Misano Review: More Marquez Magic & The Race Of The Season

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 778.

I'm Jim McDowell here in the US. Please Richard Jellett in the UK. Rich, different racing this weekend. A boring race. A dramatic bonkers crazy race.

A boring race to catch your breath on. And then a drama slash very odd slash weird slash uncharacteristic race. Good summary Jim. Yeah, I think that just about captures it. We're going to obviously talk about it in a bit of detail, but there's really, well, two races to talk about in detail, isn't there?

Yes, I think there are really only two of them that are in detail. So let's get into the news first and get what little news that has come out of racing from the previous weekend here. I don't think this is a great surprise, although I think some people on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, were somewhat shocked. But the Rebsol Honda agreement has now, they've now divorced. And so we will not have an HRC backed Rebsol motorcycle.

I mean, I think that I saw that coming. I was like, they weren't doing anything. So it was like, you knew it was going to have to go somewhere. And I'm not sure that we know exactly where Rebsol is going at this point in time. Is it going to show up on another set of bikes in the paddock?

That's possible, but I highly doubt it. I think this relationship of Rebsol with MotoGP has come to its conclusion. I think they're done and I think they're going to go somewhere else and do something else. I thought they would have stayed just because of the idea of the carbon neutral fuels that are coming in 2027 that they would have wanted to stay and they would have wanted to do the research and the technology that goes with that. But doesn't mean they couldn't do it somewhere else or do it for car racing.

But like Dennis Noyes, it ludes me now on Twitter, but they're all just sort of like seemingly shocked by it all. Were you shocked, Rich? I'm not shocked by the news. I think everybody knew it was coming. It's just a bit of a shocking thing to have happened, I suppose, really.

It wasn't a big surprise. I mean, if you look at the HRC bikes this year, they already had massively scaled back Rebsol signage on the fairings anyway. So I think most people kind of knew this was coming. Like you, Jim, I'm a little bit surprised if they don't hang around somewhere in the paddock, although obviously a lot of the MotoGP, well, all of the MotoGP teams elsewhere will have long term oil and fuel deals in place, no doubt. So it's not that Rebsol could just choose to go and sponsor somebody else.

I would imagine contractually that might be a bit difficult, whether they might show up a bit more. I don't know. Do Rebsol have any links with Moto2 or Moto3? I can't think of having seen any. No, I can't think of any.

So whether that might be an option, as you say, it is slightly curious with the EcoFuel and so on coming down the line. But as you say, they could just as well do that in any form of car racing. But I mean, Rebsol has been synonymous with the sport for so long. You know, things don't last absolutely forever. So I guess, you know, it was always going to come to an end at some stage.

So in that sense, it's not really a big shock. What is interesting now is what do HRC do? I mean, do they effectively just run the bike as an HRC outfit because they can surely afford to do that? Or do they go chasing down another big title sponsor? I think they probably will find that quite hard, given their performances at the moment.

They're probably better off just concentrating on addressing that rather than worrying too much about the money, although, of course, MotoGP is a very costly business. Yes, I think it's been exactly 20 years because I believe Rebsol came in in 95 because that's correct. Do it on the in 94 was an HRC bike. And I still contest that that is one of the most beautiful motorcycles that Honda has ever made as far as a paint scheme. I just truly love that bike, that bike's paint scheme.

Yeah. That the year after that, they had Crevier teaming with doing and then that's sort of the Spanish connection. And here comes Rebsol. And it was always about the orange wheels for roughly 24 years long. Yeah.

And now we're not going to see you. Knowing orange wheels will be on KTMs. Well, actually, they're Navy wheels. So yeah, I think it's like anything can change. Although, you know, I hate to say this, but, man, I don't like the idea of gas gas going away and it being a, you know, K to KTM teams.

Right. I just wish they would keep gas gas, but they would. I wish they would flip the color scheme where the bike is red, make it white and make gas gas red. I see. I think it'd be a stunning color scheme.

Anyway, I'm not the guy who's doing sponsored the team. I'll let Pierre ability or all this sub brand stuff kind of irritates me a little bit on one sense. But now we've got used to saying gas gas is kind of settled with me now. And now they're changing it again. It's a pain, isn't it?

But anyway, it is people get paid an awful lot more money than we do. Make these sorts of decisions. So I guess they've got reasoning behind this somewhere. That is true. There is still no official word on Miller to Pramak Yamaha, although I think we all believe it's a done deal.

That's the final spot available in MotoGP is by my recollection. It is indeed. Yes. It's just curious that that hasn't been announced yet, because I can't really see why it would be getting held up. I don't imagine there's anything on the KTM side contractually that would be an issue given they elected to let Jack go.

So you do wonder if there's a little bit more going on behind the scenes there to delay it, because obviously I can't remember. Did we talk about this last time out or possibly even you and Skyler two shows ago about the Oliveira is official there now. So that one we know. And as you say, I'm pretty sure this is the last seat that's available. Yeah, no, I don't.

I don't know why this is taking so long, but there's there's something brewing in that one. I was trying to think if Miller has a personal sponsorship deal that may be affecting it. That's what I'm thinking. Red Bull is obviously one of the major backers, and he's had Red Bull behind him for quite some years, hasn't he? I think that Jack.

So, I mean, obviously we don't know what the overall sponsorship and commercial package behind the Pramette Yamaha will be because Monster sponsored the main team. So whether sponsor would want some involvement, perhaps. But then again, I think Oliveira not a Red Bull. Yeah, he's got Red Bull on his helmet. That's for sure.

So, yeah, I don't get it. There's something going on. Yes, very much so. We found out for sure that, well, we knew Joel Kelso was leaving Boi Motorsport. We knew he was going to level up early on.

Like we knew that after shortly after Koda, I think that was announced, which was really bizarre that that came out so early. But I guess we really didn't know who his teammate was going to be. Well, that's going to be Bertelli. He's going to the level up squad for Moto3. We know that David Alonso has a Moto2 contract.

Yeah, he's going up with Aspar to Moto2. Yeah, he essentially takes Jake Dixon's spot. Although question marks about whether Ivan Rivera stays put in that squad, because he hasn't had a very good two years or nearly two years, has he? Since he let's not forget, won the Moto3 championship. So proving once again that winning the Moto3 championship is no guarantee of success in Moto2.

No. But having said all of that, I mean, Alonso, despite the race that we're going to talk about in the minute, is nailed on certainty. I would say touchwood for the Moto3 championship this year, and I would imagine that he'll be a kind of Pedro Costa ish person on a Moto2 bike. But you never know. It can be something that stops people in their tracks for a year or two or permanently in some cases.

I point you at the sad case of Lorenzo Della Porta, for example. How about Denis Foggia? Denis Foggia. Yeah, there's many, many, many people that have not made the grade. You could argue on you and you can argue it both ways.

You can say, look, the kids only been there for a year. Or you could also argue it like, no, there's not the flashes of brilliance that you saw from, say, a Pedro Acosta. But on to has been, he tends to be injured quite a bit. And we saw he had a fantastic racing podium, didn't he? Got third place at Aragon last time out.

But that's been very much against the general run of form. And he's doing what most people seem to do, which is go up, have a half a year to a year kind of adapting because they spent so long on the small bike. And then you would hope that in the tricky second year, things really start to come together. Now, Pedro Acosta obviously did something quite different to that. And he was fast right out of the gates and then broke his leg midway through his first season, which kind of could tell what might might even have been a championship charge at that point.

And then obviously comprehensively won the championship in year two. So, yeah, Alonso is going to be interesting to watch. Last thing out of Moto GP is that American Joe Roberts is going to stay with the American racing team in Moto two. So that concludes Moto GP news. The let's talk a little bit about Walter Black.

I did not know this one until you had what apt me this morning was the massive crash that top rack had at Magni Corp. And if you haven't watched it, this is a very, very lucky boy to get away with this one. So they're heading to what the fast, the very fast, slightly downhill right hander that leads to what the last three turns on the track is you got a right and a right, then a left onto the main stretch. Yeah. So they come through what's called Chateau D'Eau, which is sort of the top and sort of two thirds of the way around.

And then they plummet down. It was actually a left turn Jim down into that very heartbreaking little kind of go karty bit over the chicane onto the main straight. So I shared it with you, not because I was looking to glorify crash, because we don't like to do that sort of thing. That wasn't really the purpose. The purpose of sharing it really was it was a miraculous escape for him.

And it did highlight the parts of the track and barriers that are considered to be not a problem suddenly can become a problem. You know, it's a little bit like what we saw in Austria a few years ago with the Morbideli's Arco crash, where obviously we know what unfolded there. And luckily nobody was killed. But, you know, top rack hit the barrier, which had a tire protection on it, but it certainly didn't have any model. They call it my offense and rectal fence.

What are you calling it simply because I don't know that anybody has hit that barrier before I mean, they may have done, but certainly not that I can think of. And it just goes to show that these bikes are traveling so fast. And if you have an odd crash like he did, I mean, I think trouble with top rack. This is a classic case of a guy who hasn't lost a race since. I think it's something bizarre like May in World Superbike.

I mean, he's been absolutely untouchable. And he went out on, I think the hard front tire is about his. I think it was his first lap out in practice two on Friday. I just pushing like hell because his confidence is actually sky high on that BMW. And the thing just let go on him because it's super unusual for top rack to crash.

I mean, he given what he can do and the control that he has on a bike, he hardly ever comes off. And yeah, so he slid across the grass. Luckily, didn't go in head first because that one doesn't bear thinking about it. But he did strike the barrier or the edge of the bar, the end of the barrier, kind of in his midsection. And everybody was immediately kind of worried that he, you know, critically injured himself because he must have hit the barrier at a good 50, 60 miles an hour, I think.

The result of it all, as most people probably do know, I mean, I've been following. I always follow World Superbikes and it's absolutely fantastic. Arguably better than MotoGP in terms of the race in this year. In fact, not arguably, I think it is without any question. But he had a collapsed lung and that's about the extent of his injuries.

And he was back in the paddock the following day, walking around very gingerly and holding his side. But he was out celebrating with Michael Vandermark, his teammate, who won race one on the Saturday. So the fact that he hasn't, you know, broken ribs, punctured spleens, God knows what, you know, can happen in an accident like that is a testament to the safety equipment that he was wearing. Forgive me, I can't think what brand of leathers he wears, but just very, very lucky, really. And it does go to show that as these bikes keep getting quicker, barriers get closer and it doesn't take much for something to suddenly look like a big problem.

And I'll be interested to see what they do with that barrier next year. I think they did sort of direct some temporary better protection around it. But I shouldn't be surprised if that barrier has been moved well out of the way come next year, because Marnie Court is actually a great track. I'd love to see MotoGP bikes, though, but it's probably too sketchy for MotoGP. No, I think not that they've ever raced them.

Obviously, it was a Formula One track in its original inception, if you remember back in the early to mid 90s. I think it kind of came around. It's in the middle of nowhere as a pet project of President Francois Mitterrand, I believe, because he was from that area. So loads of money got spent there. And it is a great facility.

And the World Super is always put out some good racing. But as we all say, not without its risks. You're right. They're going to do the barrier. We move somewhere or it's going to be airbagged or something is going to happen.

Thank God he went in the way that he did. His body had spawned just a few more degrees. It would have been a very different story, which is, again, nothing to think about. Again, it's just it's the fact that, look, we are going really fast at places that maybe we shouldn't be going really fast at without some sort of work to be done. That was kind of one of the things that really killed the Gunaseca was just how close the walls were to where they were racing, because it might have been Stoner on that year he raced HRC and won the title that literally going over the what is the first turn is essentially just a kink at the Gunaseca, but it's extremely quick.

And I think both tires are off. We're off the ground for Stoner most laps. I mean, if anything go wrong, the wall was not he wasn't really going to stop instantly. You were going into a wall and a wall that had nothing legitimately in front of it. So that's one of the things is like if you I remember, as you said, many cores formula one track in the 90s and I remember the formula one car is hitting like, what is it?

The first turn is to the left and then there's a big sweeping right. Yeah, leads to essentially like a back straight away or a very, very long straight section or maybe there's a kink to it. I can't remember. Yeah, that's exactly right. That formula one cars would spin and they smash into that concrete wall.

And I'm like, well, formula cars are getting there like bikes are going to get there, too. And then you to prove the point that the walls are really close. The you said it was a super sport rider in the rain, having the mother of all tank slappers somehow gets through the grass, gets through up. Was it a brake marker like a foam brake marker or an advertising hoarding or something? Yeah, goes through that still on the bike and then sort of shoulders himself off of the off the concrete wall and keeps on going, which was a save of a decade right there.

Yeah, that was Adrian Huertas. That was, yeah, he's I think I do watch the Super Sport Racing, but I don't follow it quite to the extent I know who's wearing the championship. I'm pretty sure he's championship leader. So, yeah, I mean, it was wet. So I suppose in that case, you're going a bit slower, but you are more likely to have a near high side like he did, which sent him over to that edge of the track and then over towards the wall.

But yes, it's getting sketchy, that track. And again, as you said, Jim, probably is one where the amount of investment that would be needed to move those walls back to 10 or 20 feet, even if that's possible. It just probably wouldn't be justifiable because I don't know that they have an awful lot of international motorsport going on at Manny Corp these days. Certainly, the F1 race is long, long gone. So I'd be sad to see Manny Corp drop off the World Superbike Canada, because I say it's great venue that generally produces some really, really good racing, particularly for one of your fellow compatriots, Garrett Gerloff, who had a pretty good weekend this weekend.

He did manage to get a podium. Yeah, thankfully, Top Rep was not seriously injured in that one. They do have, I think they said five races in six weekends coming up or four races in five weekends. It's quite a busy run into the final round in Haereth, which I think is in the back end of October time. So it's not a great time for him to have got injured.

But assuming that this long repairs itself reasonably quickly, he doesn't get an infection or something like that, then I would imagine he'll be back, hopefully taking it a little bit easier on the outlapped next time out. All right. Well, now it's time to move on to very sad news. Yeah, Nori Haga, the samurai of slide himself, his second oldest son, Ryoto, passed away following an accident at the All Japan 600 series in Otollopolis track. I've never heard of that particular track at all.

And that was from I got pulled out from a tweet that was from that Neil Hodgson had retweeted. I can't think of the person who actually tweeted that. And that is a sad, sad, sad story right there. Well, and again, just going to prove what we were just saying, which is that motor racing and motor cycle racing in particular is very, very dangerous and just goes to show what great strides have been made to make it less dangerous. But again, we're not glorifying it as the fact.

Well, any any death in sport of any sort is a tragedy. But obviously, Nori Haga being the legend that he is, that one has gone kind of viral through social media. Well, for all the wrong reasons, of course, but very, very sad. And obviously, we pass all condolences to everybody concerned. So that BSB is at Ollong Park this weekend.

You going, Rich? I'm thinking about it. But like you, I'm getting absolutely screwed to work at the minute. So I might not be able to afford the time because it's a massive four hour drive each way for me, Jim. Oh, yeah, I know.

Four hours, Rich. I don't know how you could. I don't know how. Look at him weeping. And it's notable, though, because actually, we don't have the showdown in BSB anymore.

That is gone. Oh, really? As of this year. But what they are doing is they are from Alton Park. We have Alton, then Donnington, and then we finish up at Brands Hatch, as is traditionally the case.

And what happens from this weekend is that the points increase for the various finishing positions. So it's not the showdown where only the top six or top eight, as it was, I think, go through and then their points are kind of all put up to 500 points. So it was like a weird odds system, which I never really liked, if I'm honest. So to keep it kind of a little bit jazzy. Yeah, I forget what the exact points for say for a win is, but it goes from 25 to, I don't know, say 35 or something like that.

So it's kind of the jeopardy of not finishing well in these last three rounds kind of increases in this new kind of pseudo showdown format. That's probably a better idea than resetting everybody to 500 points or whatever. I kind of like the idea that a win is worth more points now. I only know MotoGP's point structure. So, you know, it's 25, 20, 16, I think.

Yeah, same in BSP. OK, so that being the case, if you win, you get 35. So you get like an additional 10, but nobody else gets 10 more, right? I think all of the positions do pay a bit more, but you get more points the higher up you are, if you know what I mean. So as in a greater extra amount of points.

I don't quote me on it being 35. It's something like that. I mean, I'm very old fashioned. I'm a traditionalist, I'm afraid. I just prefer it when it's a straightforward, you know, a wins a win.

You get the same amount of points, whether you do it on a Saturday, a Sunday, Christmas day, whatever it is. It's just you get your points and it's just as simple as that. The whole thing, the whole showdown was a reaction or an overreaction. Neegert reaction to and I can't remember which year it was. Well, after the massive financial crash happened, there's basically one kind of fully semi fully factory supported team.

It was the Airwaves Yamaha team at that point and Leon Kamil won the championship. Well, James Ellison was his teammate that year and gave him a run for it. But the championship was over about halfway through the season. So that's why they brought the showdown system in to prevent that from ever happening again. But in the year or two after the big kind of financial crash had happened, the teams and the support started to come back anyway.

So it was always competitive. So I think it it kind of was an overreaction to a problem that was bad in the year that it happened, but it didn't really replicate. So I'm glad that they've moved away from that now, although it's still playing around with the format a bit too much for my liking. But then I'm old fashioned and grumpy when it comes to that sort of thing. I never did like the playoff idea that they did in race, strip or bike.

They do the same thing in NASCAR here in America with tin top racing and all that. And I agree, it's a championship is won over the long haul of what's there. I am an old fuddy duddy, but I don't want to be an old fuddy duddy. Oh, I do. I love it.

I mean, I get the idea of drama. And I do not like manufactured drama, but I do somewhat like this idea that if you were to and just use the example MotoGP instead of like, hey, at the last three races, you don't get 25, 20, 16. You get 35, 20, and you get that because somebody who's far back gets on a little hot streak. They may not have enough to actually get by the people that are riding consistent. But while it gives you something to talk to, it will do that.

It'll be interesting to see what happens as BSP kind of runs its conclusion over the next few weeks. Yeah, I'm going to be really interested in this. Yeah, and we'll see what effect. I mean, somebody with a bit more kind of spreadsheet mathematics skill than me will have to sort of play out what might have happened had it been a conventional scoring system as compared to what is actually going to happen. Obviously, we don't know what's going to happen yet.

It's been quite varied, the winning kind of people in BSP, as always, one person hasn't been running away with it. So there's plenty to play for. And this obviously does up the jeopardy in terms of making sure you must finish and you must finish well now, which was basically always the case with the showdown as well. But yeah, it's going to be interesting. But I'd say I'm a little bit kind of ambivalent about the whole thing.

But I'm interested to know what people think. Do you prefer just a straight championship pays the same points every round? Or do you like this kind of bit of extra jeopardy towards the end in terms of making sure you finish and finish well? Yep, right in. I mean, Bernie Ecclestone famously wanted to award double points and medals and God knows what.

Yeah. I think there was one race, it might be an Abitabi one year in Formula One where they did. They had double points. Yeah, but it was universally unpopular, I think. Right.

And they never repeated it. So BSP is kind of going out on a bit of a limb again with this one. So I like this one, though I do. You had to have worked for it to be in the position that you're in. But boy, if you had one or two mulligans, now you got a shot again.

It's intriguing. I like it. We'll see how it goes. Ryan Vickers is a great example, Jim. He's been very good all year.

He's been injured a little bit. And then at Cadwell Park, I mean, he was just monumentally quick, but he went back to what people rather uncharitably called Ryan Vickers version one, which was unbelievably fast and then just throwing it at the scenery. I wouldn't say for no good reason, because you got to ride fast to be out front leading a race and winning races. But he just kind of crashed his way through the whole weekend. And so if he could get back onto some good form in these last few rounds, he's exactly the sort of guy that will get back into the championship fight rather quickly.

And it kind of gives you a little bit of a what would you call it? A let or a get out of jail card, I suppose, this system. So, yeah, looking forward to seeing what happens. All right. So let us know what you think about these point championships and how they're constructed.

You can do it right to us. Motopod at motopodcast.com. With that, let's talk about the listener feedback that we had from Leson. I'll take Chris's email. I'll let you run with Gary's because you seem to like Gary's emails when they show up.

I personally I thought his was hilarious, but it was all. Let's talk about Chris Boyce and he called he writes in as a good evening, fellows, thinking about this when you were all were discussing the 2025 lineup and the lack of a fourth Ducati on the grid. I can't help but think that Gigi is possibly a few steps ahead and is already planning for 2027. We all know these bikes cost a fortune to build. And if there's one less 2025 bike to worry about, the money could be allocated towards 2027 budget, potentially getting a massive head start on the production.

Well, everyone else continues to build four factory bikes. It could be a way to prolong their dominance or I could be 457 percent wrong. But knowing how innovative Gigi is, this wouldn't surprise me. Any thoughts on that one? So I wrote back to Chris and I said, look, I don't think it's necessarily a monetary issue that's causing them to keep the fourth bike off the grid.

I think with their deal with Audi as the sponsor of the team, I think they have more than enough cash with Levin as well to to build that fourth bike. What I personally think that it is, is that it's a personnel slash resource issue that they have. They just don't have a big team of people. To take care of it all. I mean, yeah, it is not the size of Honda, but it is not the size of a Priora either.

Right. It's probably in that Yamaha-esque level of people who are there. Yeah. And you go, OK, well, all right, if you got slightly less people, you know, hey, that means if you got one less bike you got to build, you can dedicate a couple of those guys who were used to having to build the 2025 bike. Hey, maybe they're building now a test mule that they want to test different aerodynamic settings and what they need to do with these very reduced aerodynamics that we have and frame geometries that Gigi may be wanting to test based on the fact that you don't have shape shifting bikes anymore.

Right. So going down that path, I think that's where Ducati actually is like, Hey, look, we can devote some manpower over here to doing these other things. The other thing is I think that everybody is still in the CAD world right now for their 2027 bike. They're getting they're starting to get to a finalized design, I think, in CAD and in the engineering labs. But ideally, those things really aren't going to start to show up till the end of 2025.

First part 26, you're going to start seeing some 27 bikes. But I do think Gigi's got a little jump on everybody by doing this. And I think either they're playing again with just some basic frame geometries to see what they want, as opposed to having the all-WISMO changing bikes that they have, shape shifting bikes. And I think that that's what they're doing is they're just going to use those guys to do a little bit of testing in that direction. So that's what I think about that, Chris.

You've got anything you want to say about that before I answer the second part of Chris's question? I think there's a lot of mileage in what you've surmised there, Jim. That wouldn't be a huge surprise that Gigi's working away and that will be striking fear into the hearts of everybody up and down the pit lane. I don't think if that is the case. I'm still genuinely perplexed by it.

I'm surprised that given what happened with, I mean, very quickly happened. It must be said, and it's true. But what happened with the Pramac thing kind of falling apart with Mark Marquez sort of chucking his spanner into the works. I'm very surprised that VR46 didn't demand two works bikes, just basically to replace what Pramac were getting. Now we know that only one works bike is going into the VR46 for Digi Antonio.

So Morbideli stays on the 24 bike, which I'm sure Morbideli is perfectly happy about that given the progress he appears to be making on it now. But yeah, I'm just genuinely perplexed by the whole thing. I mean, I can't believe they're short of cash. I think actually I already own Ducati. I'm not a sponsor.

I think Ducati is part of that whole group. So yeah, it's a head scratcher, but it certainly makes a lot of sense that they're putting some of the available resource into 2027 because anybody that can do a kind of Honda 2002 on everybody else stands to be winning for the first couple of years, at least I would think. Very much so. All right, Chris, here's the bonus question that he gave. I'll add your opinion on this one too, Rich.

This is Chris says, am I the only one that would love to see motorcycle racing in the Olympics? Production bikes, the fastest from every country. Metal race could be a 20 to 24 bike grid. I could go on and on about this all day. Yeah, I'm all down for an Olympics like that.

I think they could do it sort of like Speedway does it when they have the, what do they call it? The nations, the team championship or the nations world championship where whatever Speedway does because they get essentially like, I think you have four riders from like Australia, four riders from England, four riders from Poland, four riders from Russia, four riders from the US, whatever, right? And they run through that cycle of races as they go through and they're quick, fast and they wind up it's on one night and the best team wins that team's championship. I think you can do something like that at the Olympics. They can be pretty cool, but the question then becomes like, well, what are you going to do?

Are you going to do it as a road race or you can do it as a motocross or are you going to do it as a Speedway event? Are you going to do it as some dirt track event? What are you going to do? Or are you going to do, or do you want to go back and have some hybrid super bikers thing that was done back in the eighties for ABC here in the States, which was partially motocross, partially road race, partially dirt track oval, which was kind of cool as I'll get out. But I mean, I'm not belying my age here by that, but what do you think?

Motorcycles in the Olympics, Rich. Sorry, I'm going into all commudgeon mode again, I'm afraid, but the Olympics, I find totally unwatchable nowadays. For me, the Olympics, the summer Olympics is track and field athletics. I mean, pretty much everything else is, I'm not interested in it. I mean, I can see where some additional exposure, but trouble is there's so much at the Olympics that I don't know how you would get people's attention on it.

To be honest, nevermind all the other practicalities around that already having 20 plus races on the calendar. You know, people might get injured in a battle for a championship and aren't that bothered about a gold medal. I mean, they get gold medals for the sprint. So I see all sorts of problems and I don't see it ever happening. And part of men than else.

The Olympics is such a kind of virtue signaling abomination that they wouldn't want an engine, you know, spewing out emissions involved under any circumstances. So, no, I just, it's a long starter for me. Sorry, I'm cracking up at my. I am. I'm sorry, folks.

I just. Unpleasant turn of mood. No, you make me laugh, Richard. That's what I like about you. You make me laugh.

It's true. I mean, you know, let's think about it. You do have motocross the nations where you put motocross teams together and you do that. I mean, so that is sort of like the Olympics of motorsport. If you want to think of it that way, there used to be.

What was it on Easter Sunday? It was a transatlantic match races between the US and England. And it was over Easter weekend. Yeah. Remember that.

That was some great stuff back in the day. Yeah. And I mean, something like that you could do. But I mean, again, here's the problem. Racing has become way too corporate, has become way too big business that nobody's going to let their star riders show up and race as a team over a three day weekend or whatever it is, it's going to be.

It just isn't going to happen. People used to do that for fun. But in those days, you know, we weren't going all over the world, virtually all of the year. And true riders weren't getting paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on their contracts as it were. So people would jump from series to series, race wherever they needed to race to go and earn a living.

Basically, and I guess the transatlantic challenge paid out pretty good money. I remember it well in the 80s. I mean, you know, Kevin Schwantz coming over and riding production bikes and Wayne Rainey, I think, came over as well. It's where Spencer got his first overseas ride. Right.

He came over in 80 in transatlantic and basically they were riding production bikes, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Very close super bikes. And Spencer pretty much wiped the field. You know, first time he showed up, first time he'd seen these tracks.

He's like, oh, OK, I got this covered. Yeah. Google that in the old YouTuber people 1980 match races. A lot of people do still kind of reminisce about that and wish they could get something like that together again, just as a once a year special kind of thing. But yeah, Olympics.

I'm being a little bit over the top in my reaction to it. But I'm not to say that the people that take part in the Olympics aren't supremely talented and skilled. Of course, they are. They're absolutely elite athletes. Most of them break dancing.

I mean, is that a sport, Jim? Anyway, let's not go down that rabbit hole of woe. I just yeah, unfortunately, it's good idea, I think. But Chris, maybe. Well, I'm not sure it is a good idea, actually, but I definitely wouldn't be up for that.

No. All right. Let's look at what Gary has to say, Rich. All right, Gary. As well as being a bit of a turncoat, he's been listening to the Paddock Pass podcast, although I listen to that one as well, Gary, so it won't be too hard on you.

Much against type, Gary says, I actually have a good word for Maverick. Now, this is not an email we've received before. I don't believe, Jim. Although I think there's a bit of tongue in cheek with this because Gary surmises that Maverick is fed up with the bike, as happens every year in Aragon. And you might argue that Mizano just gone.

He showed a lot of maturity by just riding into the pits rather than trying to break it like he did with the Yamaha a few years ago. Well, that part I read that and I could not stop. Gary, I could not stop laughing for a solid 10 minutes credit because that has to be the funniest thing. Yeah, the funniest thing. He didn't crash the bike on purpose and tried blow it up or anything like that.

So, yeah, no, very, very good. I'm sorry. It strikes me funny. I'm so I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I guess I think it's the funniest thing in the world. Yes, I might be going out on a limb here, but I think Gary might be a touch ironic there. I think there's a lot of sarcasm, which is what I think makes it really funny. Yes, I think you're right. Then he goes on to say, you know, we actually spoke about this when we were discussing it just about the Alex Marquez, Pekka Banyar crash.

Gary making the point that we have the privilege of watching multiple replays, multiple angles. Yeah, he's just making the point, which I think I certainly recall. I said that these are split second decisions that these guys are making, and therefore it's just a bit too easy to kind of do the old couch expert kind of view at the end. So, yeah, they're sort of superhuman people, but they do make mistakes. And in the heat of battle and in those instances where you have to make a flash judgment, things can do often go wrong.

So, yeah, good point, Gary. And yeah, he says glad to hear the new patrons, although we haven't had any new ones this week, unfortunately, but we'll keep rattling the tin. So, yeah, thanks, Gary. Thanks, Chris. Great feedback.

And we look forward to receiving more of the same. All right. I have one little thing that I want to add in on this one, Rich. Yeah. So it's a bit off topic, but I think it's kind of relevant for me anyway.

I'm a big fan of the BBC's Top Gear series. I love that show. I loved Clarkson, Hammond and May. I think they're absolutely incredible together. It's like lightning in a jar.

Right. Then the show morphed into what it became after the trio left. And Chris Harris was sort of the driver guy that was on the show. And basically that version of Top Gear essentially just stopped dead. And I never knew why.

I didn't know why. Maybe people in Europe know why. Maybe you in England knew why. I had no clue, couldn't never find like why it just disappeared. I was listening to I admit to listening to other podcasts.

I was listening to the Joe Rogan podcast. And I don't listen to everything that Joe Rogan has. I look at who is his guest and then I decide whether I want to listen or not. He happened to have Chris Harris on and Chris Harris talks about what really happened to the show. And if you want to go, if anybody else is a big Top Gear fan like myself and didn't know what really was going on behind the scenes and everything else and what Chris Harris thinks about the show and his and that his time on the show.

Go look at Joe Rogan podcast for September 5th, Chris Harris and have a listen. And I'll leave it at that. I happened upon the YouTube clips of some of that discussion, which in its entirety, I think was two, two and a half hours long as the Joe Rogan stuff tends to be. And like you, I kind of cherry pick a bit because, you know, Joe Rogan has a few views that I wouldn't necessarily share or endorse. But he does have some very, very interesting guests on though.

And many of them are well worth a listen. And so, yeah, I mean, I stopped watching Top Gear once the whole Clarkson thing, who again is a very divisive character, certainly in the UK. He is. And I'm sure that that is the same elsewhere. The other two guys, James Mann, Richard Hamm, less so.

But I switched my allegiance to the Grand Tour, which was obviously the show that they went and did on Amazon Prime, which is the last ever episode is about to air next week. Yeah. 13th of September. Yeah. OK.

Yep. So, yeah, interesting talk anyway. So, yeah, well spotted, Jim. Yeah. I think people will listen to the show.

Listen to us probably have some automotive thing that they listen to or watched or whatever. So I thought, yeah, I noticed it. Just let everybody else get out there and look at it too. With that, we will go on to the racing from this weekend. So we'll start with the Moto3 qualifying session.

We learned early on in Moto3 qualifying that Picaris was going to get a double long lap penalty in the race for an isn't for irresponsible riding with Scott Ogden in free practice, too. If you watch it. Yeah, he deserved it very much so. Because literally he is pretty much just knocks Ogden off. And it's at the worst place.

It's like after what do they call it? Casa. Well, it's the second of the fast sweepers on the back. Second of the fast. Yeah.

Casanova is not that's not it's not Casanova. Casa Las Mugello. That's Mugello. But something casts something which I think in Italian's fapping is fast for something around on what time I don't know. I can't barely speak English people.

I refer you to the pimp versus pimp comes up anyway. But he did deserve Ogden having gotten up with only bruising and whatnot was very good to see because he took a wicked tumble into that gravel trap. So from there, we had Suzuki Carrera, Ferreira, Ferrolli, Rosato, Kelso were all in this first session. Now, what was interesting was Kelso was there. That kind of I was like, whoa, because Kelso's had a very good string of not being in this first session and he was in there.

So Applewood's talking in the pits, he's talking to the team or whatever. They're like they're talking to to Bowie himself. And he's like, well, yeah, you know, basically, Joe wanted more time on the bike to test some setup and some gearing. So he purposely had the laps that would have been fast enough for him to get into Q2 directly nullified by exceeding track limits. So he could be in this first session.

Wow. I'm thinking that's a crazy, freaking idea to not go directly to Q2 if you want more track time. But there's no rule against it. There's no again. There is nothing wrong in the rulebook about doing this.

But I was just shocked that Kelso admitted that that was what their plan was. Their strategy was to go to this session. And I'm like, well, what happens if there's a yellow flag? What happens if somebody falls? There's so many things that could go wrong in this session.

And you guys are trying this props, man, for being out there and doing something different than anybody else. Goes to show the confidence that the guys got as well, doesn't it? Which is well-deserved confidence, because as you say, he's by far and away the best season ever, I would say, in Moto3 this year. Oh, yeah. Here of late, he's been on a run of top fives.

He's been doing really, really well. He they talked about how his bike with him on it, it seems to be a few kilometers per hour slower than the other bikes that are around him. He always seems to be there, but I think he's riding so hard to be there because of the deficit that he has in horsepower, top speed, take a pick which one that is that he's using up the tires. So by the end of the race, he's working much harder. So it's like, well, OK, we're going to change the gearing and some other things and all that.

But it worked because Kelso did set a lap that was definitely faster than anybody else. Perez, Furusato and Faroli all went to the second qualifying session with him. We then go into the second session halfway through the QP2. Vier is leading the session, followed by Alonso, followed by Adrian Fernandez, Artola, Horgado and Picaris. Kelso would crash at turn four.

He picked it back up, got himself going. In fact, he got himself going, didn't hurt himself at all because he actually went to the first to the first place position with with with about a minute 14 to play. Vier then jumped up to the first spot as it went down. We were waiting for Alonso to come through because he had been fastest throughout every session and he had dominated the practice sessions. And Alonso was like setting lap records or whatever.

He did get there eventually, but Lunetta did jump to the first spot. Again, we're waiting for Alonso to come through. But Alonso then jumped to the top spot, beating Lunetta and Artola. Picaris would start fourth. But remember, he's got the double long lap penalty he has to serve.

Vier was fifth, Kelso six, then Horgado, Fernandez, Furosado and Nippit. That's your top ten. So that's how the race is going to start for Moto three. Do we want to talk about the we'll talk about the weather now. So after all of qualifying happened, a lot of the journalists who were there in Mazana were starting to tweet out these weather warnings that were coming for the track.

Like there was going to be some severe weather that was supposed to attack, attack, supposed to hit the track at in the afternoon, potentially for the Moto GP race. Could it be earlier? Could have been overnight. So we were looking to what was going to be going on. But it was a very, very cloudy day that the Moto three bikes lined up on.

On that Sunday, it was also already really hot for the 11am start, I think local time that they were there. The question then was, was it going to rain because it was so cloudy? In fact, it was so cloudy that the BMW safety cars lights were very, very prominent on camera. It was that dark. It was that.

I mean, I was almost at the point of going like, why do you guys have dark visors? Because it was so I mean, it was dark and in television cameras make everything lighter to you and I watching than it is to what is actually really there. I mean, if you looked at just the camera's footage of everybody sitting on the grid, you couldn't find a shadow. No one had a shadow on the racetrack. It was I mean, it was that cloudy.

It was that dark. We didn't know what was really going to happen. But what we do now, what happened is this is the best race of the entire weekend. This race was a barn burner. I thought you were going to say of the season, which is a contender for.

It's a contender for the Moto3 best race of the season, for sure. Only race of the season. Oh, yeah, I give you that one. But we start out with Alonso getting a whole shot. But Picaris is around everybody on the outside of the first turn.

An absolutely incredible move to go around the outside of everybody. Risk it all considering, you know, you've got double long lap penalty to get himself to the front. There was absolutely a brilliant move. He's fourth to first and the first two turns. Incredible move by Picaris.

We then had a big crash that was in the back that had Munoz. It was like a chain reaction where somebody where Munoz got caught up, I think with Ferrioli, and he wound up hitting the back of him. And then that cleared out a whole bunch of people that then went flying through the chain reaction. But at the so the crashers were Rueda, Munoz and Rossi. They're the three guys that wind up in the gravel trap.

Few others were in the track gravel trap as well, but they were able to ride around, get themselves going again. But by the time we got to the end of the first lap, we had Picaris out front, followed by Alonso and Ortola, then Fursado, then Holgado and Lunetta. Vira was in 11th, which was, you know, he sort of went backwards from his fifth place starting position to get there. So Picaris. So then Holgado and Picaris start their own little battle about who's going to go out front.

And then we learn that Lunetta and Adrian Fernandez are getting a I've been tagged with a jumpstart. Now, we went back and looked at these during the race to see if anybody moved. And I'm telling you, poor old Lunetta moved. I mean, it's clutch creep. He never got.

I mean, the thing that kind of there's no movement, period. That is a black and white rule. You move, you are done. I 100% understand that it's the right call. They moved.

But wow, it was the most infinitesimal of amounts that they moved. And my whole thing is, I think that the rules should be slightly amended to. You cannot cross your tire, cannot touch the white line at the front of your box before the green light happens. So just if you have that clutch creep, you can get away with it. I remember we spoke about this some time ago because there was a famous one with Cal Crutchlow got done for a jumpstart.

And in that case, exactly that Jim, he was way behind his own white line. So is it a jumpstart? Because, I mean, you can legitimately start a few centimeters further forward in that situation, and it's not a jump. So I get that it's with the lights going out and I understand all that. But as you say, that decision on Lunetta, I, yeah, you might just say he absolutely nailed it, anticipated the light going out and was perhaps I don't know, 10th, half a 10th ahead of the game.

But is that a jumpstart? I just think that's a great start. Yeah, I thought it was more a great start than a jumpstart. But hey, I get it. The rules specific any movement and you're done.

So, yeah, no, the rule is the rule. Rule is the rule. There's no wiggle room. But I would like to see it amended just for instances like this. So, yeah, I mean, sorry.

I know we got to move on. But for me, a jumpstart is what Lorenzo did. It was in in Austin, I think a few seasons ago where he was like gone a second before everybody else. I mean, that is a jumpstart. But a tiny little bit of wheel creep is just mechanical.

So, yeah, I know. All right. There was no advantage gained by him doing it. If there was, he'd have been out front of everybody going in the first turn. Exactly.

Because what really got me then was like, well, what did Picaris do? Because Picaris comes from fourth. Yeah. So I was like, I want to see Picaris' bike. Did he move?

Because you almost thought then when they said there's a jumpstart, you're going, well, where's Picaris' jumpstart? I mean, I did. I was thinking, is Picaris going to get nailed by this or not? Yes. Meanwhile, back in front, racing action resuming or Tola and Horgado are in a battle for that.

Then there's Lunetta, who's got to take the long laps. We don't know when he's going to take it. Then for Asada, then it's Alonso and Calso at the end. Alonso had work to do at this point. Like, whoa, these guys out front or Tola and Horgado were getting away.

Those two guys decided we're going to just run away from Alonso because we can and maybe Alonso won't have enough to catch us later on. So that was I think their game plan at the beginning was that whole was that whole thing, because they had a one point four second lead of everything. Well, once they got to about one and a half seconds, Alonso sort of got going. And I think Alonso was on the medium front tire. And I think he was just letting that tire bed in and get warm.

And he wasn't going to do anything stupid with it. But he did get his he got it going at that point. So we wound up getting that there's this trio of five. It's our Tola, Horgado, Alonso, because we took Lunetta out of this because he's gone to the long lap penalty for Asada, Calso. And then about a second behind all that is Vire.

So Vire sort of leading the second pack. And you've got this sort of middle pack that's Alonso, Forsado, Calso, because again, or Tola and Horgado are still maintaining a second or so out front, but it's starting to pull itself back down. Well, Alonso winds up starting to catch the front guys because he moves himself to the front of that little pack and he just drags everybody there. Now Alonso starts to start clicking off fast lap. He's got the red helmet going.

So red helmet, red helmet, helmet. And we put Alonso at front. But what was interesting is Picaris has gone through the double long lap penalty and he's come back out and he's literally running eight tenths of a second faster than anybody at the front, which was the thought then was that Ortolla was running a pace that he was comfortable at and didn't need to go any faster and felt like this is where I need to be. And was Ortolla holding everybody up? Well, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't.

But Alonso surely wasn't blowing past anybody, nor was Horgado blowing past Ortolla. So wherever they were in their pace, they were fine. But Picaris was super quick at eight tenths faster. It's like, well, can he catch the leaders is what it became. Well, there's enough laps because they're still 13 to go.

The race is essentially only seven laps old. And he's got about that much time to get back. So it's like, OK, let's see what happens. Right. I don't know about you, Jim, but I was getting serious vibes of Brad Binder at Haereth back in.

I can't remember what year it was when he had to start at the back. You just knew he was coming to the front, didn't you, Picaris? You just knew it. Whether it was anger because of the double long lap, which he and the team, by the way, protested, you know, vehemently against that penalty. The team actually appealed it.

I mean, I like you watch the replay of the incident with Ogden. And I mean, they could not not penalize that move. I mean, with some of the penalties that get dished out. So he was riding on some kind of elixir. We don't know what it was, but yeah, he was making everybody else look a bit foolish at that stage of the race.

It was basically you want to put a five rider group again with nine laps to go or tola, horgado, Alonso, for a sawdown, Kelso. They are the five and they've got about a two and a half second lead to fire. So that fight's going on. Then all of a sudden, first sawdown within eight corners was by Alonso. He was by Polgaro and Ortolla.

And he was in the front. It was as if he turned the switch and said, Oh, we're running now, boys, because we're I've played the game. I've sat here long enough. I'm going and he literally started busting out laps that like nobody could touch because he started turning my helmets. But he had a softer front tire.

He was one of the guys that went with the soft front. You're like, Oh, did you pull that? I got did he pull the pin too soon here in my notes? Like, great idea here. But it's a three.

I don't think you can break the guys, but I give you props for trying. And immediately those guys start to fight back. And then it's a tussle between first sawdown and Horogardo, because first sawdown goes back by Horogardo at 14, which that's a fast corner. The stuff that in there, that's some cojones. And I mean, and it was clean.

It was crisp. It was not the Picaris Ogden idea. It was a you know, nobody touched anybody. So it can't be done. But again, this is now going crazy because Alonso has now gotten by Horogardo and he's coming to go get to Furusato because Alonso wants to win the race.

Right. That's what he does. He sort of shows up with five, six laps to go. So he's on pace to go to the front. But with five to go, we had Ortolla, Furusato, Alonso and Horogardo.

Kelso is starting to fade again. We kind of touched on this, the qualifying. He tends to fade off with five or six laps to go. And I think Kelso's tires are taxed to the point where he can't keep up with what he's doing or can't keep up with the guys in front of him because he's overtaxing his tires to actually do that. Says at four to go, I've written down, where do you look for the action?

Because it didn't matter. Somebody was passing somebody in some time. You could not write it all down quick enough. It was who cares? Somebody was told was going to apply somebody.

Horogardo went by somebody, then they went back by somebody. And it is literally the best racing you're going to see for a long time, because these guys were all over each other at this point. Generally was one of those races where I mean, I didn't do this, but I was almost at the point of getting my pad of paper that I was writing the notes on and just kind of throwing it across the room because there was just no point writing any notes. Because you just said, oh, somebody just passed. Oh, you know, it's changed again.

You know, you just couldn't keep up with it. It was just so scintillating and captivating. You would literally have to watch that race three times over, I think, in quick succession to really understand everything that went on. It was just constant. It was brilliant.

But here's the result of everybody passing. Everybody was the fact that it let Picaris and Vire catch them, because as they cut each other up, those guys were in line and were hauling the mail, namely Picaris basically dragging Vire along for the ride. But you know, the funny thing is, though, Jim, as you just said, all of the passing was clean. I mean, there's a little bit of rubbing going on, of course. Rubbing is racing.

I'm good with rubbing. Nothing outrageous. And I personally didn't see anything that made me think, you know, these guys are really starting to slow each other up now. Obviously, it did slow them up a little bit. But I just think, you know, Picaris was just coming at such a rate that he was always going to catch that group.

Yeah, the race that front was pretty clean. As we've said all year long, very few crashes. And for the most part, in the racing or races, good, clean, fun. A few elbows out here and there. I mean, Holgado, I don't know where that Holgado has been all season, but he was, you know, elbows out really roughing it up, you know, which is I think actually did they mention on commentary that even the placid, very kind of politic, Hervé Pontaral, his boss, had kind of come out saying this guy needs to be a bit tougher in the races.

Yeah. The pep talk worked. Oh, it did. It worked very well with three laps to go. I think Picaris actually got by Vire because Vire was actually telling Picaris there, but either way, those two guys were going to catch.

And, you know, to your point, Rich, they were they they were passing each other. It was very clean. But regardless of what happens, that tends to slow you down. You know, regardless of how clean it is, because you're not on the optimum lap. You have sacrificed somewhere in that corner.

You've either sacrificed your entry to have a better exit or you sacrifice the exit to get by the guy. So you are taking tense off of the lap time that you could do. So, again, Picaris lucky or not, because the boy had some serious pace. And I'm not taking that away from him. But that little bit of infighting was just at the right time for him to make that move.

He's in this he's in this he's by Vire with three with two to go. Picaris is fourth. Holgardo is leading Alonso. Then Picaris flips Alonso in the corner. Then he pushes sort of Alonso out.

Now Alonso gets shuffled back a couple of spots there because the train comes through after Picaris had had clipped him. And then we start the last lap with Picaris second. But then Picaris went to the lead there. And there's all kinds of there's Artola and Alonso have contact. Now Alonso, having been shuffled back once, is getting shuffled back again in this one, and it winds up with Picaris winning the race over Holgardo over a total of that's your podium for a Sado's fourth virus.

Fifth, then Kelso, then David Alonso, because Alonso got a penalty for track limits on the last lap, which dropped him one place behind Kelso with the time penalty. So on the track, he was six, but he winds up being seventh. Absolutely phenomenal race by Picaris. I mean, this is why this kid is a hot property, is this kind of action, because he's another one of those kids who won the Junior World Championship and the Red Bull rookies in the same year. Hulgardo, not Hulgardo, I'm sorry, Rureda was the first, I think, to ever do it.

And Picaris did just last year. And so this kid is dynamite. And again, it's kind of crazy that this kid is on a Honda because he's the only person who seems to well, him and Furusato seem to be the only few people who can make a Honda work and work consistently. But props to Furusato for a great race to fourth. That kid's 19.

Is he 19, I think? Something like that. I think, yeah, I think he's one of the older kids, if you will. But this, by golly, was the best racing that I have seen in a long, long time. I was a little bit scared going into that last lap because Picaris, you just knew he was going to do anything that it took.

Yeah, he did put a sketchy move on Alonso, as you say, Jim. And it was a little bit kind of through the fingers on the last lap. But I mean, what I don't as you say, this is why there's a bidding war now going on for him, because arguably he is on the wrong bike. I mean, there are not that many Hondas out there, are there? Or certainly in the front half of the grid or the races, it's generally KTM or derivations of KTMs in terms of the branding.

So it's hard not to see him on a KTM of some sort next year. You have to wonder how they ever lost him from KTM to begin with. It's like, yeah, what? Why did you guys not find a spot for him on a team? Somewhere, you know, crazy.

But this kid's got some talent, man. Yeah. I mean, not in successive years. In the span of about what we got, one, two, three, in the span of about four years, you've had Acosta, you've got Alonso and you've got Picaris. Oh, and Rueda, who, you know, hasn't yet shown everything that he's got, I don't think.

Yeah, there's he's got he's going to have to get the hurry up here soon. Yes, that's true. Much like Helogardo. But I mean, yeah, Picaris, Alonso, Acosta are all insane talents. And it's very clear that these kids know how to race bikes.

And there's a hunger behind them to do. And it's like, wow, you know, you're talking essentially when Alonso and Picaris get to MotoGP, Acosta will be sort of the I want to call it sort of the elder statesman. But the potential of this Acosta versus Alonso versus Picaris on bikes, you know, and Ducati's and KTMs or whatever. Take your pick is insane because they're a talent level. It's just through the roof right now.

I mean, wow, you know. Yeah, totally agree. And this is not out of the blue from Picaris either, because he's had a what I say is a solid first half of the season. Hasn't been massively eye catching. But again, he's, as I say, no disrespect to Honda, but it's not really the bike to be on, is it?

Even though that is the championship winner team of last year. But even so, what will be interesting now with that win and that kind of a win under his belt is what does he go on to do in the upcoming race, particularly as we're going to be at Misano again in two weeks time for another of these. I mean, again, all due respect to the Misano circuit and to the Italians. I don't like Misano. I just don't know what it is about that track.

I just do not like that track very much. And the fact that we've got two races back to back, there is a bit of, you know, anathema to me. But anyway, it's what it is. And it will be interesting to see how Picaris goes next time out. And if he can avoid getting a double long lap penalty then or any lap penalty, then, you know, he's going to be a hot favorite, I would suggest.

Yep. A shout out to Scott Ogden with the 15th finish. He actually got a point given his beat up as he was. So that was a pretty good ride from Scott. This puts us into the championship.

It puts us poor David Alonso. I mean, he lost five points to to the people chasing him. So he only has a 70 point lead. I what's wrong with this kid? Let's look.

Can we just demote him quickly? This guy's really currently. Yeah. How are we going to cope here? I'm not sure how we do that.

But he's on 246 to Hall Garda's 176 or tolls on 173. Vier is on 173 dead. Even Vier is sort of like the big loser in this one. Again, I think it's his height is now becoming the problem. So I think there's an issue there with that one.

Then Munoz, then Rueda, Picaris with that win jumps himself up to seventh. And he's only one point behind Rueda for sixth in the championship. Then Fernandez, Kelso's ninth and Yamanaka is 10th. And that's Moto three. So anything else from Moto three, Mr.

Rich? I think we've covered it. I think it's all good, right? Great race. And as I say, arguably the race of the season so far.

Overtakes, passing drama. Picaris coming from the back is just that is an everything race. It has it takes every box for a great race. Well, I was going to say box office. Yeah.

So there we go. Yes. Box office. There you go. All right.

Let's look at Moto two and we'll go to the first qualifying. Garcia is in the first qualifying session. Hello. Crisis of confidence continuing here. You know, Garcia is having the world's worst time trying to stay inside the bounds of the racetrack.

He was having lap after lap cut because he can't keep the bike on track. I mean, Mazzano and Austria are probably the two worst tracks for track limits because everybody seems to cut it somehow, some way, for some reason. But we had Lopez, Bobin, Schneider, Solatch and Aigis sent Aigis to get out of that first session. That meant Garcia was going to be 24th on the grid. That's two weekends in a row.

And that is bad, bad news right there. We get. Yes, it is hard to conclude, although there was a very strong denial from Garcia himself last time out in Spain. It is hard to conclude that this whole Moto GP thing hasn't kind of dropped his shoulders down a bit because, you know, you know, he rode a great race again. He didn't qualify well, but he rode a great race at Silverstone.

And then it's all gone completely pear shaped since then, as it coincided with the culmination of this decision or non decision his point of view on the track house and or Yamaha ride. I'm guessing he was in the frame, at least for one or both of those. So, yeah, very sort of dispiriting to see really and for it to go so wrong so quickly. You know, it's weird how these things just turn on a coin, isn't that sometimes? Yes, that is true.

With the second qualifying session underway, halfway through, we had Marrera, Ayagura, Aranis were your top three at that point, followed by Lopez, Kannon, Nautiger, Arbolino and then Roberts. So there wasn't much going on. These guys are just putting in the laps, right? It was they were waiting to get some laps. They're going to go get a tire.

They did. And once we got the tire, we wound up with Arbolino getting his first pole position in Moto 2. Looks like he's now conquered the Pro-Lite tire. He's talked about how his team talked about how they've sort of figured it out now. He's done some changes to his riding style to be having a little bit fresher tire at the end of the race.

Like, oh, OK, good things here coming from Arbolino. So Arbolino would lead the pack. It was then Vietti, then he's sort of a Mizano specialist, I think, somewhere. Then Ayagura was on the front row, which is great. Then Kinnett, Marrera, Aranis, Roberts, Lopez, Gonzales and Nautiger's top 10.

As we said, Dixon for reference was 14th and Anshu, who had that great ride the previous week, is 13th. And Outrigger was 10th. So a little bit of a mixed bag after you get off his first couple of rows with some names that, I don't know, they really had a position on. I'm not sure. But that's how we would start the race.

Now, again, these guys are going out after the Moto 3 guys. It's still hot. It's still humid. It's still dark. So is rain coming?

I mean, we don't really know. But Arbolino busted out front with Ayagura and Vietti and Kinnett. Alonso was down at the last turn, turn 16. The front tuck onto the front straightaway. And he was there.

Outrigger was seventh. Roberts was in ninth. Sorry, Outrigger was seventh. Dixon was ninth. Roberts was 10th.

Ayagura would get by Kinnett. Then it would be Arbolino, Kinnett, Nogura. You know, sort of how the race started. And then Kinnett would get by Arbolino. But Arbolino was in deep and he got by Ayagura.

And Ayagura got by, sorry. So Arbolino drove in deep to allow Ayagura to get by, I should put it. Garcia made his way into the points. He was, he was, I'm sorry, he was almost into the points. He was 16th with like 10 laps to go.

Kinnett looks strong. He's still running his lap, running his pace. But Ayagura was starting to catch Kinnett. Kinnett did have a bit of a lead, but Ayagura was catching. Ayagura and then Garcia with a couple of laps later was in the points as he reached 15th.

Basically, the race stays in the same space from, you know, roughly, say, nine laps to go until five laps, until about four laps to go. When Ayagura goes to the front and he finally gets by Arbolino. Now, Garcia has progressed to 13th. So he's gone from 15 to 13. So he's taken a few more points.

But now Ayagura is going is looking to inflict maximum penalty on Garcia's problems by taking a win. The top four guys are all together and Bieti then crashes that turn 15. And basically, Ayagura just goes on to win the race. He will take the first position. Kinnett will be second, Arbolino third.

And again, they're all pretty close. No one really got away in this one, but nobody was going to pass Ayagura. He sort of had everybody covered. And that's really all that he needed. Gonzalez would be fourth, Dixon's fifth, Aldiger's sixth, Solache, seventh, Morera eighth, Aranis ninth.

Binder would get the tenth spot, as he said. And then, you know, third. And then we had Garcia going into 12th position, passing Roberts in the last lap. That gave him four points for that. So the championship standings then become Ayagura on top by nine over Garcia.

Roberts is still third by some magic. I have no idea why. It's severe witchcraft at that point that he's actually still third. But he's now some 42 points off of the lead that Ayagura has. Lopez is fourth, Dixon, then Aldiger, Gonzalez, Kinnett, Bieti, Arbolino, bumps up into the top 10.

This was probably one of the Dallas Moto T races I've seen in quite some time. Not even the Pirelli tire could spice things up in a way that we've seen. And it's a shame. But that's sometimes you can't have every race be fantastic. And of course, oh, Moto 3 was such an awesome race that anything that Moto 2 would have put out there short of people going absolutely crazy and passing on every lap would have looked boring in comparison to what those guys had done.

That's definitely true. I mean, Moto T, as we've said many times this season, certainly since Pirelli came into the championship, Moto 2 has delivered up some very good races this year, but this was decidedly not one of them. I mean, it was, as you say, by comparison, anything would have paled next to that Moto 3 race. It must be said, but this was a very, very boring, turgid affair. I mean, I had a whole page of notes at this point at which I gave up on Moto 3.

I had like five lines for the Moto 2 race. I mean, just nothing happened, really. The only thing really, Jim, for me, which is outside of the Garcia kind of travails and woes, the only thing that really caught my eye was good ride from Jake Dixon up to fourth from where he started, was having a tricky weekend. And it was a weekend of where it was important to bank some points. He did get an assist from Vietti with the crash.

He did. Because he would have been fit. He would have been fit, but Dixon was riding well. I'm not taking anything away from Jake. He was riding well.

He didn't qualify very well, but he rode well. He got there. And, you know, he ground out a result that he needed to grind out. And it's these weekends where, you know, you don't want to crash because any points is good. So, you know, fair play to Jake.

But the one that really caught my eye and again, a bit of a topsy turvy weekend, it's true, but Senna Aydius in 11th place. That's a really good result for that young lad. And he's been making steady progress again this year on the Husker Varner team. Darren Binder's team mate, isn't he? So, yes, those are a couple of things, but yeah, overall pretty forgettable, really.

Moto GP time. Yeah. All right. So Moto GP, we learned immediately that Juan Mir would be out. He had a bout of gastroenteritis.

Gastroenteritis, isn't it? Yeah, I'm not a doctor, but I live with Juan. So he was shitting through the Ivan Eidl, basically. There you go. How about that one?

So I know we tried to keep it clean, but I've got an interview with Scott Redden to put out in a few days time, and that one is definitely got kind of like a red mark on it for content warning, because there's no point trying to edit it out, otherwise there'd be nothing left. So, yeah, occasionally we have to let a few expletives through. So apologies for that. But that's basically was the problem down at HRC. I wonder if somebody had a dodgy bout of prawn salad or something, because lots of people appear to be having stomach trouble this weekend.

It wasn't just Mia. Even Tony Arbolino said that he had stomach trouble overnight on the Saturday. So on Sunday, Marini was bowed out. He was sick because they were wanting to have them to be capable of testing. So it was a bad weekend for HRC all the way around, quite honestly.

Oh, Binder, Alish, Olivera, Digia, Alex Marquez are in that first session. Zarko too, which I mean, Zarko is the lead Honda. He's the only one who seems to be able to get any kind of result out of the Honda. But halfway was and I should say Binder was in the first session as well. So Binder and Alex Marquez are there at the halfway point.

But, you know, we get to it at the end. We're really it was Alex Marquez and Binder. They will they go through to get there. So, you know, it was we were watching to see what was going to happen with Alish and Digia. They were on some good laps and they could have potentially knocked those two off, but they didn't.

They lost time on the fourth sector. We go to the second qualifying session. Then Yaya just went out first lap, threw it on Paul. I was like, guys, I'm not even worried about anybody. This is how we're going to be.

Martin got a lap cancel because he had violated the green space resides around the track. So that was canceled. Then it was Acosta and Alex Marquez halfway. It's still Ben Yaya out front, but you're waiting for what for what could possibly come because that last run was going to be pretty good. Marrera hadn't set a time yet, which I was questioning why.

Why he hadn't or Morbidelli. Sorry. Sorry. Morbidelli had not set a time yet halfway through. And I don't know if it was a strategy thing or something, but Morbidelli would go out and he would basically have like one shot at getting it done.

Marquez would fall at turn 15. He had some male problems that were shown live on TV as he was walking away from the incident. He was fine. I think his pride and a few other parts were hurt, possibly. But that was about all their pride, probably more than anything else.

But you know, Marquez is down. Mark, that is. Then Morbidelli blasted himself up to second with his lap. Bizecki got the third, but Ben Yaya took pole, followed by Morbidelli, followed by Bizecki. Martin would be was bumped off of the front row.

He was there until the other VR 46 guys showed up. So it's an all VR 46 Academy front row. The doctor obviously was happy about that, considering what his ranch until Leah was like 15 kilometers away or something like that. So it was a great show for all for all those guys. But that was qualifying.

I think we sort of expected Ben Yaya to be on pole. I think having Morbidelli and Bizecki there was a little bit odd, but it is Mizano. It is their home track. So, you know, home field advantage potentially over Martin. But I was like, oh, this might be an interesting sprint, right?

Because Mizano might be a little difficult to pass and it's really hot today. Or maybe Jorge Martins on the floor on in four slot. You know, what's really going to happen here? You know, I should say that Acosta was fifth, Bender was six. So that's your first two first two rows.

And Mark Marquez would start on the on the inside of the third row because he's nine. So there's sort of where everybody runs out at. But in the sprint, Martin blasted off the line from. Fourth place to go to first place, and Martin is out front. You're like, wow, that was a tremendous start.

Did he jump? No, he didn't. He actually just cut a cut a great light, if you will. But Bizecki went completely and totally backwards. Digia would go down at turn 14.

Martin, you know, basically we can call this one what it is. Martin walks off on this one in a controlled race to win the darn thing, because there's really not much that goes on here. Bizecki did finally fall at turn two and his bike was smoking. And he had to get the extinguisher out. I'm not sure if it was just some body work on the exhaust or something that caught perhaps maybe.

It wasn't very much, but it was smoking quite a lot. It was really bizarre. I don't know if it was maybe some oil from the sump maybe got through this through the cylinder and into the exhaust. And it was burning there or something. I'm not really sure about that.

Acosta and Bender have a pretty good ride going on as it's as they're going around. Everybody, I think, by halfway had a track limits warning, except for, I think, Mark Marquez of all people. Miller got into a little skirmish and he went with 93 and he drops a seventh or whatever. But the top five guys all had track limits warning. Mark Marquez would get by Bender and then Bastianini got tripped up on Morbidelec and then he ran wide, which, you know, Mark Marquez then got by Astelon Acosta.

It's Jorge Martin. It's Benyaya. It's Morbidelec with a great podium for him. You know, he's finally back on a podium celebration at the end of the sprint. Marquez would be at Bastianini's fourth.

Marquez's fifth, Acosta's sixth. Then Bender, Miller and Quattrararo. Quattrararo had a great ride. I mean, he is riding spectacularly on the Yamaha. And they get a track flowing fast corners like this.

Yeah, Quattrararo is going to do pretty well. He may not have the acceleration, but he's got the corner speed. And that's for sure. So that was the sprint. I mean, pretty lackluster sprint.

Yeah, my notes to say pretty boring Ducati Cup race. Yeah, that's pretty much about the way I put it. What we've been fearing and seeing quite a bit of this year, but that was a particularly, yeah, again, boring race, really. And Banyaya just never really looked like he was going to kind of challenge Martin. And he was so good in the sprints, isn't he, Jorge Martin?

But again, you always kind of got this bloody tire pressure rule thing in the back of your mind as well, which, you know, horrible, depending on what pressure you start with. But I forget, I think possibly Simon Kreyfar made the point that Ducati might and Banyaya might reasonably have expected to be in the lead at turn one. And therefore, his tire pressure might have been set at a point which where he ended up on lap one meant that it was going to be a problem for him. So it perhaps just didn't have, you know, the tools in the kit box to take the fight to Martin. So anyway, yeah, pretty boring.

Yeah. So we go to Sunday. Shortly after the Moto, I think there's like 40 minutes of time between the Moto 2 race and the Moto GP race. And during that 40 minutes, rain arrived. And it was pretty good little rain shower that's going on.

A lot of people are getting umbrellas out in the stands. People are putting on rain jackets and stuff like that. It's like, well, OK, how much is it going to rain or is it going to stop? And then given how hot it was, is it going to all dry up or whatever? But it was definitely weird what the weather was doing.

And we had these threats of rain. The clouds were there. What's going to happen as they went out on the on? Did they do that? Was it out on the I think was out on the warm up lap?

They put the white flag out, which said the race was going to be flagged a flag. You had a choice. You could change bikes. You knew that going into the before the race ever started, you knew you were going to be allowed to change bikes while maybe the rain actually really is coming on this one. So at the very beginning, we were a flagged a flag race due to this threat of the rain.

Then I got off to a good start, followed by Martin, followed by more of a deli across the bender and Bizecki. Now, from there, we had been we had been. Yeah, and Martin are super close like Martin runs into the corner so deep that he's he's actually on the pegs trying to wait the front to stop the bike so that he doesn't hit. He doesn't hit Ben. I thought for sure they were going to touch.

They might have touched, but either way, they're OK. Now, Acosta and Morbidele, they come together and Acosta has no winglet on the left side of his bike or right side of his bike this time or left side of his bike. I think it was the left side. Yeah, I think it might have been which they talked about. The fact that Acosta is like is trying to fly a plane with one wing.

Oh, that's got to be fun. So already Acosta's race is pretty much marginalized by this, right? But Acosta did get by Morbidele with at 24 laps to go. It's Benyai, it's Martin, it's Morbidele, Acosta, Binder, Bastioni and Marc Marquez. Acosta then is down at turn 14, and he put a lot of gravel back on that track when he came back out.

He dumped a ton. That thing looks like the KTM is obviously a good dump truck because it can hold a heck of a lot of gravel in its fairings. For sure. Well, I call it the dump truck bike now or something like that, or get a little wagon that you can tow it around with some gravel or something. Anyway, or we can say it's rocks for the aquarium for the shark tank, you know.

Something we got to come up with something really good for that one. Rain then starts coming down again with 21 laps to go. Morbidele is down at one. Benyai and Martin are crawling. They're not knees aren't down.

They are gingerly attacking the situation. Now they come around and Martin signals to his team that he's coming in and he does come in on that lap. So with 21 laps to go, Martin heads to the pit. And when he does, he looks over to see Benyai still circulating. Whoa.

Gamble big time. Because is the is the rain going to come down hard enough that you need to have a wet bike? If you did, it's a master stroke. It's either genius or foolish at this point. And you're not there.

What was very interesting was nobody else took the gamble. Martin did. OK, I think some people way down did. But the top running motorcycles, the top 10 guys didn't go in when Martin went in. Wow.

This was like the moment you're going. Did that just happen? Because now we've got drama, because if it rains, this is a whole different story. If it doesn't rain hard and we're staying like this, this is now really super interesting because we've got to deal with crazy sort of in-between conditions that aren't perfect for slicks, but really aren't good for for wet. We have this the inter part of this thing.

Right. And who who are the masters of these in-between conditions that we have in these type of races? One Brad Bender and one Mark Marquez. These two guys now all of a sudden are flying while everybody else is now going really super slow. So within a lap, Bender had moved himself to second behind Benyaya in this rain spatch.

Bashany was third. Mark is fourth. Then it's Miller. OK. Then Mark was suddenly third.

Then Mark was suddenly second. And it's like it's a dicey situation. He's right behind Benyaya. So then Marquez leads as he passes Benyaya and then followed by Miller, followed by Bender and followed by Bashany. Now, Martin, then after a lap of being on wet, realizes it's not going to get wetter.

I've got to reverse myself. And he goes back in to get back on the bike with slicks. They didn't have a very long shot of this, but I'm pretty sure Martin was standing, waiting for them to start his second start his original bike that had the slicks on it. So he lost a ton more time there, which that's that's a team thing, because that should have, you know, never happened. Somebody wasn't paying attention to what was going on.

Say, hey, look, get the bike, make sure you're ready to go. Or at least was looking down the pit lane to yell at the team. Hey, fire the bike up, because here comes Jorge Martin. He wants to change back to get off the problem that he had. This was definitely now not.

There was no Jorge Martin magic at this point. It all evaporated. It was as fast as the rain had come. So if we go back to it, Marquez is now out front of everybody. And he's out front, which is interesting, because as soon as Marquez went out front, then I got confident and started racing with Mark.

Like, OK, well, I can watch what you did because I was the first guy into all this stuff early on. I don't know what's different. But now you face that problem and I can say, oh, that was slick. I'm not going to go there or I'm not going to break as hard or I'm not going to do this inside line. I'm going to go to the outside, whichever it's going to be.

You have the advantage you have being able to follow someone like that is absolutely huge. I'm I'm trying to think of a way to give you guys an example of just how much it means to be following somebody in tricky conditions that aren't fully wet and aren't fully dry. It's insane. It's so it's so easy because you're seeing every mistake that the person in front of you is making. And you're just calculating where you're going to make your attack, because as long as you're not being attacked from behind, it doesn't matter.

You can just stay there and wait for the last lap and apply a little bit of pressure. And the person in front is going to make that mistake. And you are going to cruise off to the wind. Alex Marquez got by Miller there. There's start to be this gap.

You know, Mark Marquez is out front. Then you are with him. But there's like a second and a half to the Bastianini Miller deal. A further like point one, six seconds to Alex Marquez. So Marquez bridges that gap.

Alex does to get by. Martins up to 15th. He's at least back into the points after all of this. Mark Marquez would tend to go is about six tenths ahead of Ben. I have been.

I is about nine tenths ahead of Bastianini. And there's about a half a second to Alex Marquez. But the rain starts to fall again. So are we going to have to change bikes now? Like is the big storm coming?

Well, that never really did pan out. But we did have in y'all's who may who at the time may pimp Martin for the last point places. Those two are running literally a lap down to the leaders, because when Martin came back out, Marquez and company were going by. So he was effectively a lap down and so was in y'alls. But they were fighting for that last point.

The question with two to go was can Bizecki actually get by Alex Marquez, because everything was pretty much set. But the finish is Mark Marquez winning two straight races. You to put money on that. And did you have that on your bingo card for 2024? Then Marquez would wish I had to.

I wish I had it, too. But Ben, you know, gets decided, you know, with about five laps to go, Ben, I decide I am not racing Mark Marquez for the championship. I'm going to let him go. And there's no point for me to risk this because my closest championship rival is literally sitting in the pit box waiting for somebody to start his bike, so I'm not going to do that. Then Bastianini on the podium.

Binder just misses the podium in the tricky conditions. Then Bizecki, Alex Marquez, Fabio Quattroraro with a seventh place finish. I mean, Quattroraro fantastic. I mean, Quattroraro was really close to the front when it was really raining hard. They're really tricky.

But once it kind of dried off a little bit or the rain let up, take it either way. He kind of, you know, the Yamaha slid back on him. It just doesn't have what he needs to fight for. Then it's Miller, DG Antonio, Polisberger, Olivera, Zarca, Nakagami, Brattle and Jorge Martin. Three Hondas making points, which is, you know, whoever thought that had happened.

Given this year, did you have that on the bingo card? Three Hondas getting points. You know, so crazy things all happening with all this. Rich, is there anything you want to talk about in this crazy race before I talk about the point? Because there's so much that went on here.

It's just in the drama point of it. Well, just a couple of things not to belabor too much. But I mean, again, a lot of criticism being thrown Jorge Martín's way. And I mean, again, you make these snap judgments. And as you said, Jim, on that preceding lap, they were snail pace on the bit of track that was genuinely quite wet.

So you could perfectly well understand why he thought the rain was coming and was going to get worse. However, what was curious is he had obviously made that decision. And where I see Martín as a kind of a more emotionally driven animal than, say, Banyaya, who's very sort of methodical in the way he goes about stuff. I just don't understand why Martín didn't copy what Banyaya did, because Banyaya was in front of him. And so Martín knew that Banyaya wasn't going to go and swap his bike at that point.

So I don't really quite understand why he went into the pits, really. I mean, that just strikes me as a pretty big mistake, really, not just to copy what Banyaya was doing. Agreed or disagreed? Oh, I agree. It's a super bad mistake.

But I think in Martín's head, I think he knew he couldn't beat Banyaya on a dry track. I think he wanted to try to really put a death knell into Banyaya, because Banyaya was 23 points behind coming into this round. If Martín pit it right then and the rain came bucketing down, Martín would have looked like a genius because he would have won the race going way by a mile. But he didn't. It just went the wrong way.

Now, that call, I think this is one of those things where and this is not a criticism of the PreMac team. OK, but PreMac has a very big star riding on their team. And that big star is leading the championship. The team, I think, this is my own personal take, is reluctant to talk strategy or tell Martín what to do for fear of what's going on in there. I just get that impression with the way Jorge kind of interacts with the team and what he does.

They're not afraid of him, but they're certainly not pleased with Martín. So if they if they would have came out and said, look, Jorge, copy whatever Banyaya does and then we'll just counter it. Then Martín would have been like, no, I'm going to do my race, do it my way. I'm riding it. The team probably went like, OK, well, you're on the bike.

You let us know what you want to do. Kind of a thing. Interesting. And again, that's just what I get from my own personal opinion. What I get from what I see of Martín, what I see about how his interaction is with the team and everything.

He's how I know here comes in for one reference. He is the Lewis Hamilton of motorcycle racers, in my opinion. When he wins, it's all about the team and how great everybody was. As soon as something bad happens, it's all about how they screwed me. I.E.

how did the team make a mistake? Which I hate. I think you can say what you want about about cricket or soccer or football, American football, about, oh, that's a team sport. Nah, it's not really a team sport. It's two or three stars that are making things happen.

Whereas I think motorsport is one of the truest team sports that you have, whether it's cars or motorcycles. So that's my take. That's just where I'm at. Certainly, I've heard on a couple of other podcasts, a number of the journos saying that there really wasn't any talk of strategy in terms of what to do should rain arrive within a Pramak camp. And I think I would tend to agree with you, Jim.

I think probably Martin is quite such a hot headed character and sort of act of sort of lash out at people when things don't quite go his way. Although I think he has to be fair, I think he has matured a bit, as you would expect with each year passing by. But it was a little bit reminiscent of Australia last year. If you remember, he insisted going out on the soft tire, I suspect, against teams, better judgment and wishes. Although whether they express those is another matter.

But, you know, and it was a wrong call. But as I say, you can understand with the way the track was on that preceding lap, why he thought the bike was a good idea. But it was a big error of judgment not to spot the banyai wasn't heading into the pits in front of him and just stay out and see what happened. Anyway, hey, hope great opportunity for other people, wouldn't it? And Mark Marcus suddenly certainly made the most of it because that crash in what Q1 or Q2 on the Saturday, putting him back in seventh or eighth on the grid, wherever he was really kind of looked as if it was going to completely screw his weekend up.

And he wouldn't have won the race had it been dried throughout. Let's be honest. It was he took full advantage of the conditions and showed his skill. And he had nothing other than a crash and hurting himself. He got really had nothing to lose by chanceing it a little.

I was going to say chanceing his arm. But definitely shouldn't say that. You know, he's done what he needed to do this year. He's got the works right for next year. So anything else is just kind of gravy, as we say here.

So just a fantastic ride. And as you say, worthy note to Fabio Quattraro doing miraculous things on the Yamaha for me, you know, HRC. Well, they didn't have any riders in the race. I mean, it couldn't really have got much worse for them. But what the hell has happened to Aprilia in the last two rounds?

I know. Well, you know, you got a bike that doesn't work in a rider that, you know, has matured to where he doesn't crash over, rev it up and blow it up. So, yeah, the printer doesn't like low grip. I mean, we know this, but it feels to me as if fundamentally they've just hit a bit of a kind of brick wall in that team because they were really good in the first half of the season and they've been pretty much nowhere since we came back from the summer break. So, yeah, real again, a favorite comment of mine or praise of mine, head scratcher really to understand what's gone wrong there.

The question is, what does Jorge Martin think of it all? Well, yes, quite what scenes we might see there next year. If things don't improve, we can only guess. But there's this hotheadedness, right? It was you got passed up for Mark Marquez, so he hotheaded and he.

What do they call that? The kids have a term for it nowadays. He something quit work. He can't think what they call it. There's yeah, I wish my daughter was on my desk or she's rage quit.

He rage quit. That's OK. Right. Yeah. He things didn't go for him and he rage quit.

Pramak. I mean, Pramak was at that time. He didn't know Pramak was getting Yamaha's or did he? I can't remember. I can't remember the timeline.

I think at that stage, they weren't necessarily going to. The fact that Martin left, I think, is what caused the whole Ducati thing to fall apart and fall apart for well, or for Pramak to decide that free bikes for the next, what, five years is way better. Was a way better deal. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the cold, hard economics of it.

Yeah. I almost think that when Martin rage quit, that Pramak kind of went, you know, they just breathe the sigh of relief that we don't need. We don't have to deal with this. Although they have got Miguel Oliveira and his entourage arriving in there next year, and I think there are one or two issues potentially come in their way there. Anyway, that's a story for another day.

It's a strange. Like, Oliveira there doesn't make sense to me. No, well, we discussed this last time out, didn't we? Yeah, it's a odd combination. Well, if Milagosa as well, I mean, as I said last week, one or other of those two guys, I kind of understand it.

Both of them, I don't get it at all. But there's obviously good reasons for it from the team's point of view. Other than that, no, I mean, it was a race that was spiced up by a tiny little shower going to show how important that is, really, to make an interesting race. But once it dried out a bit and Marquez was in the lead, there was just no way that Banyai was going to have a go, really. It just wasn't going to risk it.

Although, you know, there is a bit of a I was going to use a term I shouldn't use. There's a bit of kind of ego measuring going to be going on between Marquez and Banyai, because next year is going to be interesting. Just to put it that way. And Marquez, I mean, up until recently, I'll be perfectly honest, I wasn't convinced that Marquez was going to come back to the sort of Marquez that we haven't seen for several years. But the indications are he's back.

Other than his dancing, which certainly hasn't improved, judging by the antics on the on the podium, I don't get any of that. Anyway, all the indications are that Marquez is going to be a real handful next year. Yeah, a real handful. All right. Let's look where this is at a point.

So Martin still leads the championship on three hundred and twelve. But then I is only seven points behind him. Marquez is now only fifty three points behind Martin and only forty six behind Ben. Then it's bashing the bender, Acosta, Vinales, DG, Antonio, Aspargo and Alex Marquez. Now I have this little tidbit here from from Dennis Noyes.

So if you guys follow Dennis Noyes or whatever, he's in here. It says in the last four races, two sprints, two GPs. Who do you think has scored the most points? You're going to say Mark Marquez, probably are you? That is correct.

He scored 67 points in the last two races. Martinez scored 42 points in those four races. Baschini has scored 36 points. Brad Bender has scored 33 points. And Peco has only scored 30 points in those four races.

For the moment, Mark has the luxury of not having to think about points. But the harsh reality is that from Assen until today, Mark has only recovered five points on the leader. That's a crazy. That is a crazy, crazy statement. Now, this is kind of why I like the the idea of tweaking the points for the British Superbike Championship a little bit, because I mean, how much more interesting is this championship?

If you said for the last three races, these guys race for a for 35 points or they race for 30 points. And the second place is 20 points. It's a 10 point difference. How much harder is Marquez going to ride? Because he's got a chance to now get in the mix, right?

How much how much how much more thinking does Benyaya have to do calculating all of that inside of it? I mean, is it right or is it wrong? I don't know. And I'm not saying that we should have a way to have Mulligans. But remember a long time ago in Formula One, they used to only count your best like they have 12 races and they in a season, they count it your best 10 or something.

You get the worst. Well, whichever. OK, I don't remember. But you got to drop races. You got to drop your worst points scoring finishes.

Well, so if you had a DN, if you if you're if you're allowed to drop three races or whatever, you dropped. Well, I blew up an engine here. I crashed a car there and they those that zero point tally doesn't affect you. But you're considering the problem was that somebody who was consistent got points taken away and they may have had to give up a fourth, a fifth and another fourth because they didn't crash. So I see the problem.

But I'm just like, we know not that this championship isn't foregone conclusion for Martin, nor is it a foregone conclusion for Benyaya. It's just, who how much cooler does this thing get? If you've got three people, especially you got somebody like Marquez, who literally would not care in one shape, way, shape or form about what he does to banging Benyaya or Martina out of the way to win a race. It's just different. When we look back on this season, Jim, I think, you know, we know that Marquez is a bike disadvantage.

I don't think there's any doubt about that. I mean, I think he's had one or two little tweaks by the sounds of it in the last round or two. But fundamentally, that is an old bike compared to what the two guys in front of in the championship of riding. And, you know, Martin has crashed in races quite a lot this year. And yet he's only inverted commas, 53 points behind Martin.

So if he can stop crashing in races and, you know, there might be one or two more crazy races that come up when we were going to Thailand, Indonesia, places where rain can certainly be an issue. So there will be opportunities and jeopardy there. You know, 53 points is a sizable disadvantage to bridge, but it's not an impossible one to bridge. So I wouldn't class him out of the championship just yet. And you can't you won't care if he wins a championship.

He's going to be on a real bike next year. Well, look, Martin almost went down with Benyaya. Almost if those two guys. Yeah, those two guys fall. They don't add anything.

You take 20 points off Benyaya's total right there. Right. Yeah. This is now not a 53 point gap or a 46 point gap to Benyaya. It's a 26 point gap to Benyaya.

And if you don't think that those two guys, meaning Martin and Benyaya, don't take each other off at some point, I'm not saying they're going to. But it could easily happen. It's easily can happen. Very nearly did on Sunday, as you've said. Yeah, very, very nearly happened.

It's definitely all to play for. And it's going to be as kind of depressingly kind of processional as the racing has tended to be in Moto GP this year for a variety of reasons. I blame Aero for a lot of it. And, you know, Mitchell not being able to get the tires that they really want on the bikes still. But there's enough interest there to keep this thing really quite exciting and now biting probably all the way to Valencia, I would think, given how kind of ebb and flow it has been between Martin and Benyaya.

And with Mark Marquez coming into a vein of form and the more that he does, the more he will sort of thing, because it's a cumulative effect, isn't it? And it'll push and push a little bit harder now. And Martin and Benyaya, as you just said, Jim, are not really in a position where they can go all out and risk too much. Because if they don't finish a few races, then Marquez is definitely on them. I would say, yeah, it's going to be an interesting few rounds coming up.

And obviously we're going into the flyways before long as well. And that can introduce all sorts of other headaches as well. You can't put it past Marquez to actually be on pace at the next Mazana round. Yeah. He's going to be probably right there if they're about.

I was trying to think, of the races that are left, which ones are anti-clockwise? Australia, because that's going left. So do you really want to discount Marquez out on that one? Mm hmm. Oh, that's down on horsepower.

But a guy who rides really good on left handed track. Ah, OK. Well, you know, that's a question, right? Well, and we kept hearing over the weekend that the other Ducati riders were looking at Marquez's third sector times. I think it was the third sector or the fourth sector.

And nobody was quite able to figure out how he was managing to be that much faster. And it is the left turns. So Philip Island, you would have to say, would be not a certainty that he's going to win it, but he'll be close to the front. And again, Marquez's challenge is not to keep crashing and not to do it in qualifying as well, because he would have featured more in the sprint if he hadn't been starting from where he was. So doesn't Thailand goes left because it's a left.

It's a left. Burram is left on. It's a anti-clockwise circuit. So that's two. So, yeah, I was just trying to look real quick at what's left on that, because there's seven races left on the calendar that I saw for this, because we are.

You have the second Mazana race. So that's the wrong way round. Then they go to Japan. Well, that's Motegi. That's not the right way.

But you go to Australia. That's the right way for Mark. Right. Thailand's the same way that it's a left handed track for him. Then you go to Malaysia and that's it's kind of a left handed track there.

Sort of. I mean, all tracks have left and right turns, isn't it? It's a question of what the predominant is. Predominantly. Yeah.

And then you go to Valencia, which is a truly left handed circuit. Yeah. Lots of opportunities for Mark Marquez coming up. Yeah. If if he could win Australia and he could win Thailand, he'd be in with a shout at Valencia.

And that track isn't going to matter. It's how you ride. It's not a horsepower track or anything like that. It's just how do you ride? It's going to be crazy.

It's going to be great. It is a mouthwatering prospect, isn't it? I think it's a good thing to think that there could be three guys going into the final round. I don't think so. You just got to think that Mark's going to be push it too hard and fling it down the road somewhere.

Well, you just kind of think he does. You just kind of think that he's going to. Who knows? Anyway, that's really all I have, Rich. I mean, if there's anything else, I don't think so.

I think we covered it all. And then some. The only thing I wanted to ask is to do a World Superbike, because as I say, Manicor was a really good weekend. Signs of hope for HRC and World Superbike, by the way. Corona and Vierhe had a good test, although we've heard that before, but it really did show that Manicor this weekend.

I mean, early days, one race, you can't judge too much on that. But anyway, what I wanted to ask you about was the Saturday race, one was a flag to flag started wet and it dried out. So people came in and switched bikes onto slicks. I'm just curious to know what you think about this, because I've never considered this rule being. Well, I've never considered this element of the rule.

So I forget who it was. It might have been it might have been Garrett Galeoff. I can't remember. Doesn't matter. No, it was Alex Loews, I think.

Somebody had come in and switched bikes onto the Drysetter slick tires. It was still wet off line, but good, decent dry line. Anyway, Copter, Thinker Track Excursions penalty and got a long lap. Now, the long lap, because of course, nobody was running on it, was wet. Or certainly still very, very, very damp.

And, you know, this person had to take the long lap penalty on a bike with slick tires. So do you think in a flag to flag race, the long lap shouldn't be applied and it should just be a time penalty instead? Oh, wow. It's never come up in MotoGP, I don't think. It wouldn't come up very often, this scenario.

But where you've started wet, you're allowed to swap bikes. So you go onto the slicks, then you cop a penalty and you're having to go onto a part of the track which isn't being used and is wet and therefore is quite dangerous, actually. Long pause for dramatic effect. Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I've never even postulated that.

My gut tells me time penalty versus go to the long lap, just on the grounds of safety, because if you were, I'm assuming it would, I'm assuming it would work something like this. For some reason, you had a, you had a track limits warning you had a couple of them, right? The rain eases off, you go to get on your bike with slicks, you head out of the pits on those slicks. And as you're trying to warm them up, you run wide one more time. Now you've got to get a long lap penalty and you got to go through what could be a very soaked long lap penalty loop, which you could fall or whatever.

But my gut instantly, my instant reaction is time penalty. But now that I think about it logically, working through it, the risk is the same regardless. And you committed the offense. So you could still theoretically on a dry setup crash in the long lap loop because it doesn't get used and there's not really rubber down on there. So is the risk the same?

Well, it's the same because you started in pit lane, which I'm assuming pit lane would have been as wet as maybe perhaps the long lap loop. In that case, you were able to monitor your bike and go through it without having a, without finding a problem. Without having a, without falling down or whatever. And then you have the long lap. So yeah, that's a tricky one.

But my gut says time. I'm going to go with my gut. My gut says time penalty. I would say it's a bit different in pit because you're riding in a straight line at a speed limit that's predefined. Whereas when you're serving a penalty in the long lap, you're trying to do it as quickly as you can to minimize the penalty.

So yeah, just a curious one that hadn't come up before. So I forgot about this one and your pit lane thing brought it back. In FP2 for Moto2, Ueda on the forward bike was coming down pit lane when a track marshal stepped off of the pit wall. Yes, I have read about this. Directly into his path, which knocked him off of the bike.

The bike then ghost rides into the Aprilia garage, hitting a mechanic and injuring his hand. When only moments before this, Alessio Spargro, his data engineer and other people were standing in the exact spot that the motorcycle went to. Talk about a wild and crazy one that one is. Yeah, I don't know how you legislate against that kind of thing. Really?

I don't know. Because you can't not have some people in the pit lane. Unless you mandate that people are either on the wall or they're in the garage and you can't switch between the two during a session. But I don't know practically how that could be made to work. I'm trying to remember.

Well, I was at Kota and I'm going to ask you to because you were at Silverstone. Anytime a bike was in pit lane, I don't ever remember hearing anybody like blow a whistle or anything like that to alert people that there was something coming. And I say that because just because of the fact that I go to Indianapolis all the time for events that are there, not for the NASCAR race, not for the IndyCar race, but the IMSA race I'm going to. But anytime at that speedway when a car enters the pit lane, whistles are blown. And as he goes down the pit lane, everyone's blowing whistles.

So that gives you some indication that, hey, there is a car coming down the pit so that you know that they're there. So I'm wondering if they don't have that in MotoGP because I was really trying to think back to when we went to Indy for MotoGP. I was really trying to think if I heard the Indianapolis, their safety people blowing whistles or not when MotoGP bikes were there. And I kind of remember that. I seem to have some concept of there being those whistles because they're a very distinct whistle.

It's a very distinct sound, but I don't think they are. No, I mean, maybe they could do that. I mean, just some sort of. There's an argument to say that Moto2 or Moto3, well, Moto3 bike, though it is loud enough on its own. But then again, a lot of marshals are wearing headsets.

They might be having kind of communications going on, which is taking their attention away. I mean, it's a little bit like, you know, the modern scourge of the road, the normal road is that I did this myself the other day, stepping out into the road and there's a bloody electric car coming, which you can't hear. And if you don't look, which you should. But obviously your ears and your sound is one of your senses and you rely on it heavily. So, yeah, it's just one of those kind of weird rarities, which you kind of think, well, they probably don't need to introduce a rule for that because it would be such an unusual occurrence for it to happen again.

But people just need to be reminded every so often, don't step off the wall without looking first. What's coming up? Road? No, interesting Jim. Yeah, yeah.

But that long lap thing got me thinking. So, you know, if anybody else has strong views on that, I probably completely got it wrong in terms of who the rider was. It might even have been a penalty for sketchy move on another rider because it was wet and there was a few people going down and one thing and another. So that might have been what caused the penalty as opposed to track limits. But it just I wrote it down for I got asked him about that and see what the listeners think as to whether or not in that scenario, whether the long lap should just be suspended, you know, it's not applicable rule to enforce.

You just get the time penalty added on at the end of the race instead. That's one of those things that no matter how you write the rules in the rule book, there will be some situation that eventually will occur that you cannot figure out how to do it. That's why there's sort of that generalization at stewards discretion. Yeah, you know, something with that effect. But we've rambled on long enough.

We have so no racing this weekend as we are getting done with that because no, yes, this weekend is the other part of the double header because they had testing in between. Next Masana race is not this coming weekend. It's the following weekend. We have had the test today, which we haven't really spoken about, but there was nothing particularly of note. Oh, boy.

Only guess Ducati's are fast. Yamaha's and Honda's suck and everybody else is somewhere smashed in between. Yeah, I mean, I had, you know, Raul Fernandez or something been in third place. I think I would have spotted that. But no, it was the usual suspects at the front.

I think it's only one day test as well. So that's it now until everybody reassembles. Yeah. And what 10 days time? Yeah, I was looking at I was for some reason was looking at they only have a week between the second race and going to Indonesia.

All right. Okay. So that was where I got flipped flopped in my time schedule. But yes, if you got access to the awesome part racing this weekend, all parts of great track. So this people be good.

And obviously there is this jeopardy that's creeping in with the point system now. So that'll be worth catching if you can. But otherwise, time to have a little bit of a rest and recuperation before MotoGP goes fly away and things get super busy. Yeah, it gets super duper busy with the flyaways. With all that, I'm going to remind you all to ride safe.

Sure.