Wow. By the thinnest of margins, but yep, you're moving, pal, in which that is the rule. No movement before the light. And you got busted for it, which, hey, that happens at times.

You're trying to take everything there. Martín would go on to win the race. Bizecki would be, or where is it? Sorry. Martín.

Marquez would get second because Marc would wind up running through and he would wind up making a pass in the S's because Bizecki went down in the S's, I think, which allowed Marc to get to that second place and that whatnot. So Marc would be second. Vinales would be third in the sprint, followed by Bastianini, who raced up to a good position. Alash, because of his two long laps, and then Pedro Acosta made his way to sixth from his only really up one position. And then you had DG Antonio, Miller, and Fernández.

Cotorayo didn't even get a chance to score a point, which kind of stunk for them in the sprint race. But the sprint was kind of what we expected. Martín wins. The unexpected was Benyaia's bike having some gremlin, some problem with it. And the amazing part was that Marquez was able to ride all the way up from his 13th place to second.

The weird part was that Acosta couldn't do anything. You sort of expected Acosta to be able to do. You're waiting for him to do something. He just didn't do anything, which begs the question here because we've had this crazy qualifying and we've seen quite a few bigger names start to crash now in the qualifying sessions. I think it's because we all know now it's extremely difficult to make up places in the race.

Passing is at a premium now on some circuits. I think Le Mans probably, if you tallied up the racetrack and you tallied up what are prime passing zones, I think Le Mans has probably more of them because of the stop start nature of the circuit compared to anything else that's there. But I think these guys are now riding so hard in qualifying to get themselves in a position to win a race that you're going to see more and more of these guys crashing in qualifying. I just think that's where we are right now. They've got to push that hard to do that.

That is the sprint race as it went down. The other thing I want to mention something, what was I thinking about? I can't remember. There was some other tidbit that I wanted to talk about. While you're thinking about it, I just want to highlight another conundrum which is really surprising to me, which is the woes of Alex Rins really struggling to adapt to the Yamaha, which is a surprise.

I think he is still a bit injured with that leg because that's been a long recovery, that broken leg from Mugello last year. But even so, he crashed out of the sprint. He was nowhere in qualifying. He's having a real struggle, Jim, to get to grips with the Yamaha. Not to say that he won't get to grips with it.

I'm fully confident that he will. Quattro had a pretty good weekend but it was his own race and seemed quite happy with his overall performance for the weekend and that of a bike. But on the other side of the garage, it's a bit troubling at the moment. I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that. But other than that, it was a fairly typical Saturday race, wasn't it?

Bagnar doesn't really do much in the sprints, historically, whereas Martijn is virtually unstoppable. In terms of Acosta, I just wonder if he had such a stunning start to the season. It's kind of hard to maintain that and perhaps other people may have had a slightly steadier start and are now starting to gather a bit of pace and whatnot, which is making Acosta's life a little bit harder, perhaps. Plus, I mean, again, this was one of the things we were discussing in the email exchange with Jake Roe, wasn't it, about just what a big crash that was that Acosta had in the warm-up in Haereth two weeks ago. That might have knocked the wind out of his sails a little bit.

Not a lot, I don't suppose, but life in MotoGP is tough. So I think we might see him just have a little kind of dip for a round or two and then I suspect he'll come back strong again a bit later in the season. It's just my sense of things, but I think that's what's going on. I think one thing is we all rate Acosta's talent as incredible. He's on a MotoGP bike now and you can't help but draw this comparison and say, look, Marc Marquez was a rookie, got on a MotoGP bike, and he won the world championship.

Temper your expectations for a minute, people. First and foremost, I will give you that when Marquez came in, there was not nearly the competition that there is now. Ducati and KTM did not have their act together. Basically, it was Marquez battling the Yamaha for the win. That's pretty much where it was.

Let's be honest, the Honda was superior in horsepower, maybe not so much in handling, but it was very stable on the brakes, to which Marquez used that as a weapon to destroy the Yamahas and win his titles and win it there. Other people fell off along the way and had problems. Rossi was not at his zenith anymore. No matter what you say, Rossi was on the downhill side of his career at that point in time. Acosta is also not Marquez because he has a brain where Marquez literally takes his out and races.

It's not that Acosta is smarter than Marquez and whatnot. He has his own limit that he's willing to race to. That's where he is and he's learning and he's sucking all of this knowledge up. He's going to become a world champion. To me, he's also hindered by being on the Gas Gas.

In my mind, if you ask me how good is the Gas Gas slash KTM, they are equal to a 2023 Ducati. They're not equal to the 2024 Ducatis. They're still lacking. Again, is Acosta probably going to win a race this year? I think he will.

Win and where? I don't know, but it's not going to be a blot on his championship or his first year as MotoGP. It's going to be some blot on his copybook. Acosta didn't win a race. He's not going to be any talent at all.

No, not at all. There's still a lot of work that has to be done by Pitt Beier and the boys back in Austria to make that KTM better. They're getting there. It's going to take one, two seasons to get there where they can challenge consistently because Acosta has got to learn how to do it too. Yeah, and let's not forget, Acosta is still learning what the limits of the bike and his and himself on that bike are because he's so inexperienced on a MotoGP bike.

That might be why he's relatively speaking doing so much better than all the other KTM riders who do have a clearer understanding of what the limit of the bike is. Now he's having a few crashes. He's going to go through that tricky period now where you go through crashes to really fully understand the limit of the bike and then experience and skill will then build again. That's why I think we're going to see him having a, and this is very much a relative term, but a little bit of a dip compared to that outstanding first two or three rounds. He had the big crash, will have knocked his confidence a little bit.

So now he's going to go through a little learning period, I think. I mean, the crash that he had in the main race that we'll talk about in a minute was quite an odd one and he gave a very detailed and interesting explanation for it. But I still think we'll see him come strong from mid-season onwards. That's my prediction. I definitely think he will win a race, maybe a sprint rather than the main race, but I still think he's going to win something.

I think he'll win something. All right. So we go to the Sunday race. There is the chance of rain. If you saw the first free practice or the MotoGP warm-up, Akaso was fastest and everybody came in and practiced changing motorcycles, which is the first time I remember seeing that this year where anybody thought that there could be a possibility of going flag to flag with their bikes.

When we lined them up for the race, Benyaya got himself a great start. He got the whole shot over Martine, followed by Elisha, didn't jump this time. Digia, Vignoles, and then Acosta. Bezeki had a massive wheelie off the line where something was wrong. Either the whole shot device didn't engage properly, electrical gremlin where the settings or the map wasn't correct, whatever it was, he was battling that bike to get there, to get it back and to get it going again.

Acosta made a move by Vignoles and you thought, well, this is where it's going to be. He's going to slowly start to work his way up. He's seeing what Marquez did in a sprint race. Therefore, he's probably going to start putting this together now and makes his way. Acosta seems to be a little bit better on the Sundays than he is on the sprints unless he qualifies better.

Then we may see something different as he gets along or whatever. Basically, it was a Benyaya versus Martine battle at the front. Then Acosta goes down at turn eight. He's trying to get past, was it Elisha? No, he's trying to get past Digia and Elisha were there.

He goes into that turn, which is downhill, having only ran two laps of fuel off the bike, held onto the brake, that millisecond too long, tucked the front, literally went right behind the back of Digia and right in front of Elisha, through the little gap of those two bikes off into the gravel trap. Would you like to explain Acosta's definition? Would you like to tell us Acosta's explanation of what happened? This is a revealing of how quickly these guys are processing information. Now, let's take it that this is precisely what happened and he's telling the truth.

Well, I don't see why he wouldn't. What his explanation was that both, I think Elisha might have been in front of Digia actually. I can't remember. Oh, yes, I think you're right. Anyway, going into that turn, Acosta said they both broke very, very early.

But then having realized, or perhaps Elisha having realized that he braked too early, he kind of let off the brake again. So Acosta went for a gap that suddenly started to change because the other guys were adjusting their braking in the second sort of phase of getting into the corner. He said that in the end, he didn't want to rear end Elisha Spargrove, so he basically pulled the brake on much harder knowing that he was likely to crash. You know, it was absolute luck that he went between the two bikes and didn't wipe either of them out because it was millimeters, if that, of gap. So he explained it slightly differently, not that he just overcooked it and brake too hard with a heavy fuel load, but that, yeah, he saw a gap because they braked early and then they released their brakes and he knew he was going to then was going to run into them.

So kind of chose to not chose to crash, but was forced to brake much harder himself and that's what caused him to go down. So, and all that kind of happened in what, two seconds? If that. If that, yeah. So probably a second on behalf.

Just incredible, really. And then to recall it in detail like that, you know. Oh yeah, I could do it too. When I was riding all the time, it's amazing what you will understand, what you could think, what you remember and what details you can pull out. It's amazing.

So Acosta now out, down and out in this one and he doesn't really have the greatest track record at Le Mans. He crashed his Moto two bike there a couple of times, if I'm not mistaken, crashes Moto GP bike there now. Yeah. I'm not saying that this track is a bogey track for him. It's just somewhere where he's had some mistakes and has crashed there.

Meanwhile, back at the front, nothing too much has changed. It's still Benya followed by Martin, Alacia is now third, then Digia, then Vinales, then Marc Marquez. And now Bastianini who came from far back is now with Marquez. It's like, okay, that's really interesting. Digia would take third off of the Lace.

Vinales would go by a Lace, the fourth, and Marquez would go by as well. Once a Lace got sort of banged out of the way, Marquez just baltered it and went right on through as well, which again shows that Marc can be aggressive on the Ducati, take advantage of the mistakes made by other people, which he used to be able to do on the Honda, which he couldn't do. And again, happy Marquez. It's a fast Marquez. Bastianini then goes by a Lace and neither of them make the corner.

Now they're going into the chicane on the backside of the track. There's a name for it. I don't remember what it is. A Lace is late on the brakes. Bastianini is even later on the brakes.

A Lace kind of just sets the bike up and rides straight off on the access road, if you want to call it that, and rides on. Now Bastianini attempts the corner, goes into the corner, is right and cuts the corner and comes back out. Now they wind up giving Bastianini, he got a long lap penalty for that. I was trying to think if it was one or two. It was one.

Which is a standard sanction for that shortcut. So that's the key. Initially I thought he was going to be given a penalty for the attempt at passing a Lace, but that's not the case. The case was that all the riders weren't told, because there used to be gravel there and it's been paved, that if you cut across there, there is a specific amount of time that you are required to lose to not get a long lap penalty. He did not lose enough time and that is why Bastianini got the long lap penalty.

Now I don't know what kind of electronic wizardry they have on these motorcycles as far as being able to tell you how much time to drop, but if you were just trying to do it off of feel, I think it would be almost impossible to do as well. So that happens with Bastianini. He gets that. Jim, that's not a new thing either because we were ranting about this because it's exactly the same thing happened to Brad Binder last year in the race. We were talking about this, how are you supposed to measure one second?

I said it's an automatic sanction if you cut the corner there, if you cut the corner and don't lose the amount of time to be precise. I think it's a second, but yes, I have eminent to judge that in the thick of the action. It's hard to understand. Yeah, it's super weird, but Marquez is now gaining on Digia and so he takes a shot at him at Dunlap, but Digia hangs on. Quattro was then down at turn nine, so his race was done.

Back at the front, still Benya, still Martín. Marquez has now gotten to third. Vinales is fourth and then Digia. Now this is an interesting one to me. Digia got a long lap for the shortcut at turn three, which is the start of the Dunlap chicane.

I thought this one was completely unfair because he and Marquez are racing. He stands the bike up because Marquez occupied the area that he's going to take to avoid the contact. Digia slows down, looks, and even lets Vinales past him. In my mind, why are you giving a long lap penalty? Because Digia knew what had happened.

He simply backed off, let Vinales buy, and then passed him later, to which race control says, no, you didn't give up enough time because it's a known quantity of how far you're supposed to be. I'm thinking this is ridiculous. Digia did in my mind the exact right and proper thing. Hey, I got pushed off. I'm short-cutting this.

He looks over his shoulder, looks at it, calculates it, gets it to where he falls in behind Vinales. He even gave up a place and he still got penalized for it. Do you think that was the right call, Rich? I don't know what the rule is in that particular turn. It's the same thing.

You have to give up a specific amount of time. Like you, I thought he slowed up massively as he came out of that and rejoined the track. I was as surprised as you and probably him that he got a penalty for that. Just point of order, although I know they sometimes adjudicate these things differently on lap one, but Vinales is short-cutted at the start. He did give up a place or two.

He sat up and did give up a place or two as well. Obviously, it didn't happen to Digia on lap one, so maybe they give them a little bit more leeway because of the number of bikes going into the turn on that first lap. Anyway, yeah, it was an odd call to me. And I haven't seen any sort of major follow-up on it. I think Digia is one of these sort of fairly relaxed sort of people, so I don't think he was kind of banging his...

He wasn't doing an Alessia Spargrace or waving his arms at everybody and banging the table about it. And of course, race direction don't give, or the stewards don't give detailed written explanations as to why they do certain things in one case and not in another. I think clearly they should have a right... They should write up H1 and say, this is what we found, and this is the rule that we executed, or not executed, but imposed. And that's that.

And I think we'd all be more happy because at least we'd know where they're coming from, as opposed... Because this inconsistency here bugged me. And I get it. There's a certain amount of time that you're required to drop, but I think that's very hard to do on the bike. And it wasn't like Digia just whipped through the shortcut throttle, pinned and passed Marquez.

No, he knew what had happened. He clearly looked behind. He clearly saw Vignoles. He clearly dropped in behind, slowed down, dropped in behind him. And that's that.

I don't know what they're thinking sometimes, but they did. Martín then tried at Dunlap to get past Vignoles, but he wasn't able to. Then Martín got by at Dunlap again, and this time it sticks. It was a great aggressive pass. Now, you can say what you want, but you got the feeling by about this point in the race that Benyaya was trying to hold up Martín.

Martín had pace in hand, but couldn't figure out how to get by. Or Martín rode the smarter race and let Digia burn up the... Or did you? Let Benyaya take some of the tire off of his bike and then pounced at the end when he was able to. But Martín was able to get by Benyaya, and that was fine because now it was Martín, Benyaya, Marquez, Vignoles, Bastianini and Digia having served a long lap.

Then Martín wound up wide at Dunlap. He blew the corner with three to go, and you're like, oh, whoa, maybe the front's going. Maybe the front got too hot being behind Benyaya. You're not sure what was going to happen. But along with that move, he maintained it, but it brought everybody back together again.

So the gap that he was making, because I do believe he was trying to check out on everybody. He was succeeding in that case. Benyaya did not have the pace to run there, but that brought Marquez into the bite with Benyaya because Benyaya was losing pace and Marquez still had pace. Then it becomes this Martín... Sorry, this Benyaya-Marquez battle for the last lap.

Martín scooted away. He's going to win this, but Marquez waits until the chicane on the backside of the circuit does an aggressive move to get up the inside of Benyaya, moves him out of the way and would finish second. So your podium is Martín followed by Marquez followed by Benyaya. Two days in a row, Marquez comes from 13th all the way to second. One was with a great start.

One was with what I thought was a great ride by Marc Marquez. This is a different type of Marquez. We've never really seen him really come through the pack before. I'm sure he's probably did it on the Honda somewhere at some track and I don't know where it is. You could say he came through the pack in 2020 at Jerez only to toss it off the road and break his arm in half.

That's probably the closest comparable that I can come up with real quick, but it was definitely a different Marquez. It was a different race for him and with him finishing on that podium behind Martín, that leaves you with the Ducati conundrum that Gigi De Lini must solve and that is who rides beside Marc Marquez in or rides beside Benyaya in the factory Ducati team. I'm all tired up with words. Who do you think goes there, Rich? It's hard to look past Martín at the moment, isn't it?

There is something about the way Gigi De Lini interacts with Marc Marquez that just keeps that little shred of doubt in my mind. I don't want to get into conspiracies here, but there are a few different things at play on the periphery of this as well, Jim, which is really interesting to me. Go for it. The big one is, do Yamaha get a satellite team running? If they do, which team is it going to be?

That has a big potential knock-on effect on all of this. It might be that Ducati need to wait until Yamaha conclude a deal or don't with one of the satellite squads. Realistically, I think it can only really be Pramak or Grissini. Of the two, I would say Pramak is the more likely, but then that raises the problem. What happens to Firmino Aldega?

Most of the sensible money, I believe, was on him riding for Ducati in the Pramak squad. There are some other things at play around this that isn't just about, is it Martín, Bastianini or Marquez that goes to the Lenovo Ducati Works team? I feel that Bastianini is likely to be out, in which case I see him ending up replacing Aspargo at Aprilia. Because Aprilia want a fast Italian on the bike, and so Bastianini would certainly fit that bill, either him or Bazzacchi. Bazzacchi is not having a great year at BR46, so he might be a guy that could move to Aprilia, but I think if the two Bastianini is more likely.

Let me interject here real quick. Make the assumption, go with this assumption, Pramak becomes Yamaha based. Do you not think BR46 gets the works bikes? They'd have to. Grissini is not going to get that.

In that case, Bazzacchi stays at BR46 because they get the factory bikes. Marquez at Grissini might get a 25 bike because I think the Delinia would want to have one. With BR46, we saw Marini on the year old bike and Bazzacchi on the up-to-date one, so there is precedent for that to happen. There are some interesting peripheral moves that have to take place before this really unfolds, but if I was a betting man, I'd say Martín gets the call. I don't know what else happens in and around it.

Who knows? Is Alex Marquez perhaps a bit vulnerable? Probably. Is Digia a bit vulnerable? Probably, because Aldegaard needs to be found a seat, having been signed.

I think Olivera and Raul Fernández are vulnerable at Trackhouse. One of them isn't going to be there because Joe Roberts is going there. Nothing has been said. I think the handwriting is on the wall for that. This is so intriguing.

This part of this thing is so intriguing to me because I'm going to look at it from Gigi Delinia's point. This is the only way I can look at it. If I'm Gigi, I want that talent on my motorcycle. I'm going to look at Tardazzi and go, you figure it out because he's getting a 25 bike. Whether we give Grissini a 25 bike or whether Pramak leaves and whatnot.

I don't think Gigi Delinia wants Jorge Martín around. Not that I don't think that he thinks he's not a fabulous writer. I think that what happens on the periphery of how he conducts himself is not in line with Gigi Delinia and how he wants his writers to act. I totally agree with you, Jim. I don't think Martín would be a good fit in there from the Banyaya Pamp's perspective.

Well, they're not going to like Marc Marquez either. They'll tolerate Marc because Marc is... This is the wrong way to say it. I have no other way to say it to you people and have you understand. Marc is way more professional in what he says and how he says it than Martín.

Martín's a loose cannon to some extent about what he says and about how he acts. Well, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to be a Pramak anyway. Marquez has never and would never say it. Right?

And Marc would be there for a season or two, possibly. Whereas Martín would be a much longer term prospect or problem, depending on your point of view. So yeah, I mean, the heart sort of says Marc Marquez. Although Marc Marquez himself actually might be more than happy to take Cristina, provided he has a 2025 spec Ducati. Exactly.

Because I think he fits in there nicely. It's a good environment. It's a good, great team. He's got Frankie Carchetti in his corner there. They're working really, really well together.

You can see them gaining momentum and trust and it's going someplace, right? Yeah. You think about Marc had spent all those years with Santi Hernandez, right? He can't work with him anymore. So it's like a marriage, right?

You've got to work at it. They're still in the dating phase, right? They don't know if they're going to get together with you, but they're leaning towards engagement now, right? It's kind of how I look at it. But it's just how Marquez is as a person in PR world.

Oh, I mean, he's gold. Absolutely. That would be the reason for him to be there really. I mean, it would be a dream come true from a marketing and PR perspective, but Jim, here's one to wrap your head around. Okay, go for it.

So if Pramat end up as the satellite Yamaha squad, and they're going to get a lot of money thrown at them by Yamaha to do it clearly to give it to the Ducatis and Yamaha know that they need a proper second pair of bikes out there. We know that Martin's leading the team. He's made that abundantly clear. Morbidelli is another rider who must be under pressure for a spot in MotoGP, and he certainly wouldn't want to end up back on the Yamaha, having just got away from the thing. So who the hell rides for Pramak if it's a Pramak Yamaha squad?

I mean, you might see some people coming up for Moto too to fill some of these spots, because I can actually foresee three, four, possibly even five riders leaving the current MotoGP field. Okay, I agree with you. Let's count down the people that we think are vulnerable in there. I think that you have Rello Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira. They are very vulnerable at track house.

Whether you want to believe it or not, I think Aliche and Maverick Vignalas are very much questionable at Aprilia. They may or may not, but if you believe that Yamaha is going to Pramak, you don't think Aprilia would make a run at getting Jorge Martín on their bike. I'll be doing everything they can. They would, right? The guys, even if it was only to win sprint races, they would still love it.

So I think Aprilia has maybe a set of guys who are more logically staying, but you know, Bastianini has got an issue. He's going somewhere. He's not there. And you know, Morbidele has probably got an issue. He's not really going anywhere.

So if you look at that, that's six riders on the go that are potentially be out of there. Now, does Bastianini show up on a Yamaha at Pramak? That's possible. I don't think he'd like it that much, but I think he'd do it. Does Rens move to the satellite team of Pramak?

Doubtful, but he does tend to thrive in that kind of a team. Yeah. I mean, don't want to get into too wild a speculation. No, we can have a whole show. They're even talking about Mir jumping ship and ending up on the Aprilia at Trackhouse potentially next to Roberts.

That would actually be a pretty smart move. That's a pretty smart move. Because I still think Mir's got a lot in him really, and clearly the Honda is so bad at the minute. He can't find his way around it. Fair enough.

Not many people have been able to do that. Nobody ever really does figure out how to figure a Honda out. They just simply get it to submit slightly. That makes a lot of sense because Justin Sparks has enough money to put whoever he wants on there. I mean, he could have Roberts and Mir and he's got the money to make that happen.

That's not an issue. He's got plenty of cash. Plenty of cash. I don't know. It's crazy.

There's a huge shakeup because I think Miller is at risk of moving off of that because I think Acosta's going there despite whatever he says about loving being in Herve Pontreal's team and being around Herve and Guy Coulomb and those guys. I could foresee a scenario where Miller could go to a Pramat Yamaha. That could make some sense for Yamaha because he's a good development rider. I mean, he's not going to win him any races. But I think he wants to go to World Superbike.

It's an easier schedule. He can be home with his wife and his kid. I just think that fits better for him. Not saying he's going to do it. Well, I think that some people thought it might have happened already, actually, but it does become much more of a possibility, I think.

But I would even say that for all the wrong reasons, something like Fabio DiGianteno is probably a little bit vulnerable just because of this Firminaldi conundrum if two less Ducatis are on the grid, which does seem like it's going to be the case. How about this for a wild one? If you're Ducati and you say, well, we want another team, we want another team. Okay, Pramak is leaving. Yamaha is throwing tons of money at them.

Would you not go down and knock on Trackhouse's door? No, I just don't see Trackhouse and Aprilia parting ways with each other. Really? Yeah. I contractually, I would imagine there's some commitments there that would be pretty difficult to break as well.

There may be. I mean, you can never rule anything out because money always talks, doesn't it? But I mean, it might be that Ducati would be relieved is probably not quite the right word or not the word that I mean, but having to turn out two more bikes and support two more bikes probably wouldn't be a bad thing from their point of view. Well, they would get 24s. Well, yeah.

You still got to supply the parts and build the parts and depending on how much crash damage there is. I don't know. There's so much, right? You would imagine that by the time we get to say Silverstone in August, a lot of this will be clear and it'll be good if it is because I'm obviously hoping I'm going to be there to try and chat to some people about some of this stuff. But yeah, there's a lot of stuff to get through between now and then.

Yeah. I think that by August at Silverstone, I think the rumor mill is going to be absolutely cranked up on full till. So anyway, let's finish. That's the conundrum. Let's finish this.

So Bastion E was fourth, Vignales fifth, Digiantonio was sixth, then more Badelli, Binders, Aleixas Bargaro and then Alex Marquez rounding out the top 10. If we look at what this does to the JME chip, well, that puts Jorge Martin on top 28 points ahead of Vignales, or sorry, 38 points ahead of Vignales. Then Marquez is on 89, which leaves him only two behind Vignales for second. Could you conceivably suggest at the beginning of this year that the world championship would be won by a rider on a satellite team? Oh, and by the way, the guy who's going to finish second in that championship is on a year old satellite team, year old bike on a satellite team.

It's conceivable. Yeah, well, I mean- Bastion E is on the same amount of points as Marquez. You got to think that 24 bike is going to keep getting better and better where the 23 bike is longer in the tooth. Maybe Marquez is not there. I will tell you this.

If you watch that race, the 24 bikes have much better squirt out of the corner and they have a lot better acceleration to get to a higher top speed. Marquez's 23 bike doesn't quite accelerate like the 24 bike. That's why I think he was trying to get on the ride height device so early like at Porto Mayo because he wanted to get it lower to get going to get faster to keep up with the factory bikes. I'll tell you what, though, Jim. That pass he put on Bagnarra on the last lap- Master class of bike breaking.

He came from miles behind. He was in the same zip code when he hit the brakes. I mean, I didn't think he was going to make the turn. I thought they were going to go out. I thought the front end was going to fall, to be honest.

It was a hell of a pass. I mean, it really, really was. Bagnarra did well to just jink himself out of the way. Otherwise, they would have probably collided and gone down. That's why you want Marquez on the bike because there's some sort of magic that will happen.

You know he's coming. One way or another, he's going to send one. If it comes off, it comes off. If it doesn't, well, that's Mark Marquez. That's what gravel traps are for.

Yeah. I think that's why Gigi Delinia likes him so much. He's kind of like that Delinia for all of his kind of technical kind of wizardry and guriness. He clearly just loves a racer. Yeah.

That is what Mark Marquez is. Mark Marquez is the purest racer on the grid. He cannot not try. That is basically what racing is all about, isn't it? Yeah.

That's why Gigi loves him because you hit it on that. You nailed it. Gigi Delinia is a racer at heart and he loves Marquez's pure racing aura. You look at Gigi, man. He's always down in the Grissini garage.

He seems to show up in the Grissini garage before he shows up in the Pre-MAT garage. Now, credit of editing by the videographers that are there maybe, I don't know, but it just seems that way. I know we've got to round this out. Yeah, we do. And we have to keep talking about this because obviously the facts will emerge in due course.

But it's fun to speculate. I'm sort of with you. I think there's a powerful camp within the Ducati management that probably don't want Martin in there because I don't see why they wouldn't have announced it already if it was that easy of a decision because Martin's doing the business on track, let's be honest. But equally, I think it's most likely at this stage that Mark gets a 25 bike and stays put in Grissini. Possible.

So does that mean that Bascinini stays put? Because I mean, he's doing okay. He's not doing as well as Martin. But Ducati might take the view where he runs his gob, doesn't he, Martin? So the big headline on MotoGP.com today, if you've looked, is Martin saying, if they don't want me, I'll ride for another manufacturer.

So he's really kind of... He's following himself. He's pushing it. He's pushing his luck a little bit because they might just call him out on that one and say, right, off you go then. You can Foxtrot Oscar to Yamaha or wherever you think you want to be.

I don't know. It'd be a bold decision if they let him go on performance grounds. But it's a little bit like the whole kind of Senna and Prost at McLaren at the same time. Ron Dennis says you can put two bulls in the field, but you know you're going to have trouble. So that's the conundrum that they've got facing them.

But it's a good one. All right, folks. I think that's it. We know what will happen there. I'm just going to say, you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, at MotoRGV.

He's at Richard Jallett, if you guys want to communicate to us. With all that said, it was a great race weekend. Looking forward to Catalonia in two weeks time. And then we wind up at Mugello after that, I believe. And it's going to be fantastic.

The Long Straight is going to be catering to the Ducatis there. It'll be interesting to see how fast the KTMs are there as well. Things to look for there. Look to see if Roberts can rebound in Moto2 at a track that, again, he likes. And we shall see what happens.

With all that, stay tuned and ride safe. And I'm just going to throw a question out to the listeners. And hopefully, we'll get a few people responding on this. Because this kind of comes up a little bit in the show, or the chat that I had with Greg Haynes, which will come out in a few days from now. And goes back to the rule changes in MotoGP.

And that is with World Superbike in mind, what does World Superbike do about its rules? Because come 27, if the MotoGP bikes are going three seconds a lap slower, which is kind of the prediction, clearly they can't have a production-based championship going faster than the prototypes. So what do people think is going to happen with the World Superbike rules? I've got my ideas. I'm not going to say them now.

I have one. We'll come back to it in a future show. Well, unless you want to give your opinion now, oh bollocks, let's just go for it then. Sorry, I just swore. Okay.

I think they put air restrictors on them. Okay. That's what I think. I think you have an inlet restriction and you figure out whatever diameter you want and you run with an air restriction of some kind. Motor can't breathe, motor can't go fast.

You see, I'm kind of wondering whether or not World Superbike, bearing in mind that Lita sports bikes sales have been going off a cliff for quite some time now. And certainly from a European perspective, and I suspect there's elements of this that are the case in the US, Jim. The emissions standards are really sort of neutering these bikes. Now I kind of wonder whether or not World Superbike don't end up dropping down to a 600cc formula. I got to know what the fans think about that.

You heard it. I think they're doing air restrictors. Richard says they're going to go to 600s. You tell us, motopod at motopodcast.com. Or 750, 750 maybe.

Going back to 750s? Okay. I'm fine with that. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, we'll see. Yeah. Throw it out there. But anyways, as you said, Jim, ride safe and yeah, we'll catch up soon.