How the Mighty Have Fallen

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk. Welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. Episode number 774, the Saxon Ring or Der Saxon Ring, as Bob Hayes would say, review.

And of course, to review races, I need to have my co-host because I'm Jim McDowell and you can't have me doing this by myself. So we'll bring in all the way across the pond, up late again tonight. A good evening to you, Richard. How are you? I'm very well indeed.

Thank you, Jim. Good evening, everybody. Good weekend of racing, one particular standout race which we'll come to. So yeah, looking forward to getting into the detail. Yes, there is only one good race weekend from this weekend and that's it.

Anyway, there were some surprises in some of the other classes, I think. There's plenty to talk about, but there's only one, for me, there was only one really compelling race in the weekend. Agreed. Okay, well, before we do any of this, hey guys, we really want to thank the people who are helping to support the show with monetary donations. People like Gareth Locke, Jacob Neuer, New Cow, Carl Hun, Rich, Rick Taylor, Norrie Ito, Nick Saban, Alan Fleming, Brenton Edwards, Scott Baldwin, Ollie, Dennis Kaling, Jeremy Bernich, Jacob Rowler, Darren Andrews, Paul Lang, Gary Chavitte, and Steve.

It's with people like you that help us keep the lights on, help us get all the interviews that we've done so far this year. And every little bit helps. If you can help us out, it'd be greatly appreciated. If you would go to our website, www.motopodcast.com, there are links for Patreon and PayPal, or you can go directly to Patreon, www.patreon.com, motopod.com, and you can donate for as little as a dollar US. And every little bit is greatly appreciated.

Those of you who can't, we understand, but hey, go to where you get your podcast, give us a good rating, give us a four star or five star, whatever you feel. That'll help the algorithm switch us to back to the top so more people can find us. And again, all we want to do is be the best fan-based podcast for motorcycles that we can be. And with that, Rich, we had a great email from Gary. We teased everybody with this last week and we've looked at it.

It's a lengthy email. Gary, thank you for the rant. I loved everything in there. But Rich and I decided to pull out two pieces that we think that we would like to talk about a little bit. And who wants to go first, Rich, you or me?

You go first, Jim, because I know you're excited about this one. Definitely in your wheelhouse. Okay. So from, I will read the excerpt here from Gary's email to get us our star. He says, Fabio, Luca and Zarco staying at Honda in Yamaha.

Also Premac Yamaha. Yes, the bikes are shit this year. They might be worse than the European bikes next year, but this is Honda and Yamaha for Christ sakes. They've made a few championship bikes over the years. They know how to do it and they will get their act together.

When did Aprilia or KTM win a championship? I'm pretty confident that they will before the decade is out, but they haven't done so yet. Yes, Gary, I completely agree with you. Everybody wants to go down this path of like, wow, you got to avoid the European bikes. And you're correct.

Think about all the championships that Honda has won. Think about all the championships that Yamaha have won. Okay. They know how to build a motorcycle and they just have the sums wrong for right now. Right?

I think we've talked about this ad nauseum, I think, Rich. The Ducati is a package. Everything works together on that package. The ride heights adjustments all are integrated into the motorcycle as one unit from the ground up. They're not bolt on add in additions, just like the aerodynamics are not bolt on add in additions to it.

These are all integrated systems that are working together. Okay. Let's face it, Yamaha has definitely found something with the motor. I think both Fabio and Rens like the new motor. It's got a little more grunt, a little more acceleration.

They're getting better. They're getting closer. Okay. They're going to get there. Honda, they're still in the weeds.

Right? And I think the, you know, I don't think Honda's exactly taking their eye off the ball, but look, we're at the end of 24 here. We're at the middle of 24. Let's call it that. And Honda is going to go back and they're going to be looking at the 27 rules.

And I think Honda will straighten things out when we get to 27. I think they're there. What they're trying to do now is figure out how to make a very good handling chassis and how to make a good motor for what they have right now. And they're going to take that basis of that engine and put it into the 850 because anytime there's a massive engine change, usually 90% of the time Honda hits a nail on the head. I give you the V5 for the 990 era.

I give you the, I give you what the counter rotating, big bang motors that they had for the NSR 500s. You had, I think they're the first ones to start running them in running the engine backwards. Essentially, if you're looking at the right-hand side of the motorcycle, the cranks would rotate towards the front wheel. Now they spin them back the words the other way. Even the four strokes do this too.

And they run that way. So I think Honda will get there, but it won't be until we get to 27. I mean, if you're thinking they're going to want to change up here in the last couple of years of this golden era of, oh, well, how can we say it? Rider gizmos. It's definitely not going to be, but I do think everybody is kind of getting themselves out of joint here that Honda and Yamaha aren't going to win championships anymore.

If you don't think Honda isn't here, sorry, Yamaha, if you don't think Yamaha isn't serious about coming back and winning a championship, they would have not done a seven-year deal with PreMac to put two satellite bikes there for them, which are probably going to wind up being really close spec, a la Tech 3 and KTM with the gas gas are going to be really close to that spec. And I think that they're going to do pretty well with it. But have KTM or Aprilia won a world championship? Nope. Aprilia has won a lot of 250s and smaller bikes.

They won 125s and won 250 world championships. They never did win a 500 or a MotoGP title, but is that really because they didn't have a good bike or they didn't have a good rider or is it a mismanaged team? Or are they just lacking funds? I mean, I think of everybody, I think they're the smallest manufacturer that we have on the grid. So I'm not sure which one of those things are.

I mean, I think what they've done, what Aprilia has done is impressive. And given the fact that they got Martin on the bike next year, there's every possibility that that's the key that they're missing is a rider who's going to ring the absolute snot out of that bike to find every weakness. And if the guys in Noel can have a remedy for that weakness, there's no reason they can't win a championship next year. And the same thing could be said of KTM with Acosta. He has been the best of all the KTM riders all year long on a bike that I think we can all understand is definitely not right.

And even Pit Byers said this weekend at Saxon Ring, hey, I've got to take, I've got to, how did he put it, Rich? I can't remember. He wanted us to not take aim at the riders, but he wanted to defend his riders. Hey, we have lost something. We don't know what it is, but in this three week break, we're going to go figure out what it is and we're going to get back to the performance level that we had at the beginning of the year.

So let's just tone down the whole going to a Japanese manufacturer is a bad idea. So that's my take on what you had, Gary. Loved it. Rich, what was the piece that you picked out of Gary's email? Well, I'm just going to say it just occurred to me.

I just written this down whilst you were talking, Jim, just on the Japanese thing, because it's kind of like fashion. Flares are in fashion one year and then they're out and then they come back again. So it's normal that you get these cycles of people that, you know, predominate over any sport, whether it's an individual or a team, whatever. For the Japanese factories, obviously we don't have Kawasaki anymore, but and I would say Honda, Yamaha, because Honda is a very, very, very big company. Let's not forget.

And that comes with certain limitations and problems, but it's kind of like the three C's really in terms of what I think has happened over the last, what, five years. I would say, and this is in no particular order, but COVID culture and a bit of complacency as well. I think those three things together, we know that COVID really impacted the Japanese because Japan's very far away and it's quite remote. The culture we know has, and this is the one thing I think we can see is changing dramatically, certainly within Yamaha, who are a bit ahead of Honda, but Honda are doing it as well. And then in terms of the complacency, what I mean by that is they had satellites, but they were very much the kind of cousins in terms of the machinery that they had.

Whereas I think that is what the revolution that the Europeans brought. And obviously, Jukati blazed the trail on this, is they had true satellites, semi-works, if not almost fully works, bikes. And that data gathering clearly enabled them at a time of great innovation as well with all of these gizmos. I mean, you call it golden age. I think some people might take issue with that terminology, Jim, because I'm not sure that I'd necessarily think it is a golden age in the purest sense of the term, but it is prototype racing.

As Alan was telling us, sometime ago when we had a subscriber's chat, he was saying that it's a prototype jam show, anything goes. And if it makes the bike faster, then it's good. And he's right on that front. But anyway, putting that to one side, I think the Japanese are suffering because they didn't use their satellites properly. Because to be honest with you, they didn't need to.

And when Aprilia were running in GP500s, they had a triple, I think, didn't they? Back at that time. Ironically, they were up against the might of Honda and Yamaha, and they just could not beat them at that stage. So they kind of gave up in the end. So these things come and go in waves and cycles and one thing and another.

So I just think that's kind of where we are. And like you, Jim, I'm very convinced that we can clearly see signs of progress at Yamaha. And I think Honda are very diligently testing away on various things, because of course, the concessions rules as they exist now means that they can do almost not unlimited testing, but vastly more than most other teams. Yamaha are in the same position, of course. And I think by the mid part of the second part of the season, I think we'll see quite a lot of stuff come into Honda.

I just wonder if, it's not really a news item, so we're not going to kind of treat it as one, but the suggestion sounds to be that Joanne Meir will stay put at HRC, which I certainly wasn't predicting to be happening. But I wonder if, A, he doesn't have that many other places to go that will pay him anything like the money that he's getting at HRC. And maybe he can start to see some of the stuff that's coming through in terms of cultural changes, personnel changes, equipment, etc. So I just think that's kind of where we are with things at the minute, but absolutely 100% for sure, Honda and Yamaha will be back. Whether it takes the 2027 rates for that to happen, maybe, maybe not.

I think they'll probably make a bit of progress before that, but we'll see. Anyway, the other point that Gary made, which I just wanted to pick on, or pick up on rather, was that Fabio too, question mark, question mark, and he says no, not that one, the other one. So he's been talking about Fabio Di Giantonio, the Italian Fabio. So practically every race he starts in the leading group then slowly drops back like Miller, but with an Italian accent. Tire management, question mark, maybe.

But it happens to him in sprints also. Maybe he's allergic to collecting points. Despite showing flashes of brilliance, I can see why the teams are not falling over themselves to sign him. Now I picked this one out because I kind of take issue a little bit with this one, if I'm honest, Gary. Although I take your point, but he is not on a 2025, sorry, 2024 spec Ducati, and I think what we saw with his kind of resurgence through last year really marked him out as a, he's not an alien, I mean there's absolutely no way you could say that, but he's a real trier.

And I actually think that he is either likely to stay put in the VR46 camp and possibly on the 2025 spec bike, because we know Marco Bazzacchi is going, we don't know who else is going to be in that team, probably Morbidelli. So, okay, open questions to which one of them gets the 2025 bike. But I'm still holding on to the belief that I wouldn't be at all surprised if he doesn't end up on a works Yamaha contract in the new Pramak satellite setup. He hinted just after the Saxon ring that news is incoming, probably within, I would imagine within the next week or so, definitely before Silverstone happens, and we'll know where he's going to be. So I actually hold him in rather high regard, I suppose, than you do, Gary, but I mean we're all entitled to our opinions at the end of the day.

But I think he's a very, very good rider. And I think he's one of those guys that went a bit under the radar in Moto2, and he took his time to find his feet in MotoGP, and he did it right at the very last moment, it's true. But that in of itself, that performance that he put in, that kind of crucial last moment at the end of last season, I think really kind of marked him out as a guy that's got a bit more about him than perhaps many people give him credit for. So I don't know what you think, Jim. So, you know, I don't really know.

There's that rumor floating around, again, not news, it's a rumor that what Sergio Garcia and Ramirez, or not Ramirez, but Sergio Garcia and, oh gosh, who was it, are linked to those Yamaha rides in in Pre-Eight Mac. Who, I think who it was now. There's been a lot of people. Oh, Lopez and Garcia are linked to it. I don't know if that's true.

It's a rumor, right? I could see Garcia getting there, but I don't think Primack wants two rookies to the class. No, unless Yamaha. But you know, who, what, who's is it? Is it Gonzalez or Lopez who has rides on the Yamaha VR46 Squad Moto2 bike?

I can't think. That was Gonzalez last year. He's actually on the, is it the Grissini bike? Yeah, he moved to Grissini. But whoever's on that bike's probably got a shot at one of those seeds.

So, I mean, I should know who it is, but I don't. The other rider that keeps getting mentioned, but again, I would be, I mean, interestingly, Gary points out about, you know, hanging on to a rear tire. The other rider that's getting mentioned in the Primack Yamaha conversation, of course, is Jack Miller. But I don't know, I mean, he's very, very experienced, but I would have thought that in a straight shootout, as the guy to go with, I would have thought Fabio DiGiantonio would get the nod over Jack. And I don't say that with any animosity or anything towards Jack Miller, because I love the guy.

But I just think that Fabio would probably be the more sensible choice in that role alongside a rookie Jim and Garcia or Lopez or Gonzalez. I mean, all of those guys would be very worthy of a move up to MotoGP. Yeah, we'll find out soon, hopefully. And certainly from the point of view of DiGiantonio, I think we're going to find out within a matter of, you know, a number of days, because that was the hint that went out on the socials. Yeah, yeah, I agree with it.

I mean, we're not there. We don't know the behind the scenes shuffling that's going on. And there could be extended things there. Miller, DiGiantonio, I mean, I think they both won probably close to the same amount of MotoGP races. But is there some intangible that makes Miller a better pick than DiGiantonio?

Or did DiGiantonio get some intangible that we don't see? You know, is it feedback to their crew? Is it how they work at their setups that's better because they copy a lot of those setups to the other bikes? We're not privy to that information. So I don't really know.

In a straight fight, man, to me, they're pretty much equal. I would have a tough time. I could pick either one and say, yeah, this is what I'm going with. The difference between them, I would say, Jim, is that Miller is scratching around looking for a ride to stay put in MotoGP. I mean, well, I say he'd be welcomed in World Superbikes.

There are not that many top rides left available in World Superbikes as things stand. Now, in terms of MotoGP, you have to look at the situation that Ducati find themselves in. You might say through their own stupidity or their own design, whichever point of view you can take, I suppose is valid if you're willing to argue it. But the facts of the matter are, Bazzacchi's going, Martín's going, and Bazzianini's going. So DiGiantonio, who has outperformed Bazzacchi hands down this year, is an asset that I suspect Ducati are really rather desperate to retain.

Now, you can say with reasonable utility that Morbidelli is starting to find a little bit of form. But they do need to keep hold of DiGi. So I suspect that they're doing everything in their power to keep them in the VR46 camp. But Yamaha, if they're opening a checkbook, I would imagine a very tempting. So of the two, and to sort of rebut Gary's point a little bit, I think DiGi is actually in demand.

He's not being overlooked at this moment in time. Now that other cards have kind of settled into place, yes, Bazzacchi, Martín, Marquez, they were always going to be the prime movers in the market. But now that that's happened, I think DiGiantonio is kind of a little bit of a lynchman in terms of the last few seats anyway. Very possible. With that done, I suggest we go on to the race weekend.

Yes. So again, as stated, it at the Saxon ring. And we'll start this off with Moto3 as we always do. In the first qualifying session, Esteban, Holgardo, Bertelli and Ogden all got out of that first qualifying session to get into the second qualifying session. With the second qualifying session, we were halfway through and Vyra was fast.

Alonso was right behind him, followed by Lunetta, which is the 658 squadric Horsa bike. Lunetta actually looked really good. I mean, if you look at how he was riding, it's like they figured something out and it was definitely looking fast, followed by Fernandez, Rueda and then Yamanaka. But at the end, when we get down to it at the final bit of qualifying, Vyra would take a pole position. He would take it quite handily.

He had a few tenths on everybody. Even Alonso, who was second, then Lunetta, Fernandez, Rueda, Munoz is the top six. Then Ogden, Furosada, Suzuki, Nepa and Yamanaka. And Ortolo would be 12th. Holgardo had a rough go to be 13th.

Picaris, who was well up, was 14th and that's where he would start the race from. Now, we get to the race. There were so many penalties that were handed out before the race even started. See if you can follow along with me, Rich. I'm going to struggle because there's a lot.

Oh, I had to write it all down specifically so that I could get this right because half the field was going to take some visit to the long lap penalty lane at the Saxon Ring, which is absolutely astronomical. These riders received a single long lap penalty. They were Yamanaka, Almanza, Ortolo and Nepa. So they all got one long lap. Then there were double long laps.

Double long laps were Burasari, Carrero, Rossi, Lunetta was going to have to qualify as third. It's going to go through there twice. And then Suratizawa got a double long lap. Then we had grid penalties on top of this. So, okay, here's the people who had grid penalties.

Well, Ferrioli had a grid penalty, Bertelli had a grid penalty, Watley got a grid penalty and Esteban got a grid penalty. All for irresponsible riding in either practice sessions or qualifying. That's ridiculous. Five occasions cumulatively meant that they got that penalty, additional penalty. Which does rather beg the question, are the penalties working if people, you know, can get to the point of having done it five times and then they get another penalty.

So some is not working. There's something wrong. The system's broke somehow Rich and I honestly don't know how you're going to fix it. And well, I distinctly remember, Jim, I can't remember when because this is obviously a subject that we get into fairly regularly, although not so much with Major 3 and then Taitamon was just bonkers. But I remember positing an opinion that the only way you're going to solve this is to bench them for a race and the teams are not allowed to put a substitute rider in.

So it's very draconian. It's true because that affects the teams and teams of sponsors aren't happy if they've not got two bikes out there with, you know, the signage on, etc, etc. But I don't see what else is going to work. The only caveat to this and I won't go on and on and on is that it's all very well doing this en masse in Moto 3. But why the hell are they not doing this in Moto GP as well?

Because some of what we saw going on this weekend was just ridiculous. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll park that one for now. For me, I have two ideas. You either put them on the grid last row pointing backwards so they can't see the lights go because then that makes you look really stupid, right?

So do you want the embarrassment of that or you are going to have to implement stop and go penalties in the pit lane where you're going to have a penalty box. Hey, you now need to report to the penalty box. You must come down at pit speed limit, stop in the box and we're going to hold you for 30 seconds or whatever we deem necessary and then you'll be released again. Yeah, the trouble with that is I sit out on the track. I just think you have to yeah, these guys, you're at home for the weekend and it's just as simple as that.

I think this is where I disagree with you to some extent, Rich. I disagree only in the standpoint that these are kids predominantly. We're talking 18 year olds, they're kids and to deny them track time in a racing situation I think is harmful for their development. That being said, yeah, these kids have been racing a motorcycle since they were probably four and they should know better but for some reason they don't but somehow I just I can't bring myself to put you as a Moto3 rider, to put you on the bench. Now, I would have no problem doing that to a Moto2 or a MotoGP rider.

But part of the reason why they've raised the minimum age in Moto3 is to get more mature people in there and it's not working so they have to go further and by the way, at 18 they are adults. Well, certainly in the eyes of the law in the UK they are. Well, in the US they're adults as well. So yeah, I see the point. I get that.

I understand it but yeah. I think what we can agree upon is that it's patently obvious that the rules and the penalties and so on as they stand at the moment and I'm particularly focusing in on dawdling around on the line through practice sessions and particularly qualifying because it's just downright dangerous and you know, Moto3 bikes, I mean I forget if I have this entirely correct but I'm sure that the last race in Assen, I'm sure somebody said the qualifying times that they were putting in were quicker than the GP500s used to go around. Now, it's not exactly the same track but they are not far off. I mean even at the Saxa Ring the Moto3 bikes were not much more than 10 seconds a lap slower than the MotoGP bikes. Certainly the Moto2 bikes are very close now at certain tracks so the idea that these are little bikes puting around and they're not really that dangerous is just not the case.

I mean they're going very very fast and you know these closing speeds are massive and we don't again, we don't need to keep making the point but when these things collide, you know a fast bike hitting a slow bike, a deliberately slow bike, you know the outcomes are always bad so they have to be taught or shown a way to stop doing this and I think the only way is to get more draconian. I mean I'm not an advocate for more and more and more rules but the current rules aren't working otherwise we wouldn't have had half of the grid on a penalty which is just ridiculous. Agreed. May I remind you what was it some years ago that, who was it, Zarco was coming out of the pits for the Saxa Ring and got clobbered I think it was Marquez's bike right? Yeah and literally it ripped the entire front end off of Zarco's bike so you're correct these bikes are going fast and a slow bike has no head does not have anywhere near the force because it's not accelerating as much as what the other bike is so you're right there's something I think we can all agree there's something very wrong that needs to be fixed and I don't think you or I or even the stewards really know how to fix it.

I think everyone knows it's broke but we just don't know how because we've tried points on your license well okay you did stupid stuff three times now you can't you get a race ban. I think outside of in terms of talking about this season outside of David Munoz you don't see that many race moves well either in qualifying and certainly in the race you don't see that many moves that you think oh that was actually a bit over the limit in terms of danger I mean Munoz love him to bits he's you know a proper proper racer but he does skirt that line between acceptable behaviour I think personally sometimes beyond that I think a lot of the penalties that get dished out in the races are pointless and needless and actually quite unfair in many cases the ones that I do take issue with are the the people that are just dawdling around on the line waiting for a tow or for whatever reason and it's not just moto 3 it happens a bit in moto 2 saw a bit of it this weekend I don't know if it's something that's to do with the sax and ring and it was terrible in moto gp this weekend so those ones they do need to be penalized and a lot of the other stuff I don't think they do at all but anyway I mean that's just my opinion well let's talk about the race can I just say the final irony Jim is that the long lap penalty loop at the sax ring is terribly dangerous as well and we nearly saw a really nasty collision in the race so irony of irony is you know you put somebody into the long lap for dangerous riding and it's one of the more dangerous places to put them yeah you couldn't make it up yeah I know yeah you can anyway well race day so we start out with viar getting the whole shot ahead of lunetta munio salanza for asado and when they start the second lap viar tosses it away into the gravel trap at the waterfall I mean I mean on paper this was viar's race to win he had a great weekend in asin got pimped by artola at the end right maybe with perhaps the wrong tire choice don't really know yeah and then he comes here had an absolutely blistering qualifying I think he was three or four tenths quicker than alonzo and yet he either lacked the patience to warm up the tire and take just another just a quick breathe of the throttle and head down the hill or he was just exuberance of youth and he just said screw it I'm pinning it and going through it anyway because I think that turn is pretty close to wide open on a moto3 bike I'm gonna imagine yeah and he tossed it away and tossed away what I think would have been a sure win do you think I mean if he stays up ifs and buts I got it but do you think he would have beaten everybody else I mean he's all we can really say is that he's in a very rich vein of form which of course alonzo is as well yeah he was I'd say half a foot maybe a foot offline going through there and I think that's why it touched because I had a lot of rain overnight on Saturday took a lot of the rubber off the track so it didn't take much to go down and I think I'm right in saying Jim throughout the whole of the Sunday he was the only rider to go down in that corner yes on the Sunday on Sunday my memory serves me correctly so it was a bit unfortunate but he was offline now why he was offline obviously I don't know I mean just just a wind just first lap drifted a little bit with a cooler tyre who knows it was a heavy penalty for a very minor infraction I mean I think we can say that would he have been on the top step of the podium who knows but he would definitely been in top six I mean I don't think there's any question about that because he was very very fast all weekend it was just a great shame really because not so much for the race because the race was good but you know it's the points table is really becoming troublesome now because it's hard to see who can catch up to Alonzo now so it was a big kind of I don't want to say an own goal for people are now referring to him as Colin Veyer I've been calling him Colin Veyer I think perhaps the pronunciation is Veyer but so apologies to any of the Dutch listeners if we got that wrong but yeah just a shame really because it's going to take the wind out of yourselves a little bit although having said all of that I still think he's going to win quite a few races throughout the rest of the season between him and Alonzo I don't really see anybody else getting much of a look in as things stand at the minute that's true oh with that with Veyer much way was it said rich well Veyer I think is there that's it's there to refer to him as yeah I kind of noticed that too I never did write down my pronunciation there to correct myself but I'll have to pick a note to not say it the other way but that left Munoz out front because Munoz got his elbows out and basically oh you know any small gap Munoz is through so now he's out front Alonzo hanging out there sort of the second place then you know Furusato looking great on the Honda and they're all right there together followed by Luneta, Rueda and Fernandez finally Alonzo goes to the front and you know he just places Munoz on there or whatever but that's all well and good but then Ortolo is almost tagged by NEPA when they come through the long lap penalty right or I got this wrong because I've got was it Yamanaka? Yamanaka yeah Yamanaka yeah oh so oh yeah oh yeah I got it now so Yamanaka was going through the was going through the long lap thing and Ortolo was right there and they all bumped into each other and you're like okay who's almost going to go off here which is which was absolutely crazy then you had Munoz who went right back to the front again and you know over Munoz or whatever but Munoz then almost high sides himself and then that caused Rollstein to go to be banged into and then he winds up going through the gravel so that was an interesting one there too because that was more craziness that's going on. Picaras had a big moment along the way seemed like all the Moto3 guys were sort of like in or out of the seat and they're always you know it's tight and twisty so everybody's banging into each other lines are converging back on top of each other it's a it's a crazy it's a crazy race but with 15 to go Alonso goes to the front and he's followed by Fernandez and Rureda and Furusato and they've got a gap of about three tenths of Ramonios and Horgado but you but then that all just goes right back together again after about a lap and we got a lead group at 12 again. Now Rollstein and Picaras come together and Rollstein almost I mean it was bucking Bronco time for Rollstein and he rode that one off into the gravel trap and saved it which was absolutely amazing that he was actually able to do actually that which was really crazy.

Again Alonso is now out front been out front he's staying out front but everybody else is moving around behind him right Furusato is second Rureda is now third then it's Adrian Fernandez then Munoz then Picaras right then Rollstein was down at 11 so I think he was the only other one to crash at at the waterfall but I don't know if the bike was damaged in the crash or the almost crash or whatever because you get to those moments where it was later but I don't know I mean I don't think anything happened to it because he wouldn't have kept going unless he did but he did go down there. Alonso is still leading but Rureda got by Furusato who was wide at one it's like he misjudged the braking just by a couple of millimeters opened up the door and voila Rureda goes by but then Furusato got by Alonso at seven which was a great move that's a place that nobody really like people will pass at one they'll pass at eight they'll pass at 12 and 13 but nobody ever really goes through at seven and that was a great move to go by it was Furusato was just like taking and I think he did it around the outs no he was going around outside of everybody at like 13 but it was like wow that was just crazy riding by Furusato I mean he Furusato really takes really different lines than anybody else and he's very creative about figuring out a way to pass where nobody else is passing he invents passing lanes that people don't think about it's really he's interesting to do especially because now it seems like at this track the Honda did not seem to be as at as much of a disadvantage as it has been I don't think it's because Honda's brought any parts or pieces for the bikes I think a lot of people have changed some of their setup on the bikes I know that's what 658 said they you know that's why Lunetta was so good it was because they had changed the setup they went back to something that made them more comfortable well okay if you're comfortable you're going to go faster that's for sure but also the idea of the twisty nature of the track sort of kind of takes away from KTM's acceleration advantage that they have so this was becoming like a really fascinating race as we go we've got a seven rider lead group now with about five laps to go and Alonso's still off front Rureda now Ortolo has now caught up because remember Ortolo had a single long lap if I remember correctly yes Ortolo had a single long lap and also an Ortolo had worked his way up again you really don't know where to watch things because there's so many people other than Alonso being sort of the permanent front leader everybody else is interchangeable take your pick it's a great race because there's so much going on that you're not really seeing all of what's going on but with three laps to go it's Alonso followed by Rureda, Ortola, Firasato, Piqueras, Fernandez and Hulgado then Firasato looks like maybe the front's going away because he had a soft and he starts to drift back there wasn't enough grip in that Pirelli so he starts to fall off then Rureda crashes at turn one it's like it was a very odd crash because the back end was locked up going in there and I'm wondering if it was a gearbox issue then something in the gearbox jammed or broke because it seemed like it was out of control when he was on the front brake even harder and he was doing a stoppy into the corner but there was already this long black line that had been there now generally and it depends on who the riders are you don't really have a whole lot of rear brake on the motorcycle it's not like real super touchy one because it's through your foot and your boot which you don't really have the feel right so you try to set it up to be and I'll use this as a as a go and mushy rear brake if you will now I'm not saying he couldn't still have locked it up with the rear brake but just judging by his body position it just seemed really weird and it happened going well into the corner like this black mark is well before you would think you would be you would have something happen it was just an odd crash and I don't know if there was actually anything wrong with the bike or it was just a mistake but mine I was very suspect of it being a gearbox which is possible it did look mechanical didn't it like the old two stroke two stroke days when you get a seizure almost but I don't know they go over that bump into the braking error and I suppose you don't have to be far off your braking marker in terms of getting it wrong and suddenly everything's going wrong very very quickly so because he was going to t-bone I forget who was directly in front of him at that point but he was going to hit somebody so he kind of panicked as you would do it was a big crash though Jim it was that that that fence is not far away in turn one and even on a moto3 bike you know they do get there pretty quickly if the circumstances conspire in that way so I haven't read anything as to what caused the crash so I don't know unless anybody else I'll be interested to know but um yeah it was an odd one anyway it was very odd but with the last few laps that were going on and the craziness that was ensuing Alonso would take the win Ferrisada would get past Ortolo to take second sorry yes first of all it would be second Ortolo was third then Adrian Fernandez then Picaris Yamanaka, Holgardo, Munoz, Suzuki, Ogden, Kelso, Nepa, Faroli, Epstein, Esteban sorry and Bertelli take the top 15 at all the points that was a crazy moto3 race it was a fantastic moto3 race really to be honest with you it was one of those ones that was like yeah that's a pretty darn good that's a pretty darn good race going on right there for the whole thing and you know although Alonso did lead a whole lot of that race there was still so much other stuff going on around him that that made that race interesting for sure best race of the weekend no hands down oh oh I was gonna say well I'm gonna say the moto2 race was the best really but yeah I mean it was a it was a very very good mountain 3 race I like this one best no question about it uh Furusato I mean we've seen him pop up in sort of dribs and drabs in the last season or two I can't remember the season that he first entered moto3 but he's really showing it this year isn't he and as you say Jim he was certainly able to conjure up some lines that were very different to what other people were doing he had a proper go it on the last lap and almost took himself off the bike so he kind of didn't get to challenge Alonso in the end just another you know solid solid ride from David Alonso and that's underplaying it really isn't it so you're going to go through the points in a minute I'm sure Jim but you know there's the strange conundrum of Danny Algado it's kind of in the pack but just never really looked like he was going to trouble the very very front I'll just give a little shout out to Scott Ogden who's pedaling a fairly old Honda around and doing a solid job as often as he can Colin Vi did get back on the bike amazingly given how big that crash was and did finish 19th okay he didn't spoil any points but under the circumstances to get back on and hammer around for the whole race on the bike that must have been quite damaged never mind the disappointment he must have felt to finish 19th was a very sort of creditable outcome I think so yeah a good race interesting race but Alonso did always look as if he was going to win it or Toner you kind of thought perhaps was he gonna do what he sometimes does and often does in fact and come through but just you know for whatever reason I don't know if he burnt his tyre or what but yeah Alonso just looks pretty well unbeatable than the most places he goes now yeah he is the wunderkind of the group if that's what you would like to say wunderbar yeah yeah so Alonso leads the championship on 179 points that puts him 58 clear of Ortola he's 59 ahead of Elgardo because of the Tolo with that strong third place jumped up there there was down because he's now fourth in points on 115.64 now behind Alonso then it's Munoz Yamanaka Fernandez Piqueras Rureda Kelso rounding out your top 10 in moto 3 it is not David Alonso's championship yet although a two race lead in points at this point going into the summer break and he is on a run of form that seems to be almost unstoppable I mean he did have an off day in the Netherlands but that's a tricky circuit I think to really understand and come around on I was trying to think of last year if he had difficulties at it or not to be honest I don't really remember but either way Alonso looks supreme and it's his championship to lose but we're not going to hand it to him yet no I mean before people start shouting horef very loudly at their microphone sorry at their speakers I know he crashed at horef on that one out of the lead but other than that I mean he just never looks as if he's under pressure that's the scary thing about him even when he's out front and again was it in q1 was it that he went through I mean he has this ability to just withhold the pressure and put in a lap when he has to that's why he's so good on the last lap of race okay he didn't need to put in for that particularly on this occasion but he's unflappable that's the scary thing about him and that's what makes him such a great prospect he has a lot in reserve and all the best ones have a lot of reserve capacity for when they need to bring it out so that's yeah there's still a long way to go but 58 points in the lead yeah he can protect that easily and but he won't I mean he'll just go out and keep winning races don't change what works exactly Alonso's last lap was a lot better than some other people's last lap that's for sure yeah yeah hey some people hold up the pressure and some don't anyway oh that's our that's motor three Jim just one piece of news that I spotted this evening on instagram probably won't come as any enormous shock to many people but I spotted that Josh Watley and the vision track squad at party company with immediate effect where he's going to end up he says his news coming don't know but that association has run its course anyway so you know it's a shame but perhaps not totally unexpected because Josh has toled away mostly at the rear of the field since he came in on that team now that's not to say he won't go to another team different bike for the same reason but he's another team different bike and do much better so you know hopefully that'll be the case but spotted that on the socials tonight oh okay well let's go to moto to see what's happening here Robert was back with a plated collarbone if you follow his instagram I think he had seven screws in his collarbone to hold the plate the x-ray was pretty gnarly looking I'll give it that one but anyway we were in in in all credit to Joe he made it directly to the q2 which okay that's pretty impressive but in the first qualifying session it was Vietti, Foggia, Bender, Aegis all went through to the second to the second session halfway through the second session Arbolino was the quickest followed by Aguera, Marrera, Gonzalez, Lopez, Ramirez, Outaguer, and Roberts. Garcia was like 14th which was definitely not Garcia's best qualifying effort in fact Garcia would then go down at turn one as well in qualifying which left us with the final tally as the flat as the checkered flag fell of Vietti being on pole position followed by Jake Dixon way to go Britain and that's why you're so specific this race is so special which is because of Jake he had a great he had Jake had a great weekend he did he did though to be fair he did to be fair he did to be fair second place was a good place for him to be out of your was third then Aegis so you had you had Vietti and Aegis who came out the first qualifying session going to the top now I hate to get down this path of tires but when we were in the Dunlap era of Moto2 how many guys came out of the first session and went fast enough to be on pole or be at in the first couple rows it just didn't happen it was there was there was the oddity okay somebody's gonna be yelling that hey so-and-so did it in this one yes I got it but what I'm trying to say is it's been far more common that people coming out of two with the Pirelli tires seemed to be able to do as good or better themselves a little bit than they would if they they were on the Dunlaps for whatever reason and basically they're still qualifying and essentially the heat of the day that they always were running in and so which is pretty amazing and then we found out that like Pirelli had brought a new compound and construction to they say well let's see if I got this right you like the sc0 I think is the softest tire that they bring for the Moto2 bikes well they had like an sc0.5 which it really wasn't an sc1 it was a little bit harder than the zero but it wasn't as hard as like an sc1 so I'm gonna call it a 0.5 if you will but the thing is here is that Pirelli brought this tire to us and I'm just thinking back like in MotoGP when Michelin said well we got a front tire we want to test it we want to bring oh we can't do this we can't change it or like you know I think it happened maybe that happened in the Bridgestone era too Bridgestone had some tire they wanted to bring in and they're like oh no no we can't do that in the middle of the championship this is going to be a disaster oh nobody's going to know what to do it nobody seemed to care I mean Dixon actually chose that tire to race on in there which I mean I hate to say this but props to Pirelli really honestly they've Moto3 bikes have been faster because of the tires right Moto3 has been Moto2 has been faster basically because of the Pirellis and there's not been a person that's complaining that those tires are junk now some people have had a harder time adapting to them that's for sure I give you Arbolino yeah right so I mean you know that was you know one of those things but my theory Jim on this to pick up on your point and we've just we have talked about this before I think it's reflected in the fact of what you've just said about you know Vietti goes through Q1 and then sticks it on pulp I think the Pirellis well we know they're about feel whereas I think with the Dunlop era it was about setup and it tended to favor the people that were always at the top you know the top teams whereas now it feels as if people that wouldn't have got a look in before because they've got feel and they just had that experience on the tire in the previous session they just translate that immediately so yeah for me it's feel versus setup is the difference between the Pirelli and the Dunlop era in Moto2 don't know what you think but I think you're right there's definitely a feel part of it I mean it's always feel and that's what it is I think you can ride around an imperfect setup on the Pirelli in Moto2 in a way that you would never have been able to have done in the Dunlop era because there was such more rigid hard unforgiving tires it didn't really give you much so if you didn't have setup you would you were done the only person that really has suffered and interesting that this was the weekend when we appeared to see immediate progress is Arbolino as you just said for whatever reason he's taken some time to get his head around well I'm assuming it's a Pirelli thing I mean I don't know that but let's assume that that is the case but he certainly had a much much better weekend this weekend and let's hope that that's a trajectory that we see him continue on well they said that Marc Vettel said that they went back to an earlier setup and that seems to be working so apparently they were chasing it and they just finally as all good teams at some point do you say well okay we're gonna go back to what we started with and forget this moving everything around let's go back here and work our way back out of the back out of the hole I mean who knows maybe he was trying to create a bike that felt more like the Moto2 bike on the Dunlops you're not gonna do they've just gone back to absolute beginnings and said right let's go from here and yeah maybe that's the way to do it I don't know I've been on not a bike racer and I'm certainly not a technician setting up bikes but everybody else seems to be enjoying the Pirellis and along last Arbolino looked as if he was so which is good good news for the championship because we want to see Tony Arbolino at the front right so I think we're we had uh Dixon second and then I deviated and went on tangent uh but Outaguer was third so again Outaguer showing some continued pace as well then Aegis who you know again came out of that first session then Gonzalez Arbolino Iaguer was seventh Marrero was eighth uh ninth was Ramirez then Lopez Roberts qualified 11th so I missed my qualifying I said Roberts would qualify in that six or that five six seven area he did not he qualified 11th which still that wasn't bad given where he was going to be considering he would qualified ahead of just one place though but he had did qualify one place ahead of Garcia who was in the gravel trap as well so you know hey all fair play the guy that you're chasing the championship if you're starting ahead of him that gives you some part some form of advantage over it so we would go into the race the next day again we talked about all of the rain that had come or whatever but Dixon got the whole shot up beyond ahead of Vietti followed by Outaguer, Aegis and Arbolino Roberts would would start out in 13th Vietti was then by Dixon and into the lead then Arbolino had moved his way up to second so Arbolino came sort of charging through the pack at the very beginning to get up to second and Outaguer went to the lead and uh because he got by Vietti who then dropped all the way to third because everybody else you know the the area was opened so Vietti went by as or went back third because it was out of here went by Arbolino went by then Vietti there right because the door had been opened then Aegis there Dixon Gonzalez Roberts had moved himself to 10th then our Arbolino was by out of here so that was pretty promising like oh hey we're maybe we're going to see some some racing because I did fear that out of here was going to sort of run off and you know basically not get going again or you know lead and be gone and we were going to see that form that out of here had at the end of last year just winning race after race after race and just basically pure dominance but without agree or with Arbolino sorry getting back by out of here that looked promising uh Garcia was up to sixth now Roberts was 13th and had fallen back again so Joe was having an up and down moment but then Outaguer went right back to the front again with 15 to go was Outaguer Arbolino Vietti Dixon Aegis Garcia Nagura Outaguer still out front and heading on and going well then Outaguer or sorry Arbolino was then down uh to turn down to fifth from second it looked like the rear grip was going on the bike because he would just try to get on the grab get on the grass get on the gas and the bike just didn't go forward there was no momentum forward it just took a lot for him to actually get going or whatever now somewhere along the way uh Outaguer got a track limits warning and I think he got it fairly early on in the race so he had I think he had like 18 laps or more that he had to do with the long with with that um Outaguer had gotten to like a 1.7 second lead and he was really just basically gone Garcia had gotten to seventh Roberts was 11th which he picked himself up which was pretty good um then at some point and I don't have this in my notes Rich maybe you've got it but Outaguer had to go to the long lap penalty loop didn't he because he had the limit and I swear he got penalty lap because that is how no I don't think so I don't remember out again through the long lap no I thought he did I yeah I know he had the I maybe it was just that everybody was talking about the fact that if he did that he had track limits problems but I guess that's not necessarily true I'm hurriedly looking through my notes and making sure I don't have this wrong in my head but I thought he did I thought he had to go through it but I could be wrong again that's my bad that's my bad folks if I got that one no I'm pretty sure not okay so he didn't okay well I man I don't I don't have it in my notes either they took the long lap but I swear that's how the lead changed but that's not necessarily the case with five laps to go out of here is leading then followed by Dixon by Vietti Aguera Aegis and Garcia now Aegis has has a rear grip problem he's going backwards Roberts was up to up to ninth with three to go two to go it's out of your Dixon Vietti Aguera Marrera Garcia ninth is Roberts then at the end out of your goes on to win the race Dixon will finish second then Aguera makes his way up to third followed by Marrera Vietti who worked his way backwards then Chantra had snuck into six Garcia would be seventh Roberts would finish eighth and Arvalino would fall back to ninth then Lopez Lopez Aegis Gonzalez Guevara and Alcoba and Massey getting the last point that was pretty impressive by out of here to hang on that long and not get the long lap penalty which I thought he did but shows you what I know and remember or how poorly I take notes for the show you're misremembering Aston where you got the long lap there I think that's maybe I got maybe inside of that but it was good to see Alugur actually win a race and you know hold up to that great for Dixon to be second after the hideous start to the season that Jake had for him to come back Iagura looking strong with another third place finish and you got to sort of wonder where Garcia is in all this he's he's had a couple of bad races in a row and he's definitely not on the form that he was on earlier this in the season which makes me wonder is there some truth to the fact that you know Yamaha slash Pramak are looking at Garcia to go onto one of those Yamahas because this is I taking off the prize of moto two because he's dealing with these negotiations or he's in the in the hunt to get that seat I mean everybody's gonna want to ride a moto g moto gp bike so is is that it I mean you know to me it's like well I don't know where his form has gone as Arbolinos forms kind of went up at least for the beginning then fall down Garcia was just nowhere this weekend basically I mean he kind of was right where he qualified uh yeah it's a tricky one to judge I mean the thing about Garcia is he he's pretty consistent so he takes the finishes when he can't win and let's be honest I mean that MT Helmets Oscar Skura squad have completely outshone the main Oscar Skura squad so far this year okay I'll go on the race but that's the first time that they've really been superior to the MT Helmets squad so and the Calyxes were much stronger in Germany as well so that kind of muddies the picture a little bit I think Jim so I think Garcia is kind of doing solid work having said all of that he does need to start to trouble the podium again if he wants to maintain this title push and you're entirely right I mean if there is genuine moto gp contract discussions going on that is bound to kind of affect his performance a little bit I think he's only human I mean it would affect anybody's performance a bit I think the interesting one for me in all of this we've spoken about Arbolino the other interesting one I think is Dixon because he has obviously has had a very troubled start to the year now we know he had that enormous crash right at the very beginning in Qatar and that did set him back in terms of injury and he may even well still be kind of recovering to some extent from that because he damaged his lung and all sorts so it was a you know it was a big hit that he took but I needed to remind myself that he's also kind of become like a de facto WP suspension test mule in the first half of the season as well and I think they're only just starting to find the setting on that bike and it's interesting that here and in Assen he's performed very very strongly so provided he can steer clear of Darren Binder it'll be interesting to see how he gets on in Silverstone bearing in mind what happened last year because you can start to see the the health and the fitness as well as the bike setup starting to come back to Jake Dixon and that bodes well I hope from a British perspective you know for the Silverstone round in what two and a half weeks time so yeah um might have been a little bit tough on Jake because I think the suspension thing might have been completely planted the picture because I don't know who else runs WP if anybody else runs it outside of that um Aspas squad I would need to double check on that and again if people can know and let us know by all means do so but I think he's been yeah chasing setup for some of the season as well as overcoming the injuries that he's sustained in Qatar so interesting to see what the second half of the season looks like once they come back from the summer break agreed now I would agree to win wasn't without a bit of drama after after the end of the race and before the start of the MotoGP race if you were watching the the whole live feed um they did flash up that out of Gers tire pressure was under investigation okay well time out here apparently there was no other nothing else said about it during the broadcast I found no other no other notations anywhere that I could find so the result stands is out of your winning which leaves us with a very interesting championship and this one might be the best championship going well it is the best championship going right now I think Garcia is on 147 points but he's only seven ahead of Iagura so the two MTI helmets team teammates are one too Robert's is only 24 parts off of Garcia meaning he only lost one point to Garcia which is phenomenal considering now he's got you know three weeks ish to get the collarbone there my wife will tell you that a broken bone is healed in about four and completely amended in six so Joe should be pretty good come what where Silverstone right so so yeah yeah that was a great great weekend for Joe Roberts I mean I mean he must have gritted his teeth because that would have been painful I'm sure and he did finish where I thought he would finish he did superbly he did everything everything he had to do he did he did well I was really and interestingly I see a headline from David deBrivo at track house saying that Roberts is back in the conversation or was to that effect in terms of next year so Joe will be so you know continuing to turn ahead so I think with his performances this year and February yeah I completely agree outtakers win vaults him to fourth then it's Lopez Gonzales Kinet and that had a terrible weekend I mean I was just he was like non-existent like like was Kinet even there did anybody even mention him it's just it's weird how he can be so up so down it's just funny uh Chantra Chantra is eighth Vietti is ninth and Dixon with that podium and second place finishes 10th in points so it's a I look at it I don't know about you I think it's a four-rider race for the championship between Garcia Aguero Roberts and Aldiger I don't I think the gap is too big for Lopez to be a player in that one but yeah I mean wow I mean it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting as you said quite rightly if Garcia wants this championship he's going to have to start getting onto the podium if Roberts wants this championship he needs to start winning races if Aldiger wants his championship he has to start winning races if a girl wants to do races yeah he needs a lottery out of here needs a lottery who needs to put a run like four or five you know four or five six wins in a row on right and and I Aguero needs to continuously finish top two top three he can't afford to not be on the podium right I mean it's really tight and it's tight for a lot of riders you know so like I said this I think is the best championship going although I did think the race was somewhat lackluster because I obviously tried to inject the fact that there was a long left penalty that didn't exist for Alker well that's interesting perspective I mean I on my notes I wrote this is as kind of good as a moto 3 race because there was a lot of action I know once Aldiger got out front he did kind of boss it you know second second and a half in the lead but there was a lot of racing going on from second downwards and I just wrote in my notes the unbridled joy of good moto 2 racing at long last because we really missed moto 2 almost since its inception really and I think without wishing to be unkind towards Dundalk I think we could put a lot of that at their feet boots whatever you want to call it you know because with Pirellis on these bikes they've come alive haven't they and so has the championship the only black spot on the whole weekend from race direction was watching Aldiger go over the line to take the win on his own whilst there was a battle going on with Ayagira for the podium now they did put it they have started to put a little kind of thumbnail in screenshot which is good at long last because we've been asking for this for a long long time but really they should have had Aldiger with a little thumbnail really because there was nothing to see there whereas behind you know it was all kicking off but anyway other than that I'm just picking hairs really but yeah I think we are in that yeah I think I thought moto 2 race was the best race of the weekend for me okay subjective you're loud I thought moto 3 was the best one so moto 3 was a great race too I mean motor when is moto 3 not a great yeah those guys are absolutely will figure out anywhere that they possibly can pass they'll pass so let's move on to the grand finale here the moto gp uh qualifying in q1 you had miller marquez that is mark um cotrero besecki and raul uh on this on the second run uh there was many people that were dawdling on their outlaps miller went into the gravel at turn one uh as others around him uh were in the way he barely missed a couple people going into the gravel trap it like people were just dawdling there miller seemed to have not necessarily misjudged it but misjudged how slow everybody was going towards the racing line which was kind of crazy but then we had sort of uh you know because as miller went by he almost took out mark marquez in this attack and he almost got raul and besecki because they all sort of like were all there dawdling around and here comes miller and you know whatever happens happened they're not really sure i don't know if it was just jack's fault or if it was people dawdling that caused him to suddenly decide that i need to you know check up here but it was like the beginning of what was a very scary problem because when we got into second runs bridle at turn i guess i think it's three it's the omega part of the track yeah yeah bridle's on the inside marquez is going for a timed hot lap to get himself into q1 and bridle abruptly turns hard 90 degrees right and goes across the line with marquez on a hot lap which then you saw the huge black mark that marquez had out under the bike i'm not sure if it was rear brake if he was spinning it up to try to split the corner but basically bridle pulls off in the most boneheaded move of the entire weekend of anybody dawdling that was the biggest boneheaded move i agree with simon patterson if you saw his tweet on x about it should have been race ban for bridle i wholeheartedly can't disagree with that one it was scary because all i had was a flashback of marquez's bike going into zarko's bike at the pit lane a year ago right and destroying it so it was like oh good grief right and you know to bridle's credit he did hunt down marquez on the track he apologized right then i'm pretty sure bridle probably walked into the grissini pits and explained himself to which it doesn't matter he ruined marx qualifying i mean legitimately really screwed up his qualifying session and you know and then to go down this rant of penalties bridle receives a grid place penalty bridle was basically last anyways what what what does he start the penalty is pointless what what what i know i'm not i'm i'm okay look i am not picking on bridle here people he did something stupid but i'm not trying to throw him under the bus for his stupidity i'm talking about the stupidity of the penalties it's like what else could you do other than give him a race ban right but are they going to do that because honda needs the development time i don't know that's a conspiracy theory of mine right like despite the fact he probably needed a race ban and be sat down like look you shouldn't really do that and a good talking to he's still got to line up and race with a three grid penalty oh you got anything to say about penalties rich i know you probably do well i mean i saw the tweets that simon p put out and you know i actually responded on one of them so that i think probably it was was worthy of a race ban i mean i don't know we've just kind of landed in this awkward spot now i mean clearly they can't all be out in a qualifying session on every lap doing qualifying time so i mean it's hard not to get in the way from time to time i you know i do understand that however bridal is very experienced and to sort of go across the track in the way that he did i'm sure he's embarrassed about it i mean he's a charming guy whenever you see him interviewed and it's been around a long long time very very experienced so there's no malice in it you know but it's just indicative of this kind of black hole of people are afraid to sort of be on the line get off the line you know there's just penalties flying around everywhere but then like you say jim to give a guy a three place grid drop when he's already 21st out of 22 is well what's all the penalty is that it's just all a bit of a the joke really uh when it gets to this sort of thing so and let's not forget of course on friday mark mark has had the mother and father of high sides going through the waterfall section so the last thing he needed was a collision which you know could easily have happened in that situation so he had very very badly bruised ribs which must have been agonizing to you know to ride on uh as well as a damaged hand i think it was so yeah left index finger was broken so the clutch was now his middle finger his ring finger and his pinky and i don't know if you caught this but now the gloves by at least by alpin start i'm assuming from everybody else they're sewing the ring finger and the pinky finger together so the pinky finger is now supported by the ring finger because that's always you know the one that's there so i thought that was a kind of cool idea because simon was talking simon crayfar was talking about that when they were showing mark you know holding his index finger up and working the clutch like you can see that the glove is now you know they're being sewn with the end to give some support to the pinky which is you know kind of interesting how that all goes along and the little things that mean a lot because i mean that's your pinky that flops around out there the one that always seems to get broke but if you got it supported to the other part of your hand it's a really cool idea so well that was you know i'm sure that he's probably had that for a year or so but we've just now maybe picked up on this fact it was not something that they just did overnight to sew it together so it'd be interesting to see if any of the other guys have that as well or at least simon led me to believe that it was something that had been around for a little bit and they just okay never had talked about um so i mean coming back to brad i mean he was just kind of like the worst case of something that we saw throughout the weekend really and i mean i would never normally in this day and age be somebody to kind of credit formula one with anything really other than boring everybody to tears most of the time but they do have this kind of minimum lap time or vector time i think they call it sector vector whatever it is sector you know a minimum required speed to be getting around the course and okay i accept in formula one they have pits to cover ij well that's kind of the worst thing ever because it's just like a school playground moaning channel most of the time but it does at least give the pits the ability to say to the driver you've got somebody coming up behind you get out of the way so okay we don't have that and thankfully we don't have the pits to rider communications at the moment although maybe we're getting to the stage where we kind of need it i don't know because clearly they need to be getting out of the way of somebody on a quick lap but equally you can't be dawdling around and then shooting across the track like that and we've seen a lot of this and you know it's like this whole thing about outcomes get punished intent doesn't you know and is it going to take a massive collision a bit like the one we saw last year which was a different scenario because that was somebody coming out of pits and a bike crashing but it goes to show what happens when a fast moving bike and a slow moving bike come into contact with each other so you know this is going to happen at some point and then of course there'd be like a draconian bricks falling out in the sky kind of response to it and i'm sure they could do something better i mean you see people on social media so now we need to go to one lap qualifying where everybody takes their turn well we don't want that and there's no room in the schedule to accommodate a system like that anyway so we definitely don't want that they just need to start penalizing the most gp guys and stop treating them like prima donnas because you know if they do stuff wrong they should just get into trouble for it you know proper trouble as well you know decent penalties that really do impact them so thinking about kind of what you said about pit radios and cars one by the one sector times i'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to put a light on the dash of the moto gp bike that's a blinking yellow or or some other color to alert you that if somebody is faster coming hard on a qualifying lap to alert you to get over and you know be mindful of this guy that's coming which might be the best might be a viable solution to what's going on i mean we learned had that aprilia had put a blue light in the dash for vignales which would tell him if the light was on meant the front tire the got to think about the right hand side of the tire was not was cold it wasn't so you got to give it another lap to get temperature and when the light goes off now you can push it through the waterfall well i thought that's a brilliant piece of kit that right there is a is you know a prop props to aprilia something why can't you do sort of the same thing to warn guys that hey somebody fast is coming or you could use it in this way say look hey we've determined that you have to go through these sectors at a certain time to be adequately fast and if the light starts blinking you're in trouble of not making that sector time and you need to speed up so it can be used either way i'm not sure which way is the best way i'm just spitballing here when it comes to electronics and dashboards i mean they can pretty much do anything that they want with the technology that exists now you know the argument would be do the riders need more inputs because they've already they're already dealing with a lot however i would counter that by saying in a couple of years time they're not going to be pressing buttons left right and center to lower ride height devices and stuff like that so they're going to get some capacity back so i think you know there is an opportunity to introduce some other safety mechanisms that might perhaps alleviate this problem to some degree i'm really interested if anybody's got strong feelings on this to write in and let us know by email because maybe we're whinging and moaning about it and other people think we're just you know we're over doing it and maybe we are but i don't know i mean you can see a collision coming before long if they let this drift any further yep if you guys get any ideas on how to solve the dawdling around the track as well let us know motopod at motopodcast.com with that we go we know that raul and bzecki got through to the second qualifying session which meant that both track house bikes were in the second qualifying session bravo track house right yeah so with the first runs done martin was on pole followed by raul fernandez whoa wasn't expecting that one right with alex marquez next then vignaya then more then more vedalia then vignales but vignales then went down to turn 10 with a massive high side that was a scary one barriers involved again as well like that's not good then alex marquez crashed vignaya cannot get himself going because he's basically being compromised by the yellow flags that are out for everything so that left torre martin on pole miguel oliver in track house second raul fernandez track house third track house on the front row that's pretty impressive yeah well particularly in relation to the works bikes which were nowhere to be found which we should mention that alesh sat this out because of his injuries from asin he couldn't didn't feel like riding didn't want to ride or he's just getting used to how he's going to feel riding a honda oh did i say that out loud oh jim ouch that was brutal anyway sorry and let's not forget savadori was quite badly injured at asin as well so he couldn't come in and substitute because i think he cracked a couple of vertebrae in his spine in a crash at asin that one went slightly under the radar because you know he's a test rider wild carding so he's not really out there racing per se but yeah he wasn't around to sub so lucky for a brilliant that for whatever reason track house and i mean delighted really actually to see miguel olivera who's really been in the doldrums and but he came out of gates right from the get-go on friday and he was brilliant all weekend yeah i think i read somewhere that quattro said that because olivera is in the running for that pre-mac yamaha seat that quattro said he'd be great he's my best mate in the pit and then he'd be great on the bike he'd be great development guy yeah yeah a lot you know for olivera to show up and whatnot and what fernandez is getting a 24 a brilliant now because olivera has a 24 but next week or after the three-week break he'll have a 24 bike yeah i mean if you have been very very cynical with all the talk around pramak yamaha you might say that suddenly miguel olivera's interest is up but i think that would be uncharitable because he's a you know proper professional mcgill but he is a bit hot and cold i mean i think you know that was born out by his career in moto gp but yeah for whatever reason they just just nailed it all weekend both of them so yeah um impressive but i do wonder i do just wonder jim just to sort of um you need to keep the draw locked oh it is always but i do just wonder if this comment from rivio about joe roberts might a hint at the fact that perhaps olivera and that yamaha pre-mac seat is a bit more to it than just pure rumor despite the fact that i still think digiantonia would be a good slot in there but i mean again speculated we've already had that show but track house yeah turned up didn't they this week they sure did good to see good to see it was a good thing then yeah again yellow flags causing problems he would be fourth alex marquez fifth morbideli sixth vignola seven digiantonia fashionini across the tenth but he's the fastest of all the ktms but again ktm was nowhere this weekend and very very bad weekend as we talked about earlier with pit buyer defending the riders and whatnot and as we talked about some episodes ago peggio is crashing quite a bit now whether that's just part of the going through the crashing phase or because he's pushing that bike a bit beyond what is prepared to do at the moment because of the depth that they're taking so interesting to see how they galvanize and come back i'm still so onwards because they have lost something yes doesn't take much no so let's look at the sprint at the start martin had the whole shot then vignola led into turn one so vignola had a great had a great start with that so he basically went from went from fourth to first but then olivera would was there and second martin would fall back to third then there was raul vignola's and bastionini mark marquez was tenth martin was by olivera to get to second then martin was was by at turn one but he was wide and then i went back in front mark marquez would be ninth then martin finally with third on two laps in he finally got benya at turn eight great move by martin to get by at turn eight and hustle it to get there so it was martin it was olivera it was benya it was bastionini vignola's and raul and then benya had a track limits warning so he had 12 laps left he's gonna have to deal with that limit warning basically martin pretty much is is out front got this olivera's hanging in in there for a second but the real thing is trying to figure out like where where marquez is going to be like so marquez was seventh he had gotten by raul was six to go marquez had marquez as in mark had a massive front end tuck but he saved it it looked like the old school marquez on a honda the front end completely gone off the knee the elbow put it back on center done it was like he even said i can ride like mark marquez now so any any doubts of his surgery on his arm or his physical condition or anything else has kind of been tossed away i think he's back he just doesn't have a bike that's again competitive it's a bike that has that is much more competitive than a honda but it is not the factory ducati bikes which he will earn which he has done enough to earn that spot for next year yeah akasta was off at was was off somewhere had a all trip through the gravel that put him back down to like somewhere around like 12 but martin would win the sprint followed by olivera so that's track house's first podium if you will i don't know if it's really a podium it's a sprint i don't know it's their first silver medal is that what you say i i guess you know uh benya uh would finish third bashinini did provide us with some stuff at the end he did bashinini did run through the pack at the end uh to get a fourth then morbidelia was fifth marquez was sixth vignola seventh bender eighth and the last point scorer was alex marquez and uh that was the sprint anything more for the sprint before we talk about the motogp race itself no no it was pretty boring really banyaya by his own admission was a bit overly conservative protecting his tire and then ran out of laps to do anything with the grip that he had at the end so that was really it yep so martin gets out front from his pole position followed by olivera followed by banyaya followed by alex marquez morbidelia and raul banyaya had got himself to second he got by olivera marquez was ninth uh banyaya then got by martin which was which was interesting morbidelia got by olivera and mark marquez was eighth and is all over the place in the first couple laps here i mean the first five laps of this race were pretty spectacular um so alex marquez he went to fourth because he actually got by olivera as well so with 25 long laps to go the saxon ring banyaya is in front followed by martin morbidelia alex marquez olivera vinyalas and mark marquez then uh so martin then would get back by banyaya vinyalas had a great save at turn eight with his apprelia he kind of lost it picked it back up got it uh then martin was absolutely just inching away from banyaya and morbidelia got by peko for a little bit but that got straightened back out again because a couple laps uh took him about four laps but banyaya right at the ship and got himself back past morbidelia to speed back into second and i thought wow that's really the that's really it in the race because i felt like at that point martin had this under control he had a gap and i didn't know if banyaya had enough fight in him to get back to the front uh because you know it was i was interested i was now my mind's like really thinking like what can banyaya do because morbidelia was kind of holding him up and sure enough he had his head down and banyaya got right back to being within a second nine tenths eight tenths of of martin uh so uh alex marquez got by uh got by morbidelia tongue tied there folks sorry uh and then yeah aloe vera was got was gotten by two so he was back to sixth now with ten to go it's martin banyaya alex marquez morbidelia mark marquez and bashing again the beast showing us he's great on tires right so here he is again we got you know 10 laps to go and he's at the front sniffing around for the podium spot uh morbidelia and mark marquez they touch and it's bucking bronco again at turn one and marquez actually broke the screen on his ducati i think his arm went into it and cracked the cracked the glass but again it was one of those things that's where two different lines work right you can sort of do the v and come back which is what morbidelia was doing or you can take the big arc through and again they just sort of showed up in the same piece of track at the same time stewards looked at they didn't do anything about it i agree racing incident that's two guys maybe yeah we're hanging so far off the bike now we're unsighted to our left marquez had no idea where where morbidelia went to be honest and they just wound up bumping into each other but that got marquez by morbidelia and so with five to go it's still martin still banyaya now it's alex marquez mark marquez morbidelia and bastionini then bastionini gets by morbidelia but then morbidelia goes back by again this is the order kind of stays this way and i'm thinking this is it we're gonna run out the rest of the race because everybody kind of seemed to be where they were i think banyaya was still close but martin simply tucked the front and fell off with two laps to go at turn one i was shocked that that happened were you were you like in did you have like that moment rich or what well standing out in my chair punching the air kind of moment uh i'm not the world's biggest holly martin friend is true yeah i mean i was pretty gobsmacked like i would imagine pretty much everybody including hawaii martin himself was really he just has a bit of a habit of doing this in main races doesn't he doesn't crash in the sprints that's the interesting thing and what i can't quite get my head around is that the sprints which can be a bit crazy but they've almost switched the you know the main races tend to be a bit more exciting than the sprints recently and you know we've seen martin i'm thinking of a couple of examples hereth this year and obviously uh was it thailand last year mandalica i think where he crashed out of the main race and you know a reasonably comfortable lead i think banya just has managed to get himself into his head a little bit into martin's head that is and martin just does have this habit of cracking under pressure uh i don't know what else you can say really jim about it but for me i think we might reflect at the end of the season that this was the moment when martin lost the championship because i think this takes the wind out of the sails he had a chance to abate the progress that banya has made over the last three or four rounds and kind of threw that away banya is now 10 points to the good he's got three weeks martin to dwell on this bad error that he's made and as you said i think you know the the grace and good favor from ducati starts to have a way from pramak now partly because martin's going to aprilia and ducati don't want the number one plate on aprilia but more so because pramak go to yamaha and ducati specifically do not want new parts finding their way into the ip kind of sites of one of their main competitors so i think all of these things together plus the great run of form that banya is on is accepting that he lost the sprint but he know why he lost the sprint he didn't push hard enough early in the race and he admitted to the fact so all of these things to me add up to the fact that that was a fatal error really by martin and i think he'll pay for that now in terms of the championship i completely agree with you because this was the wrong time to fall off a motorcycle now there's never a good time right but in the scope of what was going on you had again you're very correct you had a chance to stop the momentum that then i had you had a chance to get yourself settled go away on sprint on to sprint onto summer break be like hey sit on the beach relax i'm leading the world championship all is good we'll come back and we're gonna keep on going here you know and he didn't do it right i you know he does seem to have a habit of cracking underneath these long braces he seems to make strategic errors that banya doesn't seem to make i give you philip island although i love that gamble i mean i really love that gamble with the tire but it didn't work but still it didn't work yeah but i still loved it but it didn't work so i mean i'm not trying to pick the stuffing out of martin it just seems he seems to be prone to doing things that banya does not it almost this almost reminds me of schwanze v rainy where schwanze is schwanze is martin okay i'm winning i'm just gonna win so bad to make you feel so bad about yourself i'm just gonna demoralize you because i'm gonna beat you on the racetrack whoop ah threw it away wadded it up into a ball and banya is the rainy type well okay if you're gonna beat me today i'm just gonna go work harder during the week and come back next week and i'm just gonna beat you with a better setup and it's kind of what happens i mean because you know regardless though of these two is next year marquez is not going to let you have a mulligan especially when he's on a factory ducati that is the one thing if you look at marquez's championship seasons he has always jumped on everybody's throat at the beginning of the year and ripped off a few wins and put everybody on the back foot to catch him and it's you know we seem to have seen over these titles that banya has and potentially this one too he starts slow he has to work his way into it like he doesn't have the setting for the 24 bike exactly correct but he's got it now well you cannot give marquez those first four slash five races to do that if you do he's going to destroy you same thing with martin sort of is the other way right he eventually starts kind of well but eventually the pressure amounts on him and he collapses which is weird because martin is a moto 3 world champion and he did but he was never a moto 2 world champion now it doesn't mean right it doesn't mean anything but you have to kind of go huh i don't know it just seems it's it's just made it's one something to think about it's all i'm saying i i think we're all guilty i mean banya let's not forget i mean he had a habit certainly a couple of seasons ago and when he first came into motos he did have a habit of checking out the road at points when he didn't need to do yeah if you remember that season when pratarora won the championship i remember at least two or three occasions when peko kind of crashed out of the lead yeah i think peko had to learn how to win riders do go through this but the thing about peko and i'm just thinking about next year mark mark i mean mark marquez is eminently capable of winning multiple titles on the gkati there's you know no doubt whatsoever but i think we were all a bit guilty of underestimating just how stealthily good banyan is because he's very unflashy you know he's not very italian to be perfectly rank and that's no insult you know he is just he just gets his head down and gets on with it and if he has a bad day explains why he takes it on the chin and he holds himself accountable more often than not as he indeed he did in the sprint race you know he said that was my fault i just didn't push hard enough and i you know ran out of time to use the tire and the grip that i had left and you know he is becoming really formidable that guy and as you say jim he gets stronger as the year goes on and you can bet your bottom dollar that delinia will come with some parts in the second half of the season that pramak won't get oh yeah definitely only going to make martin's problem and challenge even bigger so yeah it to throw it away and you know they all crash it's easy to crash i mean there was a very fast race i mean they were doing very very quick laps all the way through and banyan because he had again he had saved his tire bearing in mind it was the longer race and so he was edging closer tenth by tenth lap by lap he was getting closer to martin who would have seen that on his pit board and yeah you just tempted to say just push that wee bit too much and you've only got to be a couple of inches off the line and you're down and that's kind of what happened didn't it so yeah um interesting way to head into the summer break bad for martin great for banyan who gets married apparently so that's kind of the best wedding present he could have given himself isn't it yep so also on the second to last lap marquez i.e. mark got by his brother alex who now those two are running in podium positions thanks to martin's failure and so it's banyan winning it's mark marquez then alex marquez then bastionini then morbidella then olivera then akasta who was nowhere and got himself to seventh which showed that he that he's not giving up and that he's still by far the best ktm rider because bender was ninth two places behind him and it was that was to me was pretty impressive so uh beseke akasta seventh beseke eighth bender ninth and ralo frenan is around at the top 10 on that so interesting we have brothers on the podium last time that happened 1997 with the ioki brothers which was pretty crazy it's been a long time since emila apparently remember racing gp guys at emila yeah yeah yeah that's gives you how long ago it was yeah it's a pity we don't go there but the walls are a little bit too close they are way i'm surprised what superbike goes there or did go there and it's reconfigured to be quite honestly because they have some weird chicane thing that they do by the pit lane or whatever but that does shake up the championship as you noted earlier rich banyan now goes to 222 points martin slips martin stays on well doesn't stay on but martin was at 212 points going into that race because of his points he tallied in in the uh sprint which means that banyan takes a 20 point deficit it makes it a 10 point lead going in there so quite a lot mark marquez is now on 166 points and third 56 behind and then basheen even y'all's akasta is sixth bender dj antonia alicia spargaro and alex marquez in the top 10 it is between martin and banyan and at this point i think you might as well just hand the title to banyan because i think we can all agree the new parts and pieces are going to go to banyan they're not going to go to martin and they're not going to stay there now what's going to be interesting to me is is that do you start to give mark marquez later development pieces for that his 2023 bike because he starts out on his bike was essentially where the 2023 ducati started in 2023 so there are obviously are some development pieces that are sitting around somewhere so i'm wondering if they're going to bring give him some development parts and pieces to kind of you know maybe make this a ducati one two in the championship kind of a thing just to further annoy martin which him going to to to aprilia is either going to do one or two things he's either going to just ride like a madman just just to annoy ducati and be the be the pest you know the gnat the fly that they can't swish away or he's going to go there and just wreck his brains out trying to beat the ducatis i'm not sure which way it's going to play out but i mean he's kind of gone there under duress really hasn't he let's be honest i mean he got you know thrown under the bus the team truck whatever you want to say by ducati again i do you know in that sense i do feel a little bit sorry for martin because he's done everything he could possibly have done to warrant getting the call up to the works team but it hasn't worked out i just simply think that next year aprilia won't be in a position as a team as an outfit to win the championship but having said that i mean martin might do extraordinary things but i just think probably it takes a wee bit longer to turn that into a winning machine now whether martin's the guy to do that mentally i don't know but i mean i to pick up on your point i don't think you can actually really need to feed marquez parts to sort of help out and fire i just i just think banyan has got this now because we've seen this the last two or three seasons he just gets stronger and stronger in the last two seasons he's won by doing it that way so i don't think he needs any help at this point i wasn't suggesting that ducati give parts to marquez to to help mark to help banyan i i just think hey help marquez be second in the championship yeah well i suppose but but in effect they keep doing the same thing by helping marquez out in that way but i don't know i don't think that's really the ducati way i don't think we're going to run into fear as when we had this discussion in the last episode i think but um yeah it just looks bleak going forward i think for martin from here really yeah psychologically more than anything else i just think it's a body blow to throw that win away i think he'll struggle to get over that for a while i agree i agree with you rich i was just looking quickly i was trying to think of when where mazano is in the schedule um because we are at at if i could scroll faster so we just got done with that so we go to the british ground parades over sand and then yeah then we have a two-week break to go to or we weekend off if you will we go then to the red bull ring and then we go to aragon at that weekend of august 30th to september 1st then we go to san marino in september so definitely that gives us one two so we have only three races before we get to the get to where i guarantee you martin will not be getting any new parts because that the 13th race there is that's they're not gonna and there's a test i think at mazano straight after the race isn't there so so yeah yep and then i don't know i guess are we going to the coq are we going to kazakhstan yes no i'm thinking no i think probably not yeah i think not but that's what that's supposed to be after the mazano test is supposed to be kazakhstan and then indonesia whatever anyway um definitely there's only like you know if martin has any hope he's gonna have to put together at least two of these two of two wins in these next three races if he wants to maintain the championship if banyaya takes three of three or if martin you know who who else who knows somebody else could win but if martin is not on the podium or anywhere near it it's done and in fact this might be the first of the nail in the coffin that is the championship or championship defeat for martin so anyway uh that is it rich i don't have anything else that i would like to discuss about the race unless you have something that i may have missed no the only thing i was going to mention jim just before we scooting off to bed and dinner and one thing and another depending on our time zones is to say donnington park this weekend well superbike's really excited for that hopefully get some good chats in the bag there and earlier today i put out 773 which was the chat with jimmy van sekelris uh from tag racing honda at snetterton last weekend i'm sure people will listen to it but yeah if you haven't listened to what you weren't going to i would encourage you to do so because he's a very interesting i was gonna say young man i feel like a bit of a plebs saying that really but i am what 50 what are we now jim 52 is it yeah um so he is a young man compared to me but um uh but yeah very interesting guy very humble honest brutally honest in actual fact so really insightful conversation definitely a few areas that we're going to pick up and talk about again and we've put a few jimmy did actually share some x-rays of his legs with some of the procedures that he's put himself through which we uh with his permission i'll just hastily add uh put out on the instagram feed of the day if you haven't listeners if you haven't uh subscribed to the instagram moto feed please do so because the more people we can get on that the better as well and you will pick up content like that i'll be posting some pictures from donnington i'll obviously be putting pictures on from silverstone motor gp in a couple of weeks time and the more we can do the better it is for everybody hopefully so please do head over to x instagram threads if you're one of the few people that appear to use that seriously and uh yeah subscribe please because it really does help us but uh yeah listen to the chat if you can with uh jimmy because uh yeah really interesting guy i thought and um yeah he was very open and honest with us which is always nice because riders often don't want to give away too much it's part of the mental makeup part of the defense system and not letting competitors of theirs and stuff kind of know too much whereas he was rather different so it was an interesting take i think and you enjoyed listening to it in the car on your way home earlier jim so yeah yeah that's everything for me all right so with that folks we'll close this show out and i'll remind you all to ride safe see you next time