1043 Days!

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. This is episode number 777, the last of the great Boeing aircraft, because everything after that is probably junk.

The doors fall off or something. Anyway, this is not an aviation podcast, this is a motorcycle podcast. I'm Jim McDowell. With me back from holiday, Richard Jowett. Richard, hopefully you had a great holiday, I hope.

Certainly did, Jim. Yes, Mauritius, highly recommended to anybody that can ever get there. Beautiful place, beautiful people, just nothing bad to say about it really. It was just a holiday of a lifetime. It was our silver wedding anniversary treat to ourselves after 25 years of marriage, obviously.

So, yeah, really, really enjoyed listening to you and Skyler talking again, Jim. It was great, kind of a throwback thing. We should do a little bit of this more often, I think. Just get some of the old hosts back on from time to time if we can. So yeah, all good.

Really good, but glad to be back. Yeah, it's good to have you. Good to have you back. Good to have the normal guy back there, Skyler. Many, many thanks to Skyler.

It was great fun to sit down with Skyler and talk again and go over the racing and do all that as we had in the old times and whatnot. So it was very nostalgic, very back. And hopefully we'll have... Skyler and I have been planning, we've got a couple of little things that we want to do, more off season, fill in kind of thing. So we've got some ideas floating around.

So hopefully those will work out and pan out and whatnot. So some ideas that we had. So anyway, that was all good and fun and all that good stuff. But we've had a new subscriber to the show, Rich, if you could kindly help us out there and go through all that, it'd be great. Yeah.

So I'll just handle the PayPal subscribers first. So we've got Gareth Locke, Jacob Nurkow, Hal Hun, Rick Taylor, Norrie Ito, Nick Saban and Alan Fleming. And then on Patreon we have... I don't think you mentioned this on the last one, Jim. I'll just catch up anyway.

Michael Cowan has come on as a Patreon subscriber. So Michael, thank you very much. Good to have you on board. Joined by regular contributors now, Brenton Edwards, Scott Baldwin, Ollie, Dennis Kindig, Jeremy Bernich, Jacob Roa, more of him in a moment, Darren Andrews, Paul Lang, Gary Chavit and Steve. So guys, thank you, all of you.

The financial contribution is obviously massively important and very much appreciated at this end. The more of you that can do that, the better. So on we go. All right. Thanks for the update, Rich.

So as we said, Jacob has written into the show here. So we'll do a little listener feedback. It's a quick one. He says that I made him laugh twice in the last show. Once when describing the two F1 tracks in the US as appalling.

Yeah, well, they really are. So it is funny and apt as Jacob says. He says, then again, when using the British term for beating someone late in the race as pimped. Apparently, it's pipped. So again, you know, I'm an American, so I speak American.

I don't speak English. That's why Rich is on that side so that he can speak the proper English. So, yes, I guess it is supposed to be pipped. I thought it was pimped out, though. You know, if you walk through some of the big cities here here in the US, that's definitely not the right term.

So I guess I should have thought about that. But anyway, Scholar and I were having fun. Apologies if that offended anyone, didn't mean it that way. And hopefully, like I said, hopefully Scholar and I will be able to come back with some offseason shows together as well. And thank you, Jacob, for the for the words.

And I'm glad that I could at least make you laugh. So that's what we're here for, Jim. Oh, that's what I'm here for. Yes, I'm here to make everybody laugh. That's what I tell people at work.

I am here for nothing more than the comedy relief that I bring to the job. Anyway, Jim, could I just cut in because Jacob finishes off by saying thanks for all the effort, which is obviously appreciated that sentiment. And the interviews are great. On which point I have a lot of interview content to put out. Obviously, I've still got the the Donington stuff as well as the Silverstone stuff.

I'm going to busy myself over the next couple of weeks. I've been on holiday. Work has gone swivel. I bonkers crazy for me over the last month or so. That's going to remain the case, not necessarily in a fully positive way.

But anyway, I'm going to get my head down and get this interview stuff out. Most of it is kind of not time sensitive in terms of news, because it's more about sort of themes and just a bit of a deep dive into people's kind of careers and stuff. So hopefully it's not too time sensitive in terms of when I recorded it as to when we put it out. We're running into a busy sort of what's this, the last third of the season. Motor.

Yeah, why is now so well races in nine weeks? Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. So are nine races in 12 weeks, which way? Yeah, we'll slot stuff in as best as we can.

But content, it's content in the end of the day whenever it comes out. And it's good stuff that I got from Don and from Silverstone, but I will get my head down and get that stuff out now. So, yeah, look out for that coming hopefully fairly soon. All right. With that, let's go to some news that broke from the weekend in Aragon.

It is very likely that the pre-MAC Yamaha will be Olivera and Miller. So there will be no seat for Garcia there. We'll come on to the Garcia issue a little later on. But I don't I don't I. Does that surprise you, Rich?

I mean, it doesn't really surprise me. I mean, Miller was a surprise to me. I really thought Jack was going to leave the Moto GP paddock. But Olivera going there doesn't really shock me all that much. I mean, I think I don't know.

It just didn't work for him that at the satellite or Perlia team, if you want to put it that way. So I think he would would much rather go to pre-MAC and have good factory bikes, which is, you know. But are you you know, part of it is, is it because Olivera is good at set up? Is he good at development? Are those pieces of the puzzle that Yamaha wanted?

So Yamaha's extending him the contract or is it just truly pre-MAC? Who knows in that deal? But your take, sir? Well, my take is I'm either one of those two guys. I fully endorse them being there from the point of view of their experience, particularly on other bikes.

But I'm rather surprised that pre-MAC haven't taken the opportunity to take a young gun from Moto2, which obviously taps into the whole Garcia thing, because I personally felt that he would be, you know, a shoe in there really. And I'm rather disappointed for him that he's not there, to be honest. So Miller, I get Olivera, I get, although I think both of those probably in truth have slight question marks about them in the sense that they've been very up and down in their careers. To have both of them there, I just I get it from an experience point of view, but I can't help but feel it's a bit of a missed opportunity for Yamaha. Obviously, Yamaha in that kind of next two to three years, certainly as we go into 2027, they do need good quality technical input.

And both Miller and Olivera will provide that without a doubt. But, you know, you've got Rins who's, you know, hard to know really what's going on with Alex Rins, as much as I love him as a rider, he is still my favourite rider. But obviously still quite badly injured. And so we've not seen the best or the worst of him on the Yamaha and Quattroraro. OK, we saw the weekend.

He still got the fire burning. So he will always turn in a result. But I just can't help but feel that they could have done with, you know, a bit of a future proofing element to this four rider lineup on works bikes. And so for me, it's a missed opportunity. But what do you think, Jim?

I don't know. I mean, if I'm if I'm Yamaha. And I have some say, if if I have some say on who are the two guys that are going to be riding at Pramac, I would want experienced hands for at least a couple of years, because I've got to get myself out of this development hole that I'm in. Plus, I need to have all new bike, essentially for 27. I would really want them along for the ride for that, too.

But that prevents you from perhaps capturing or putting under contract good young talent that will be maturing. And you will need later on as sorry, Father Time will catch up with Olivera and with Miller, that just that's just what happens. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a bit strange, but. It's their it's their show and they're going to run their way. You can see why they've done it.

Yeah, but for me, the problem that they might find is that by the time they get to 27, 28, all four of those guys might be kind of looking at, you know, heading off into retirement, maybe not. I mean, I don't see any of them going into super bikes at that stage of their careers, but they'll probably see out Moto GP and then, you know, go up and enjoy their well funded retirements. But I just find it slightly odd that Yamaha is doing that. I mean, I think it's a bit strange that Yamaha is not looking to, yeah, bring some talent through that will take over from those guys once they depart. But however, as you say, Jim, they've got some very experienced hands that will get through the next couple of years, go into 2027, hopefully with a package that works better.

And then they can bring the young guns in at that point. So it kind of makes sense whichever way you look at it, I suppose. But I was just a little bit surprised. All right, let's go to the second point here. I think we've cancelled this one in because I'm not sure what you're thinking here.

So in the show before I went off on holiday, I was kind of getting a little bit tongue tied and confused about who was on 2024 spec bikes this year. And then obviously we were talking about the fact that Jucati had announced that they were only going to have three works bikes for 2025. So just to make sure I was clear in my mind, I got in touch with Simon Patterson just to double check my arithmetic on this one. So effectively this year you have Bagnara and Bastianini obviously on 24 spec bikes in the works team and both Martin and Morbidelli are on 2024 bikes this year as well. Next year you will have Marques and Beke Bagnara on 25 spec bikes in the works team, but only Fabio Di Giantonio on a 25 bike in the VR46 squad.

So Morbidelli will stay on the 24 bike. So just to clarify what I thought was the case, there are four works bikes this year and Jucati have decided to drop to three bikes, fully factory spec bikes next year. So that's just to clarify what we had spoken about before. And they are, my point going back a couple of episodes was I was slightly surprised that Jucati decided to do that given that Aprilia, Yamaha, Honda, etc. are all fielding at least four factory bikes through their works teams and then their supported satellite squads, KTM being the other obviously.

So I was just scratching my head a little bit as to why Jucati would seek to do that at this point of utter dominance or maybe that's why they're doing it. They don't need to put four bikes out there, but just seems an odd decision to me. But I just wanted to check that I was correcting my assumptions there. So it is only three 2025 spec bikes that will be out on the grid next year from Jucati. Well, I mean, maybe they're preparing for Marquez to trash a few along the way.

Well, crash damage will be a part of the deal, I'm sure. Yeah. OK. All right. So we got that straight now.

You're cynic. Marquez has crashed quite a few bikes. He tends to do that. He just simply tends to to lop them up into gravel traps. It just he just looking for the edge.

And sometimes there's no there's no ledge beyond the edge that you can grab onto. And he just does that. So maybe you're just pulling it in. So they have, you know, what all the materials that they need, because technically, if you think about it, you kind of would have to has to build six full factory bikes at a minimum, because everybody gets to in the factory team. Right.

You got to have a you got to have a bike for a wet or flag to flag race. Yeah. So, you know, so there. So that's an interesting take on that one. So let us turn our attention to the Moto 2 class for some news and notes that came through.

Big one here, Mark VDS is going to drop the Kalex chassis that they currently run and are going to go to the Bosca Cura, speed up whatever you want to call it in 25. It's amazing. Nobody wanted that chassis. And as soon as somebody wins on that chassis, everybody's like, oh, I got to have that chassis now. And I think a lot of people looked at how well Agurra and Garcia adapted to those bikes and how easy they made it look.

And I think everybody else is struggling for some reason now, whether it's the stiffness of the Kalex in comparison to the Bosca Cura or vice versa, whichever way it is and how they work with Pirelli tires. That's sort of, I think, the biggest deciding factor is that those bikes there. Although the Kalex's do seem to have come good here now. They've had more than enough time now to sort of sort through any setup tire combination things that they had to sort through. So it's just interesting because now that gives that'll give us what?

Four, six bikes on and under on the speed up, I think. Possibly more if we come to one of the next items. Yeah. But interestingly, Jim, without wishing to preempt what we're going to talk about in most of two. I believe it's the case that Bosca Scriabra brought a new chassis to Aragon.

And quite clearly, not everybody was very happy with the change. So just to prove the point that things do change rather quickly in motorcycle racing and where the Kalex was not the bike to be on before, suddenly they seem to be turning things around and, you know, perhaps confused a little bit by Bosca Scriabra, maybe changing some of their setup as well and parts. So, yeah, we'll come to that. So the rumor I heard was that Lopez was a possible replacement for Arbolino at Mark VDS because Arbolino doesn't have a contract for next year through Mark VDS. He's going to go someplace else.

And you've got in here that Dixon is in possible talk to get a Mark VDS. No, it's official. Oh, it's official now. OK. So since the time that I wrote the notes on Monday, they've made it official that Dixon's going to Mark VDS.

Yeah, he's leaving Grissini and he replaces Arbolino. Yeah. And so interesting. I'm trying to think of the other rider on Mark VDS is I think it's Philippe Salatch, isn't it? Yes, I believe so.

I'm what kind of let me know. Not absent physically, but absent in terms of the coverage and the results. I think he is obviously on a contract that keeps him in place next year. So Dixon is definitely going to Mark VDS next year. So I don't think Lopez's destination.

I mean, I suspect he will stay put on the Bosque Escura squad because there isn't anywhere to go in MotoGP now, obviously. So it would be odd to think that he would go anywhere else. So I'm pretty sure that that's, you know, correct as of the time of recording, Jim. OK, well, that's interesting. I really didn't think Dixon would leave Grissini, but I mean, hey, it's it is what it is.

I mean, there. Hmm. That's a kind of in the context of what's happened in the last few races. I mean, again, you don't know how long these negotiations go on for. And certainly if you go to the first half of the season, everybody would be looking to go to Bosque Escura, both in terms of teams and riders.

Now, whether that will remain the plum option as we go into the second half of the season, who's to know? Because Dixon's just had his fourth podium on the Calax and won the last race as we'll come to. So I mean, these things ebb and flow very, very quickly, don't they? Nothing stays still in life and certainly not in motor racing terms. So, well, there's no room at the end in MotoGP for Jake Dixon or Joe Roberts or any of the others that aren't confirmed there.

So I suppose the deck just shuffles as it shuffles every year. But, yeah, time will tell on the wisdom of that move. Yeah. So Arvalino then is supposed to go to the Monster Camp Yamaha squad, who are theoretically going to have Bosque Escura's speed ups next year, which is interesting. Pretty sure I heard that mentioned on the commentary as a not as a confirmed thing, but as a strong rumor that that was likely to happen.

So I'm trying to put I'm trying to draw lines where there aren't lines because there's just dot points out there. Does that mean that Yamaha is looking at Arvalino as a potential one of the younger guys to move on to either the Pre-Mac squad or slot in next to Quattrarro? Because that would kind of work because he'd be on the Yamaha team. There'd be a sort of a direct line to getting on one of those bikes. But I don't know.

I mean, that seems like a weird choice to do. I mean, Arvalino is a great Moto3 rider, hasn't had had a great Moto2 year when he finished second to Acosta. But he did slump in the second half of the season, let's be honest about that. And then he's really not found a good run of form on Pirellis. Up until recently.

Yes, till like right now. The last two, maybe three races, you would say. I mean, I think the last two. I see Arvalino's position is very much akin to Joe Roberts and Jake Dixon in the sense that they've been in Moto2 for quite a long time. In terms of MotoGP, the grid is not going to get any bigger.

And the riders, you know, for one reason or another, there are many reasons in terms of the nuance of the way the championship works. But, you know, the riders in MotoGP hang around quite a long time. I mean, let's go back to, I don't know, let's go back to GP 500. I mean, people were injured so badly so often that they weren't in the class for that long. So there was always a kind of a through route for new people to come in.

You know, we're looking at people like Alessius Bargay, who are kind of retiring because they've just had enough now, you know, rather than being forced out of the sport, they just decide to go. And allied to that, you've got so much talent in Moto3 sort of championed to get into the next categories up that there's just no room at the end for some of these guys that have been hanging around in Moto2 for quite so long. So I think, you know, for me, as good a riders as they are, and they are obviously world class talents, the likes of Jake Dixon, I say with a heavy heart, Joe Roberts, from your point of view and your fellow Americans, Jim and, you know, Arbolino, not that Italy's got too much to worry about when it comes to MotoGP starts to follow, but in comparison to the Brits and the Americans, for certain, I just don't really see a route out of there. You know, I thought, if you remember, that Arbolino was quite likely to get called up to MotoGP, possibly to Grissini, well, a year or so ago, and obviously Marquez suddenly then popped into that spot and kind of disrupted the market as he has continued to do ever since. So, yeah, it's hard to see, really.

I just feel that these guys will probably see out the best of the rest of their career in Moto2 and then they might drop into one of the other championships, you know, World Supers or national championships, perhaps. But I don't know. That's just my thought. Interesting, interesting. Oh, OK.

So if we move on, the tie round in Buriram has been confirmed as the opening opener of the MotoGP season for the next two years. So we know first race, Buriram. So that's where we'll be. We'll be in Thailand for that. It's probably a good move because that separates the East, you know, the East, Southeast Asia leg into different things instead of going what?

Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Malaysia. Yeah. Yeah. So that's sort of and then on to Australia. So that's sort of separate setup, which I think would probably be probably a good thing.

We also learned that Altegr will ride for two years at Grissini. OK, well, where else is he going to go? Your de facto number one Ducati satellite team would ditch you for for Yamaha. So, OK, you went with the guy who's the Italian who runs the team, runs another team. Well, sure, let's just give him the de facto number one status at there.

And hey, by the way, well, hey, guess as a as a parting gift for Grissini, we have for you one firming Altegr. And so you get to have him on your team for a couple of years to get some seasoning and some some time on a year old Ducati, which is probably not a bad thing for Altegr. Altegr is fairly young. He's still like 20. I think.

Yeah, he's really, really young. Yeah, he still might be 19. I can't remember. Either way, if the kind of well-known journos are kind of saying that perhaps it might just be the case that the the degree of pressure that's been on him to win the Moto2 championship this year might just be all a bit too much and that a couple of years sort of slightly under the radar, as a very, very young guy still at Grissini, might just be a good thing for him just to sort of settle down, learn his trade on the bigger bike. But, you know, I was making snarky comments and not snarky in the sense that I don't like Altegr, because I really do.

Super guy. Spoke to him. People remember interviewed him in Qatar last November. Just he's a great guy. But, you know, this year has been a bit of a horror show, really, hasn't it?

Given the amount of expectation, rightly or wrongly the expectation, but he did do four on the bounce at the end of last season, therefore expectations were high this year. But there was the Pirelli thing that came in. Maybe he hasn't adapted to that the best and he's had a bit of bad luck. A few other things that have been a bit weird, you know, crashing in the long loop penalty in Barcelona. A few other sort of odd things that have gone on this year.

Again, Aragon will come to it. Not the greatest moment for him. So I think, you know, he's got the contract. There's no way Ducati are going to let him go. So I mean, he's not in danger of losing that ride, but Priscian is probably a pretty safe.

And I'll use the term relatively sort of under the radar place for him to sort of just, yeah. Get up to speed again. Sometimes the weight of expectation is a lot. It weighs on you. You have to perform and you don't.

It's tough. It's really tough. I mean, I can't say that I've really had like a whole lot of expectation ever put on me when I was racing, but you had those moments. There were those moments when I was much younger. I'm talking like 10, 11, 12 years old.

It was like, you know, hey, you're racing the local short track. You're doing really well. Oh, and hey, here's the check. Here now comes the track championship race. Well, you're sort of the favorite to win this thing because you've won a lot of races earlier.

Well, if you don't win this one, what's going to happen to you? You feel it, right? I don't think you feel it as much as a kid. You're just having fun as you don't care. But it's definitely, you know, for someone who's trying to make their living as a professional motorcycle rider, that weight of expectation can be absolutely horrifying.

Yeah. And never mind the amount of expectation that he puts on himself. Oh, yeah. Which is an enormous amount of pressure in itself. And I mean, the move that will come to the weekend did rather smack a degree of desperation, really, albeit a split second decision that went wrong.

But we'll come to that, obviously. Let's definitely come to that because I have a different side, perhaps, than what you have to that one. Okay. So, excuse me. So, this is the best news of the entire news, in my opinion.

We go back to Brno for five years. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm like, yes.

That track is one of the best motorcycle tracks, I think, that you have on the calendar. Heck, I think that track would be brilliant for WEC. It'd be brilliant for Formula One. I think that track is one of the best. It has no clunky chicanes.

It follows the natural terrain of the valley that it sits in. And then everybody says, oh, horsepower hill. It is. It's a huge climb out of the valley to get there, to get back to the top. And then, I guess, technically, the last two turns are a chicane.

But it allows someone to get a draft, to get in there, sneak up the inside. But it also, it's so wide, you can actually run too wide through the next turn, and you can have a really great drag race to it. Plus, it's the place where Biagium was put the YZR Yamaha backwards doing a wheelie. I mean, why not? Why not go back?

I don't know. Why did it ever drop off? I mean, I guess, obviously, probably money. I don't guess there's a backstory here somewhere that I don't know. Yeah, I think it was money.

The track surface was becoming a problem. I think that remains a problem that needs to be dealt with before they go back next year. But it's under different ownership now. I mean, it is a double-whipped version of Philip Island in Europe, as far as I'm concerned. And it is certainly equal to Philip Island, I would say, as, I mean, you summed it up, Jim.

It follows the contours of the land, and it's just a great, great place. And it is the best news we've heard for quite some time. And I am desperate to go next year. I'm planning, in my mind, bearing in mind that I don't know when it is yet, because the calendar hasn't come out. I believe the 2025 provisional calendar is going to be released this weekend at Misano.

So I'm eager to know when Bruneau is going to fall. I'm assuming it will be sometime during the July-August period, because that's when it historically was held. And I don't know if you covered it. I'm just trying to remember if you covered this with Skyler on the last show. But bizarrely, Silverstone has been moved to May.

We didn't cover it on the show. We talked about it, I think, prior to one. Possible you and I spoke about that in the previous show. It's bizarrely, it's in May. That's an odd decision for me.

I mean, May in the UK can be very nice, but equally it can be pretty wretched as well. So I don't understand the rationale for that decision. There obviously is a rationale for the decision. But if that means that Bruneau lands somewhere early August or mid-August, whatever, probably somewhere close to Austria, I would guess, given geographical proximity, then that works for me. I've got the BMW K1300S primed and polished outside.

So that bad boy is going to be getting a ride across into Eastern Europe if all things go well next year, Jim. Trust me. I like it. I like it a lot. So last bit of news.

Well, two things left here. Chantra is going to ride at Inamatsu LCR Honda. Assumingly, well, not assumingly. He is replacing Nakagami because Zarco has a contract still. So yeah, that was a… I don't know.

I'm not really sure what I think about that one. Part of me says that Chantra has had a couple good wins in Moto 2. I'm not going to discount that. But he's going to Moto GP, which everybody wants to do, which is great. And I'm happy for him.

But what is he providing to Honda other than maybe the Inamatsu part of it, right? The Asian connection. It's a semblance of credibility for the Asia Talent Cup. And I get the Inamatsu kind of sponsorship thing. They want an Asian rider or South East Asian rider on the bike.

So I understand that. But like you, Jim, I mean, there was all this kind of bitching and moaning about Joe Roberts kind of getting a passport kind of base ride, which obviously didn't happen in the end. And you kind of feel the same. I mean, nothing against Sankat Chantra, but his record in Moto 2 is patchy, to be fair. Yes.

And poor if you're going to be a little bit more stern about things. And on top of which, the kicker is that the opening round of the season next year is where? Thailand. His first race on a Moto GP bike. I mean, that is going to be a challenge for the poor lad.

I'm really interested to know what the listeners think on this one. Nothing against him. I mean, he has won a race in Moto 2, but I think he's only won one race, maybe two. I'm struggling to think. I mean, he's not a serial winner.

He's not even a serial podium contender. And the fact that for whatever reason, contractually, politically, whatever, the fact that Agera has slipped through the net as far as HRC are concerned, kind of left them, I suppose, with nowhere to go. I mean, I personally felt with the Agera going to track house news, that that was pretty much meant that Nakagami would stay put. And I would have thought, given the choices, that would have been the safer move, to be honest. Again, being a little bit harsh towards Chantra, but I think that's a challenging career development for him.

But every rider wants to be on Moto GP and he gets his chance. And who's to say he won't grab it and do really, really well? And I hope he does. But yeah, I'm fearful. Yeah, I tend to think, and let's be honest, Chantra's probably, I probably wouldn't be in the same zip code with him when I was in my Prime racing bikes.

Okay, he's an immense talent. There's no question about that. But we're talking about elite motorcycle racing here. I can't help but think that he's like a sponsor ploy, kind of a thing. On a bike that is, let's be honest, trying to severely injure its riders all the time, irrespective of where they are.

So this is not a Pedro Acosta level talent that we're talking about. If he were, he wouldn't have been a Moto 2 for, what, four or five seasons? Something of that nature, yes. He was there for quite a while. So that's my kind of fear factor a little bit, is that there's so much pressure on him, given his nationality and the sparsity of people that are in that position.

On that bike, starting off in Thailand, I just hope he doesn't injure himself immediately, because that's the risk on that bike. Well, last thing from testing, or last thing is about testing. And that is the fact that the test calendar has been released for next year. We have the traditional day after the last race in Valencia. Then we have a Sepang shakedown test.

Then we have the Sepang test. Then we're going to Buriram to test. And we're going to be there the 12th and 13th of February, which I think then you're going to either have a very early, like February 26, 27, 28, start to the season and then kind of move two weeks later to Qatar, which would put you in that like March 10th, 11th, 12th kind of idea. So it's going to be interesting because when we saw what happened to Portamaya when we tested there and then went to the first race of the season there, that there was all kinds of shenanigans and chicanery and all kinds of things that went sort of sideways with people getting their shoulders broken, people running people off the track and everything, because everybody had it all dialed in. Me, I'm fearful that that's what's going to happen when we go to Buriram.

Everyone's going to have it dialed in at that point in time and then they're going to turn them loose to go race. And it's going to be a little bit of pent up anxiety there that everybody is just going to freak out again. But who knows? Do you have any thoughts on that, Rich? Don't care.

I mean, I don't really see that there's any difference testing at Qatar and then having the race at Qatar. I mean, I'm assuming that Qatar is not the first race because I'm guessing Ramadan and some it might be dates wise interfering with that traditional, recent traditional opening slot. So, I mean, it'd be make a nice change to go to Thailand for the first race. I mean, it's never happened before. So that'd be pretty cool.

I don't personally like the fact that they test at a place and then immediately have a race in the same way that I hate the fact they're going to have a race at Mozzano next weekend, then have a test and then have another race straight afterwards. I just think that is a recipe for boredom, really, particularly given how MotoGP is inclined to be at the moment. So I've got my enthusiasm in check, but very much offset by the fact that we will be going to places like Bruno, you know, to make up for it in terms of a place that nobody's been. There's no pre-test there and therefore that will be an exciting voyage into the relative unknown for most of the riders that Bruno and maybe a few other places. I think they're talking about a race in Hungary next year.

I haven't heard that one yet. Kazakhstan apparently is going to happen, although, yeah, hold that one for the time being. At least we're getting out of Spain. Well, yes. Although Aragon did get a two-year deal.

Very thin crowd at Aragon this weekend. They had over 100,000 for a race that wasn't really going to happen there and then have everybody have 107,000 people show up for it, I thought was decent. That's better than Coda numbers. Well, it's about the same as what Silverstone achieved this year. I mean, Aragon is literally in the middle of nowhere, I think, as well, relative to some of the other Spanish venues.

So it's probably not bad in that context. But yeah, nothing against Spain, nothing against Italy. But if we had a little bit less Spanish and Italian influence in terms of races and riders, I think that would be for me, for the general betterment of the sport. Let's just leave it at that. That's a good place to leave it.

Let's go to the racing from the weekend, shall we? Let's go to races. Yeah, in Spain, ironically. We found out that it does actually rain in Spain too. That's true.

Occasionally. Occasionally. Oh, okay. Let's talk about O3 qualifying. There's nothing really going on in the first qualifying session.

Everybody who's in the championship chase, everybody who's in part of that is clearly easily into the QT session. So there wasn't really anybody there that you didn't expect to be there, except for maybe Furusawa was the only person who potentially was there. But he did get out. So Bertelli, Furusawa, Farioli, and Ogden actually made it into the second qualifying session as well. Rolston in the second qualifying session, he had a very nice high side at turn three.

That was a very good one. These guys were working hard for that. Halfway through, Alonso was out front. Then Kelso, Artola, Bertelli, Rueda, and Picaris. But when it came down to it, nobody could beat David Alonso.

He would qualify number one, followed by Rueda, followed by Munoz, Picaris. Kelso with another strong qualifying effort. Lunetta with a very good qualifying effort. He's getting over the injuries that he had, and we're starting to see a lot of the talent that he has and the reason why he is on the CIC 58 squad team. He gets the honor of being first Honda.

So you can't really discount that. So that was your top six there. To finish out the top 10, it was Hologardo, Bertelli, Vier was ninth. Vier did not have a very good qualifying session at all. And tenth was Artola.

So it was like the guys that were out front in the championship were, except for Alonso, but everybody chasing Alonso was going to start poorly here. They just couldn't put it together or whatever. I'm assuming Vier, this is Vier's first time to Aragon. I'm assuming because he would have had to have raced in the CEV at some point there, I would think. He must have.

He would have had to have. We didn't have an Aragon last year, did we? No, okay. Just a slight side note, Jim. Last week, did you and Skyler talk about the fact that Vier has been confirmed in the Akihaya Moto 2 squad for next year?

Yes, we did. Okay. That is a great position for Vier to go to, isn't it? Really great. I mean, to go there, huh?

Because I'm going to forget it. The other thing that I thought was very pertinent that you and Skyler spoke about was the enigma that is David Munoz. And you were talking, I think Skyler mentioned the fact that he's kind of like this very sort of up and down figure, as would be the case in this race. And he is exactly the sort of guy that needs an Akihaya in his corner to harness that talent, and that's a talent that he has, but it's a wayward talent, isn't it? And I see Vier as, he's not a wayward talent at all.

His problem in Moto 3 is that he has to manage his tires so much, I think, because of his physical stature. So as we are finding with Denis Onchou in Moto 2 in that IO squad, I think Vier is going to be dynamite. Anyway, going ahead of myself. No, you're fine. Because I agree with you.

I completely agree with you. Vier got the plum Moto 2 ride. If you look at all the teams that are in Moto 2, and since we're in Moto 3, let's talk about Moto 2, right? So we ramble around. But IO is like the team.

It's right there. It's the top. After that, you kind of try to figure out who is the next best team. I would put probably Mark VDS second. Then I would put Grissini after that.

But then you'd also got to put the MT Helmets MSI team in there as well somewhere. So that's the top four teams, really. But IO is a cut above everybody else, I think. I think that is basically true. All right.

We were in Moto 3, Liam. Sorry. I'm catching up. I'm catching up on stuff I listened to last time out. I was back to being an old MotoPod listener from the days gone by, I was just listening to the show rather than taking part in it.

And it was great. And I thought, oh, I must mention the Munof thing because that really stuck in my mind because, yeah, he really needs some direction, that kid. And he's moving out of the BoA squad, I think, next year like Calso is. And you did say where he's going, and I've forgotten, but it's not to IO, which is kind of the place that he needed to go. He needed to go, yeah.

Yeah, he did. All right. So we moved to the Moto 3 race. So the theme of the weekend became these thunderstorms that would roll through in the night. Before qualifying, it had rained.

And it was so bad that the poor Moto 3 guys, when the first guy was out that morning, they came back in looking like they'd been motocrossing on their bikes. They were so dirty. So that thread of rain persisted. It was probably even worse on race day morning. So it was like, wow, we're going out with a very green track.

And the track has been resurfaced. And the combination of the rain, the dust, the dirt, all that got washed off, the removing of any rubber that was down previously led to a rather crazy Moto 3 race. But crazier in a different way than the normal, like, hey, let's have a 10-pack rider, which is, this is the one odd, you've got a very long straightaway in Aragon. And we know what other tracks that have long straightaways, it's a pack ride. But Aragon doesn't really produce a pack ride of Moto 3 bikes, which is interesting because the first part is twisty enough to break everybody up.

And you've got to be able to hit your mark and you've got to be able to be consistent and all those things. But anyway, what's interesting is this is that it's how it starts off. I think the only person who was on a hard rear was Rueda. I think everybody else went with the soft because the track was green and everybody's wanted to get the best traction they could. But Alonso gets off the line very quickly followed by Rueda, Picaris, Lunetta, Olgardo and Kelso.

Alonso, by the time they hit the back stretch, had a one and a half second lead over everybody else. So in the distance of roughly, what is that? 12, 13, 14, in 15 turns, he had a one and a half second lead. It was obvious that Alonso's idea was to go out front, just run it as hard as he could, build a gap and then manage the tires for the rest of the race, which was great because then that meant that as Alonso got away, we got to see some great racing that was happening in the pack. Before the first lap had even been completed, Kelso had made his way to second.

And once he got there, he promptly patted the back of the seat to show everybody, hey, stay behind me and we're going to go get Alonso because in case you guys were not looking up track at all, Alonso is one and a half seconds ahead of us. And if we don't try to catch him and work together, we may not be able to catch him. Have I just asked him, yes, why does any rider ever ever tap the back of their seat? Because it literally never works. It's almost red rag to the bull for anybody that's behind.

So, okay. Did you ever do it? Yes. The only place I've ever done it was on the mile at Springfield and we were dirt tracking. So, it's mild dirt at Springfield.

And this is kind of where, to me, this is normal because this happened in Grand National Motorcycle Racing all throughout the 80s and the 90s. It is not as common today. But in that time when I was a kid, you go to the national to see it, it happened a lot because what would happen is you'd get a couple of guys that would hook up in the draft and run together on the mile, which is really super critical for bikes that literally have no aerodynamics whatsoever on them. And they would tend to get away and they would just run kind of run off. And you had this little race period of about two or three laps that you could jostle around for, say, third.

And if you guys didn't get in line, the two guys in front were now going to be un-catchable. You weren't going to get there. So, guys on the mile would get by and they think they'd have the speed. Maybe they would just point to the back like, hey, stay with me, stay with me. Let's stay in line and let's figure out how to get to the guys in front.

And if they would, the next three guys would sort of wind up catching in a lap or two the two guys that were out front. So, you brought everybody back to have pack racing. So, the only reason I ever did it was, like I said, we were out the mile at Springfield. We were running our 600s out there. And you had to be third to go to the main.

And I was running in a pack of four, five, six. And the one, two, three guys were, you could tell were getting away. I finally had made a move to get to fourth. And I did that same thing. And the guy behind me realized that we could go somewhere together.

We actually did fall up onto the guys that were running one, two, three. And we caught them at the last, oh yeah, turn three, the end of the back stretch. We caught them there. And of course, young and experienced Jim didn't realize how powerful the draft is. So, I go on their way too deep, right?

You know, buzz around the cushion on the outside and don't transfer. But anyway, that's the slap on the back of the motorcycle seat story for you. So, it can work then? It can work. Yes.

It can work. It can work. Just rarely ever does in Moto3. Yeah. I think it has more to do with Moto3 is the fact that it's, I don't think it really works much in road racing anyway, just because of the fact that you've got all the turns that you're trying to stop for and then accelerate to and from and back and forth and all that.

Where on a mild dirt track, it's kind of like a flywheel, right? If you can just keep that momentum going, you will eventually just keep going faster and faster and faster because you finally get yourself, either you've got yourself figured out how to run on the groove or you got yourself right there at the edge of the cushion and you're just running around. And you're just going faster and faster and faster because really, a 600 and even to some extent, the 750s at the time when we were dirt tracking, you could almost hold them wide open all the way around Springfield. I definitely held my 600 wide open all the way around. You just didn't let off unless you got sucked into the corner by the draft, in which case I forgot the let off.

And it's terrifying. It's actually thrilling, quite actually. That's like people say, which one did you like better? Did you like dirt tracking or did you like road racing? And I'm like, there's something very magical about going that fast on a mile on dirt.

There's also, and it's like, okay, that's really wild. There's also something really kind of crazy about running on a half mile up on the cushion and be like a foot away from a set of hay bales, which is some weird cool thing too. I guess it's for the more crazy of us out there. And then what about road racing? Well, that's fun because there's a lot of speed in your drag and your knees.

If you go through very long arc radiuses, the idea of just going that fast with your knee on the ground is mind boggling. But then if it rained, that was even cooler because it's now just nothing works and everything's just going all wiggly and whatever. We were talking about three, right? Yeah, sorry. It's okay.

It's like, yeah. So anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed that little story. But anyway, we had just gotten through first couple laps and Fernandez had worked his way. Adrian Fernandez had worked his way up to get past Kelso to go to second. Vier at this point was eighth.

So after two laps, Vier is only eighth. Furusato worked his way to third by the 14 laps to go. Kelso went backwards to sixth and Furusato made it all the way to second place. Picaris crashes at the corkscrew because again, the line, there was so much dirt offline that you were running on that, I'll call it a three meter wide line. And if you got anywhere outside of that three meters of line, they talked about it being like ice, which is really probably the best description that you can have.

You have no traction. And as Simon Krayfar said, this is a great way of putting it. The bike doesn't go anywhere because it spins. It doesn't stop because it has no grip. And it doesn't want to turn because it has no grip, which is all valid points.

And literally there's nothing you can do. You feel like you're just being the, you know, you're just a passenger on the airliner, so to speak. At that point. I think also, Jim, it's just worth pointing out. I mean, most people that listen to this show will know this perfectly well for themselves, but there's this concept of a green track after rain, i.e.

the rubber off the racing line gets kind of washed away a little bit, so it reduced. But Aragon, it was worse than that. And I'm sure you get this in the States all over. We get this in the UK a bit. And in Spain, it will be definitely a problem, particularly in Aragon, which is, as I say, quite isolated in a very sort of arid surrounding area.

So when it rains, there's a lot of dust in the rain. So if you get overnight rain, you just get a lot of dust that, you know, once the water is evaporated, you have a film of dirt on the track off the line as well. So it is super slippy. So this idea of dirty rain, you've got the kind of combined thing that the rubber gets washed away and you get a lot of dust in places as well. And most, as you say, you've got this two, three meter kind of groove that's okay.

If you move off it, and we saw this a lot over the weekend, you've got nowhere to go but down a lot of the time. So, yeah. Very, very true. Five laps into the race, Vier had made his way to third. So from eighth, he's now third.

Then he moved into second. Then for Rosado is going backwards. So what problem does he actually have? He lost his pace. He went backwards to third.

Linetta then moved past him to be third. So Linetta is having a great ride in essentially tricky conditions. You know, again, this is a three meter wide groove. Got to be sure that you stay there. Now Alonso is way down the racetrack.

He's like two, two and a half seconds down. Honestly, I thought Alonso is gone. This was a masterstroke of genius by the kid in my mind. Hey, you have pull, you have an advantage. You're starting on the groove.

You're going to be leading. Just go out there and ride as hard as you can and let the chips fall where they may. Because no one may be able to catch you. Because if anybody starts fighting, they're going to slide off, get their tires dirty. It takes a turn or two to clean tires back up.

So I thought brilliant race strategy by the kid. Sure enough, all of a sudden here's Vier who is now taking tenths of seconds out of Alonso. And you're looking for the pitboard, looking for Alonso to respond and he doesn't. It's just this is now consistently Vier taking time out of it. It's like, ooh, Vier sort of the master of the tire saving effort.

Perhaps maybe Alonso's tire is gone. And we found out they had a shot, great shot. The left side of that Pirelli rear was shagged. The left side of that Pirelli rear was shagged. It looked bad.

So I was like, okay, there's a serious grip problem for this kid on the left hand side. And well, with 10 left turns, that's going to be tricky to deal with. So it was like, ooh, the race is on now because we now know Alonso is in trouble, but we didn't know what anybody else was or where they were at that point. Kelso had sort of stabilized at fifth. He got by for Sado.

Rurado was way wide at 11 and then he wound up just piling it on and he got past Linetta. At this point, you have to think, I'm thinking, wait a minute, Rurado might be in with a shot here maybe because he had the hard tire. And if everybody else's tires was going to look like Alonso's tire, well, maybe the hard was the better choice to actually have if you could make it work or if you were patient. But Rurado was still a long, like long way off of where the front guys were. But he was making some progress.

At six laps to go, Vier got by Alonso at turn three. And then you looked and it was Rurado and Linetta were coming. These guys were coming hard and fast. They were starting to take five tenths out of people a lap, which that in Moto3 is uncommon, unheard of, but it was one of these weird things that happened that allowed them to start taking these massive chunks of time out of it. Boom, they were together and it was a four rider battle for the win at this point.

But Linetta would get by Alonso for third and then Rurado would get by Vier. And with three laps left, it was Rurado leading followed by Vier followed by Linetta followed by Alonso, Kelso, Ferrosado had basically settled for his fifth. He wasn't going to try anymore. But Rurado would ride home for the victory to his first victory, showing us the talent that he had to be the only kid to win Red Bull Rikis in the Junior World Championship in the same year. And so the kid had a great pedigree coming in, but we've never seen it again.

Poor guy had the appendicitis and CODA had to have the emergency surgery. He's finally back from all that. He wins that race. It was a great race for him. Vier would hang on to be second.

Linetta finishes third. Alonso, terrible race for Alonso. He's fourth. The world has come crashing down. Poor kid.

Kelso with a strong ride to finish fifth. As we said, Ferrosado had settled for sixth. Munoz with his up and down with seventh. Then Zuratzua has gotten himself in at eighth, which looked like a great ride for him. Given the circumstances, Elgardo ninth and Bratelli Fernandez or Tola 12th.

Then Nepa 13th, Suzuki 14th, and the last point was scored by Esteban in that. A great, fascinating, different, strategic kind of a race. A lot different than what we usually see in Moto3, which is just go for it kind of a thing and then figure out how to draft by somebody at the last lap or whatever. But this is a good one, Rich. Just different.

What's the word? Captivating, I think, is probably the word for it. Because Alonso, like you said, Jim, on the end of or halfway around lap one, as you said, had a one and a half second lead. You're thinking, oh my God, he's just going to be 10 seconds at the road by the end of this one. But weird that his tire went in the way that it did.

But again, who knows? I mean, all Alonso in those, well, in that first half, two thirds of the race, all he could do was just lead at the front because he had a good start. There was a bit of jostling in the pack behind him on the first few laps, which kind of helped him to stay out front. So for whatever reason, his tire just went. But Rueda being on that hard tire was just a masterstroke.

I don't know if that was his choice or the team's choice, but they kind of won in the race. And it's worth noting that he's the 400th Grand Prix winner as well, all time since the championship started, which kind of seems like not a big number to me. Are you the thought that more people would have run a race over since 19, what, 50? 49. 49, was it, when it started?

Anyway, because I kind of wrote down Alonso. I'm a big, big fan of Alonso. I mean, he's clearly he's a massive star of the future. He's a massive star already, but kind of champion's ride. He kind of rallied a bit towards the end and secured that fourth place, which was a good result when we look at the points.

I mean, he's handsomely in front. So fourth overall, when you consider how odd that weekend was, is a pretty good result, Brilonzo. But my standout is Lunetta. Yes, you know, he qualified. Where was he?

He was sixth on the grid coming back from an injury. He missed the last race, I think, or the last, certainly the last couple of races. And that's his first podium. And he has been knocking on the door all season looking good. I'm interested to see now that he has that podium.

This is always the bit that interests me in terms of the mentality of a rider and the team and the galvanizing effect that has around a rider and a sort of a potential star in the making. I'm really curious to see where he goes from here. Assuming he stays fit, he's coming back from an injury, as we just said. But great weekend for him. I mean, full disclosure, I didn't see any of the qualifying, any of the practice because I was away at the weekend on a family day.

So I got home late Sunday afternoon, ignored your WhatsApp message, Jim, just in case it was telling me the result with my O2 GP race. I was busily binge watching all of the races Sunday afternoon, late afternoon, Sunday evening. So, yeah, I didn't kind of see what happened through practice and whatnot to get him on to sixth place on the grid. But certainly that third place finish was very, very impressive. And I'm a little bit of a mini fan of Linetta at the moment.

And I'm curious to see what he does through the remainder of this season. It's hard not to be a fan of just the sick 58. How is it? It's sick 58 Corsa. Squadra Corsa is it?

Squadra Corsa, thank you. It's hard not to be just because it's sick and six dad, right? I think it's hard not to be in. Linetta is a great, hopefully the next, I don't want to say great, but the next budding young Italian talent. And he seems in his interviews and stuff, he seems thrilled.

He seems very personable, sponsors kind of like that kind of a thing. And he seemed kind of down to earth too. Like, hey, look, I know I'm just now getting over my shoulder injury. I think he had and hey, hopefully this is the beginning. Hopefully we can carry some momentum.

And he says all the right things, but I think you and I have now interviewed enough writers in the MotoGP paddock to realize these guys are very well coached and PR speak and whatnot. So they're never going to really let you in on things. But that being said, I was impressed that Linetta, on a difficult racetrack, to finish where he finished, the cooler heads prevailed and he wound up in a podium. Perfect. And he goes to his home around where he's got two shots at it coming up.

So this will be interesting to see, you know, mentally and psychologically, how he deals with both the ecstasy of having got his first podium in Moto3 World Championship racing and the pressure of going into his home rank, because that tells you a lot about the future potential of people. I mean, it's interesting what you're saying about Rueda. He came into Moto3 last year, didn't he? Yes. As kind of, well, not kind of the replacement for Pedro Acosta.

And that was an incredibly difficult position to fill, let's be perfectly honest. But as you say, Jim, he was Red Bull rookie and Junior Moto3 World Champion at that stage. So he came in with all of the pedigree and then kind of probably a bit unfair to say underperformed, but didn't kind of do a Pedro Acosta level job in his first season. And then this year he had these health problems and some injuries and stuff early in the season. So this first win's been a long time coming.

But again, it'll be interesting to see how he pushes on forward from here, because you have to say at this point, the likes of Holgado, you kind of wonder where they go from here in terms of this season and beyond, in terms of whether they go up to Moto2 and stuff. And the other notable one was Ortolla. Let's not forget, he's been running rampant behind Alonso, really, in terms of pushing Alonso in terms of the points and getting a few points back here and there. But had a very poor weekend. I mean, where did he finish?

I think he was like 11th or 12th? Yeah, he was 12th. Ortolla was 12th. It was a terrible weekend for him. So poor result for him, given where Alonso finished, despite Alonso's troubles, having led for so long.

So yeah, I mean, let's come to the championship positions, which I'm sure you'll run us through. But overall, you have to say Alonso came out of the weekend looking pretty good. Did what he needed to do because he maintains his championship points lead. In fact, he expanded it ever so slightly over Vier. Alonso sits on 237 points.

He is a full 75 points, three race victories ahead of Colin Vier. There's talk of Alonso clinching in Japan, which he could do conceivably. He wins a couple of races. You know, if he wins two races in Italy, and I don't put it past him not doing that. I mean, you know, I think it'd be like, you know, easily Japan slash Thailand slash Indonesia.

He's going to be world champion. There's just no one's going to really catch him. He's going to win three or four races still this season. And isn't he the most winningest rider in Moto3 now behind Fanati? Sorry, in front of Fanati, you had way more years in Moto3.

Oh, yeah. So that's the level of talent we're talking about. Yeah, it's crazy. The kid wins or finishes off the podium. I mean, yeah, it's just bizarre.

But Ortola has been was passed by Vier because he's now five points behind Vier, but he's 80 points behind Alonso, which is that's starting to become monumental to replace. You just can't see. I mean, anything can happen, but you just don't think it's going to happen with Alonso. You just think he's just going to do his job, do his thing, and that's going to be it. Holgardo's fourth on 156th, then it's Munoz Rueda with that win jumps up to sixth.

Then it's Adrian Fernandez, Yamanaka, Kelso nine, and then Piqueras is 10th. And that's Moto3. So anything else for Moto3 before we dive into Moto2? Only what I've been saying all year, which is it's remarkable how few crushes there are in Moto3. So nobody's really losing big points, are they?

I put it down to tires. I put it down to Pirelli. The squishy, fun Pirelli gives a better feel and these guys know it for longer. And I think it's a more controlled breakaway feel. I think that the Pirellis have feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel.

Oh, it's getting really bad, but I'm still good. OK, now it's gone. Whereas the Dunlap was sort of a, hey, grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, gone. There isn't that. There's not that warning.

There's a warning in there with the Pirelli that I think these kids really, really like. And it's just the different nature of the construction of the compounds, and literally of the profile of the tire. I mean, this is years ago, the last time I've seen looking at Pirellis and Dunlaps. Dunlaps front are very triangular, very, very triangular. Pirellis are triangular, but there's way more of a bigger arc going on in there than there is on the Pirellis.

So historically with Moto3, what we would see is that, as we still see this year, in general terms, the pack stays together and then things go a bit kind of crazy on the last two to three laps. When that happened in previous seasons, Dunlaps with their lack of predictability, people would high side or just crash for whatever reason with trying to go in on front end or whatever. We're just not seeing that this year. And I just think it's, as you say, Jim, it's just a much wider operating window, even on low grip at the end of a race, people can manage it. So we're not just not seeing the attrition rates that we used to see.

And that's why, partly why, we're seeing such a big gap, I think, for Alonso, who is super consistent. So, yeah, I mean, you might say that perhaps it's been to the detriment, I don't know, but, I like to see the creamer ice at the top personally, and Alonso over the course of the season has just been spectacularly good. So anyway, still a way to go yet, but hard to see major changes as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, just kudos to Pirelli jumping in, taking the contract. And I mean, I'm not here to bash Dunlap.

They're a fine tire. They're just, Pirellis are just different, and they have given us different racing. Who knows? Next year, everybody's got a year on Pirellis. It may be a completely different thing.

We don't know. But as of right now, you can't complain about the racing. That's for sure. Oh, good. Yeah.

Okay. Moto two. Okay. Moto two. Moto two.

We get to the first qualifying session. Arbolino is there. Ayagura is there. Balthus Bender. Garcia is there.

What? Why is Garcia there? This is the guy who's there. It's like, okay, I wasn't ready to throw up alarm bells at this point in the game because we've seen him qualify kind of poorly, Silverstone being the most recent example that I could throw at you. But it's like, whoa, okay, that's all right.

Well, let's see how this goes here. As we go through, Arbolino had a moment at turn 13. Masi went down. Navarro high-sided himself at the top of the corkscrew. And again, there's no room for error here.

We're talking, there is no margin for these guys to be able to take. Ideally, these guys had the best track to deal with. They had all of Moto GP qualifying. They had all of Moto three qualifying. And they had temperature.

They had the best shot of having the best track to qualify on. And these guys were still going crazy. Then Garcia high-sided in turn seven. And the rear just steps out and it just flicked him. He was just done.

And he stayed in the gravel trap for a little bit. I was a little worried, but I think he just got sort of the air knocked out. But what we have now with Garcia, and this is the point we were kind of alluding to earlier, he has a crisis of confidence. He has been overlooked for not one, but two Moto GP seats. And he can't seem to comprehend why he's not there.

He can't figure out why anybody else is better than him given the status of what's happening, especially considering that Ayagura got a ride when he's basically been the better of the two riders in that particular team, which that's a tough one to go through. And he literally has this crisis of confidence right now where even the team has said they're working hard to help him understand what's going on. And the, hey, look, your future is still bright. You just got to put some results in here. Be a Moto Tour World Champion.

Force people to understand that you are a great rider and that you do deserve a Moto GP ride. You can't sulk about it. I mean, I don't know if he's actually technically sulking, but I mean, just metaphorically, that's kind of the impression you get that the team is trying to stop. Is there anything that you want to say about that, Rich? Well, only in the sense that I'm kind of pinching somebody else's viewpoint on this in terms of the game.

Just credit them. Simon Patterson, who had a different take on this, which is that, I mean, Garcia was a pretty accomplished Moto3 rider, and I'm sure he was a very accomplished rider in the junior categories before he arrived in the world championship. So it's not that he's not used to dealing with pressure. I mean, human nature being what it is, clearly the talk around him potentially being in line for MotoGP seat, that's bound to have weighed on his mind. I mean, I don't doubt that for one moment, but from what Simon P was saying was that Garcia himself was pretty irritated at the team insinuating that the MotoGP stuff was kind of messing with him.

And going back to what I alluded to earlier on, I think the bigger issue, if you look across at least 50% of the Bosque skiers was that they brought a new chassis to Aragon and it clearly worked better for some people. And Garcia, perhaps with other things weighing on him, just couldn't get his head around it. So I think my inclination is that probably just it was a combination of factors, not really the fact that he was kind of sulking or upset about the MotoGP thing. It's bound to have been a part of it because there's nuance in all of these things. Of course there is, it's not a zero sum game.

You know, it's never just one thing that's to blame. But the insinuation was that Garcia didn't get on with the new chassis. I mean, Lopez had an OK race. Aguirre with his injury had an OK race, probably was the best performer of everybody given that injury and Aldegaard will come to in a moment, which is another kind of curious 2024 kind of Aldegaard performance. So and Garcia, I mean, it was a horror show really on Sunday.

Again, I didn't see the practices and the qualifying, so I hadn't sort of spotted the fact or wasn't aware that he had a big crash in qualifying, which is why he was obviously so far back on the grid in the first place and just made no progress at all during the race and then parked it. So which is not a good look really under any circumstance to come in and park it. But he had a long lap penalty, which he didn't serve. And I was thinking, well, does he have to serve that at the next race? And I was, does it get wiped off?

I don't know. And yeah, not great. Not great for Garcia. Again, I've said many, many times on this show, I'm a big fan of Turgio Garcia, but that was not a great weekend all in all. And again, one can only hope that both he and the team and Boska Skura as a chassis provider, maybe they go back to the chassis that they were running before.

Because he's been doing pretty well on that. So hopefully things turn around a bit in Mozano. But the other thing I just want to say, Jim, is that the calyxes on mass have been getting better as the season has gone on. So maybe the Boska Skura riders and the MT helmet squad in particular have kind of, I don't want to say flattered to deceive, but maybe they've just made the best of the early running. And now the pressure is piling on now that other people are getting fit.

I mean, Dixon's not been at the races for the first third of the season because of course, he had that horrendous crash in Qatar right at the very, very beginning. And you know, Arbolino has taken time to get up to speed, et cetera, et cetera. Roberts has been there or thereabouts. And you know, the wave of the calyxes is coming back a little bit again now. And so that's adding more pressure as well and kind of costing points for people.

So I mean, for me, this season Moto 2 is by far and away the best championship in terms of the racing and the intrigue off track as well. Yeah, very much so. Very much so. So with that crash, best he would have started 25th. He wound up starting 29th in the grid because Zander Berger, Van de Gerberg, Arbolino had towed each other around for a great last lap for those two guys to get one and two and go through.

And Agura and Salak went through as well. When you got to the second qualifying session halfway through, it was Marrera, then it was Arenas, Kennet, Dixon, Ramirez, Lopez. We changed tires. They come back out. It was Dixon who winds up taking the pole.

He just pipped. Not pimped, pipped. P-I-P-P-E-Z. Yes, he pipped Marrera to get the pole position. And then it was Marrera, Kennet, Anchu.

Anchu was having a great weekend on the bike. They asked him, well, what are you kind of after qualifying? What are you doing? He's like, well, nothing. I'm just riding.

I'm not hurt anymore, which is he did start the year with an injury and it's taken him some time. But again, here's a kid running around in the I.O. team. And I.O. has been very careful to tell him this is a learning year and get your footing and do your thing and work your way up.

And what now? All of a sudden, Anchu was suddenly like, whoa, he's in the show. I kind of felt that Anchu would do well on a Moto2 bike. I took him a while longer, but there were injuries. Okay, so we can, you know, you got to kind of excuse it.

But for him to qualify for the thought was great. But then he, you know, then it was Arbelino, Arenas, Lopez, Joe Roberts would get to eighth, Vietti was there. Then Gonzalez, Outaguer would be 11th. And then Ramirez was the last one at 12th. So that's how things qualify.

So then we go to race day again. We rain over overnight or whatever. But Dixon gets away with a hole shot followed by Arbelino, Marrera, Anchu, Outaguer and Roberts. Roberts had a pretty darn good start because basically anybody who was on, he wasn't on the groove who would have been what you would call it, riders right on the outside, you know, away from the pit wall. Anybody who was closer to the pit wall had a worse start that was there.

Roberts made the best of where he was because, you know, being in that eighth place spot, he was able to leap up quite a few places, at least a couple there to get in there or whatever. But we had Guevara crash at turn three. Aigura was off track and that caused a slipperiness. Now, Canett and Lopez had a little coming together. Then they were trying to straighten it all out as they got down to the corkscrew, which is eight, I think, starts eight, nine.

Yeah, eight, nine. Yeah, eight, nine. And then Canett just goes in there and it's like a skating rink. The back end just goes out, finally gets gripping, plots him over to the high side and down. You know, the look on Canett's face was literally like, well, who hit me from behind?

Sorry, Aaron, no one hit you from behind. That was just all you. Dirty tires, small groove, you know, again, didn't work. It wasn't the heat of the day, right? We still were wet patches that you could see on the track for Moto three, for the Moto two guys.

So that was crazy. So the start is kind of, man, it's kind of crazy. But in the mayhem, Aydegir got himself the second. Then Arbolino went by Dixon for the lead for a little bit. And then Arbolino led for a few laps there.

Mittle's a nice group of six riders that were kind of jostling for the win there. And then Dixon went back in front. Then Anshu was there in second. Anshu had got by Marrera. Aydegir tried to go by Anshu at turn 14 and Aydegir had this massive high side.

They actually caught it from the camera while I was on the inside of the corner. You see the whole thing. He just tries to back it in there and it just goes away from him. It gets so far that it finally just grabs and it was just flipped him like a proverbial matchstick and down he came. Aydegir's race ran at that point.

He was. So you had a different view in terms of what was going on with this crash, Jim, you said earlier on. So I was insinuating that perhaps it smacked a little bit of desperation, but you have a different view. I don't think it was desperation. I think that Aydegir thought Anshu would be faster into that corner and it caught him out because Anshu was checking up.

We were still pretty early into the race at that point. We'd only gone about four laps. I think Anshu was playing the long game and was making sure he got everything up to snuff. And that section of track was really slippery. Really slippery.

Even in the MotoGP race, that part of the track was really slippery. I think Anshu was just tentative and he was just more tentative than what Aydegir thought he was going to be. So Aydegir closed the ground quicker than he thought he was going to. And that required him to kind of go for a little more front brake, which I think started the problem because then the front kind of slipped and he let off of it. Now he's trying to save it.

Now the back end's coming around. He's pivoting it. Then it just got away from him there. I don't think it was desperation. It's possible it was desperation, but I didn't think so when I looked at it.

I still don't think it either. I just think it was the closing rate was just there. Just Anshu was not going as fast through that section. And if you look at the previous couple laps, Anshu was losing a little bit of ground in that section. I mean, if you think about it from the MotoGP standpoint, Marquez was dominant through that reverse corkscrew.

And Jorge Martin, who now gets to see Marquez's data, said, dude, I'm losing like four tenths there. I don't know how he does it. I don't know how he goes through it that fast. So there was something more. It was more to me racetrack, just the conditions.

I don't think it was... Aydegir had been announced that he was going to ride at Grissini. He really, at that point, I'm not so sure that you don't necessarily want to go out on a bang, but it just didn't smack desperation for me. That's my take. No, perfectly valid.

And quite possibly that's the way it was. I mean, it's Voss-Cefiro versus a Calex through those turns as well. They have slightly different approaches as chassis through there. And as you say, I mean, it's slightly reminiscent of what would come and that we will come to in terms of Bagnaya and Alex Marquez, I suppose. These things happen so quickly and with all the time to think about it in retrospect, it's easy to come to conclusions.

But the reality is that these things happen in an absolute split second. So maybe just overcooked it was kind of caught out, as you say, Jim. I mean, clearly what was very obvious from the camera view was that that rear end came round on him really quickly and there was only one outcome really from that. And it was a nasty crash, actually. It was good that he was able to get up and walk away from that relatively unscathed, I presume.

I mean, we didn't really see or hear much more about it. But yeah, just what an odd year Aldegas is having really. And I guess from his point of view, the end of the season can't really come soon enough, really. And then you can just hopefully settle into a slightly calmer, slightly less pressurized inaugural campaign in MotoGP. Anyway, yeah, interesting.

Dixon and Arbolino have like a 1.1 second lead on the chasing pack of Lopez, Marrera and Anju. Roberts would then punt Vietti off at turn 16. Now, my first thing was like, well, I wonder if Roberts is going to get a penalty for this. The only real view that we saw of it was the onboard of the rear camera, the camera on the tail section of Vietti's bike that's facing forward. And Roberts does really just ram it on in there.

I felt like that was a racing incident and I didn't think it deserved a long lap penalty, but it did get a penalty, which given what happens in the next race, I got to look at that as an inconsistency among the stewarding for this one. So I was not, you know, look, it wasn't going to affect Robert's race. Like he wasn't anywhere near the front, wasn't going to be near the front. And so again, Roberts has another opportunity when Garcia is nowhere to gain points and has completely just either run a streak of bad luck or is just, that's just his maximum velocity they can do. And, you know, I think there's a way to look at it as there are good riders who win a race or two.

Then there are great riders who win lots of races, but maybe not a championship. And then there's the championship winning riders who are fast, who win races and win championships. And they're sort of that elite group of eliteness, you know, the elite of the elite, if you will, the aliens to use maybe a better term, but they maximize everything, even if it's not everything that was available. Yes, agreed. If you're not, I mean, they just take the maximum they can get all the time relentlessly.

Yep. Garcia got a long lap penalty. You know, basically he doesn't, he just pulls it off, calls it a day, shows up there. Enchu wanted it being like all over Lopez towards the end of the race. Roberts gets the long lap for a response for riding.

So his fifth place was gone, which would have been good for him. He wound up coming back out an eighth, just by the virtue of having to go through the longest long lap that exists anywhere in racing. Yeah. So that was painful to watch as just good Lord, but you, Dixon is never really headed at this point. In fact, he kind of started to pull a lead there at the end.

You know, he starts to get the gap and basically Dixon goes on to take a win. Fantastic race by Jake. I think this sequence of Jake that we've seen over the last two, three weeks is the Jake we would have seen all season long, except for the, you know, the bad luck of the injury that started at the beginning of the year. Arbolino would then be a second in the race. Enchu would get to the podium, which was amazing for him just to be there.

And then you had Alonso, then Gonzalez, Chantra, Ramirez, Ayagura, then Bender, Vieti, Slash, Sasaki, Balthus, Van de Gerberg, and then Mario Agi taking home the last point in that race. Anything for the race, Richard, where we talk about where we are in the championship for these guys? Well, you seem to have slightly fortuitously skated over the fact that Roberts smashed himself up on the last lap against his teammate Ramirez. That's true. What did you make of that?

Stupidity. Apparently there's not a lot of love loss between the two of them. And when Roberts served his long lap, rightly or wrongly, he came out immediately behind his teammate Ramirez. And they then went on for what? Two or three laps, I guess, at that stage.

Yeah, it was on the last lap. To take lumps out of each other. And it resulted in, again, I don't want to overstep the boundaries of what I know versus what I kind of suspect, but Roberts looked like an angry rider at that point. And how can we say this charitably? I think that was an ambitious move on the last lap.

And yeah, I mean, a bit like Aldegaard, really, it just all went wrong very, very quickly, didn't it? And he had quite a big crash. He was lucky not to injure himself worse than he might or might not have done. I don't know how he was, but he looked okay, let's say. But that's kind of game over, really, I think, psychologically for him, given the track house thing.

I mean, talking about riders being affected by what's been going on off track. So yeah, I kind of, you know, I do genuinely feel sorry for Joe Roberts. But as I said earlier on, I see him very much in this kind of Vietti, Dixon, Canet. I mean, where the hell Canet goes from this weekend, long term, who can say? I mean, he's just so inconsistent.

He's very, very fast. But I mean, that was a horror show on the lap one from Aaron Canet. So yeah, I feel for Joe. But I mean, I don't know really what else there is to say other than a couple more seasons, maybe if he's lucky in Moto 2. And then probably Moto America, maybe while Superbike can't see the Moto GP thing ever happening.

As indeed, I think probably would be the case for Jake Dixon, which, you know, I say is a brick with a heavy heart because we have, like the Americans we have, or the United States Americans, we have nobody representing us in Moto GP. And that's a, you know, a big shame. Yeah. Everything you said about Joe's second crash is correct. It was a desperate rider trying to get back to any kind of points for, you know, a mistake of his own making or a stewarding mistake.

Take it for what it's worth. Either way, you put yourself in that position to begin with, because guess what? You could have been third in Silverstone. You threw it away. Think where you'd be now, Joe.

Anyway, you should know that third track is won by being consistent week in, week out. You have not been able to accomplish that. His time in the Moto GP paddock is now limited. He has a ride for next year with American Racing. I don't see him doing any better this next year than he is this year.

And after that, he's going to be, because I think Joe will be 28 next year. So that's getting long in the tooth when a lot of people are 21, 22 getting onto a Moto GP bike. Not to say that it can't happen, but I think everybody sort of made their moves for who they want and he's not on anybody's list anymore, despite what his passport says. So then the question is, where does he go? Is he going to go over and join Gerloff and, and, you know, World Superbike?

Maybe. I mean, you know, he seems to, Joe seems to enjoy Europe where most of the other American riders don't really gel with it. Maybe because he's California, maybe because he can speak Spanish fluently. I'm not sure. Just, it's just different.

But Joe could come back and race in Moto America and then we'd have the Old Guys Club because Bobie A, Gagnier, Heron, and him would all be, almost all of them would be 30 or older by then. So really interesting what Skyler was saying. And I'm super interested for your off season show about Moto America that you hinted at maybe doing because, you know, as Skyler said, Moto America is good as it is in terms of that top sort of five or six guys. None of them are going to be around for a great deal longer. And, you know, where is the talent in terms of Moto GP route anyway?

Where's the talent coming from in the States? And you could, with, you know, some utility say the same thing in the UK, other than the fact that we have a very dynamic British Superbike and all the support classes series in the UK, a lot of which talent goes into World Superbike, which, as I've said many, many times before, is kind of criminally, and I'm pointing this one at Dorna, criminally kind of under promoted, underfunded, whatever you want to say. I personally think, you know, when you look at World Superbike, it is a great series and it should be much, much better than it is. And I sort of lay the blame for that at Dorna's door because they're in charge, they're kind of the series rights holder. But anyway, parking that to one side, the Brits have a route to sort of World Championship stardom through there, whereas, I mean, yeah, okay, you've got a girl off and, you know, I know Garnier showed up for a couple of seasons in the Honda camp, but, you know, the Honda was not in a good position.

I mean, they're not in a good position now, but they were worse than. So it looks a bit grim for kind of American riders in, certainly from a Moto GP standpoint, doesn't it, Jim? Because where, yeah, where's the next superstar coming from? Don't know. Where's the next Nikki Hayden?

Don't know. Because I mean, that's the last guy that you had. And I mean, that was 2006. I mean, that's a long time ago now when he was world champion, at least anyway. Well, I've always felt, I consider Spee's the last American champion because he had the 2009 Superbike Championship and Spee's probably would have won Moto GP, just he got stuck in the Lincharvas train.

Now it's, that bustle. Let's not go there. Let's just say Lincharvas and I are not Christmas card friends. Okay. I'm just put that way.

Spee's kind of was so beaten up with his shoulder injuries and stuff. Yeah. His shoulder was done. It was Banyamin. Hey, let's try to get through this.

So Sergio Garcia, no, it's okay. Sergio Garcia has scored no points. So he's still on 162. Iagura collected a few points to bid on 150. He's only 12 behind Alonzo Lopez is only 29 behind and then Roberts is 32 behind, but Roberts is, you know, he's wasted his opportunities to be where Agura is.

Dixon, if he can keep this run of form going and if Garcia can't figure out the new Bosca Cora, I give Jake a chance. You know, in the riders that you mentioned there, I would take Dixon out of that. I think he has way more show up show up business than Kinet, then Vietti, then Roberts, than anybody else. I think personally, I think you shortchange Jake on that one when you put him in the list with everybody. But hey, I'm only saying that he's missed his chance in MotoGP because I just don't see an opening for him.

I mean, I don't know that I could say that he's is an obviously fully deserving person that's been passed over. But his form at the moment, if there were some seats open, as we went into this last third of the season might get attention of one or two teams, but there isn't any space left in MotoGP. That's my point. So I just think he's going to miss out. But there's no doubt.

I mean, I think Roberts is kind of probably blown his season out a little bit now. Lopez is sort of very up and down. And Aguirre is injured. So for me, I think Jake is a genuine chance in terms of this year. He is a genuine title contender now, because if the boss Aguirre is kind of starting to lose its advantage, and if the riders, for one reason or another, are slightly pegged back through injury or psychological things or whatever.

I mean, if Jake keeps winning or podiuming for the rest of the season, which he looks like he could do, 43 points is not that big of a gap. Particularly if the guys at the front, currently, in terms of Gassi and Aguirre, start to shed big points, that could turn around pretty quickly. So I've got high hopes for Jake Dixon at the moment, but I'm keeping my enthusiasm under control. I understand. Let's see, we were at Dixon on 43 behind, Aguirre is 50 behind.

Who knows what's going to happen there? Then it's Vietti, Gonzalez, Kinnett and Arbolino. That is the championship standings there from Moto2. It's the best championship by far. So we shall see.

Anyway, okay, let's get to MotoGP and get through the, this one's easier to get through. There's not quite as much there. Not a whole lot to talk about. Not a whole lot to talk about there. But anyway, if we look at the first qualifying session, Bender, Acosta, Digia and Bastianini and Miller are all in there.

Now, ACO, he was quick early. Then Miller got on top of it. Now we got new tires and the Acosta just blasts past and he gets there. But Bender and Acosta move on. Miller sort of was the odd man out in that sequence.

So that's how they get to the second session. You had that heavy rain. The question was, could Mark, who had been dominant in every practice session, led everything, could he win the pole position and could he do it? Well, basically he got a little bit of a break because Mr. Poleman himself, Jorge Martin, threw it down the road at turn five on a front end tuck.

Again, greasy track because now these guys are qualifying early in the morning, wet patches, very narrow groove and Jorge winds up tucking the front. He's gone. It was Mark Marquez and Acosta and Benyaya. They were now on new tires. Those three guys were the fastest from the first half or whatever.

But Mark Marquez would go on to take pole position, his 94th pole, and then Acosta would be second. So it was like, ooh, the magic of Acosta has suddenly reappeared, been rekindled. Something has changed. He's back into the game. Benyaya got third and immediately was like, oh, I don't know.

It rains tomorrow. We're going to have a terrible time with the start. Like, okay. Martin was fourth. He got back on his other bike and would be fourth.

Then Alex Marquez would be fifth. Morbidele was sixth. That's how the first two rows would be going off for the sprint later that afternoon. So the question then becomes, what the heck is going to happen in the sprint? Could Mark do it?

Could he win a sprint? We've seen him on the podium in the sprints, but what's going to happen here? And the bigger question was, what was going to happen with Benyaya's start? Because Tardazzi and everybody was very concerned about them starting on the dirty side of the racetrack and remained to be seen what would happen. Well, Marquez got the whole shot as expected.

Then it was followed by Martin and Acosta, and then Alex Marquez. Aleix would go down at turn one and Zarco would crack. I didn't say this, but a shout out to Zarco. On the very difficult Honda, he was in the top 10. He didn't have to come through Q1 to get there.

He was the first time a Honda had made it directly to the second qualifying session. Is Zarco finding something and set up? Is Honda getting somewhere? Who knows? Well, I'm just saying that perhaps maybe with Zarco, they are going to get somewhere, and perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Although I still think the tunnel is very long, very dark, and it's going to take a lot of effort for them to get out of it, if they can at all, until we get rules changes in 27. Anyway, Morbidelli would fall at turn nine. He would go down. Benyaya had the terrible start. He ran wide at turn five.

That would let Alex Marquez and Olivera get by. Benyaya was just having a terrible time. It seemed as though he had no rear grip. He could get no drive. He couldn't get anything going.

Bender and Benyaya would have a battle there, and they would rage back and forth who was going to get what where and all that stuff. They had a bit of a ding dong back and forth, which was kind of nice to see. Benyaya, it was very obvious. He had zero faith in the front tire of that motorcycle. Zero.

Absolute zero. He was no way, no how did he think that that was ever going to be. He was ever going to have any confidence to go fast there, which was not a good thing to come out of that sprint race and have no confidence in your machine, considering you're going to have to do this all again tomorrow, and the threat of rain overnight was greater than what it was the previous night. So like, okay, this is not looking good for Benyaya. Even Quattroraro got by Benyaya.

Which, you know, that's who would have thought the Yamaha would pass the factory Ducati, but it did. But Marc Marquez would win the sprint. Marc Teane rode within himself, which was a good thing, to finish second and take nine points. Acosta got a podium. That was really great.

Then it was Alex Marquez, Oliver, Brad Bender, Bascinini, who also got by Benyaya, because Benyaya would want it being ninth. Quattroraro was sandwiched between the two factory Ducatis and Vizecchi was the final guy in tenth. So that was the sprint. The question, I think, really out of this was, what was going to happen overnight? Was it going to rain?

And could Marc do the throttle? That was really what everybody was wondering. Could he win a race? Could Marc win that race? And that was the big question.

Anything you want to add there on the sprint real quick, Rich? I mean, it wasn't particularly compelling watching, as I think we've said for a lot of MotoGP this year. The one thing I felt compelled to tweet about after the race, because I did actually watch it on my mobile phone when I was away at the weekend, although I had a horrible signal, so it kept buffering. But what the hell is going on with the TV direction? I I bitch and moan about this from time to time, and it was particularly egregious.

So Zarko went down, we never saw how or why or what. Well, Badelli went down, we didn't really see why or how or what. And then, you know, the sort of the crowning turd in the water pipe, as far as I was concerned, was on the final turn when Benyaya is battling for that single point or whatever it was for ninth place against Bizeki. Final turn, they're side by side going into that final long left hander, and the direction cuts away to look at Mark Marquez. He's already gone across the line, and he's kind of slowing down and waving to the crowd.

And I just think, what happened to the little picture in picture thing? Let's at least look, you know, if there's racing going on somewhere down the field, which is something of a rarity in terms of MotoGP, but not, I mean, it applies to Moto2 and Moto3 as well, then for goodness sake, let's see that. And if you want to watch Marquez waving at the crowd, having taken the victory, which I understand is very significant, and is more significant in terms of the Sunday, as we'll come on to. But for goodness sake, I mean, let's at least look at some racing that's going on. So I just found that really frustrating.

And, you know, if MotoGP wants to appeal to a wider audience, particularly once Liberty gets involved, then it has to maximise the action when it occurs. And, you know, cutting away from a race on track to somebody who's actually finished the race is not, for me, is not a good strategy for engagement with the excitement of the sport, which we all know is there. So for me, that was the biggest takeaway. And it kind of undermines somewhat Mark Marquez having won the sprint, because we've all been saying all year, can he win a race, any race, whether it's a sprint or a Grand Prix? I personally don't see a great big distinction between the two things, but that's just me.

A race is a race. But yeah, I mean, it was a fairly tepid affair, wasn't it, overall, mainly because of Mark Marquez's brilliance, that has to be said. And I must just say, just because I know you probably won't mention it, Jim, but I did, because I was catching up on Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening, I did actually watch the 10 minute warm up on sort of catch up playback as well. And Mark Marquez is so cool, because he went out and did one lap on a set of wets just to scrub them in just in case. And then he parked it for the rest of the warm up, rest of the warm up for the last eight minutes.

I mean, it's nothing really that warm up is hardly worth doing it. But that showed his confidence, really, that he just went out, did a lap, and then sat down and waited for the race to come around. So race did come around at what, two o'clock in the afternoon or whatever it was. So there we go. All right.

Let's look at the actual race. I think the idea here was, was there going to be a tire management race? Because we've seen what had happened sort of some of the Moto two guys had a problem with the Pirellis kind of chewing on the left side. New Moto three had a problem with that as well. Hey, these are Michelins.

Are these going to fall prey to the same potential problem that's there? And the question was, can Marquez win the whole darn thing? And we got to remember because of being paid points in the sprint, Jorge Martinez would take a three point lead into the race ahead of Benyaya because of Benyaya's terrible sprint race where he only gained one point. Well, Marquez gets another whole shot. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

He's on the good part of the track. Benyaya just has wheel spin again. That bike was sideways. It was not going in any which direction. I mean, a lot of times you saw a lot of the guys in the Moto two, Moto three point their bikes the other way to try to get towards that groove because it was just so dirty and dusty and crappy that no one could get anything out of there.

Now I can't imagine why Ducati could not have changed how their launch system works to feather more clutch into it or something. But maybe that was a risk they didn't want to take where they could burn the clutch out of the bike. I don't know how all that all interacts with each other. But you would think that, I mean, I almost thought if I was Benyaya, I would want to have my front right height device engaged. I would want the back end engaged, but I wouldn't want anything else.

I would want to be able to feather the clutch all the way myself because it looked like each time to me that Benyaya threw the clutch like everybody else does when it's perfectly dry track and the bike does the rest. This is one of those times where you, I don't know, maybe it's just the old dirt tracker. I mean going, well, hey, you'd want to slip that thing off or start in second or do something different. Right. You knew you had that problem the day before it was worse rain overnight and you guys didn't do a damn thing to fix it.

It just, I couldn't, I couldn't figure it out. I'm like, how? You've opened up a can of worms here, man. Please go ahead. Well, let's cast our minds back to, oh, golly now is it 2004, 2005 Qatar with Rossi out on a scooter.

Yeah. Okay. So there's that precedent in terms of they can't really run anything. You can't clean the track. I, I, I'm a hundred percent behind that one.

You are where you are. My, my bitch is Ducati didn't in my mind, maybe they did, but to mine, just, they didn't seem to try to reprogram anything. Well, I would point your attention to Mark Marquez in Austria last week, the weekend before where his front ride height device or the what you call it, the whole shot device didn't engage. And the simple fact that that was not correct meant that he just sank into the mid pack off the start. So I mean, there is just no room for any deviation from the norm is there.

And again, cause I'd listened to the race podcast over the last couple of days, the guys on there were saying that on the Saturday on the sprint, it looked as if Bagnar just had wheelspin cause of dirt on the track. And that that might have in the same way that Joachim Martin had a very similar thing happen in Qatar last November, which he kind of blamed Michelin for, but he had a massive kind of wheelspin off the track. And it kind of did something to the tire that meant that it took a while for that to work its way out or to rectify itself, let's say. Simon Patterson pointed out that on the Sunday morning, I think it was Alex Crivier was doing some demo laps on the NSR 500 and might have been going down the inside of the track to stay off the racing line. And that might have put some other stuff on the track that caused a different problem in terms of the wheelspin that Bagnar had.

And I can't say this with any great certainty because like most of us, I was watching Bagnar off position three on the grid at the start. I don't know if anybody else say in sixth or ninth or 12th, I, the other people on the inside, but further back on the grid, if they had massive wheelspin problems, but I certainly was aware that Bagnar did. So I don't know. I just wonder if it was just one of those kind of perfect storms of everything that happened on the track. It was just one of those kind of perfect storms of everything going wrong for Bagnar this weekend.

You know, and it's just a bit of an outlier kind of weekend and he just has to chalk it down to experience. I mean, obviously things will get worse in the race as we'll come to in a minute. He just has to move on to his home run, but I strongly suspect he will pick up a lot of points and get back to normal. What do you get for a sprint? Do you get 12 for a sprint?

So 24 plus 50 is 72. Yeah, I wouldn't put it past it anyway. He will score a lot of points in, unless something really old happens. I mean, whether, who knows, likely is it, but no, not this time of year. Anyway, so Marquez has that whole shot.

Bagnar's got the wheelspin. So it's basically Marquez, it's a cost, it's Alex Marquez, Martine, who had some trouble getting offline, then Morbidele, Olivera and Benyaya. Benyaya is seventh. Okay. So Olivera goes down to turn 16.

Not sure why again, bad TV direction. We never did see that crash that happened. Then Martine and Acosta go after each other at the course group. And they're both sort of like after each other. They're off the track a little bit.

They're like, you can tell that they're trying to tiptoe around each other and not really fall off because they know that they're not on the line and tires are going to be dirty and everything. But Martine does get by and that puts Martine in second, puts Acosta in third. So it's like, well, okay, maybe Acosta is going to get a podium finish out of this, which would be very nice to see. But Alex Marquez would get by Acosta. And in fact, Acosta would start to go backwards at this point.

And while Toraro would fall off at turn five, which let's understand that is an incredibly difficult corner. That is probably one of the trickiest corners of any MotoGP corner on any of the circuits we currently race on. Because you're carrying a very high amount of speed out of four, heading to five. You're on the side of the tire and you're required to brake and downshift at the same time. And you're going left.

So it's your feet are not where they really want them to be either. And on a track that was like ice because of the conditions we run, that turn was insanely hard and incredibly difficult in the first part. That was one of the things when I was road racing I could never ever do correctly was to be going left and then have a very short amount of time to straighten the bike, downshift or whatever, and go left again. Incredibly difficult. Never could figure it out.

But that's why I did what I did and why I sit here now because I couldn't figure that out. Don't be too hard on yourself, sir. Well, there's a lot of things that I think after I started watching MotoGP and listening to engines and tactics, a lot of things that I wish I would have known then, now, kind of a thing that it would be, you know, hey, I can do this. But anyway, it's all water. Yeah.

As an extremely mediocre motorcycle rider on the roads in the UK, which the roads in the UK are bloody terrible in terms of potholes and crap on them. But the degree to which these riders brake on the side of the tire into turns all the way to the apex and then crack open the throttle. I know they've got a lot of electronics and stuff, but God, that's hard to do. I mean, you touch a brake on a bike when you're on the turn and it just wants to sit up. So, I mean, just the physical strength and the, yeah, hats off to these guys.

And the fact that more people didn't turn at the turn, sorry, crash at turn five as Quattrora did, is just amazing to me because, you know, that is, as you say, that is one of the probably one of the trickiest turns on the whole calendar. And anyone that rides a bike and has kind of spooked themselves in a turn and suddenly hit the brake by accident or as a reaction to something. And it's the worst thing you can possibly do. You just have to lean harder because the grip is there. But yeah, it's just phenomenal to me that what these guys managed to do.

And I don't even have the first clue as to what they're doing because they are, as you said earlier on, the elite of the elite. So, yeah, it's amazing that you don't see more crashes. Yeah, I was amazed at how crash free it actually was, to be honest. Yeah, but Alex Marquez would move his way to third. Morbidelli was, you know, sort of gaining on Acosta with Benya and, you know, Morbidelli would go wide at five and then Benya would go back to fifth because of Bender there.

Well, then Alex Marquez starts to slide back and we had a pretty good battle for fourth. That was between Acosta and Benya. It was good racing. They were trying each other. Acosta goes wide at 16 and Benya goes by.

Then Benya is catching, you know, Alex Marquez for third. And then, you know, we got 10 to go and it's Mark Marquez, it's Martin, it's Alex. So everybody's talking, hey, another podium for the brothers. You know, this time it's in Spain and da da da da. And Benya is next, you know, he's running fourth and Acosta and Bender.

And then, you know, again, there's a gap here, right? Like Alex Marquez is starting to go backwards slightly. Benya is starting to put it together and he's coming forward. But with seven to go, Benya was actually on Alex Marquez. And then we get to six to go and we get to turn 12.

Now you come out of the reverse corkscrew at nine, 10 is this left-hander followed by 11, which is nothing more than lean the bike over and go through it. It's kind of like road America with the carousel out of the carousel and through the kink. The kink is a turn, but it really isn't a turn kind of a thing. And then Alex just goes wide. He just makes the mistake.

Difficult conditions again. So he makes a mistake. He runs wide. He's starting to come back on, but Benya stays online is underneath of him. Alex then come the two of them as they, as Benya exits on the correct racing line, as Alex is trying to come back onto the correct racing line, the two of them just bang into each other.

And then they get tangled together. Both of them go down. And the scary part is Benya is actually under Alex's bike for pretty good distance as they topple off into the gravel trap. Then it's like, wow, this is now carnage because now we have Benya out of this race and is Benya injured because he stayed in the gravel trap for a long time before he moved. I didn't think he was gravely injured.

It wasn't like, oh, is it like a rainy thing where his back was broken or something like that? I didn't think that. I just thought maybe a foot peg may have got him. I was expecting a puncture wound of some kind or something like that just based on how they went into the gravel together. But Benya eventually did come to his feet.

He did get himself together. I'm sure he had the wind completely knocked out of him, but he did go to the medical center for checkups. And as far as I know, Benya is just a bruised and battered puppy. And that's really all that he is. But then it was like, okay, well, what's going to happen to Alex Marquez?

These guys were fighting for the same piece of racetrack. Alex basically wasn't in a position where he would be, quote, unsighted. He couldn't see Benya coming for my take. And Benya kind of knew that Alex was out there somewhere because he watched him go off because there was enough distance between the two of them for Benya to actually see that happen. So it's like, okay, I wonder who the stewards are going to point blame to each other.

Well, they declared that one a racing incident. And your reasoning was that difficult track conditions followed by the fact that the two riders were fighting for the same piece of tarmac, resulting in both riders going down and going off the track. So therefore, no further incident, nothing to see here, people move on. Wait a second, Joe Roberts and Vietti are going for, on a difficult track, looking for the same piece of ground. And literally you give Joe Roberts a long life penalty for it.

The two things in my mind don't add up. And that's my opinion on it. And I'm not trying to be fair as an American and Joe is an American. I really didn't see that as any more than good hard racing between the two of them. Just like I can look at what Alex and Benya had as good hard racing and these things happen.

Yet somehow, you know, I really thought for sure that they were not going to let Alex off the hook and that they were going to give him some three grid penalty or something for knocking the world champion down because we seem to like to punish outcomes as opposed to actual incidences in what's there. What's your take on all of this, Rich? Because it is the talking point of this race. Yeah, and it might well end up being the talking point of the season. Let's not forget that, I don't know, Jim, it's a real can of worms, isn't it?

I mean, you might take the view that, as I think I do, that I mean, I think I'm just about on balance the race direction or the stewards rather called the Bagnari and Marquez one correctly, by which I mean they probably called the Robert's Vietti one incorrectly because these things will happen in close combat. I think there is a slight difference, however, in the sense that the Robert's Vietti tangle, I think happened at the end of the back straight, didn't it? Yes. And so you would argue that Robert's was in no way in Piedota unsighted when he made that move on Vietti and they made contact and Vietti went off. It didn't crash, neither of them crashed, but it did cost Vietti time.

So I can sort of see why Robert's caught the long lap for that. I think the Bagnari, Alex Marquez one is a bit different. I mean, first of all, Alex Marquez didn't go off the track. He went wide, but he only went onto the curb. So he didn't go off the track and he obviously didn't look behind him.

So he didn't know how close behind him Bagnari was. So Marquez did what any rider would do in that situation. And he got back online as quickly as he could. And he went for the apex of the next turn. Bagnari saw the opportunity and went for the outside move as he would do.

And there was no quarter given by either rider. So what was interesting to me was if you looked at it from the front view versus the rear view, you would take a completely different opinion on the crash. Because on one view, it kind of really looked as if Marquez just kind of almost deliberately rode into him. Whereas from the other perspective, it kind of looked like, well, maybe they were both slightly unsighted and they were just going for it. You know, because they're in a race.

I mean, that's what they do. So I personally, after thinking about it a lot, because I knew we were going to be talking about this one a fair bit, I genuinely do think it was a 50-50 job. And at the end of the day, they both fell off. You can argue about the fact that the stewards kind of go after outcomes rather than intent. And because both of them fell off, they both kind of popped a penalty.

I mean, Bagnari was extraordinarily lucky not to get badly injured. Well, and Marquez, because Marquez actually had a pretty nasty tumble himself. So he was lucky not to be injured. Bagnari with the bike on top of him, particularly with the rear wheel as close to his head as it was. I mean, had that tire kind of interacted with his crash helmet, given the friction that a tire would give when it's spinning on a crash, that doesn't really bear thinking about it.

So overall, I think once you kind of get over the fandom aspects of this in terms of who you support, who you don't, the fact that both of them walked away relatively unscathed is kind of the big win out of this. And who pops a penalty, who doesn't is kind of ultimately not that big of a deal. But Bagnari, again, he lost a lot of points, didn't he, there? And he was certainly going to get third. And it was just unfortunate what happened.

But I just do think it was a racing incident. Yeah, I completely agree. If you're going to be really, really kind of pointed about it, I'd say possibly 55, 60% Alex Marquez and Bagnari, possibly slightly the innocent party in both of it. But Bagnari could well have predicted in full view of what was going on in front of him, that Alex Marquez would go for the corner. So I think for me that makes it a 50-50.

And I think the stewards got that one correct. I agree. This one was correctly called Buster's. I can argue that the Roberts one is not correct by the stewards. But it is what it is.

It is racing. And these things happen. This is sort of kind of smacks of Benyaya escaping from Catalonia, having been hit by Brad Bender and not having only a deep bruise on his thigh or his lower leg or whatever. It's sort of the same thing. Benyaya has a very bad crash that he then is very lucky to have escaped any kind of an injury too.

So it's like, well, hmm, okay, I guess Benyaya's going to have one crash per year where he almost gets injured to be able to carry on to win a championship because it's that way. But that's the incident. But now it's what you expect then is the fact that Marc Marquez wins. It's 1,043 days since his last victory in a MotoGP race, not a sprint. Let's be clear about that.

Martín rides home to second, which was good on him, which now he has a 23-point lead in the world championship. Acosta gets a podium sort of by luck, but he did ride the ship. You've got to give Acosta credit. He did go backwards. He ride at the ship.

He got back in it. And he kind of used Benyaya as a tool to help him get further up, which is what a smart rider would do. Bender then is the second KTM to cross the line. Then Bastianini, Modelli, Bizecki, DG Antonio, Rens, Aleix, Takenakagami, Augusto Fernández, Zarca with a 13th, Mir with a 14th, and Miller 15th. I don't know what happened to Jack because he was never on the screen, but that is the race.

That takes us to the championship. Now Martín is on 299. As I said, he is 23 points ahead of Benyaya. We're going to Benyaya's backyard. Yeah, I don't see Martín winning anything there, but at worst, if everything were to play out, I think you'd only have five, you'd gain eight points a race.

So even if Martín finished second both times, it'd be 16 points that he would get essentially gain on Martín. So it's going to cut it down to essentially, he was 16, seven, seven point championships or something, some point, 17 points. Something like that. This one's going all the way to the end. This one is going to be to the very end.

Oh yeah, I think this one's going to. I think there's going to be a lot of back and forth that's going to happen here as we head through it. But Marquez, as in Mark, now is on only 70 points shy of the leader. He leaped over Bastianini, who had that good run of form there for a smidge by one point. And then Acosta is now fifth in the championship.

He's the best KTM because he's ahead of Binder. Then Vinales, Aleix, it's weird that Vinales is ahead of Aleix, but he is. Then Digiantonio and then Alex Marquez is 10th in the championship. A wacky and crazy race just because total elation because Marquez won. I mean, this is one of the greatest comebacks in motorcycling history.

It's on that George Foreman, Tyson, not Foreman. Who was it? You said Richard Tyson? Mahabad Ali, George Foreman. Ali Foreman fight.

It's in that vein. I propose that it's in the same vein as Mick Duhan having almost lost his leg, almost lost his right leg to come back and win five titles on the trot. But you could make the argument that Marquez's competitors are vastly more talented than what Duhan's title challengers were at the time. The 500s were a nasty beast and it took a special person to ride them. And it did take a special person, even though again, Crevier was 99 world champion some 25 years ago, but also doing Broky's shoulder too at that time.

So it took Crevier basically three and a half years to figure out how to ride a 500 as fast as Duhan did. So I don't know. It's a phenomenal thing that Marquez had the problem he had with his arm. I mean, good grief, they rotated the bone 30 degrees and put it back together again and he's won a MotoGP race. It is an ominous shot across the bow of Vignaya, of look buddy, if I get on the same bike you have, you're going to have me to deal with as well as Martin.

And that's going to be wild. Although Martin being on an Aprilia is going to really throw a wrench in things next year. So this is just mouthwatering to say the least. I know we've got to wrap this up, James. I'll be brief.

I mean, I admire Mark Marquez. I've always been very clear of the fact that I've never been a huge Mark Marquez fan. I mean, I'm not really a huge fan of anybody in particular. I kind of like Alex Ransom the most, but I don't know why just probably because of the Suzuki thing going back in the wilds. But what I particularly admire about Mark Marquez as well as his kind of coming back from that injury, which let's be honest, that was a career ending injury and it would have put most people out permanently.

So his, you know, his will to win and to continue is really impressive. But not only that, I mean, and this is what for me distinguishes him from most other riders is that he kind of, he went through that incredibly difficult period with Honda when he came back, which kind of culminated in that famous sort of Saxon ring, Nadir or whatever you want to call it last July, August, whenever it was. And from there, he kind of bought himself out of his contract. Okay, you can quite rightly say he could easily afford to do it, but he's jumped on another bike and an inferior bike in terms of its specification because we know the GP23 is way, way behind the 24. It's way behind the 23 that ended last season.

And he has now won on it and he's got himself the plum position in the work squad for next year. So it's kind of like tick, tick, tick, all the way along in terms of job done for him. So as much as I kind of find some of his tactics and some of his behavior, I mean, what the whole kind of putting his crash on and dancing to the DJ on the podium thing is about, don't get me started on that. I just find that kind of, I don't know how to describe it really, just kind of like, just cheese inducing kind of cringe levels for me, but that's because of my age, I suppose I'm just out of tune. But putting all that to one side, he's a phenomenal competitor and a phenomenal kind of physical kind of, yeah, I don't know how to describe it really, but it is up for me, it is genuinely up there with the whole Ali Foreman thing, that kind of comeback story against the odds.

It's phenomenal what he's done, you know, and nobody should underestimate it. And if he jumped, if that 25 Ducati is anywhere close to what we suspect it will be, and it will be good, let's be honest, because you know, Ducati are just kind of like honing in on these this current set of regulations. He's going to be hard to contain next year. He does crash a fair bit, but he wins a lot when he's on form, and he's coming back on to form. So next year is going to be crazy.

The only other thing I will say, Jim, before we close this thing out is Aprilia. What the hell happened to Aprilia? I mean, I'm surprised we've not had an email from Gary this week, because I mean, Maverick parked it up in the race. That's how bad things were. Now, we know the Aprilia loves high grip.

And we were the absolute opposite of high grip this weekend in Aragon. There was no grip whatsoever. But it was just a horror show for Aprilia. So I don't know what to say really. I mean, I've got Maverick still on my fantasy team.

Bit of a mistake really, because I'm just hemorrhaging points as a result of that. So yeah, Gary, write in, give it both barrels because you've got all the justification to do so at the minute. But yeah, it was an interesting weekend. Yeah, I think you said it all correctly. I agree with you 100%.

It is phenomenal to watch this. Next year will be probably even more phenomenal to see what happens. Looking forward to the double at Misano and see where that all shapes up. Given the fact that it's tight and twisty, I kind of give, and Marques has that boost to having one, you got to think he's going to be in the mix, at least in the podium somewhere. The question is, can he run interference for Benya and take Martine?

Don't know. It's going to be interesting to watch. It's going to be great fun for the weekend there. I think that's it for the show, Rich. Write us in as Jacob has at motopod at motopodcast.com.

You can connect with Rich at Richard Jowd on Instagram, threads, Twitter, X, whatever the kids are calling it today. I'm at MoodaRGV, same three things. With that, I will remind you all to ride safe.