The Race for Clear Air

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk. Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode 790 for November 6, 2024.

I'm Jim McDowell, behind the bars with Richard Joud across the pond in England. Rich, good evening to you. Good evening, Jim. Yeah, riding pillion as usual. Yes, that's right.

You are riding pillion. You are my Claudia Schiffer doll, if you will. Hang on a minute. I'm not sure I'm down with that, but anyway, moving on swiftly. Yeah, that's from the last episode where we were talking about, for those who don't know the greatest celebrations that existed in MotoGP and whatnot.

From there, guys, let's just get right into it because we are on the final leg of a three race to do. Let's just get in with the news that's happened from there. There's a little bit going on. First of all, we want to talk about the Valencia round and what's going on with that whole thing. There was a severe, very severe flooding that happened in Spain, specifically in the Valencia area.

It was something like 200 milliliters per square centimeter or some. Essentially it came down to that it was a year's worth of rain in a few hours, basically. If you've seen any of the pictures from the area around the circuit and whatnot, the roads getting to the circuit, there's trees and debris and just everything everywhere, which There was this steadfastness that came from MotoGP. We're going to go race in Valencia. It's two weeks.

We're going to be fine. They've now recanted on that. Whether you want to believe they recanted on racing in Valencia because of the stars of the show saying, look, there's no point in going there. You can make of that what you will. I'm not going to have Levi at one way or the other.

But we now know that the 20th round will take place. There will be a final round and it's going to be in Barcelona. It will be the same weekend as previous. It will be the November 15th through the 17th. There we will finally decide who's going to be world champion for this year for the MotoGP class.

But the important thing is that they are going to be doing lots of things to get people involved in donating money and certain items and things for everyone in Valencia who needs any of that. If any of you in MotoPod land can help out and pitch in a little bit, please do go to the ASPAR team, MotoGP team. There's a GoFundMe link there and all those proceeds are going to the people of Valencia. So a tragedy that hopefully something good will come out of that. And that's the main point of news that's there.

Any comment about the whole rain thing in Barcelona? Well, I think we have to say condonances to the entire city of Valencia and the surrounding regions. I mean, it's not just Valencia. There's been extreme weather all over the Iberian Peninsula, is my understanding, including Barcelona as well. So I think, you know, perhaps.

Yeah. I think it's... Didn't Matt Oxley have a tweet of like an interstate toll carriageway, I think you call them over there that was massively flooded too. So yeah, I did see that. Yeah.

So I mean, obviously the key point in all of this is that some 200 or possibly even higher people have lost their lives in Valencia alone as a result of that flooding. So it's a tragedy on a very large scale. And as you say, Jim, just in terms of infrastructure, it looks like a scene out of an apocalyptic kind of Hollywood film, doesn't it? So it was impossible really in the cold light of day and on after a few days reflection, given the scale of the destruction, never mind the loss of life, it would have been totally inappropriate to try and force a MotoGP race, as important as it is to us as fans. And there is obviously a MotoGP title to be decided just about.

But nevertheless, it was ridiculous to even think about going to Valencia. So Barcelona is now the substitute. With a couple of caveats, I think if the weather doesn't improve, it might have got better in the last few days. But certainly, yes, I did see that tweet. I think a few people put that one out.

It didn't look terribly good. So I was a little bit surprised that they didn't opt to somewhere a bit further afield away from all of this trouble, not just a few hundred miles or a thousand kilometers away, whatever Barcelona and Valencia are. So that's the situation as we understand it at the moment. So hopefully we will get a final race, watch the space. But yeah, just condolences from everybody at MotoPod in terms of us and the listeners, I'm sure, for what has been an appalling event.

So the last part of news that we have here is a big thank you to past host and very close friend of the show, Scott Bolton. The year you will be should have heard the seven hundred eighty nine episode of the show, which is all interviews brought to you by Scott. And they were all from the Barber Vintage Festival. Barber is a brilliant place to go see a motorcycle race. It is a absolutely beautiful country club as circuit and the museum is worth the trip to go.

The heck with the racing at some point, the museum is probably the coolest thing you're ever going to see. There are so many examples of so many motorcycles that I thought I knew of every brand that had ever been made. Nope, they have things that I never knew that existed there. But the best part is, is the interviews that Scott got for us. Here's the list of people you may know, some of these people.

Tyler Scott, Stefano Manza, Hayden Gillum and Kenny Roberts, Jr. Will all be are all in that interview. Thank you to those guys for taking the time to talk to Mediopod. Again, big thank you to Scott Bolton for taking the time to go to the festival and go get a mic in front of people and get those interviews. Oh, with that, Rich, I think the news is done.

And now we get to go to listener feedback. Now we had an email from Alan Fleming. And it is a fascinating, fantastic email that we're going to go over here. I'm going to summarize this as best I can. We're going to see if we can get this posted onto the blog page of Modipod, because it is a great, great email.

Hopefully it'll be there. And when it is, we'll let you know. Check your socials to see if it's there. But basically, here's what Alan has to say in a nutshell. He was glad to hear about the Herve Ponterell interview that was done.

That was 787, if I'm not mistaken, the boss, the Silverstone boss. I think so. Yeah. And basically, if you listen to the interview, you know that Herve Ponterell is a huge fan of these prototype motorcycles and all the development and all the gizmos and all the everything else that's on them. And he's a super big fan of it.

You know, what it boils down to is that Alan is a big fan of that technology and all of that as well. But the point that he tries to make out of all of this is all about the ride height and the squatting devices and hole shot devices that are in there. And the question he asks, and again, we're going to go through all this here. So be prepared for a long description of a lot of things. And there's a fact that he says, hey, here's the question.

Is it possible that the problem with the ride height devices isn't that they are inherently dangerous, but the problems with them sticking or collapsing or not engaging is because the MotoGP rules requirement rules require them to be purely mechanical devices. So that's that's the case was like, OK, are we anti squatting devices or all this other thing for any of that? So here comes my rant for this one. I'm torn because there's there's there's two sides of this for me as the engineer. I am all about the prototype idea.

It is the differentiator of that type of racing, i.e. MotoGP versus World Superbike, which should be a production motorcycle. So that is that part of it there from that standpoint. But there's also this X-Club racer slash fan that watches the show and watches this intently and doesn't want any of that in my sport. Part of that may be that I'm a little flutty-dutty, right?

You know, but you know, my thing is, is that we have all these extra gizmos. Right. And really, the whole problem with them is that they are a mechanical device that raises and lowers the rear suspension, is done with hydraulic fluid and accumulators and valves. And there's a whole lot of other stuff that's in there. But it's a mechanical system.

There isn't a computer running the show. It is just fluid that's being pushed around to make these things happen. To me, from the engineer, yes, if you could build the system to where the systems do not have a problem disengaging or they do not have a problem engaging, then there shouldn't be a problem with it. The problem is that these things tend to not release or are stuck in a position that the bike runs like a chopper and they can't get around a corner with them. So if they could do that, then yes, I'm all for it.

But there's also a safety aspect that goes along with that, because now the bikes are going so fast that they've basically outgrown every racetrack that we go to. Even the like, I think it's what 500, 600 meters of gravel at the end of the end of the main straightaway at Qatar is not enough to slow a MotoGP bike down at over 200 miles an hour. And you got to ask yourself, is 200 miles an hour too fast to be on a motorcycle with just a pair of leathers on? I make of that what you will. I'm not going to go down that path.

But. The fact is that all of this has a knock on effect. If you're going to do this, then you've got to mandate a rule somewhere that they have to test tires to be able to withstand the punishment that these devices are putting into the bikes, right? With their aerodynamic, with the drops and all that. Because you think about it, you know, we had aerodynamics on it before and the racing was still pretty good, right?

I think the racing now is pretty good, but it's only good for. Three or four laps. It's the battle for clear air that's going on. And if you're not in the clear air, you have no choice but to go back because our front tire pressure rules and all this other knock on effects that happened. The thing that goes with that is what you have to understand is that the ride height devices are there for one reason and one reason only.

Yes. OK, they're there for two reasons. Sorry, let me back up. I got ahead of myself. The two reasons one is that you can accelerate harder out of the corner.

But the bigger thing is that by dropping the rear ride height, you have the effect of taking the front wings of the bike and rotating them to a more parallel attack angle to the motion of the motorcycle going forward. Thus aerodynamically, they don't have any drag opposed to them. So what did you just do by having a ride height device on a motorcycle? You created movable aerodynamics. Which Formula One banned all the time, right?

And now they've let it in as DRS, and you can see how hard it's been for them to get rid of that piece of the puzzle. That's where the rub is in all of this is, I think, MotoGP goes down this path of Formula One with being this technological sport, and they can't rein it in properly, right? You take the genie out of the bottle sometimes, as you say, Rich, and you can't get the genie back in the bottle. And that's sort of what's happened here. And the thing of it is that most of the riders don't want the devices.

And I think that's good for MotoGP. They stopped and they said they talked to the people who were on the bikes and go, is this what we want to do? No, let's go back. Let's neuter this some way. Now, I really thought they were going to let whole shot devices stay just as a matter of prevention of wheeling off the line and going over top and rolling over backwards.

But they didn't. They said, well, we're going to keep some wings and whatnot on the front, and that's going to be that. And you're not changing anything else. So essentially, you're going back to circa. 14, 15, 16, somewhere in there, 13, 14, 15, I think, when the wings appeared on the bikes, and that's where they're going to.

So they're going back to that era without all of it. Now, they decided, well, what, you know, now what differentiates you from World Superbike because you're looking almost identical to each other? Well, you're going to have lower CC capacity, but somehow, in some way, the engineers are going to figure out how to go faster. And my guess is that they're going to go faster when Pirelli becomes the tire manufacturer for the sport. Right.

I just I just I just don't see Michelin getting the contract again. Right. At some point, Michelin is not getting any value out of this because they they're unfortunately taking the blunt of the tire pressure regulation rule. Right. Where Pirelli is is sort of got the experience.

I mean, I get, yeah, a superbike isn't necessarily the same horsepower as a Moto GP bike. And but yeah, the bikes come have wings on them now, too. So Pirelli obviously has something that is going to be comparable or pretty close to being able to handle all that work. So once you do that, they'll probably be breaking track records again. It's going to take a year or two for people to figure it all out.

But I mean, that's where I sit with it, because, you know, again, the formula one analogy, if you go back to like 1992 or 93, you had the all active suspension cars that did everything by themselves. And it was like, you know, the the the the part that destroyed that was the fact that Alan Perez won the 93 world title and the Williams, the all singing, all dancing, all everything car. And he got out of it and said a monkey could drive that car because it was that easy. Do you really want a motorcycle to be that easy to race? No, I don't think we do.

I think that's part of what is the main attraction of the sport is you can see guys doing something on a motorcycle that you know really shouldn't be done. And the thing of it is, is that that's why people love Mark Marquez when he came in with all these incredible saves, because that really shouldn't be happening. The physics that happened there, you're like, that shouldn't be happening. But everybody caught on to Mark's style, caught on to what he was doing. And everybody closed back up again.

But, you know, again, the greatest riders are going to be the greatest riders. Right. Depending on where it is, people are, you know, Eric and Senna couldn't have done with the all dancing, all singing cars. Yeah, he could have. They could.

Sure. Good. The best are still going to be the best. Right. Because what separates the best of the best?

Their mental capacity to be able to calculate everything else that's going on. Yeah. I mean, love him or hate him, Schumacher would sit there and be he would be calculating the whole race out and be like, oh, Ross, I think we should actually let Johnny by, because that way, if there's a he could be on the lead lap and we might score another point for the team. He had that so much extra capacity, just I think like Marquez has got more capacity. Ben Yaya has got more capacity.

You know, Jorge Martin has more capacity to do all this, to work all the levers and the buttons and everything. But just like fighter pilots, somewhere along the way in a jet in combat, they're overwhelmed by what you're put in the cockpit because they can't keep track of everything that's there. And at some point, you're going to add so many gizmos to it that no one's going to be able to keep track of what they're doing. And then it's going to be a real problem. So you got to kind of stop it for there.

But in reality, to me, again, the engineer, the engineer says, oh, my God, they should be doing anything they want to do to these bikes within a set of rules. Right. But the thing of it is then is like, well, what do you do? What do you do to the other side of the sport? The entertainment value of what's going on.

And you got to stop and go, I don't know, some of these races, there's one or two laps that are really good. But it's a 20 lap race. So you're telling me the other 14 laps are just processional. Is that racing? I don't know, is it?

I mean, which would you rather see a battle between two guys at the front of the pack? For three laps at the beginning, or would you rather see two guys fighting it out through the last turn of the last lap? That's the question. Yeah. Well, I think the answer to that, Jim, for most people would be they want to see people battling out through the whole race.

Sure. And that's what we don't get very often and hardly ever at the moment. So, yes, it's tricky. I thought you haven't finished. Your thoughts yet.

Oh, no, I'm pretty close to being done, I think. I think that sums it up. So, I mean, this all stems from the fact, let's go back a few years. Shortly after I joined you on the pod, we did a kind of wintertime round robin with the financial subscribers to the shows. We did like a zoom with everybody invited along.

And at that point, I can't remember quite exactly what the specific point conversation was. But Alan popped up and said, look, as far as I'm concerned, this is a prototype racing category. These bikes should be pretty well, you know, whatever they can be. And obviously, we all look back slightly misty eye to or I certainly do to the 990 formula, because that was in recent memory, you know, a period of real explosion of ideas, you know, different manufacturers came in because of the four stroke switch. You had triples, four cylinders, V4s.

You had obviously the mighty V5 in the RCV, as well as the one that Kenny Roberts brought along a little bit later on as well. So, yeah, we kind of look back on that as a period of of excellence. And it largely was, I mean, Rossi won all but one of the 990 titles. It's true. But, you know, he did it on two different bikes.

So it stems from from that. And so obviously with Hervé Ponterell saying, slightly catching me off guard with his answer, actually, I, you know, I wasn't expecting him to be quite as vociferous in favour of the current generation of bikes. But his basic point, like Alan's, is that these are the best of the best. You know, they got all the bells and whistles, all the gizmos to make them the fastest they can possibly be. And I knew that that was going to be music to Alan's ears and kind of thinking out loud, Jim, I think probably there's so many things to say around this whole topic.

I mean, you commented back to me on WhatsApp, didn't you, that we could spend an entire show on this. And I think probably what we should definitely do in the off season is have another round robin and just talk about this email, because there's so many different things, because I start thinking about, well, what about tracks? You know, I have issues with a lot of the tracks. I don't think they promote good racing. So it's not just about the bikes, not just about the riders and the organisation, it's about all sorts of different things.

And so you will go off on different tangents on a discussion like this. So perhaps that's something we should look to do again with the people that subscribe actually to the show each month, which is obviously the list has grown a bit in recent times, which is great. And we'll have a bit of a kind of put your thoughts and comments in. And, you know, we can have a few questions that go in as part of a teeing up that call. But it'd be good just to chat it through for a couple of hours with all our friends online.

So because there's a lot to say, isn't there? But oh, yeah, we could go on. We could go on and on about all the other little things that are involved in all of it. And, you know, the thing of it is, is that you to my account, you know, I think that if you compare it to like Formula One and you think of where Formula One was and where they are now, the the racing has gotten better, but it's still it's it lacks something. It doesn't hold my attention like it used to.

I mean, we've talked about this. I don't think I've watched a Formula One race for like two years. I listen to Formula One podcasts to keep up on the sport. But that's all I really need. You know, there's an essence of predictability about it that you don't really like.

Now, I don't think anybody does. Right. I mean, again, you got to maintain that the little factory of Peerlia can can be on par with the big factory of Honda, which, you know, and you can see how badly Honda has gotten their sums wrong inside of all of this for Ducati, sort of a middle factory has gotten all the sums right. But they've also paid a lot of money for a very brilliant engineer to sit there and look at the rules and go, well, OK, we can do this or this or this or this or this. Right.

And, you know, it's it is the idea of innovation, but there's innovation for innovative sake versus innovation for mass populace. So like traction control and all and the ABS are probably on a lot of the street bikes now, because if you're riding in the rain, the ABS will help you keep you upright. Traction control will help you in the rain, keep you from spinning yourself off. OK, that's fair. But there's also the other side of it is like the ride high devices.

There's a cause to put them on a bike, right? On a street bike, because you're looking to gain more people who want to be a part of the racing. Well, one half of the world is females and the other half is males. And if you want to grow the sport quickly, add females. Well, sorry, I'm five foot seven on a on a good day.

I'm not a six to guy. I'm as tall as most most women. And I have trouble touching on some bikes to touch the ground and feel comfortable. They're not going to feel comfortable. But if you can make an electronic device that you roll up and senses the speed that you're going and it slows it down and lowers the bike for you.

So you can put both feet on the ground. You might be a rider for life. So there are places for this. But, you know, where where where is the actual value of shifting on the fly? Because even if you did have it as an electric solenoid or not, sorry, an electric servo motor, right.

And it would wind this thing up and down. What's going to happen somewhere? Somebody is going to want to be leaned over far and throw down that that device and make it squat as fast as they can to get out. I think early on in the season, what was it, Porta-Mile? We saw Marquez trying to squat the bike on the downhill.

I mean, that's crazy. I think Jim. I mean, I'm sort of starting to advocate more Alan's position, because I've been one of the people that has moaned the most about the devices. I don't dislike them because they make the bikes fast, although clearly safety is an issue and we have to keep it in our minds. Otherwise, you know, we run out of tracks where the bikes can actually race.

I just don't like the way the bikes look, which is not really. I mean, that's just a personal thing. And, you know, Alan will no doubt say, well, that's just your take on it. And that's that's fair enough. My point in all of this is that.

I mean, for manufacturers to be involved and to spend the sorts of money that they do spend and they do spend a lot, even in Moto GP, I guess, not one on one levels. But, you know, there has to be some trickle down benefit to them. You know, racing should from a manufacturer's point of view should be a kind of a test bench that then they they recoup that investment through sales on the road. And so in my short reply to Alan's, I knew we were going to talk about this at some length. I referred to a conversation I happen to have when the right devices were kind of the rear right device.

I started to sort of really come on. I was in I think it was BASB at Brands Hatch. I just happened to be in the pit lane and the old Spalding was there. And I got chatting to him. People might know Spalding because he's a preeminent kind of technical journalist who's covered Moto GP for quite some years.

And we got talking about this and he kind of made the very good point, I think, which was it was a mistake on the rulemaker's part not to allow the electronic systems because they were probably going to be a bit simpler because look at all the mechanical packaging, all the cost and the complexity that that comes with. I mean, when these bikes crash and get smashed up, can you imagine having to rebuild all these systems? I mean, it must be I mean, they're very efficient at doing it. But but his point was that by outlawing electronic suspension in Moto GP, you prohibited the trickle down effect from happening. And we do see, I mean, even my BMW K1300, which is a good few years old, even that's got basic electronically adjustable suspension on it.

And obviously, the modern bikes are very, very complex. And so Alan's point was, would it not have been better for them to have retained ride height devices in the new rule set for 2027? Maybe go into an electronic basis so that you could then adapt it to street bikes of all different sorts, you know, and that's, I think, is a perfectly good point. And, yeah, it would help the manufacturers to justify the sort of money that they spend, because last time out, we were talking about KTM posting some pretty poor results. And, you know, it does put a spotlight on where all this money is going and what they're getting out of it, besides publicity, which is obviously is also part of it and the love of racing, of course.

But. Yeah, I mean, again, we could talk literally for three hours on this subject and just sort of meander all around the houses on it. And I think that's probably something to do in the off season and get as many people involved as we can. Isn't it, Jim? But it is a great email and Len replied as well and brought up things like dual clutches, seamless transmissions, which are kind of de rigueur now in MotoGP and are not, as far as we know, under threat in the new rule set.

They will just continue. They're highly complex, highly expensive pieces of equipment. OK, seamless gearbox. I don't think we've ever seen such a thing on a road bike. Probably won't, because the complexity of keeping them going, I think, is just is just astronomically too much.

But we will pop. There are some Yamahas coming out now, for example, which are clutchless or electronic gears and stuff. So you have no clutch. I haven't ridden one. I've just seen a couple of YouTube's, you know, test ride in the stuff.

So, you know, the development never ever stops, does it? It's just that it's coming from and relevant to racing as well. And obviously, well, super bikes in a tricky spot, which we won't get into that now. But we don't need to get in there. It's in a tricky spot with the new MotoGP rules, because although, like you say, Jim, you know, the engineers will always find a way to make the bikes fast again.

And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the 850s will be pretty quickly posting times as quick as the 1000s, particularly, as you say, if a Pirelli tyre comes on the scene, which is probably going to be more grippy. So we'll be back at the same fundamental problem of having to slow the bloody things down again, you know, but it takes a few years. And every so often we have a rules reset. So, yeah, interesting. Great email from Alan.

Fantastic. It's one of those things where this is the fun part about being motorcyclist. Everyone can have a different opinion about what they think is right or wrong. But everyone respects the opinion of everyone else. You know, and I don't think you necessarily see that with some of the car people and things like that.

And it's one of the things that I enjoy about it is like, again, my opinion is my opinion and how I see it. Your opinion is your opinion. Alan has his opinion. Alan's opinion is not wrong. By any stretch of the imagination, Alan's opinion is not wrong.

It just comes down to the money spent. And I don't want to see the sport end because no one has the money to be able to fund this development war that you've allowed to happen. But then again, you know, I'm of the opinion that when they go, they go to the new rules and they have they're going to set up, have a set of wings. I think that they should literally get someone build the wings and give them the wings to put them on. So you can't mess with them in any way, shape or form.

But then it becomes a whole other mess. And I don't want to get into that. But, you know, the thing of it is, again, it's just somehow you have to make it to where there's value for the for the manufacturers. Right. And there's entertainment for the fans.

And you make it so that people want to go by that motorcycle and want one. And that's where it comes down to. Yeah. I mean, look, let's be honest. We're effectively in a control formula.

MotoGP is already because you effectively have to run a V4. Yeah. For the front. You have to run the same tires. You know, there's no tire war anymore.

So, you know, with de facto in a kind of a control formula, even though it is in theory prototype. You know, in a perfect world, we'd be racing, you know, a real prototype, you know, some I don't know, think back to the 60s when, you know, Honda would produce in like, I don't know what they were, but like V8 125s or whatever. I mean, it's just those like crazy stuff going on back in the 60s, particularly with the small bikes and these little kind of thimble pistons and stuff and, you know, 20 gears. I mean, these things were just monsters in their own right. But it just becomes an arms race in spending power.

And that's, you know, that obviously has problems. And that kind of did the 990 formula in really that plus the financial crash that happened. Yeah. The lack of the lack of cigarette money basically was and that as well before the sort of the drinks, money started or the drinks and energy drinks. I should say money started to flow in big time.

But that just replaced the tobacco sponsorship. So, yeah, we'll go on and on and on. So I guess we need to stop. We should stop. That is certainly the sort of content and I will write to or fling an email back to Alan subsequent to this just to say, is it OK if I put this on the blog?

So. Assuming that that is OK, and I'm sure it will be if you go to the MotoPod website, you'll find a blog link, I think, top right of the screen, somewhere around about there. And it will take you into there's only a couple of articles on there because I set myself a challenge of kind of writing one of these things a month a couple of years ago, and there's still only two there. So my budding journalism career in in written form is not really getting off to a great start. But any good stuff that comes in from the listeners, we should put on the blog, actually.

I mean, that would be a good way of bolstering up some of the content on there as well as the odd thing that I write. So, and, you know, just to take your point about Formula One, Jim, it's always been the case and I think it always will be the case that you have a period of domination by a team. You've always seen it in Formula One. We've tended to see it in MotoGP and other elite forms of motorsport, Group B rallying. I mean, that was dominated, you know, by a few different manufacturers as it went along.

Yep. Just the way it is, you know, but it doesn't last forever. That's the point. And a rules reset is a good way of kind of upsetting the apple cart a bit and making, you know, the opportunities for other people to do a bit better. So, yeah, let's see what other listeners have to say on the matter.

All right. With that, we're going to go to the race coverage now. We were in Malaysia last weekend. We'll start out with the qualifying in Moto3. Interesting to note, Honda brought a new engine for everybody that had a little more grunt on the bottom to get out of the corner, a little better acceleration.

My theory is they've redone the air box, Rich. They've changed a lot of how the air box is. They changed a lot of how the trumpet is. There's some stuff in there that I think is where they're getting their punch from. Because to keep up with KTM with that or whatever.

So that was where it was. So the first qualifying, basically, the only person who really shouldn't be there was Kelso, and he did get himself out along with Almanza, Carrera and Rossi when the second qualifying session first saw how to really nice save when he lost the back at turn 14. Very nicely done halfway through. Ortola, Alonso, Fernandez, Suzuki, Lanetta and Picaris were there. Interestingly, Vier had not set a time yet at all, which I thought was very odd.

He did go to seventh with about six minutes left to go. Picaris would crash at turn one. He was in way too deep for that. And he did smack into Ogden. But that did mean that it was going to be Fernandez's pole position, followed by Ortola, followed by Alonso, Suzuki, Kelso, Lanetta, Picaris, Vier, Almanza and then Rureda in the tenth spot.

So that is how qualifying went for the teams. With that, we'll move to the race on the Sunday. Starts with Ortola getting a fantastic hole shot, followed by Almanza, Fernandez, Alonso and Holgardo. So Esteban and Rossi go down at turn two. They have a coming together.

Then Almanza went to the lead. First time he's led a race, first time he was in a podium position. He leads for a little bit there, but it's going back and forth as it is. Holgardo is down, up the inside of Ortola, and then he high sided himself off because he was in really deep and then flicked it around and just, you know, Holgardo winds up crashing. And whatnot.

Now, the interesting thing about this crash is the fact that Alonso is subsequently forced to run out and run wide to get around the entire incident. So Alonso, who is somewhere like, you know, in that third, fourth range when this takes place, is now way back. I think he was. I'm not sure if I have in my notes exactly how far he was. I think he dropped to 13th.

Yeah, because by the time I got back a lap or two, he had already recovered himself back to eighth. Yeah. And the question then was becoming, well, how, how high can Alonso actually come? Meanwhile, Fernandez is smoking and he pulls the bike off. So, OK, what happened to the Hondas and the new motors?

Because Ogden had a problem as well. And he came in and the Honda engineers asked him to go back out again and see if the problem would change or rectify. So he did like a couple more laps and he came back in again. So my theory on that one is the fact that because of the new air box design, there's not as much there's not as much airflow around the engine, which I think the engines got hot because they were in the draft. Fernandez was always in the draft.

If you looked everybody else, it was it was very hot. It's very hot in Malaysia anyway. But but that was, I think, the warmest day of the weekend. And the humidity was sky high. So when you do that, you wind up having a bit of trouble with temperatures in the bikes.

And there's no to my knowledge, from what I've seen walking around the pits and little bits that I've been able to see that there's not a fan that's on their radiators to cool the bikes like your street bike has. So it's always just forced air, just like a Formula One car. It's just forced air through or air that you can draw through. So I think there isn't in that low pressure zone of the draft of these bikes. I just don't think enough air was getting to Fernandez's bike, nor do I think there was enough air getting to Ogden's bike.

You know, we're never going to know what the true story is, because no one's going to speak up or tell you if it was just Fernandez's bike that had a problem, I would go venture a guess and be like, what did they tweak? Because we know that Leopard seems to like to fiddle with the bikes a little bit. You know, that's hearsay rumor. But I've heard it from enough people that I'm going to believe it for right now. And they are.

Yes, sir. I cannot emphasize enough how hot it is in Kuala Lumpur. I've been several times over the years. In fact, I went to the Formula One race there one year as well. And just sitting in the stands is just it's excruciating the heat there.

You know, the idea that the bikes get any relief from the air is just nonsense, really, because it is so hot and humid there. So it is the most extreme place and a very curious place for Honda to bring an engine change, really, because you would think that they would go somewhere a little bit climatically kinder to an engine than that, unless they were deliberately wanting to put it in the worst possible test scenario and see what happened. But yeah, I mean, Kuala Lumpur, I must just say, I'm not a huge fan of the Sepang circuit, if I'm honest. I just find it a bit wide and a little bit tedious for me. But again, I'm old school.

I mean, I would be racing around the Nürburgring if I had my way. But it's a bloke who doesn't have to do it. But Kuala Lumpur, if you ever get a chance to go, anybody that's listening to this, if you haven't, I'm sure many people will have done. But fantastic city, wonderful people, but excruciating heat and humidity. I mean, yeah, it's something else.

So one, I don't mind the Malaysia layout. I like it a lot. In my opinion, it's the second best Tilka track that's been done. Once Turkey, two is Malaysia. So anyway, so again, if it was just when it first happened and it was just Fernandez's bike.

What really made me think then was, OK, if you want to get a little bit more oomph out of your bike, did they redesign the air box so that the airflow creates a phenomenon known as inertial supercharging? So the idea is long news off again. Sorry. I got to go down this path because it was what I was thinking was the fact that, OK, if you if you build an airbox in a specific way, you can get it to where you can move in a normally aspirated engine, you can move the air through there and through the valve track at almost supersonic speed. So therefore, you're delivering more, more air, hence more oxygen for the time that the valve is actually open.

However, pseudo forced induction. Correct. It's a pseudo forced induction. If this was a big to do in the early part of the 90s in NASCAR, because of the restrictor plates. So it was a way to regain lost power.

OK, so if you go down that path, the problem is in the heat and humidity of Malaysia, because you have that pressure wave, it's going to force the water out of the air, which I thought, oh, maybe the water was condensing slightly and going into the engine and caused because it caused it to crack a valve or crack the piston or something of that nature in Fernandez's bike. But then when Ogden's bike had the same problem, he kind of went, OK, now that's not real. You kind of suspect that since that one was still running and all the other Honda's didn't explode, that maybe that isn't what they were doing. But it's what came to my head. Just some insight.

Interesting. Yeah, it's just thoughts, just thoughts, just thoughts. Where were we? Oh, so we had the I we were talking about the the the incident where Alonzo is off track. My thing was, well, how high is Alonzo going to be able to climb?

Munoz was then in for his ride through. So I guess we didn't say this at the beginning, but we were learned early on because of an infraction in the first qualifying session of the weekend where Munoz basically clotted Ogden going into the first turn that he was given or sorry, it was Faroli. Sorry, my bad, Faroli. Munoz having clotted him, they basically had enough of David Munoz in his aggressive riding and said, you get a ride through penalty. So I guess he got the book thrown at him for that one.

So at this point, Munoz was then in for his ride through, which they believed that given the time would take them to go through the pits, they were going to lose somewhere on the order of like 30 seconds or more to go through there. Well, that left Almanza out front with Kelso, then Ortolla, Forasada, Vier and Carrera. Kelso then goes to the front for a little bit. Ortolla is like four was fourth. He drops to six.

Alonzo was now at the fourth, you know, tend to go Kelso's out front with Forasada and Almanza. And we learned that Alonzo that like Almanza is on a soft soft. He's the only person who went for this soft soft combination. But Alonzo went with a medium front and a soft rear compared to like most people running a medium medium. So Alonzo, again, is on a different tire strategy than anybody else.

As usual, as usual, as usual. Do not what everybody else does. Do what you want to do and take the courage of your convictions that you're going to be able to handle it. It's like, OK, well, now we're talking. But Alonzo was way wide when he and he was on the grass coming out of 14.

I don't know if you spotted it. Nobody talked about this. It was on it was on the 10th lap coming out of 14. He was way over under the grass creek and just flew past and past people. At first, I thought, OK, there's got to be a track limits warning happening because Alonzo does the same thing again a couple of times later.

And then I realized that there is no blue paint out there. So if it's green, you're allowed to be there. It's not considered to be any kind of an advantage. So was it? Well, I'll let you people think about that.

Well, I spotted them doing it as well. And again, because of the context of the racing that we tend to bitch a moment about these days, it tends to make you immediately think, oh, no, there's a penalty or at least a warning of a penalty coming. But yeah, for whatever reason, and it kind of struck me as odd that that was not a track's limit corner, really, because I can't see how that's not an advantage going out wide other than the fact that you're I mean, it's not that nice, kind of smooth green or blue area where the sensors would be. It looks a little bit rougher than that. So perhaps, you know, you pick it, you know, a bit of tyre pick up or whatever might happen when you go out there.

But certainly, I mean, that bike that Alonzo rides is not slow and he's very good at getting it through a corner. So his exit speed is great. But he did seem to allow him to sort of motor past people a couple of times. So, yeah, like you, Jim, I was immediately thinking, oh, no, penalties incoming. But no, we should have known that the boy had that one covered.

True. So for Dennis Picaris Ogden, they all have these engine problems. But Furusato doesn't. So he's leading. He's out front.

Kelso is back out at the front for a little bit. Then Kelso just goes way wide on the way into turn four. And then he gets passed by everybody and he wants to go backwards. Suzuki's Husky called it quits and said, yeah, no more. I mean, you I had this written.

Does anyone want to win this race? Because it just seems like everyone would either got to the front and then disappeared or whatever. We wind up learning now Furusato is on a soft, soft combination, ala Almanza. So, OK, at least Furusato is on the same tyre that rear tyre that Alonzo is on. So that's interesting.

But Alonzo is up to second now with five to go with four to go. Furusato is there. He's at 14. He washes the front like there was a great on board of that because it's just also it tucks big old black line and snapped it right back up. But of course, that allows our friend Mr.

Alonzo to hop out front at that point. And well, basically Alonzo wins the race. And then it's Furusato. Rueda came in very late to the game and wound up getting to third or Tolo became fourth. Then it was Vier, Kelso, Yamanaka, Nepa, Bertelli, Lunetta, Almanza gets an 11th, Rolstein, Ferrioli, and Zeratuzza is 14th for a point.

And then the Busari is there for the last championship point. That one was a great race by Alonzo. That puts him at 13 wins for a season. And it puts him at six in a row, which now breaks Rossi's record of five in a row. And I don't think anybody can beat him at the last race of Barcelona.

That's all I got to say about Alonzo. I mean, there's nothing much more he needs to do from this point on. And Moto3 is there really to I mean, that's a record that's going to stand for quite some time, a while, you would think. Yeah, given how long Rossi's previous record had stood for. So, I mean, yes, as we said last time, more races in the season.

It's true. So more opportunities to win and go on a run. But nevertheless, in Moto3 of all categories, six on the trot is pretty well, it's not pretty unusual. It's unprecedented. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a record, would it?

So, yeah. Let's not bore the listeners by getting out the thesaurus and thinking of words associated with superlatives. But, you know, I will add I will add one more thing to Alonzo. He after qualifying, he very eloquently stated the problem in Valencia because, you know, Aspar is there. That's their home base.

He eloquently stated the problem and, you know, explained to everybody, you know, we were racing for Valencia and that we were with everyone. He then wins the race and then says that how he was donating his winning and his winning bonus money to the GoFundMe page to help the people. This is a Moto3 kid. You know, I'm quite sure. He could have used the money.

I mean, I'm sure his parents put a lot of money into him to get there. He could have paid back his parents or help them have something else. But he decided, no, I'm going to be like the big guys. And I think Marquez had donated money. I think Benyaya and Martin, they all had thrown some some money in.

I don't know. No one's talking numbers. But, you know, I mean, he was the only Moto3 guy who did. And it says a lot about the character of the person that he is, as opposed to the stardom that he seeks. And I'll leave it there because I think that shows an incredibly poised, intelligent and thoughtful human being that in the midst of what's going on, which is a true tragedy, he thinks enough and eloquently says what he's going to do.

And I think that was that says a lot about the character that David Alonso has. You've wandered around the paddock a bit, Jim. You know, obviously, I have been able to do that now as well. And, you know, you do encounter some of the riders, even in Moto3, certainly in Moto2 and definitely in MotoGP, of course, a few of them who I'm going to try and choose my words carefully now. Well, let's just say they're aware of their superstar status.

Let's just put it that way. And now it is certainly true that David Alonso is at the, you know, the beginning of his career and he's unsullied by too much fame or fortune yet. But having met with him in Silverstone and again, I apologize. You know, we've got we'll talk about it just before we go off at the end of this. But a few of the shows that are going to come up now that the season is eventually sort of winding to a close, you'll be able to sort of catch up on some of the other content that we've got to put out and fill up sort of the quieter time.

But one of which is my interview with David Alonso at Silverstone. And it doesn't matter sitting on these things because they're great to put out when we get a chance and they, you know, they fill in a gap. But I was just sort of taken by how well, young, sort of joyful, considerate, kind of you can tell he's a kind boy. You know, you can tell he's been brought up well. He's got good values.

I mean, I hope that never gets kind of forced out of him through the pressures and the stardom that are inevitable. Well, you could argue that they're already there for him, really. But by the time he gets to MotoGP, he's going to be stratosphere sort of fame level, let's say a bit like, you know, what was in Pedro Costa as we made that comparison a few times. But he just as you can just tell, he's a really nice young lad. So it didn't surprise me.

It impressed me, but it didn't surprise me what he said, you know, in part for me on those two occasions that you mentioned, Jim. And, yeah, long may it continue with him. Yeah, agreed. So with that, there is the championship. There's really nothing to talk about here other than that.

Holgardo and Vire wind up being tied on points for second place in the championship. I know there's 19 points between them and Ortola to decide that. So again, Helgardo versus Vire for Valencia or the last round, Barcelona, maybe. You know, they're talking that they're going to do it. But again, I wonder.

But we shall see. Either way, they're they're the people there. Nothing else is really moving or whatever. They're all pretty much there. But it is fairly tight in the six, seven, eight, nine ranges.

You know, there's about six points or so separating those guys. So that could move around quite a lot. So it's worth watching just, you know, the last race, just to see where everybody finishes off there and points. Yeah. So with that, let's move quickly into Moto two for that.

In the first Moto Moto two session, it's the usual people. There's Garcia, there's Aegis, there's Chantra, select the oddballs. Lopez Lopez is in there, which is OK. Why is he really there? Interestingly, both wall cards took each other out.

It was Powie and Asmon. They both went down at turn eight together. So Chantra, Solatch, Baltis, Aegis, they all get through to that second thing. Lopez had his lap canceled by the caution flags with like two thirty left to play. So he didn't get a chance to his lap was stricken and he wasn't allowed to continue on there.

The second qualifying session was pedestrian at best. Halfway Ramirez, Arenas, Anchu, Navarro, Arbolino and Iaguro was there. With about a minute left, Navarro went to pole. Then you had Dixon with a crash where he created yellow flags. That meant that Navarro, Navarro, sorry, would have the pole with Ramirez, Vieti, Arenas, Anchu and Arbolino.

But Kinet had what I think might be the save of the year. He was so far out of the seat and smashed around the old plums, as it were, to a point where he probably wasn't walking right for the next couple of days. But it was a fantastic save. It was he was on a hot lap. He may have gotten to pole probably second more than likely.

But, you know, Navarro is obviously substituting for Joe Roberts. And he was able to put it on pole, which is pretty fantastic. Quite really having been out of favor for a while. So that is where I would have liked to have seen Kinet in part for me, just to have heard his voice go up an octave or two after that one, because that must have hurt. So it's Navarro, Navarro, Ramirez, Vieti, Arenas, Anchu with the great qualifying for fifth, Arbolino, Iaguro, Gonzales, Marrera and Salach at your top 10.

With that, we move into we move into the race now. Altegr is out because he's got a broken hand, a couple of bones broken in his hand from his crash in Thailand. Or for that one, we know Vieti is now back from his cracked shoulder. His left left shoulder, he has a crack in it. I guess it's what is that the scap scapula?

I think they're I think he had it. I'm not exactly sure. Again, it's one of those things where there's not really anything you can do about it. So you might as well just ride through the pain kind of an idea. So when it starts, Vieti just gets a great whole shot there.

He's followed by Iaguro, who, again, had a very great start to come from where he did. Then it's Ramirez, Navarro, Arenas, Anchu. Vieti was was was done. What had Vieti at the end of a lap, I'll get it spit out here in a second, had a one point four second lead, which is crazy when you think about it. That it was in that point is amazing.

Van de Gerberg, Aegis and Sura all had an incident together. That all became a matter of investigation. I did not know if anything had come out of it. I don't know if they pushed it to the we'll talk about that later thing. I think is what they did.

So we'll find out. They definitely did. Did they move it to there? OK. After the race.

Yeah. Right. So we're good there. So we'll see what happens with all that at the next race. But basically, Vieti winds up building up this really big lead and with 12 to go, he blew the first turn or something like he literally messed it up.

Horribly, because he lost the front on it and he was then he lost a full second of his lead. So now it's like, OK, well, everybody's back together again. So it's Ramirez maybe has a chance now. Iagura is there in third, then Navarro and then Guvarro's got a pretty good run going and Dixon's there. But then Binder crashed at 15.

Navarro would get by Ramirez and he's now chasing Vieti. Iagura gets by Ramirez and then Dixon got by Guvarro. Iagura was either down or he had some sort of a mechanical that that was there. Sorry. Agura is down.

Dixon got by Ramirez. Now, Dixon has a has some problems, maybe a mechanical issue, transmission, something like that. Not too sure. But it's Vieti wins on goes on to win the race. No one no one even got close to Vieti.

He they pulled him in a little bit and then he just pulled away again. This isn't the most thrilling of of. This isn't the most thrilling of two races, I should say. But he pulls away, wins it by a mile. Arbolino did get by Ramirez, but it finished off with Celestino Vieti winning.

Navarro was second, then Guvarro, which was a great ride for Guvarro. His first podium in Moto three or sorry, first podium in Moto two as a former, you know, regular on the podium in Moto three is what I was trying to say. Then Dixon with the fourth wasn't bad. Arbolino was fifth. Ramirez was six.

Then Anciu in seventh, Kinet, some catch on to ninth. Tenth was Marrera, Gonzalez, Aranis, Lopez, Sergio Garcia at two points and 14th and Solach the last point. It is not it's an underwhelming Moto two race, quite honestly, Rich. I didn't there wasn't much there. The race itself, I would agree.

But there are a couple of things to say, if I could just interject, please add, please add. I mean, you can't let that weekend go by without praising Ohio Navarro, really. I mean, that was a sensational substitute ride. I mean, obviously, he was in Moto two for many years. He hasn't been sat on the couch at home ever since he popped up again.

He's been busy in world super sport ways. You know, it hasn't really featured very much. It has to be said. And you kind of had the feeling that it was kind of where some Moto two riders go to sort of just end their careers on a lowish note. You know, that's kind of how it felt with him.

But to burst back onto the scene, he would have got a bit of attention. I would have thought by a few other teams with that performance, quite frankly, substituting for Joe Roberts, he was probably sat on his car, was sat on his couch in that particular case, thinking he's back in California. Oh, bloody hell. You know, that's my bite, but that's on the pole and coming in second. So very credit worthy performance by Navarro.

The other one I just wanted to pick out. Well, two more things, but first of which is, yeah, Guevara. I've been saying through this, well, certainly not the first third of the season, but certainly once we got into the kind of the second half and the rest of the season, that kid has suddenly found, as we so often talk about, and I so often go on about, the crucial second year in Moto2, not forgetting that he was the 2020 Moto3 World Champion, Jim. It wasn't just a regular podium finisher. He's the world champion in Moto3.

So kind of came with high expectations into the Aspars squad in Moto2 last year and just completely underperformed, which is a rather harsh way of saying that he's just this classic case of a world champion that comes in and takes a long time to adapt to the big bike. But he has had a very good last five or six races culminating in a podium. And again, in terms of next year, I'm not sure if he's staying in the Aspars squad. But he's definitely in Moto2. It'll be interesting to see how he carries on this progression next year.

And in a way, the timing is not great that he's starting to peak just as the season starts to end. But hopefully it kind of catapults him into a much better season next year. Perhaps he becomes one of the title contenders next year. Dixon didn't have a mechanical. He misread the pitboard.

Oh, that's right. He did at the end. I didn't talk about that. So he did an Alessia Spargro and there's been a few other examples down the year. So I believe it's the case.

He's been very honest, as Jake always is about these things. So I think the reader on his dash was not giving him the right lap countdown, but he wasn't looking at his board and he certainly didn't spot the fact that there was no checkered flag as he slowed down and put his fist onto the tank in jubilation at his third place. And so he had to sort of hurriedly get back up to speed, but just was too far behind Guevara to recapture the third place. So yeah, he will have, as Keith Ewan pointed out on the OMG racing podcast, he's probably most annoyed about the fact he's lost a nice bonus for the podium, losing the third place and ending up fourth. But yeah, we do see this from time to time.

It does go to show that sometimes all the digital wizardry is very good, but sometimes a bit bored and a flag is your best friend. So yeah, poor old Jake sort of learned that one the hard way, didn't he? True. Other than that, a great ride by Vietti coming back from injury, but not a race for the ages. Let's kindly put it that way.

So Iger is world champion. Things I neglected to say about that. One, it is the first Japanese world champion since 2009. The other interesting tidbit, he is the first rider to win a world championship in Moto2 on a non-KLX bike since Marc Marquez on a suitor, which that I neglected to add when we went over Iger's championship. Kinet is guaranteed a second in the world championship.

He is 52 points ahead. He is 28 points ahead of Garcia, so it's impossible for Kinet to lose second place. Garcia is only six ahead of Berman Outiger, who is on level points to Manuel Gonzalez, who then is only four points further behind Alonso Lopez. So the fight for third, fourth, fifth, sixth is probably going to shuffle around a little bit. That's going to be fun to watch there in the end of the season.

Boy, Dixon really sure could have used those podium points as he is a full 10 points behind Belfall Celestino Vietti. He could have used those points except for his thing. I don't know why I didn't mention it in my notes. I just simply forgot to. I guess I just didn't want to bring up the bad luck of the Brits.

I'm too rich. Well, he moves on to Mark VDS next year and we'll hope for a better season. I mean, it's an OK season, but not really what everybody was expecting, mostly him. Yep. So we go to MotoGP.

In the first qualifying session, there's Acosta, Bizecki, Zarco, Binder. Raul Fernandez are all there. Halfway Bizecki and Acosta lead. Binder is there, then Alish. But the question is, what's up with Zarco?

He comes to the end of the pit lane and the bike is dead. It stopped. I mean, usually once they're running, they don't stall. But something weird was happening. So they were taking that bike there.

Yes, it did stall. Yeah, that's true. Chechenalo did confirm that in an interview. Yes. Very odd occurrence.

Very, very odd occurrence. Alish has a problem. It's like, did they want to change the tire on the back? They talked back and forth, but he wound up going out on the second bike. I never did get any kind of clarification anywhere as to what that argument was, and what was going on.

Do you know, Rich? No, I don't. I'm smiling and you're picking up on the fact that I've got that sneaky look on my face. Yes, you do. I was going to say it was classic Alessius Bargho sort of storming in and shouting his head off at everybody, going sort of swivel-eyed bonkers because something hadn't quite gone his way.

And I was thinking, do you know what? The mechanics are probably thinking, you know, on situations like that, we can't wait for this guy to be gone. And then thinking, oh, Jorge Martin's replacing him. So more of the same incoming probably. Probably so.

Sneaky thought. Yes. But Augusto Fernandez was down at turn six, but it's Binder and Bizecki and Acosta was on a hot lap. And so was Raul. But it worked out that it would be Binder and Acosta.

But you thought, we're done. But everybody realizes, wait a second, Zarco's got red helmets because Zarco's bike did stall because Zarco wanted a gap and he didn't have a gap. So when he waited to get a gap, he stalled the bike, which gave him, I guess, an even bigger lap or more motivation to correct the problem that he had. But Zarco would go to P1. So Zarco actually got through the qualifying on a Honda, no less.

I mean, pretty crazy. I would respectfully submit to you, Jim, that when the dust settles on the 2024 season, a few people might look back and think that was one of the laps of the season that Zarco put in because why did he put a Honda into Q2? He did it having had the bike stall on him as well. So all of that interruption, his heart rate would have been, I mean, just slowing down a little bit in Malaysia is excruciating because they're in leathers, helmet. You want to be moving through the air as best as you can.

So for him to turn that lap out was, I thought, was outstanding. And he won't get enough credit for the year that he's put in on the Honda because he's comprehensively outperformed everybody else, including the two Works riders. You know, and he's done it very quietly as he tends to do. But that was a lap right out of the very top draw as far as I'm concerned. Yes, it was fantastic.

There's no question about that. We got to the second qualifying session. Ben Yaya was being followed by one Mark Marquez, but you sort of thought that was going to happen. Ben Yaya wound up ripping off a 157.19. And Marquez would pull off a 157.55.

So essentially three and a half tenths give it a little bit is the factory to 2024 Ducati is that much faster than a 23 Ducati. Paul, because you could see the acceleration out of the corners on the two long straights where Ben Yaya would pull Marquez. There was about a tenth in each one of those. And then there was about a tenth in between there. And you're just like, oh, Lord, you know, it's a track record.

Right now. Remember when they first went to Malaysia, I think it was like either 99 or 2000. I don't remember when the first one was there, but I do remember Stoner had pull at two minutes and three seconds. Yeah, now we're at now it's 157. But no one Jorge Martin blows in with a 156.9 the first sub 57 lap.

Whoa, that was flying to get to that lap. I mean, that was just crazy. But then Ben Yaya rips off a 156.3. Oh, it's crazy. And it was absolutely.

Yeah. If Zarco's lap was utterly amazing, Ben Yaya's was the utter and was the embodiment of perfection. Like every brake marker was exactly correct. Every line was precise. And he winds up ripping off that 156.3.

Wow. Bart team was trying to beat that, but he wound up only pulling off a 156.5. He went four tenths faster than he did the first time. And it's still wasn't enough to displace Ben Yaya from Paul. Absolutely bonkers Lee.

Crazy type thing. Jim, as a practice and qualifying kind of routine builds up, can you sort of glimpse into that performance by Ben Yaya? Because he was like properly under pressure and to deliver that lap to kind of because when Zarco did his lap that I've just been praising in Q1 at the point that he did that 157.6, that was the fastest lap of the weekend. And then Ben Yaya goes, what, 1.3 seconds faster than that? Yeah, beat the track record by like 1.3, 1.1 seconds or something was the track record.

They turn lap after lap after lap in practice one, two, three and so on. And then they get into the qualifying sessions and stuff. And so I'm just always kind of fascinated by the fact that they can kind of build and build and build and then just the crucial moment and Ben Yaya is very good at this. It must be said, as is Martín, of course, as well, just deliver that one explosion of speed. I mean, I don't really understand how they do it because I've never raced a bike.

But I mean, you have. I mean, did you kind of build as well? I know we're not talking about the same thing. It's not my GDP, but it's still relative. I was never a good qualifier.

I sucked at it. I did, honestly. I have the utmost admiration for those guys and how they do that. I could never do it. I could race very fast.

I mean, I could find everything that everybody else had. I could find when it became race time. I just could never do it out by myself. So I don't even know if I'm the right one to ask how there is. I think Ben Yaya and Martín are incredibly good at taking the pressure and getting rid of the outside and finding their happy place and going to the place that I call racers planet, where they can just everything becomes slow motion and they have a lot of time to think about what's going on and they excel at being able to put themselves into that position.

If you've noticed the last few races, there's been a lot of pictures of Martín, eyes closed, handlebars. Yeah, visualizing. The visualization of what's happening in front of him and they're just very special. Think about it this way, Rossi was not a great qualifier. He'd be on the front row, right?

Do we still have four-man front rows at that point or not? I can't remember. I think we did. I think we did. Somebody's yelling at us right now.

No, it is. It was... Dawn of Rock life, here we come. I didn't think they started three-man rows until they went to 800s. I thought that came in at the same time.

So I think the 990s were all four-man rows and Rossi would be like third or fourth or second, but Rossi raced so much better than he did. So it's just something that those guys have that they just have a knack for it, that they can push themselves to that level, which I think is just internal. It's a matter of how you compartmentalize it. Now, I can tell you that I've had times where I've been on a bike and I've been in the zone and I can tell you that I could see pea gravel and watch the cushion move by an inch or two as the race progressed and win that. I can tell you that I've had races where I've won road racing and it was, again, there was like...

It sounds really stupid, but it was a GTU race. So you had to run like 20 laps or something. So you're going to be out there for a good 20, 25 minutes racing around. Everything was just clicking so well. I remember hearing in my head music because there's that extra bit of mental capacity, which I know sounds incredibly stupid, but it's what I remember.

And it just everything just clicks. That's one of the things I think these guys are so good and they have such good teams around them that I think their chief mechanics really understand them and really know what they need to give them to be able to do what they do. I think there's a great amount of trust in those guys, trusting their bikes, their teams that everything that they wanted is exactly how they wanted it. They're extremely comfortable on those bikes and they just are in a zone that nobody else can get to. I think it's just that.

I'd be interested to know, maybe one day we'll get the opportunity to ask some of you like Banyar, if come the end of, say, pre-practice three or four, whatever they call it now, practice four. Well, I don't know how to practice four now, because it's the sprint. But, you know, the end of the practice sessions, if they kind of instinctively know what the ultimate lap time that they can get out of the bike, if everything goes well is, I suspect they do know that within a fairly narrow margin of error in terms of lap time. It's just putting it together. I don't know if that's true, because when when when Martin blew in that 156 time, the look on the faces of all the crew was shock.

So maybe they know, but I don't think the crews know. It's a great question. It's an ultimate question. I wonder which ride, I mean, if you take that lap by Banyar, which was, you know, was a really special lap, wasn't it? I mean, there's no other way of putting it.

I'm always reminded, and again, here comes my Formula One reference now. But I was always a little bit sceptical of this, because just the way I think. But, you know, Ernst Sender's famous sort of out of body experience during his qualifying lap at Monaco in what was it, 88 or 89, perhaps. You're right. It's either it's 88 or 89.

That kind of what's the word, transcendental, is that the right word? Experience of not even being in the car, but just sort of watching it happen. He was so in the zone, you know, and you just wonder if any of the bike racers have ever experienced something approaching that, because these guys are putting some lap times down. You think, well, how is that even physically possible? Yeah, I don't know.

Just, yeah, when you reference, you know, the fact that they're now going six or seven seconds a lap faster than when they first started racing. They're not that long ago. Yeah, it's just bonkers, really. Anyway, we must move on. Yeah, interesting that the end of that qualifying session, Benyanya had a practice start that was horrid.

Left the back end and whatnot. So apparently, all the electronics are even more complicated or don't engage every single time. So I'm like, well, that's the last thing Benyanya needs is a bad start here or whatever. So, you know, anyway, we go to the sprint later that afternoon. It was raining at the beginning.

Very light rain, but definitely rain. In fact, they were all on slicks as they did their warm up lap. But the white flag was displayed, meaning that riders could change bikes if they so desired. And I'm like, wow, this is a 12, I think it was a 10 lap sprint race, right? So it's so like, yeah, if this thing rains, this is really going to be interesting because what are the two protagonists for the World Championship going to do?

I mean, I don't think you could make the time back up if you pit it with three to go and win. I mean, I think we know what Bender did with in Austria that time with very little time left. But who knew what was going to happen or whatever. But Martin had the whole shot over Benyanya, over Mark Marquez, over Bastionini, and then Alex Marquez, who was, I think, third from the road. I think we didn't really go through who was qualifying, but Marquez did qualify third on the road there.

So Al-Qaeda is his bigger brother. Anyhow, Benyanya is then down at turn nine, the front's tuck. I looked at that crash numerous times to try to figure out what Benyanya had done. I have no answer for it. Now, Simon Krayfor had this thought that it was perhaps maybe he had in there a little deep.

There was the thought that perhaps maybe his tire was a little underflated or overflated because they expected him to be in clear air. Then that caught him out there. I speculated that there's a few little patches that are in that turn because it's a very tight, very slow turn that maybe perhaps transitioning off of one of those patches. Simon Krayfor said, well, maybe his elbow was on the curve and that pushed him out. I honestly don't know what caused Benyanya to fall.

I can only tell you Benyanya fell and that turn has claimed its fair share of champions. I mean, let's put it this way. A few years ago, Ayagura crashed out of that turn and didn't get a world championship as a result. So I was like, hmm, who knows what's going on there. On the super slow mode, Jim, I did notice Benyanya, because I thought he touched the curve, although from a different angle he didn't, but his front tire was definitely pattering.

His chatter, yeah. There is a little depression in the surface there apparently. Maybe he was just a few millimeters offline and you could see that it was sort of chattering or pattering, I think is probably the better term in this case. Just enough because they're so cranked over, aren't they? It's such a slow speed corner that, yeah.

But I did say in the last episode, didn't I, somebody was going to make a crucial mistake. I wrote my notes. I was right. So he's really put himself in trouble now. But either way, really the race is done at this point.

Martín runs off to win it. Mark Marquez is second. Bastianini is third. Alex Marquez would be fourth. Quattroraro was fifth on the Yamaha.

Quattroraro had a fantastic time. I didn't mention it, but both Yamahas made it directly to the Q2. Yeah, that's not worthy actually. Yeah, it's pretty noteworthy. I slid by it with the championship contenders that are there.

Then it was Morbidelli, Brad Bender, Miller, and then Acosta. At the end of the race, the Acosta-Miller battle was pretty good for P8. That's how bad it was that we were looking at a race and sprint at P8. That's how far down everything was. It was pretty crazy.

Now the math is really simple at this point. All Martín has to do is score nine more points than Benyaya, and the world title is locked up and done here. So we should see what happens on Sunday. We get to Sunday. The championship contenders both go medium-medium.

So that was all there. Again, it's nine points, all more that have got to be there. We start off at the beginning. It's Benyaya and Martín. They basically touch legs as they go in.

Benyaya's got his leg out there. Martín basically runs over it. They touch legs. They get into turn one. Then Martín goes wide.

Benyaya goes underneath at that turn immediately to take back the lead. Then there's a major crash. We had bikes strewn everywhere. There were three, four riders that were involved in all of this. Basically, it red-flagged the race.

What was weird is they didn't have it on their commentary screens when Benyaya turned around and just threw the hand up. Then everybody else did. Well, obviously, red flag there, causing the idea for it to be a thing. So what happened is that Bender and Quattroraro were up immediately walking. Jack Miller was still down and the doctors were attending to him at the second turn.

I tried to watch this over and over again. There wasn't really a great shot. I don't know who started it, but somebody stood up Quattroraro. I believe that to be Bender on the inside. That chain reaction forces them to go wide, which meant Miller had nowhere to go.

Quattroraro slammed into Miller. Now, they showed a replay of it. For those of you of weak stomachs, do not go see it because Jack Miller's head, basically, his helmet gets stuck to Quattroraro's rear tire and takes it up. Then he's only knocked off of that tire because he hits the inner fender or whatever is there to keep debris from going onto the motor. A very scary looking incident because at the time Miller had not been back up.

We did know that he was conscious. They were administering, I don't want to say first aid, but they were doing whatever medical doctors do in that situation to evaluate the seriousness of his condition or the stability of his condition. He was then put into the ambulance, taken to the Trackside Hospital for further checks. We did see Jack and his wife walking back down the pit lane, which made everybody breathe better that there was not a dark cloud over. There's already enough dark cloud over the Malaysia round just because of Michelli.

I always think of that terrible accident that happened there at that time. I did not need to see another one or worse, a paralyzation of some kind. It goes to remind you that this is a dangerous sport and those first turns are deadly. You can have these problems where somebody gets in there hot. I don't believe any blame was apportioned to any one individual in there via the stewarding, which I think is proper and correct.

Hopefully, Jack is just sore and will be able to contend the last race of the season if it happens. The blame really is turn one. It's not a good turn for bikes because everybody funnels in there and then you've got that hard left immediately afterwards. It's just a bit of a rough... It drops off significantly there too, which causes another group of problems.

I've sat in the stands there and it's actually, again, as we always say, if you can see ups and downs on TV, it's much more extreme than that when you see it in real life and it really does drop severely there. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there aren't some discussions going on. Bone in mind, there was quite a big crash on that one of the Moto2 race as well, which took three riders out. Yes, that's true. If they don't perhaps have a thought or two about perhaps doing something to make the profile of that corner a bit less severe.

It's fine for the cars, although it's a bit Mickey Mouse even for them, but for the bikes it is a genuine problem. We've seen a lot of crashes over the years there and that was a genuinely nasty one. Like you, I was thinking, blimey, this is all taking rather long time to get him in the ambulance. What the heck's happened here? I just imagine they were taking extreme caution at getting that crash helmet off, given if they'd seen what we saw a snippet of on the replay, they would have known where his head had gone and there would have been a lot of worry about neck injuries and making a bad situation potentially a lot worse.

Good that they did take their time. He looked absolutely fine, didn't he, looking down the pit lane? It looks as if he was just walking back from the pub on a Sunday afternoon. Clearly no injuries of any great impact. I'm sure he had a sore neck for a couple of days afterwards, but it could have been a lot worse.

This then causes the red flag. Then we have, we were going through, the race distance would be reduced by one lap, it would become 19, and we were going to go through the quick start procedure where we open the pit lane for 60 seconds. You've got to get out, you take that siding lap, you roll up, you have team personnel meet you there. Is everything okay? Yes.

Okay, cool. I'm off the grid. We go immediately to the warmup lap, return, and then take off from there. Now, the light goes green. Benyaya and Martin have wicked starts.

They both go in there. Now, this next section, the first four laps of this race is absolutely a titantic struggle between Jorge Martin and Benyaya to lead this race. Martin would try to go by at six. Nobody goes through at six, and he made the pass work, except for he ran wide. Martin attacked again at 14, and he ran wide.

He attacked again at 15, but was wide. Benyaya would dive back underneath at one. Martin would attack again at four. The action at the beginning of this race is insane. It's probably one of the best MotoGP start races that you can see for the first four or five laps.

The action is crazy. Again, the struggle is for clear air. They want to be out front, and the two of them are just absolutely banging on each other to actually make this happen. Eventually, Benyaya prevails. Martin ceases the attack because he's warmed up the tire.

The pressures are up. He can't get a pressure limit warning. He needs to pull back from there. Marc Marquez is in third, then Morbidelli and Bastianini, and then Alex Marquez. Morbidelli goes down at turn nine.

Mir also crashes, then Marc Marquez crashes out at turn 15, riding well beyond the limit of what a 2023 Ducati is capable of being pushed. Let's see what that guy does on a 2025 bike. It's probably going to be scary how quick he's going to be. With 10 to go, it's still Benyaya, Martin, Bastianini, Alex Marquez, Acosta, and Qualtiraro. Benyaya has pulled out a 1.6-second lead with five to go.

Martin is some 7.1 seconds ahead of Bastianini. Then you've got Alex, and then you've got Acosta. Martin is really slightly wide at turn nine. That gave Bastianini maybe a small sniff, but from there, Benyaya rode home to a victory to collect 25 points, Jorge Martin finished second, which was a great place for him to actually finish because this means that all he has to do is win the sprint race. He is world champion, or he can finish second in both races and be world champion.

The math favors Jorge Martin. I'm not going to say it's a four-round conclusion because anything can happen in racing, but it looks like it's Jorge Martin's championship to lose. Bastianini finishes on the podium, then Alex Marquez, Acosta with a fifth, fine fifth, well ahead of, well, he's the only KTM basically left, Qualtiraro with a fine sixth to finish with 10 points, Maverick Vinales, Alex Rins, again, two Yamahas in the top 10, which was absolutely positively oppressive. There wasn't as much talk about Qualtiraro and Rins during the whole weekend. Rightfully so.

I think the idea is the championship is happening, and I think we're perfectly fine with that, but they do need a mention. Bizecki was ninth, Fernandez 10th, Zarchio had finished 11th ahead of Marc Marquez. He remounted to gain four points, then Aleix Morbidelli and Luca Marini scoring the last point there. As we go into the championship standings, Benyaya is 24 points behind Jorge Martin with 12 plus 25 with 37 points left to be fought for. Marquez, Marc that is, is third.

He is 92 points behind. The bad part is Bastianini is only one point behind Marc for third in the championship, so there's a lot to play for there. I think Marquez wants third in the championship. I think that would be an impressive feat on the year old bike. Remember back when Bastianini was riding on the Grissini, the year old Grissini, and he won at Cota, I think, when was that, in 20, 21, something, whatever, it doesn't matter.

The point of it is he said, oh, I think I can win a championship on this bike. Well, he never came close. Not that Marc Marquez has come close, but to be the best of the rest, he's beat, was fairly impressive, I think, for being on the year old Ducati. Again, mission done, he has the factory right. Then Acosta is like 159 behind Bastianini, but he's only three points ahead of Binder.

I think there's an internal rivalry there. Acosta wanting to assert the dominance and sort of knock the feet off the desk of Brad Binder and be like, yo, my team, they're going to develop it for me, and that's what we're going to do. After that, it's Vignales and Digiantonio and Morbidele and then Alex Marquez. It all comes down to the last race. We've said it for the longest time.

It was going to come down to the last race. Do you think one is better suited to winning the championship now because we shifted the venue to a different place? Do you think that plays an effect at all between the two of them, Richard? What, as a comparison between favoring one or the other, do you mean? Correct, yes.

Oh, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think it's, well, go back. Valencia is a terrible track for a MotoGP bike. I've said it many times and I don't think I would ever change my opinion. It might be slightly better suited to the 850s perhaps, but it's still a kind of car park track as well as I can tell.

So I think both riders would probably favor Barcelona over Valencia, just as a place to go and have a race. I think, I mean, I need to look back at who's done better. I mean, let's not forget, Bagnore did crash out of the sprint at Barcelona earlier this season, didn't they? Gave the win to Martin. I mean, for me, it's inconceivable that Martin can lose the championship from here.

He would have to have an absolute disaster in the last race wherever it happens. But I can't think of many racetracks that are less suited to MotoGP than Valencia. So pretty much anywhere would be better than going there. I mean, you could make the same argument, I suppose, for the Saxon ring, but at least you've got up and downhill at the Saxon ring. That's the only sort of comparable one to me.

So I don't really think it favors one or the other particularly. I just think Martin's in an extraordinarily strong position. So I think one or the other particularly. I just think Martin's in an extraordinarily strong position to the extent that I couldn't believe how hard he fought for the win on Sunday because he didn't really need to do that. And he was putting it, I mean, I've said several times before, I'm not the world's biggest Jorge Martin fan.

Although in the interest of balance, I think he has conducted himself very well this year. He's matured a lot. I think you can see that off the bike and in some of the interviews he gives, the kind of arrogance and headedness I think is toned down a bit this year, which is part of the natural progression of people growing up and becoming a bit more mature and experienced. Or maybe indeed he's had some help with that. He's obviously got in a very kind of close loving relationship with his very attractive girlfriend.

She's obviously stable and a good influence on him. So in fairness to Jorge Martin, yeah, he's had a good year on and off the bike. But I mean, that race was four laps of brilliance and then 15 laps of astatini. I mean, let's be honest, but I did write in my notes, apparently you can overtake in MotoGP. So you want it bad enough, you can do it.

Yeah, that was interesting, wasn't it? Because I mean, they were absolutely, I mean, in my notes somewhere I wrote, it's a war, because if that had gone on all race long, which okay, really, it couldn't have done, somebody would have crashed. But it was for as long as it lasted, it was brilliant, wouldn't it? So sorry, I've kind of question. I will Barcelona.

I think probably favors my feeling is it favors Bagnier a little bit, but not enough to overcome the challenge that he's got unless Martin has something inexplicable crash or some sort of bike failure, but neither which are highly likely. Certainly, the latter is very unlikely, I would say. So here's my take. With them going to Barcelona, my first thought is that favors Bagnier. You have an incredibly long straightaway with a very heartbreaking section at the very beginning.

That's sort of Bagnier's take on it. But it's not like a big enough advantage that like Martin isn't fast there either. Where I'm looking at it is like, okay, if you were still at Valencia, do you think Marc Marquez wouldn't be a pest in somebody's ass? Right? So being on the shorter circuit of Valencia, right, with Marquez being in there, you could almost see Marquez going past Martin.

And there's that buffer where Bagnier could be champion. But then Marquez would simply just go past Bagnier too, it wouldn't make a difference, right? But I think it's an easier path for Jorge Martin to win at Barcelona because there won't be as many distractions, right? Those two bikes are fast enough that Marquez isn't going to have a bike that's going to interfere with them. Bastianini has a bike that could interfere, but I don't think Bastianini cares one way or the other.

I think he's relegated to, I'm done and I'm going to KTM or whatever. But I just think that it does change a bit of the dynamic by changing the venue. Oh, it definitely does. It's a big change for everybody. Psychologically, it's a big change.

And I might be completely wrong in this, but my feeling with MotoGP bikes in Valencia is that, I'm trying to think how I want to say this. I always have the impression that they're just trying to manage a MotoGP at Valencia because the track is not suitable. Whereas at Barcelona, it is a track for a MotoGP bike. So they can just unleash and ride the bike as they know how and as they normally do ride it. Whereas at Valencia, I have the feeling that they almost have to run probably at 80% because you can never really unlock the full potential of a MotoGP bike on a track that's so tight and twisty.

I mean, the front straight is longish, but probably only just touching. I think it'd be a blast to ride it on a Moto3 bike. Oh yeah, for sure. It's got to be a blast to do. And probably on a Moto2 bike as well, but a MotoGP bike is another thing altogether, isn't it?

I think a Moto3 bike would be a blast anywhere. Well, yeah. I'd probably take one up the road outside my house if it came to it. So yeah, I don't know. What was it?

Murray Walker always used to say, you know, anything can happen in racing and it usually does. So, you know, we cannot for sure say what's going to happen, but Martín is certainly in a very strong position and is willing to fight for the wins on the evidence of last weekend. I do respect him for that because he could just very happily have just sort of not even bothered to challenge Banyan and just said, no second will do, which it did, but he clearly wanted to win it and, you know, head into the last weekend with more of a buffer with, well, with the number. I mean, if he had won the race on Sunday, he would have been champion, right? I don't think so.

He had to score nine points more and it's only a five point difference between first and second. So he would have not, he would have, it would have gave him a better, the odds were better in his favor. He could have been third or something. The math would have gotten harder. It was nine points, wasn't it?

Yeah. Okay. So yeah, it would have made his life a bit easier again, but even so, 24 point disadvantage is a big ask really even for Banyan. Yeah, completely. All right.

I think that covers the weekend, Rich. I think that's everything that we wanted to talk about there. Again, hopefully everybody's enjoying the interviews from Scott Bolton. I haven't heard them yet myself. I need to, but even though.

It's a great chat with Kenny Jr. I haven't quite. I haven't quite finished editing yet. I've got, I've got a few more minutes to go. I think they are sat in the Barber Museum.

Oh, nice. And so at certain times the audio is quite quiet. So I had to try and sort of play around with the audio levels just to make it a little bit more audible. So people will need to turn it up a little bit probably if they haven't heard it by the time they hear this. But that's yeah.

So the three other riders are sort of five minutes ish, five to ten minutes each. And then the chat with Kenny is a good 20 minutes long. So they can sort of talk about his GP 500 championship and so on and so forth. So yeah, really great input from Scott as usual. And you've got an interesting one coming up as well, Jim.

As it was just mentioning that. Yeah. So had a chat with Michael Goudjus. He is a photographer, racer, wrote a book about Marc Marquez's 2019 season. Predominantly the conversation was to talk about his book.

However, we did what we, you and I do. And we wandered off into all kinds of other things that was in there. It's a great, I enjoyed it. I had a very fun time with that. I think hopefully there'll be some good content there that people are going to like it.

He is an insider. He's there all the time. He covers the races for Road Racing World. He's editor at large for them. He is a great speaker, fun guy.

So there's a lot that we talk about and the drive determination, things like that. But we sort of steered into super bikes and we, because he was there at Hereth for the super bike race. So I was talking to him then and you can hear super bikes going by occasionally during the test and what else. We wandered off everywhere. I do want to have him back on again in the off season to have much longer talk about Liberty Media, MotoGP, its status, and a whole bunch of other things that he's willing to sit down with us and do.

So we're going to do that and have another conversation there with him and sort of just try to have that. So hopefully that will be after this show. Hopefully it'll be in that week, the two week. We have two weeks to get ready for the final race. I don't like that.

Honestly, I wouldn't want to be sitting for two weeks. I'd much rather want to just get back and get it done a week off. But either way, circumstances are beyond our control for that one. So I think that's enough teasing of episodes that will possibly be happening there. Well, on the other side of, let's say, Barcelona, I have started at long last editing the other Silverstone stuff that I collected.

So yeah, people can look forward to Alonso, Ortolla, Kelso, Arbolino, Sergio Garcia, Senor Adria, amongst other people. I even got Derek Warwick, ex Formula One star. Oh, wow. I want to hear that. So that's in the sort of the miscellaneous chats segment.

So I'm probably going to conjure up on, I might even put out, if people are interested, perhaps sort of say yeah or no to the comments. But I recorded quite a lot of the media debriefs as well. I wasn't necessarily, I think I asked one question of one of the riders, but I just sort of stuck the microphone in and I've got about probably 10 recordings from the Saturday and Sunday debriefs that the MotoGP riders do up in the media center. So I can all stick that out as a little compilation show as well, just to be interesting space in the because it's always interesting to listen to the riders in terms of how they analyze the race and address any issues that came up. People like Joanne Meir, you know, wretched season, but very eloquent and always very honest and quite chirpy.

So always sort of interesting to sort of hear the comments of people like that. So I think I probably will put a few of those out as well as a show, just again, because we're going to have a fair bit of time to fill up, although it's not massively long off season. It's February and it's going to be race season. So we will want to have a few weeks off just to recharge the batteries ourselves, don't we, after a fairly hectic run into the end of the season. But yeah, we've both got some good content to put out and a few other things planned.

I'm hoping to be speaking over the winter to James Ellison, ex-BSB Moto GP rider, James Toasland, double world superbike champion, got something under arrangement with him to come in and chat about his career, probably get Greg Payne back in again to have a chat about world superbike season just gone. So yeah, lots of stuff planned. So yeah, it won't be too hard to fill up the off season. No, it sure won't. With that, that's it for this show.

Looking forward to the final in Barcelona. Until then, everyone ride safe.