MotoGP 2025 Pre-Season Testing

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk Welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode 798 for February 18th, 2025. I'm Jim McDowell sitting here talking to you.

Of course across the pond in Maryald, England is Richard Jout. Richard, is it cold over there because it's really cold here? Well, not as cold as it is for you in Dayton, Ohio, Jim, but yeah, it's pretty chilly here. But as I just told you before we started recording, I did actually get out on the BMW today and it was pretty chilly because I don't really have winter gear because I don't, as a general rule, ride when it's cold. Road skin.

Yeah, well, all donations are gratefully received. But anyway, it's good to get out on the road, although terrible British roads, potholes and crap everywhere, but as usual, but yeah. Anyway, mustn't grumble. It's nearly the spring and racing is almost upon us, which is doubly exciting. Oh yes, we're getting through testing now.

So we're going to cover that on the show. But first up, we're going to reach out and thank all of you for subscribing to the show. Those of you who have, you can always donate to the show at one time or you can do a subscription. Just go to our webpage, www.motopodcast.com. There's links to Patreon or PayPal and you can then do it that way.

I know, Rich, that we've had some discussions earlier this year with Dorna and whatnot. And anyway, I think I'll let you kind of explain to everybody what's going on there because you're a little more informed just to try to keep everybody up to speed here. Yeah, keep everybody up to speed. I mean, the list of subscribers is the same as it was last time we recorded. I think I read everybody out in terms of the PayPal and the Patreon side that hasn't changed.

So glad we haven't lost anybody. A little bit frustrated we haven't gained anybody. But anyway, thanks to the people, you know who you are. We'll kind of keep up on top of that over the course of the year in terms of who's subscribing financially to the show. Yeah, we've kind of spoken about what I hope and believe was the good progress that we've made over the last couple of seasons with you making it to Kota, me getting to Silverstone, obviously with the formal Dorna press accreditation.

It's a great help because if you can get into the paddock, then you have the opportunity to get the kind of interviews that we've managed to get over the last, what, 18 to 24 months because I did a couple of the World Supers at Donny as well. So that's been great. I went back to Dorna on the MotoGP side. This is again just to try and plan out a few events for this year. Obviously, we were hoping for you at Kota, Jim, although your timescales are a bit constrained because of work and one thing and another, not to mention travel, which takes days either way.

I was hoping to get back into Silverstone, which, of course, is pulled forward to May this year. That's a big change for Silverstone. I was hoping to get over to Bruneau because that's kind of been on the bucket list for a while and that might still happen. And then we were sort of trying to arrange something potentially for Philip Ireland on the MotoGP side later in the year. Anyway, how can I put this diplomatically?

A lukewarm response from Dorna, who again asked to see our show stats, which I'm reasonably proud of, I have to say, because we are a smallish fan based, fan run kind of podcast. We're not The Race. We're not Paddock Pass podcast. We're not Matt Oxley and all the other famous names, the David Emmets and so on. Dorna have kind of been a bit sniffy again, as they were a couple of years ago, and have kind of said, well, no, you're not big enough.

We've got enough people in the paddock as it is. You're not kind of welcome. Not quite phrased like that, but that's kind of the attitude that you get. So I don't know really. I don't know where that leaves us.

I've gone back. I sort of went down the rabbit hole of getting online and looking at various subscription data that's available through various sources. I also did a sneaky free seven day trial on a very powerful piece of podcast analytics software, which costs $100 a month. So not something that we could subscribe to. But I was able to capture a bit of data from that, which was useful to see.

And it kind of indicates that we get about 5000 listens a month, which isn't terrible. I think obviously it could be better. But if you look at various metrics, I mean, MotoPod, this is pure podcast. And I am obviously mindful of the fact that a lot of shows dual broadcasting YouTube and audio now. So the figures might be skewing off towards the video content a little bit.

So I do accept that argument. But nevertheless, I mean, we scored on a site called ListenNotes.com, which is quite a good one. MotoPod scores in the top global rank of number one. And we're only behind Paddock Pass and the Race MotoGP on that metric. And that's not our data.

That's completely independent third party data. That picture is repeated elsewhere. I think that's down to loyalty of listenership and the sort of regularity of downloads from what is probably a relatively small subscriber base. And I'm doing some work, hopefully with Len, who's off the scene in the back room, as it were. We're going to try and see if we can do a little bit more analytical kind of work on this as the year goes on.

Anyway, long story short is that we're having a bit of a struggle with Dawna again to get any sort of access, which means that we won't be able to get kind of the interviews with Moto3 riders, Moto2 riders and the occasional MotoGP rider. So that's obviously very frustrating as things stand at the minute. I'm making my case and doing what I can to try and argue for MotoPod and see if we can get some access back again. But unless we get people kind of liking the show, leaving comments about the show, more people subscribing through sort of organic growth and people just kind of banging the drum and rattling the old coin tin, I think we're sort of stuck where we are. Now, as I say, we are a relatively small podcast and we are what we do.

People that listen like it and, you know, we just need more people if we want to increase the content. So that's kind of where we are, Jim. I don't know why my videos just failed, but it doesn't matter. You can probably hear me. So, yeah, it's really just a shout out to the listenership, really, to say, look, if you can do more to help us in terms of likes, comments, subscriptions and get more people on board, then please do.

Because without it, I think we're a little bit stuck. So that's kind of where we are, Jim. Yep. So I'm going to implore you people out there who love motorcycles. Tell everybody about us.

Go back, leave a review on the on your podcast platform where you get it. That will be good for us to be able to keep going. And that's all I'm going to say about that. I didn't realize we were like only behind what Patok Pass and the race. That's that's crazy for a hobbyist podcast, if you will.

I mean, because we're nothing but just well, I can't think of the word I'm looking for. We're just super enthusiastic about it. And we do this on our own time and what not to be that good in the world. That's absolutely crazy to me. And, you know, it's a bit humbling, quite actually.

Yeah, no, well, just slightly to expand, just a bit. I mean, people can go and find it for themselves. Www.listennotes.com. I don't exactly know how the data is built up, but panic pass gets a listen score. This is out of 100, I think, of 51.

And their global rank is in the top 0.5 percent of all podcasts. Then you've got the race Moto GP. They get a listen score of 48 and a global rank of one. And then it's Moto Pod with a listen score of 44 and a global rank of one. Now, obviously, we've got a lot of episodes, but that's measured over the last 320 episodes for some reason.

I don't know. That's a bit bizarre. The race is measured over 244 podcast episodes and panic pass is over 520. So I'm not quite sure why that is, because obviously Moto Pod's been going for 20 years, but nearly 20 years. So, yeah, I think the metrics are something to be pretty proud of.

Given that we don't have a big sponsor, we're not paid journalists with, you know, unfettered access to everybody and everything. I mean, we do a lot with very, very little. So that's just kind of where we are. The other thing I will just mention and we'll move on, Jim, is Instagram. We will try to do more on Instagram this year.

Again, please, please subscribe to the Insta channel because we've got maybe 100 or so people that are following it at the minute. We need many, many hundreds of people following it, really, because we'll tag in or we do tag in the people that we've interviewed. Obviously, Road to Game, we're trying to get one or two more people on board. As you know, that's an ongoing battle, which is all about reach and listenership again. So it's chicken and egg, I'm afraid.

You just have to get more impact to get more and to do more. So, yeah, there we go. That's where we are. But I mean, obviously, all of the shows this year around race reviews and et cetera, et cetera, the bread and butter of what we do, that will stay the same as it always has been. All right.

With that, let's finish up with just a little bit more housekeeping for this episode. I would like to we, I guess, would like to congratulate Jeremy Burnett. You are the winner of Michael Goudge's book. So look for an email from me, Jeremy, so that I can get that book to you. Appreciate you writing in telling us how many points Mark Marquez did score.

And hopefully you will enjoy the book because it is kind of neat. I've paged through it a few times, I must say. And of course, it is autographed by Michael himself. So that congrats Jeremy, that contest and that giveaway. Rich and I are working on a couple other giveaways that we're going to try to do here.

So stay tuned for that, because I got a couple of ideas. Anyway, I got a couple of things that we need to get rid of. Let's put it that way that I have collected along the way. Oh, finally, last bit, some listener feedback. This is for Jake Rowler.

We previously had talked about the fuel rags and things like that with motorcycles and World Superbike, whatnot. And basically it now comes out. This is according to Sue that World Superbike is not going to have an RPM limit anymore. They are going to now have unrestricted revs, but they must adhere to a fuel flow restriction, which is something that I said we should go to in MotoGP in World Superbike. Formula One did it.

It's not an original idea by me. Formula One has it. I think they're like 100, 100 kilos per hour. Or I think is their rate or something like that. I don't know what the official one is for it, but I thought I would add a little bit as to exactly what that means with this.

So what it means is that you have a you can have any revs you want. So you could have a if you want it, you could have a 20,000 RPM revving superbike if you could get the pneumatic valves in it and get it homogated and people are willing to buy one of the. What do you got to have rich for super bikes? A hundred copies of it or something. I couple of hundred, is it?

Yeah, I don't know what it is. It's not not big. Yeah, it's not big. So 100, let's say 100 just for the time being. But what it is that you've got a regulator, a meter.

So it works essentially like you if you have natural gas heat to your house or you have a water from your city to your house, there's a water meter. There's a gas meter on there. And what it does is it looks at how much you consume per hour, day, week, month, and it tallies up how many cubics of natural gas you use or how many gallons of water, et cetera. So basically, it's kind of like the same thing. It looks at the flow, how much fuel is flowing past this little meter.

And it counts it and says, OK, you have to maintain no more than. And I don't know what the regulation is in World Superbike. I haven't looked it up. But let's just say that it's a like something on the order of probably like you can do more than like a well, see, we got what 20 liters or 20 liters in world and Moto GP, probably about the same amount. Let's say 20 liters of fuel.

You can't consume more than, say, like those 20 liters in that hour time frame or whatever. So what they're doing is they're saying, look, you're allowed to have this much fuel. And if you want to run it wide open, you're going to use more and flow more. But overall, the rate can't be any more than what we specify. So if it was like, you know, per hour, like fuel per fuel per hour or something like that, maybe you are permitted.

Let's say that you're probably not allowed to have any more than, let's say, maybe a tenth or two tenths of a liter, perhaps, for that couple of minutes that you're running in that lap. And it's going to keep track of that data. And then that way, you know, whether you violated anything in the rules, because you can't go over that amount of fuel that's flowing through it. So it's just basically a meter between the fuel pump and the injectors says this is the amount of flow that's going to the injectors, and it can't be over a certain value. So that is what that is.

Hopefully that makes some sense to everybody. And it's a decent example. Rich has his hand up, so he's asking a question. Well, I've just looked it up, in fact, because this is the rule for 2025 going forward. So I'll just quickly read this off Google.

I mean, this is AI generated, no doubt. But let's say this is to the letter of the law, correct. Each manufacturer is permitted 47 kilograms per hour or some kilogram per hour of fuel flow. There you go. There is a tolerance of two grams per lap, but any more would result in a penalty.

That's interesting because that's a density issue. Heat is going to change that. Temperature is going to change that. Yeah. I'm surprised they did it that way by, what did you say, kilograms?

Forty seven kilograms per hour of fuel flow. You can change a liter to a kilogram because a liter is nothing more than a kilogram per centimeter cubed. Let's be honest about what that value is. So, yeah, is it? I think so.

I think it's right. I haven't looked up my because the force is a kilogram per centimeter. Yeah, should be a kilogram per liter. Anyway, that's odd that they did it that way. But I mean, you know, again, what you're going to find is people are going to find ways to trick it.

That's that's now a gray box area where people are going to have to do that. So I'm quite sure that they probably give you the meter at the beginning of the event. You got to turn the meter back in at the end of the event. They're probably all serialized and they're all recalibrated and checked to be sure that nothing's happened to them while they've been used during the weekend. And then they're randomly assigned again after that, because it's going to be it's a small device.

It can't be that big. Yeah. So interesting. I mean, we'll try and do a bit more finding that. About that as we get into the season, because I mean, it's another area where I suppose a few people might both out of the rules, which will create a little bit of consternation and controversy.

It does say in addition here, I guess this is just in case somebody does sort of game or beat the system somewhat, Jim. If a manufacturer is 12 concession points clear of second place, I don't know exactly how to measure that. Their allowance may be reduced by half a kilogram per hour. One of the concession checkpoints, they have points in the year when they kind of look at who's where performance wise and they sort of balance a little bit, which again is a little contentious. But again, this is a production based series, so it's a little bit more palatable, I suppose, in that theatre.

So, yeah, that's interesting, though, isn't it? And then obviously, yeah, Jake kind enough to write in and just point that one out, because I kind of had missed it slightly, because I know rev restrictions was becoming itself very contentious in World Superbikes because you've got different engines, different manufacturers and different configurations and stuff going on there. So different approaches require different solutions. So I guess the fuel flow aims to kind of create somewhat of a level playing field, I guess. I don't know if they are allowed from a cost point of view or if it's even worthwhile to sort of cool field to get the density question off the table.

I don't know if they do or are allowed to do that. I hope they're not allowed because, boy, that was a whole ruckus in Formula One back in the 80s. They used to freeze the fuel to get it smaller and put it into the fuel tanks when the turbos are running. Well, it's like you say, somebody will find a way to game the system and come up with a neat little solution to circumnavigate a rule. But that's the essence of sport is warfare and then it goes until it doesn't.

You know, I don't think I want to see MotoGP do a fuel flow. What I'd like to see them do is a torque sensor. So after having watched the 24 hours at Daytona and listening to a couple of podcasts about that race, the governing body, which is IMSA, they put torque sensors on the cars, on the GT cars. Now, I don't know if it's on the prototype cars, but I know for 100 percent that it's on the GT cars. And they monitor the torque and they say, OK, basically, we put your car on a dyno.

We know the torque that's capable of being done on that. And we know what that is. So if you exceed it, we know it. And then you get penalized for it, which is a different way of thinking about it there. For you don't have an issue of weight, fuel flow restrictions, all that stuff.

It's all based on your car, which would be interesting. But I can't see the manufacturers really doing that because it would cause a stir when somebody throws one on a dynamometer or whatever. Or however they I don't remember fills up dynamometer exactly. But it was but they use a torque sensor. And it's supposedly very accurate.

And it's really the teams have. Haven't found a way to like get around it, if you will. So interesting. Interesting. All right.

I think that covers all the housekeeping and everything like that. We're actually here to talk about testing for MotoGP, so specifically, we can talk about some of the other testing as we go along. But let's start off with what happened in Sepang. That was the first test that we had in the in there. And quite honestly, I don't exactly think there was a lot that ever really happened in this Sepang test.

Now, as far as looking at lap times and things like that, because there was way too many unknowns that were going on in there. But I do think the big talking point was the three crashes that wound up injuring injuring riders at that test. So you had DG Antonio crashed. I did. He did.

He broke a collarbone, right, Rich? He did. OK. I can't remember if he had hurt his shoulder again or if he broke his collarbone. So he had broken a collarbone and a very nasty crash.

Raul Fernandez on the trackhouse bike had a crash that required surgery for his hand. And his he didn't have to have surgery on his foot, but he did break a few bones in his foot, I believe. And then the mother of all high sides basically happened to Jorge Martin on the Aprilia. And he had to have surgery on his right hand. And I think on his left foot, he flew out after Sepang back to Spain, was seen by Dr.

Mir had all that work done and is now and was actually ruled as unfit for the test in Thailand, which is not good for Aprilia to not have him riding. I know Didja was unfit for Thailand as well. I'm pretty sure I'm correct in saying that. And, oh, man, that was tough below there. And then on top of that, you then had Raul, who was clear to be fit to do testing on trackhouse bikes or the Aprilia's at Thailand, which is crazy.

So really, I don't remember a test with that many riders having those big of crashes and having those kind of injuries for a very long time. Rich, I can't think of when. Well, generally, people don't kind of throw it all at the scenery in the first test of the new year, do they? I mean, it's not really the best way to start off there. Obviously, I mean, it's rich state in the bleeding obvious, of course.

But on the other hand, you can't poodle around at 50 percent because you're not learning anything in doing it that way either. Now, again, from what I've read and heard from other sources, Didja's crash was a bit of a blooper in the sense that I believe he was doing. What's the best way to put this? A kind of a bit of a wheelie or a stoppy, something not really purely riding related for the cameras. And it went a bit wrong.

He fell off and came down. Luckily, he didn't damage that shoulder because, bearing in mind, he missed the end of last season to get the shoulder sorted and is kind of what we understand fairly well back towards some semblance of full fitness. So luckily, inverted commas, he only damaged his collarbone that didn't undo the good work that's been achieved over the winter with regards to that troublesome shoulder. So that was Didja Fernandez' role. I think this is the third year in succession that he's crashed in this particular manner, possibly part of the reason why he gritted his teeth and was there in Thailand.

Obviously, he had to be past fit in the first place. But that was not helpful to Aprilia on top of the fact that Mr. Starman, as you say, had a little trip to the stars pretty much straight away. I think it was his 14th lap on day one of the test and down he went. I mean, he clonked his head.

I guess you saw the crash, Jim, did you, in terms of the replay? Yeah, it was nasty. It was a big one. It was a very big one. Very reminiscent of Marquez on the Repsol Honda had a crash very similar to that a few seasons back, just in that kind of nudgey first turn, I think it was a weird kind of off throttle.

High side, it just launched him up and he came down hard on his sort of face and obviously whacked his hands and his feet into the ground to the bargain. And yes, as you say, he's broken bones in one of each. So completely ruled out of that test and subsequently for Thailand as well, which is obviously a devastating blow. Well, in one sense, a devastating blow for him, more so for Aprilia, I would say, in terms of the bike development. Nobody's expecting Martin to go off and kind of win the championship this year, although I have always felt that he's going to be quick on that bike.

But this kind of relieves some of a bit of that expectation, I think, going into the early part of the season. I suspect he will ride in round one, which is not this weekend, but next weekend. So the 28th of February, I think the event starts off. Yes, 28th of February, yes. In Thailand, so how well he's going to be able to do, whether he'll even be able to make it past first practice, who knows?

But these guys are very, very tough. But the saving grace in all of this, actually, for Aprilia is one Marco Busacchi, who will perhaps come to in a few moments. So it's not all doom and gloom, but I guess I'll hand over to you on this one, Jim. There was a lot of what's the best word to use antagonistic language being thrown in Mitchell in this direction as a result of the Martin crash. Aprilia squarely putting the blame at their door.

I don't know if you caught on to any of that, Jim. Oh, yeah, I would say it's throwing shade on Michelin, to be honest with you. That's how I guess I'll know that's American thing or just a Jim ism. Well, I'm not sure which, but that's what I mean. That was a thing.

Every rider was saying that the only tire that worked was a soft rear, like the medium would not work. Now, I found it surprising that we couldn't get the medium switched on. And then there was all kinds of wild gossip that started to flow like, well, hey, these tires were the ones that were left over from the race that ran there in. Well, when were we there in September? September, maybe October.

Yeah, I just. Oh, tired. October time frame. Well, they'd been sitting in the containers. They were sitting out in the sun and they didn't bring any new tires.

They were. These are the ones that were just left over. Michelin says, no, no, no, no, no. These are tires that we had shipped in. They're in the same.

They're in shipping containers like they're supposed to be. And then they're like, well, it's sitting in the heat. Well, oh, they've got a refrigeration unit on to keep the tires at a temperature from getting too hot, but they only run during the night. It's like it's not going to get hot at night. It cools off at night.

It's sitting in the blazing sun. You know, you should have refrigerated there. It's like, honestly, at that point, I have no idea who to believe about what is going on, and I'm not going to speculate any about it. But it was just a bad PR day for Michelin to say the least. Now, Aprilia then goes through this because honestly, I don't think it's a tire issue.

It's not a tire issue with Didja. Okay. I don't believe it was a tire issue with Raoul. It was the guy was just on it. And when you're at the edge, mistakes happen.

Now, particularly if you're Raoul Fernandes. Well, okay. I wasn't going to say it, but yes. If you're Raoul Fernandes, it has bad things happen at the edge. But Aprilia dug in, right?

They were adamant that there is something wrong with this tire that Jorge Martin had. And they showed all this kind of data and all that stuff. And Michelin's like, well, we're going to go look at the data. Michelin came back and said that the internal temperature of the tire was cooler than what they wanted it to be. Throwing back at Aprilia, look, guys, you put this tire on from a tire warmer.

It cooled off going down pit lane to a point that I can't remember. And the replays, I can't tell you if Martin had, I know he did it in the first second turn, was the crash there. But I don't know if he did it right out of the pit lane or if there was a lap in between before it happened. That wasn't clear to me. Yeah, I think it, I think, and again, I might be wrong, but I believe I remember somebody saying it was his first flying lap.

So one installation lap and then go for it. Yeah, that's how I took it to be too. But I've heard other people say, well, he was out of the pits and tossed it. Again, I wasn't there, so I can't tell you what happened. But then, you know, I would think after one lap that shouldn't have that big of a disparity.

I mean, I could see you losing some temperature, right? If you have the tire wrapped in the warmer and it's warmed up and it's at the temperature it's supposed to be that you're trying to obtain, whatever that number is, you okay. You got to start the bike. You take the tire wraps off. Basically, the guys hop right out, hop on the bike, roll down pit lane, a long pit lane.

It's a pain. I will give you that. But then you had a whole lap to put temperature into that tire. And then you have that first flying lap and it just, you come unglued like that because it was weird. It seemed as though that it was very much an off throttle high side for Martin.

Like he was into the corner, throttles off. He's about ready to pick it back up and it just lets go and a heartbeat and it's gone. And they're showing that, hey, there wasn't a throttle trace where he picked it back up. It's an off throttle crash, which makes it even weirder. So, I mean, I hate to see Martin injured before the season starts proper.

It's one of those things that man, Aprilia needed him probably to keep the momentum going from what they're developing to get, you know, to finalize it, to get it out or whatever and look at all that and what's being done there and, you know, push the development, take a direction. This is the way that we're going. So it hurts them. But as you've rightly said, you have to believe that Marco Buzzecki was sort of like the hero kind of, and this will kind of parlay into Thailand. But Buzzecki kind of stepped up and, you know, by the end of the third day, he was the ninth fastest guy on the Aprilia and, you know, say what you want.

But Alex Marquez, because I'm only looking at like the third day's times here, folks, unless you've got an overall of all three days of who was where, Rich, do you? I don't. I did. I did actually manage to find one. It's not that easy to track down, but it is sort of lurking there on the Dorner website.

So what are we looking for where Buzzecki was in the end? I was just looking for goodbye times. Yeah. In terms of the Aprilias, Buzzecki was ninth, very credit worthy 14th for Ayagura, and Raul Fernandez didn't take part any further in, obviously, in the Sepang test after his crash, so he doesn't particularly feature there, I don't think. There's an Augusto Fernandez, he's test riding for Yamaha, of course.

So, yeah, Aprilia were effectively down to two riders for that test very, very quickly. So lucky for them that Buzzecki was getting to grips, you know, bearing in mind that Buzzecki has just come off the back of a nasty 2024 where he just could not get on with that. What would it have been, the 23 Ducati on the newer Michelin rear? I think it was, all year long, he just could not figure that particular conundrum out. I think the rider that we saw in 2023, we've kind of forgotten about a little bit, and I have a sneaky suspicion he's going to open a few eyes this year on that Aprilia, because the Aprilia, let's not forget, is a very, very good bike.

I suspect from Buzzecki's point of view, it's much better than what he's recently been used to, and from Martin's point of view, it's probably a bit less good than he's been used to. So they will come at it from a slightly different angle. Martin is famously quite aggressive in the way he goes about just about everything, including having his breakfast, I'm sure. So whether that played a part in the crash, I'm not suggesting that it did, but he is known to be fairly full on it straight away. I feel a little sorry for Michelin, whether it was a problem.

One of the things that was interesting for me, Jim, when you sort of started to hear a bit of the post-mortem on all of this, is just the sheer logistics and the challenges that a firm like Michelin has in getting tyres all around the world for 20 race events plus a few tests. And the sheer logistics and the timescales that are involved, to hear that these things are sat in containers for months, which obviously they will be in terms of shipping, but then to be in a particular place waiting with all sorts of humidity control and temperature control and cooling and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fascinating insights, really, in terms of how that all works. And it's no wonder that occasionally you will get a duff tyre out of all of that. But I have to say, I'm sorry to say, this is not the first time that OE Martin has been in a verbal fight.

It was done by proxy with Aprilia with Massimo Rivola, it must be said. But it's not the first time that Martin's had trouble with tyres and instantly it's all Michelin's fault and it's nothing to see here, nothing to do with me. So again, we don't know what happened. We don't know if it was a tyre, if it was Martin, Aprilia adamantly wasn't a bike problem, not an electronics glitch or some other little anomaly. So whether we'll find out any more about it, I doubt we will, because once we get into the season proper, there'll be other stories that come further up the page.

But obviously just a devastating start really for Martin, which is very unfortunate because I think we're all looking forward to seeing how he does. And I'm sure he is going to do well on that bike, but this is not the way obviously that he envisaged it would get going. Yep. Also, I think Sepang opened up the idea of potentially, and we'll get to this when we get to Thailand, potentially that maybe the 2025 Ducati wasn't as good as what we think it should be. Now that's saying because Alex Marquez was one of the fastest guys there on the GP24 and he had the fast time.

Now Benyaya was right there with the Ducati. He was, I mean, come on, he was seven thousandths of a second or seven microseconds away from there. I mean, come on, that's nothing. And there was nothing to gain by throwing down a fast lap by anybody. But after that, Quattraro shows up with the Yamaha, then Morbidele is there with the GP24.

Marquez Mark that is, is there with the 25 GP, about a half a second slower than his brother. And then Acosta is sixth on the KTM, another tenth behind Marquez. And then Zarco shows up with the Honda and he is there. Now then Mir, Juan Mir, and then we got Bizecki on the Aprilia. So then then we got Renz on the other Yamaha.

So the interesting thing here, as I like to take out of this one, is not lap time, it's more like max speed, velocity. The fastest person was Benyaya with the Ducati, but I think he's got the ability to sort of understand that bike and be able to tuck himself in on it. He's ridden it for enough years, he kind of knows how to get out of the air, if you will. But Yamaha was only like a mile, oh sorry, a kilometer and a half off of that. They were at 338.

They found some grunt in that Yamaha engine, which I wouldn't have thought that they, it's not impossible to get more out of an inline. It's just a little more difficult to get it because essentially it is a wider engine, which means the aerodynamics around the bike are harder to do. You can't narrow it up like you can with the V4. Yeah, it's a compromise, but everything's a compromise in racing, right? There's no magic thing that is absolutely perfect.

You compromise something else to get something else. Okay, I may compromise my rear ride height to allow me to get more traction so the tire is better farther into the race, which means I can't qualify as fast, but I'm going to be able to ride faster over a longer period of time. Everything's a compromise as it goes through. But then you look at, which I thought was interesting, was the really the fastest guy there in a straight line was legitimately Pedro Acosta on the KTM. Like, whoa, okay.

Just because you're fast in a straight line does not mean it handles, does not mean it accelerates fast, but wow, that KTM has some punch. I mean, 342 clicks, that, my friends, is well over 215 miles an hour in old money. Crazy. That's flying, right? So then it's like then the Hondas show up, and not just Zarco, but Zarco and Mir are both right there.

They're sort of the slowest bikes there at 335 and 336, but that's not that far off of, you know, we're like 338. I mean, your 3Ks, that's just a little bit too much drag somewhere for some reason. Or as Honda has stated, they need more punch from their engine. And more traction off the turns, yeah, because they've still got, I think, major vibration issues. Mir still complaining about it, just complaining less.

So yeah, an interesting set of results that, but my feeling always was that the Thailand test was going to be the more interesting of the two, because you've got the race there two weeks after the test finishes. And so that is going to be more representative of the competitive order. People probably starting to push a little further, but yeah, Malaysia was interesting, very interesting for a number of reasons. Yep. So, I mean, that's really all that I had with Malaysia was just the tire problems that Michelin had, the crashes that were there, which, you know, some of it was just a mistake, some of it was a cock up, and some of it was, is it Michelin's tires any good here?

I mean, there's this thing on the internet that they say that like younger people who are not of the Generation X as you and I are, but are of the millennial slash Gen Z, there's a thing that's called quiet quitting, where they just, they don't do anything to make, to better themselves at their job. They just sort of hang out, do the bare minimum and eventually wait to be fired. And they sort of wait to see how long that is. I feel like Michelin's trying to quietly quit tire manufacturing for MotoGP. I mean, that's a bit of a harsh joke.

I mean, when I heard the term, I never knew there was such a thing as quiet quitting until someone at work told me about it. And I was thinking about all of this that happened with the tires at Sapang and Pirelli now is in to Moto3 and Moto2. And I mean, let's face it, they have been wildly successful in those two classes. And yes, I totally get it. Those bikes are far more representative of what a world super bike would be, as opposed to a full on MotoGP bike that Michelin's trying to build tires for.

But Michelin cannot get a new front tire. They can't get anybody to test the front tire. I can't believe Doran won't mandate that. I'm sorry, but the last hour of the day, you're testing tires or the first hour of the day, you're testing tires or whatever it is to get us a better tire to get out of there. It wouldn't like, you know, Pirelli is just blowing it up, setting lap records and everything's all cool.

It seems like you are trying to quiet quit. Just let Pirelli build tires for MotoGP. I think it's going to happen sooner than later. I honestly do. I don't disagree.

I don't think Michelin's contract ends. Oh, that I don't know. I don't remember. We would need to look that up. In fairness to Michelin, you know, when people win races and break lap records, it's the rider and the bike.

Yes. It's the tire's fault, you know, and it's Michelin's fault. So it's, you know, one of those things that it's a thankless task of a supply. I guess they get a lot of PR out of it, which is, you know, overwhelmingly positive from their point of view. And they can obviously spin that in many different ways.

But yeah, I think it is a matter of time before Pirelli arrives in MotoGP, possibly whether that might coincide with 850s. I don't know. We'd have to have a look in a minute to see if we can find out when the Michelin contract ends. But yeah, it was certainly Malaysia was a story of three things, really. It was Martin, Michelin, and I would argue Yamaha with the question mark over Yamaha.

What were they going to be able to do at the next test? So I guess we sort of move on to Thailand from there, do we, if we finish with Malaysia? Oh, yeah. Well, I think we're done. We'll go to Thailand now.

So you look up that tire contract. All start going down the path of Thailand. Now, Thailand is interesting for different things. Again, it may be not so much the results on the leaderboard, but it's all the little intangibles that kind of come out as this test progresses. First and foremost about it is just Bizecki on the Aprilia.

Like, I mean, this guy came to show that last year was just an off year on a bike that he could not ride because he was on the 23 bike like Marquez. Right. And that everybody has said who has ridden a 23 bike and jumped on a 24 bike that there is a gap. It is a chasm difference between the two motorcycles. The 24 is easier to set up.

24 is easier to ride. Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. As we will talk about in a moment, Jim, I think the 2024 Moto GP Ducati is widely regarded probably as the best rating motorcycle ever devised. Probably is. And that's in some fairly lofty company when you think of early Moto GP or Hondas and stuff.

But there wasn't the competition then that there is now. And no doubt, well, as I say, we'll talk about this in a minute in terms of what Ducati are going to be running in 2025 because it looks as if it's got mostly 2024 around it. But anyway, yes, Bez was on the 23. In fairness to him, I think probably the latter end of the 23 Ducati as opposed to what Marquez was riding, which was very much the early 23 Ducati. But anyway, he could not get on with that bike and didn't really feature at any stage bar one or two kind of odd glimpses here and there.

So yes, he's liking the new team and the new bike. Yeah. I think that's the thing is that he has gelled much faster with that bike than I thought he would have. Yeah. I've only ridden a couple of Ducatis that were friends of mine and we just happened to trade off bikes just to see.

And at the time we're talking about early 2000s. So there's a whole heap of time between then and now. But the themes as though that, especially the big V twin Ducatis, like those things, you could not get them to turn. They just are a truck. But, you know, and I think like I sort of have that impression that that's what these Ducatis are.

But with all the shape shifting going on and everything that's being changed and ride height and all that stuff, I mean, they're probably, we've obviously seen that they can turn. Although I do think that they take the bigger arc. They're not a point and shooty kind of bike, but they are a more classic line and you can't get it sideways to get it in there and you could square it up if you need to. But it is, as you said, probably the 2024 Ducati Moto GP bike will be probably go down in history as one of the best that was ever been built, which is saying something compared to the V5 Honda and the magic that that had an early Moto GP. Now I don't want to even try to compare like the two stroke aerosol.

No, no, no. We don't want to go down that route. That'd be bad, bad, bad, bad. When I say what I just said, I'm not saying it's better than a 211 RCV or whatever. It's just as the apex predator of the modern age, I think we're kind of reaching the point at which you can't really get much better than that, particularly as we approach a massive change in the rule set that will downgrade bikes in many different areas.

I'm happy that it's happening for many different reasons, but I think this is as good as we're going to see, particularly with the engine freeze now. They can't really develop a lot of this stuff much further now. There's not really much point when you're having to develop a completely new package at the same time. So that's why I'm saying what I said. Really, I'm not trying to start off a whole, how could you say that versus an NSR 500 and et cetera, et cetera.

You can have that argument down the pub for weeks on end if you want, and nobody will ever win because everyone's got their opinion. But that 24 bike is just, it was awesome. Yes, it is awesome. So along with that, so let's, I guess we could take this in any way that we want here in Thailand, but I thought we'd take it and just talk about each manufacturer and kind of do it alphabetically. And then at the end of it all, we'll kind of sum up where we think everybody is positionally.

If we start with Aprilia, again, Bizecki is like third quick. He was at the top of the time sheets. He was fast in the speed traps, everything that you want out of it, he had in spades, right? It seems as though this might be the best Aprilia that's been made so far, right? It seems as though it's got the handling now.

It seems like it's got some riders on it who can push, and I'm not trying to downgrade Alasha's ability to ride a motorcycle. He is a world champion. He's got all this stuff, but age catches up to everybody. And the younger crowd still is thirsty and hungry. And there are only small exceptions to the rule of those people who can defy age.

Rossi is kind of one of them. And we've had this argument before that Rossi stayed at the dance maybe a few years too long. Marquez may be getting long in the two-tier too, but as for right now, no. But I was impressed by Aprilia. Now, the thing of it is that Bizecki is way up the time sheet.

We have no idea where Jorge Martín would be, but my guess is Martín would have been in the top five in times. I think he has that kind of speed. Iagura is still trying to figure out the bike. I think that's a fair thing to say. He's moving from the three-cylinder Triumph to a full V4 MotoGP bike, whiz-bang, gadgetry, aero, everything, kind of sing and dance motorcycle.

It's going to take him some time to get there. But Raul Fernández was not as quick as his teammate. And so it's like, well, those two bikes are definitely farther down the field than you would think, but they are the satellite team. But I think they're on 25 bikes. I'm not sure what's going on there.

Yeah. Have you got the combined times there again? No, I do not. This is just double. Yeah.

Combined practice times for Thailand. So both days. So in the end, Iagura actually finished seventh overall. So pretty damn good. Whereas Raul Fernández was down 14th, obviously riding somewhat injured after the crash in Sepang.

So, okay, he gets a couple of weeks off to men. But Iagura has been super impressive, I think. Bearing in mind he's a rookie. A rookie, I think so, yeah. Wow.

And he's on the track house bike, which isn't quite the top draw kit as well. So yeah, one thing I heard on the Bezeki point, Jim, is that it sounds as if his kind of direction that he's wanting to go as he gets to know the bike has been sort of somewhat mirrored by Martín. So that's going to help Aprylia probably. What I think is most impressive though is with sort of Martín dropping out in the way that he did, Bez really stood up, you know, or stepped up and really showed the team that he is well capable of being right up there and leading it, frankly. And, you know, he is a gem, Bezeki.

He really is. He's quite quiet. He's like a sort of a puppy dog that's about to rip your throat out when you sort of look at him. He's kind of one of those, you know, he's a sort of quietly efficient and a little bit scary. I think he's going to have an amazing year on that bike, provided he can stay fit and injury free, let's say.

So yeah, I think overall, after a horrid start, a pretty positive end for Aprylia in terms of test part of the season. Yep. I will completely agree with you on that one. I mean, they got a lot more out of it than I thought they would have considering the fact that Martín wasn't there. So yeah, that's just kind of how it goes.

So that's Aprylia. So we'll mark them off the list. And then we'll alphabetically, we'll come to Ducati. Now, I think the big talking session of this was Mark Marquez's race simulation in Thailand, where he was he was only two tenths of a second on average for his race sim off of the pole time from the race there, which was like, whoa, I think that took everybody by surprise. Took me by surprise, which shows that perhaps, perhaps what we feared was that if you put Marquez on a Ducati, he may disappear.

Nobody's going to know which way he went, which is sounding as though it's feasible that it could be. But who knows? But Ducati has their own kind of internal problems right now, most of which is the fact that essentially Ducati abandoned the 25 engine and put the 25 engine in. And in fact, they kind of abandoned the 25 aero as well. And we'll start the season on essentially a slightly modified 24 Ducati saying that, hey, we're going into an engine freeze where we can't quite get our because there's no development after you.

I don't know when the time frame is for this, Rich. Do you know when they actually have to homologate the engines? Because then they're frozen. There's no engine. Is it now?

Now, now. Like, so they're pretty sure they have to make the decision. Okay, gotcha. I was thinking somewhere like halfway through the season, they would have to be able to say, no, we're done with, we're going to pick our engine and be done. And that's what we're going to have for 26 and 27 because you're waiting for the new one.

Again, I'll do Rich's next fact check thing whilst you're busy talking. But by the way, before I forget, because I will forget, so Mitchell in this tar contract runs to the end of 26. So there we go. So the eight fifties and 27 will have Pirellis possibly is not money. On it's not behind the bounds of likelihood, isn't it?

No, it's not beyond the bounds at all. I think they're do it anyway. So Ducati kind of has gone backwards to the 24 because they've got to have, I think there's no development of engines this year and I guess next year because the new motors come in at 27. So they want to be there. So they've got this now where they're sticking with the 24 because they can't get the 25 to work.

I guess they could still bring the 25 frame and put the 24 motor in it provided that all the points are the same. I'm kind of assuming that they'd be close or close enough. And you have that now, again, now you have both Marquez brothers are like the top of the time sheet, I believe for the combined practice times that are there. So they're like one, two, right? Then Bizecki is there.

So then you don't see the you don't see Benyaya till you get down to fifth. The guy who won a couple of world championships was in the fight to the end for a world championship and lost it at the end. This is like, well, down there on the bike, a little bit tough to swallow here, I think. You wouldn't read too much into that. Don't forget, Banyaya is the guy that has horrible Fridays and by the time Sunday comes around, it's all figured out and he's got on the top step.

But that's the problem. He only figures it out for Sunday. Well, Saturday's massively important. Trust me, if there was not sprint racing, Martine would not be world champion. Yeah, well, true, possibly.

Yeah. No, what I mean is that Banyaya is kind of the Alan Prost, whereas Marquez is the Ayrton Senna. That's true. I think that's how it is going to play out. I mean, for sure, Banyaya has not had a challenge on his hands like he's got this year in terms of the other side of the garage.

I think that's true because Miller didn't really trouble him too much just on the odd occasion. And Bastianini, I think we have to conclude, was a bit of a disappointment in the works team. I don't think that's too harsh. Hopefully he would sort of agree through gritted teeth. Marquez is going to be one of two things.

He's going to crash his brains out or he's going to just disappear from sight. I don't think it's quite going to be that clear cut because Banyaya is very, very, very good. But and I think fifth, he'll probably be quite satisfied. Found out what they needed to find out. Ducati do have one problem, which we'll come to in a minute, and he's not really the headline grabber.

I think if he can get it all figured out, ready for round one, then he'll be sort of pretty happy. I mean, I cannot wait until the first race. I can't either. It's going to be great. It's not long to wait.

It's only what, 10 days now? Yeah, something like that. So what is Ducati's problem? Well, I want to hear your take. I think one thing that they have changed just watching the practice starts on the end of both days is they could not get off the line.

Both of them are having massive wheel spin trouble, front wheel coming up. I don't know if they've changed some of the algorithms and the code and the start electronic software or whatever, but they were noticeably both Marquez and Banyaya having a lot of difficulty with the practice starts in particular. Now, I'm sure that they'll figure it out and they'll go in and analyze the data and sort of see if they can see what's wrong. But the KTMs were rocketing off the lines. The Aprilias were rocketing off the lines.

The Ducati's were just leaving long black lines of rubber. So something was wrong in Thailand. I didn't really watch much of the video footage from Malaysia because it was the less interesting of the two tests, as we've said. Yeah. So that's one thing that they might have a few head scratches and concerns over going into the first race.

So it'll be interesting to see if you've got a Banyaya or Marquez on the front row of the grid come sprint Saturday and suddenly by turn one, they're sort of eighth and ninth or something. So that's the only sort of chink in the armor that I could see other than this whole thing around which spec a bike do they use, whether they would go in sort of Gigi Delinia radical in some areas with 25 as we have speculated for a long time would be the case Jim. So we've got egg on our face really, because they've done a sort of an about turn and concluded that they can't risk anything too extreme because they are stuck. And I'm just, again, just looking on Google now, the engines that each team submits for the 2025 Thai Grand Prix will be the engines used until the rule change. So that's up to the end of 26.

So you are locked and loaded with this engine. And I think the mid season thing that you're referring to, I think there's probably still a bit of flexibility around some of the aero packages. I know you're allowed to bring some developments at certain stages of the year, or that's very restricted quite how restricted that will be given what are effectively some cost saving measures to help the teams transition with the designs of the eight fifties coming on board. And you know, the myriad changes that that brings about nevermind the cost of it all. So I'll see if I can find out what the aero restrictions are.

So there might be a little bit more flexibility there, but you are right, Jim. I certainly heard them saying that they had gone back to the 24 aero package as well. So it may well be the case that that is the package they've got for the whole of this year. Could be. Well, that's Ducati and their perplexing pickle that they may or may not be in, right?

Which, you know, just the fact that they've kind of downgraded to the 20, you know, came back to the 24 bike leads me to draw one of two possible conclusions. One, Gigi Jolinius 25 bike was so radical they changed that they lost their way in it, which is possible, unlikely, but possible. Or it's the fact that just Marquez and Benya simply like and gel with the other bike and they think that they don't have the time given the rule sets and what they have to do to work through the niggles that that new bike may have. Again, the 24 bike didn't look that great at the beginning of the year. However, it became the dominant machine after about four when they got back to Europe.

Right. Yeah. So I mean, it's not impossible that that was what the scenario they were facing. But like, look, guys, we can't do that because we don't have the time. And there's who knows, they got to they might be working harder at the 20, 27 or yeah, the 20, 27 bike than they are for this.

Who knows? But that's the guy. So let's move to Honda. Honda is interesting because Mir somehow found something there where he was much more happy with the bike, like his connection to the bike, the amount of what what what a eighth of a turn of throttle gives him at the back of the machine was way better for him. So he sort of skyrocketed up to sixth with on the combined lap times.

Now, again, the race sim is not that good, but an outright time is not horrible either. Right. So you have your Honda in sixth, then you don't have another Honda till tenth, which is Marini. And then Zarko is in 16th. Now, Zarko was testing a mid-ride of different parts and pieces and bits.

And Zarko admittedly was not going after a lap time. He was trying to be as consistent as he possibly could to determine did the new parts, which he didn't want to know what parts were being changed on the bike either, so that he wasn't biased against one thing or the other, so that he could provide just true feedback to it and to all the crew and to the mechanics, to the engineers, so that they could have a better direction of what they're going. He was impressed that everything that they wanted to get through, they got through and they were able to do everything that they wanted to do. And they have they believe they have a clear direction by which they want to go, which is good. Now, Marini was 14th there, I think.

And Chantra, do I say it, Rich? Yeah, I will. I think Chantra is a bit out of his league. A smidge. This is more of a, yeah, we got a problem here.

We need somebody on the bike and you fit the bill and congratulations. Thank you for you get a ride for a couple of years because, well, we need an Asian influence and we appreciate you and here's sort of your reward. Well, I think it's part and parcel of the sponsorship package. It's Idemitsu as well. They require somebody from that part of the world, which is perfectly legitimate.

Chantra, a decent Moto2 rider, but I think will take some time to find his feet in MotoGP. So Honda is not out of the woods, although they have in my mind improved. Oh, they've definitely improved. Again, I don't know what times you're looking at, Jim, if that's the combined. Yeah, I had the combined two day test up.

I found it on the Dorna site. Okay. I mean, definitely the happiest person in pit lane, you might argue was Joanne Meir because I think he turned up to both tests. Again, I'm trying to try and be diplomatic and not sort of say things that give us all just say it. Well, just expect in a torrid time, really.

Let's just put it like that. I think that's what it is. And that actually was, I think, more than pleasantly surprised. I mean, this is the man I think that crashed the most last year. Yeah.

By some margin. And all of a sudden looks like a guy who's not expecting to go out and win races in the near future, but I think is definitely thinking I can definitely be solidly in the top 10 provided he doesn't have crashing issues. And I do still have vibration issues. I mean, that's clear. He said it in the post-Taiwan interview after day two, but immeasurably better.

And this is even before the full kind of changes with their new technical direction and technical staff that have come in really start to bear fruit as well. So we knew Honda was going to, HRC was going to catch up. It was just a question of how long was it going to take them? They're certainly recruiting and pushing on hard at the minute. And they will obviously need to focus on this current set of regs with the bike that they've got, because they can't have another two years like 2024.

No, they can't. So I think they will make, you know, continue to make big strides. Whereas some of the Ducatis and the Aprilias might start to turn their attention more and more towards the 850s as time goes by, because they have kind of a wriggle room in terms of their sheer performance advantage compared to everybody else at the minute, which is no doubt why Ducatis have concluded that they couldn't risk something too radical when they're locked in with the 25 things that they developed. And so have decided to fall back on 24, which was still likely to be the dominant bike this year. Yeah.

Well, dominant bike for probably 25 and 26. And then it's all new in 27. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine Honda working that hard to win a title in these next two years. I think they're better off.

I don't want to say giving up, but focusing more on the 27 bike, that 850, you know, and all that. But again, I guess, I don't know if they've really got the chassis brakes figured out for it. They've got the engine figured out now. You can put that on the dyno and work out your different configurations that you want there. Because I think forward strokes available to you now to change.

I mean, you got to have 850 CCs, but you could build a long stroke. You could build a shorter stroke. You could do whatever it is that you want to do to get what you want. As far as I'm sure. I don't think you have to have that 84 millimeter bore or whatever it was for the thousands.

Let's remember though, Jim, I think HRC uniquely, I don't think any other manufacturer, you would say this, are not limited by resources. True. They have been limited by backwards or out of date thinking, not backwards thinking kind of they were late to the party. They were very heavily affected by Covid. They are known to be slow in the way that they react in terms of management style.

They've made so many changes and I think they will push on hard with it. I confidently predict, I'm not saying they're going to win the 2027 championship, but I confidently predict that they will be full on it with this current set of regs, whilst simultaneously in parallel throwing the kitchen sink at the 850s. You could be entirely right. I mean, of all the Japanese companies you think Honda is this enormous giant of the industry who, as you said, suffered stagnant thinking. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

Honda for too many years had the best rider and they just won races and now they don't have that rider and here we go. I mean, again, Honda's world's better than what they were last year. I mean, how could you not be better? But it seems like they've gone through a systematic system of working through the parts. They've made the bike better.

They found something that Mir is really happy about and Zarco is happy with all the things that they tested and it's positive that they have their direction figured out which way they're going to go. Given all that, Honda came out of these two tests really pretty good, I think. The other thing, Jim, that's worth noting, there's nothing to do with testing and we won't get into it now, but this is definitely one perhaps for the next show or two. Zarco and Marini are out of contract to Honda at the end of this year. Now, Honda, with again, with 2026 in mind and going after it, I think they will look to make a big signing for the 2026 season.

Well, it won't be a match of not meeting his wage demands, let's put it that way. And if they can show the sort of progress that they are hinting at, I mean, let's not get away with ourselves here, but could they tempt Acosta if he becomes available on the market? I could see it happening. Oh, I could see it. Oh, I could see it.

Because the only place that, yeah, anyway. Yeah, that's for another day. Well, that's another day. That is a completely another day, another thought, but it's something we need to write down that we come back to at some point and have a long conversation about it. But let's move to KTM.

We've got Honda, let's move to KTM. Acosta, fourth quick, their race sims suck much like Honda's. But, oh, you can see Acosta getting a great hole shot because the KTM is a hole shot machine, right? And then clogging up everybody as they try to figure out how to get past him because he could ride defensively enough to do it. I mean, the next fastest on the combined sheet is far if I got this correct, if I'm wrong, Rich, correct me, is ninth.

And that's Vinala's a full five places behind Acosta. I'm looking at the combined practice times for Thailand tests. And I've got Binder in ninth and Vinala's in 16th. So we've obviously got different information going on here. But I mean, the headline point is that Acosta was by far and away the quickest of the KTM, which should come as no great surprise to anybody, I think.

And I'm reminded of what you said a few minutes ago about Honda, who had a rider on the bike that was papering over the cracks. I think Acosta is likely to be that guy this year on the KTM. He's not papering over it. He's plastering it. Yeah.

Inches worth of it. Yeah. I mean- He's worth every dollar. Let's not delegate the 2025 KTM. I think it looks as if it's a good buy.

I think their big problem over the test in Thailand was they were burning up their tires and they didn't really understand why. That is obviously a big concern going into the first race weekend in Thailand, because if they have that problem, they're going to just fall backwards very, very quickly. But let's assume they can figure that out. But the one lap pace looked pretty good for Acosta. I think Acosta could win sprints because I think he could make the tires last long enough in that distance.

Right. And as we said last show out, I think it was KTM badly need a couple of wins to go shouting at investors. We haven't heard anymore on the KTM situation. I think there's a deadline looming at the end of February in terms of what happens next. So they could certainly deal with a bit of headline grabbing.

Yeah. Which is good for them. I mean, other than that, really nobody heard anything really out of Binder. I don't think there was a lot from Vinalas or wasn't very much from Bastianini. It's just, it's not working.

Because I did watch the interviews, they cut very, very different figures. It will come as great joy to Gary to hear that Vinalas was actually quite upbeat and looked very, very happy. Sort of saying that he's getting faster every time he's out on the bike. And I think that's reflected in the times, but this is Maverick Vinalas that we're talking about. It does blow very hot or very, very cold.

So time will tell on that one. Bastianini by contrast, I think is just having a bit of a head scratch to figure out the bike full stop. Cause you know, Vinalas at least has the experience of having ridden the Suzuki, the Yamaha, now the Aprilia and onto the KTM. Whereas obviously Bastianini has only ever ridden the Ducati in MotoGP. So it's quite a big change for him.

Yeah. I'm not convinced that's going to work out all that well for Bastianini. Although he's a hell of a good rider, but you know, he didn't have a particularly stellar couple of years on the Duke. So he's got a lot of sort of cache to regain, hadn't he really? And jumping onto that bike right now is probably a bit of a tall order.

Yeah. I don't really think there's anything else with KTM. I think we've got to wait and see what's going on. I think they've missed something. They're burning up the tires.

Now, are they going to find it? Maybe. Who knows? But obviously Acosta is the chosen one, if you will, for KTM. Everybody else is a mere sub player to his dominance of what is going to happen around that bike and the company, maybe perhaps.

Who knows? Oh, after KTM, the last of the bikes, Yamaha. Now, Yamaha had a very good supang test. They surprised a lot. Now they come to Thailand and well, I'm not saying the wheels fell off of it, but they weren't as quick as what I thought they could have been given that they were at a track that sort of, I guess this track really doesn't flatter the Yamaha.

Maybe in the third sector, it gets flattered a little bit with the couple of sweeping turns that are there, but the Yamaha didn't look as good as it had. Quattroiro is still quick. There's no question about that, but all the other Yamaha guys are not as quick. There's a bit of a difference there, especially Renz, who's a few places behind his teammate. I'm not sure what I make of the Yamaha now.

I'm confused, quite honestly. Yes, all that promise from Malaysia and bearing in mind, they had the shakedown as well with the works riders on it. They effectively had double the time than most other people. Obviously, they would deny that that was a big factor, but it has to be a help, doesn't it? Things look less impressive.

Although I have to say Miller in 11th, just immediately behind Quattroiro, I thought did do a very good job. Bearing in mind, he's early onto that bike and he looked very, very happy. Quattroiro, I think cautiously optimistic, as he tends to be. Like you, Alex Renz is a bit of a worry because he's still hobbling around when you see him off the bike. There's question marks over fitness.

Then Olivera in the penultimate place in the standings, I think that's quite a concern, really, because he wasn't that high up in supplying either. Again, this is only testing and we must always caveat what we're saying with that because nobody, particularly in this test, nobody wants to get injured right this close to the first round of the year. You have to take that into consideration, but Olivera was beaten on the timesheets by Chantra. That's a bit odd to me, unless he's just doing his job, just testing out parts and waiting for the first round to come along when he does pull the pin. Again, very good rider.

Historically, he's had some great races, but not recently. Again, he's got a bit of a mountain to climb, I would suggest. Yamaha is a bit of a question mark, stroke, watch this space, isn't it, really? There's definite signs of real progress there. Like you said, Jim, you can't ignore the top speeds that they're generating.

I'm proudly wearing my old Suzuki Moto GP fleece here, remembering that an inline four did win a lot of races before it surprisingly and catastrophically dropped out of the championship. There's life in that old doggy app, despite the fact that Yamaha are likely to roll their V4 out in test format at some point this year by the sounds of it. That's coming down the track, literally. Kind of something to look forward to, although most of us will lament the disappearance of an inline four, I suppose. Not that it really sounds like an inline four, not what I consider an inline four sounds like, but anyway.

Yeah, because they run in that crossplane crank or whatever in it. Yeah. Most of the bikes sound pretty similar in Moto GP these days, which always irritatingly loud. Yeah. Anyway, an interesting set of observations in terms of the respective manufacturers there.

It's going to be fairly close for a lot of them, but I fear a couple of them are going to be getting out front fairly early doors in terms of the red bikes, I mean. Yep. All right, so let's put them in order. Who's the number one manufacturer right now? I think you and I are both going to agree on this.

It's Ducati, right? Ducati, yeah. There's nobody better than Ducati right now. Yeah. And there's loads of them out there still, don't forget as well.

So they're going to crowd the top 10 out. Yeah. Yep. So the second best bike on the grid from all we've seen in testing, I vote Aprilia. Yeah, I agree.

Okay. This is where we're going to start to disagree because it's the bottom set of bikes here. Who is third best? You first, Rich. Okay.

We're talking tiny margins now. It's all, it's super tiny. With where these three in particular are. I'm going to say KTM. KTM just.

Just. Okay. I'm going with Honda because I think, I look at it this way. To me, I put Honda there because they bade meer smile. So I feel like they've got a little bit more right now and you're only as good as your last race, right?

So I think they've made the most. I think they're trying their best and I think that they're the next best right now. Now that could be wrong. Again, it's tiny margins here because I think you could take the bottom three and put them in any order. But given the fact that it appears that that race pace for the KTMs is terrible because there is no rear grip after a while.

I can't put KTM there. Now, maybe they figure it out. That's fine. We saw that in Portimaio that year where they were nothing and then, whoa, they said, well, we rewrote the electronics overnight and now everything's perfect. So anything's possible.

I'm approaching this from the point of where I think the manufacturers are not in terms of around one, but in terms of the first sort of third to half of the year. I mean, obviously they're going to be restricted. They're very restricted in what they can do anyway, but they're even more restricted this year with the various freezes and stuff. So it's likely that the competitive order will stay somewhat stagnant, I suppose, for that reason. But I still think just overall, and I'm kind of factoring in which riders that they've got as well in all of this.

I still think KTM just about shade it. That's fair. My quandary is in fourth and fifth. Which way around are they? Because my heart tells me Honda is fourth.

I've never been necessarily a big fan of Honda as a racing team. I don't know why, but just because they've tended to dominate. And so you tend to sort of go for the underdogs when one team is dominating. And Honda just have been so dominant through the years, haven't they? Even back, well, certainly including the 500s.

Oh, yeah. So I kind of looking forward to seeing Honda getting back on its feet again. I think, however, that Yamaha are just ahead of them in bike terms, but I'm not sure that they are overall in rider terms, but they have got Quattraro and he's by far the best rider out of the eight that we could measure across those two teams if that's not too ham-fisted where putting it. So if the Yamaha is anywhere close to being good, Quattraro for sure will wring its neck and get the most out of it. Whereas I'm not entirely convinced on the Honda camp that Mir has quite got that level of confidence to do that yet.

And I don't know if he's as good a rider as Quattraro anyway. Probably not. I think probably not at the risk of being a bit unkind, but I think Quattraro is really exceptional rider. I put Yamaha after Honda, which means I played KTM last. Wow.

Okay. That's bold, but I can see where you're coming from. Yep. I mean, I don't think they've got the money to develop it. I think that's almost painfully obvious.

And money is everything, right? In this sport. I think they have the exceptional talent that is Acosta, but I think they would need, say, more younger riders that are there, that aren't stale. I mean, I think we know what Vignola is. Great on his day, but it's got to be 100%.

Otherwise, it's not going to work. Yeah. Bastianini, he should be great because he's good at conserving a tire, but there's no grip to begin with. So there's nothing to conserve. So I see that as being an issue.

And I mean, Bender has won races. He is fantastic. He's a KTM guy through and through, but he's kind of like the one mirror of the team, right? He's just good enough. And he hasn't won a race for a long, long time.

He hasn't won anything. When things have gone bad, he hasn't been able to get themselves out of it, which is another problem that exists in there. So that's kind of where it is. I put Yamaha behind Honda just, I think mainly because Honda's got more resources potentially than what Yamaha has. Oh, way more.

Yeah. I mean, on paper, way more. But I mean, it's what you do with it, right? Not just spend more, but you got to spend more efficiently, right? And Yamaha is really pretty good at that.

So I could flip Yamaha and Honda either way. I think right now, because it seems like as Honda kind of gained a little bit of momentum heading into this two week break before the race, Yamaha kind of went the other way and kind of went down, kind of lost that momentum a little bit. But I mean, who knows? Definitely Quattro is probably the better of the four rider of the eight riders that are on Yamaha's and Honda's, right? He's probably the best.

If he's even got a sniff of it, it's going to be crazy and close, but that's why we race, right? So we wind them up, bust them off and say, this is what we're going to do for this weekend. So I think it's going to be a fascinating season. I definitely agree. Honda feels to me like the sleeping giant that is just starting to wake up again.

It's just a question, do they make sort of serious in roads this year? I kind of feel like they are going to, because of course, don't forget, they do still benefit from the maximum concessions as well. So they have that in their corner as well as obviously they got Alain Chaspargro. A bit of a Marmite character in terms of the rider, but nobody's going to doubt his pedigree or his ability as a test rider. That's going to help them massively.

Obviously they got the ex-Aprilia guy, Al Paciano, is that his name? Plus a couple of other key appointments in there who will quite rapidly start to make their presence felt, I'm sure. And I'm kind of fascinated to see how Joaimir kind of reacts to having a bike that he can actually do something with. Because he's undoubtedly very, very talented. I mean, that's not to suggest otherwise, but he hasn't looked like a guy even wanted to get on the bike in terms of all the last year.

Don't do anything with it. So if they can wake that mini-giant up, then that could be great as well. So it's going to be very interesting to see how that sort of bottom end of the grid kind of starts to shape up and whether they can start to mix it in the top 10 at the expense in all probability of a couple of Aprilias and possibly all of the KTMs bar one, maybe. I don't know if this burning at the rear tyre was just a specific tyre and test issue or whether that is going to be a problem that persists. You would assume not, but maybe they just had a setting or an electronic setting.

Because let's not forget, KTM had been notorious for having so-so testing and then figuring it out on the Friday night. And then suddenly they're right at the front or up the front Saturday and Sunday. Everybody's kind of saying, how the hell did that happen? So I mean, let's not rule them out. No, but I mean, I just think there's such a dark cloud over KTM.

I mean, I hope that they can come out and like gangbusters and just throw down some podiums and a win here or there and it would be great. It would get people interested in the brand and people are going to want to maybe bring money to the brand, which is important. But there's just this, it's just the whole way of how it all happened is just so demoralizing. That, oh, everything's okay. And it's like, oh, well, it doesn't matter.

We just built a few too many bikes and we're going to lay a couple of people off here. We hate to do it, but we're going to and everything will be fine. Don't worry about it. We got plenty of everything. It's okay.

It's like, we got too much of everything actually. And then it's like, oh no, you're 3 billion euros in debt. Like, whoa. Too much of that. Yeah.

That. It's just, it's just, you know, again, they're, you know, they're, how do I put this correctly? They're the largest of the European manufacturers, right? Just they were, they are essentially, right? They're, probably doesn't make as many bikes as what they do.

Ducati doesn't make as many bikes as KTM, but I've always felt like KTM road racing is an oddity. Yeah. Well, we had this discussion last time out, didn't we? It is at odds really, because you think off road, don't you? Yeah.

Yeah. It's just, there's nothing about it that screams road bike to me. They just don't, whatever. I mean, Honda, you could think of it both ways. Like you, I don't know which thing you think of first.

I mean, me, if somebody says Honda, the first thing I'm going to tell you is NR 750, right? Yeah. Probably the second thing after that is going to be a CR 250. Well, I immediately think of Freddie Spencer and McDermott. I mean, I think of actual racing on track people.

I mean, they are kind of, yeah, synonymous with that. Whereas as you say, KTM, well, I would say less so, not really so at all because they are so new into the sport. Yeah. It's an interesting one that we'll find out in fairly short order, won't we? I know we got to start thinking about wrapping up, but so perhaps in what's this 798 and perhaps in 799, we get into some wild rider speculation.

And because I think there is a lot of riders this year and next year, he won't be riding 850s. Really? Yeah. Huh. I've been thinking the same thing.

A lot of them currently ride for Yamaha and Honda. And some of them ride for KTM. Yes. I mean, Brad Binder is riding for his career this year. Yes.

I mean, I don't even know if KTM, I mean, is KTM even going to be able to be on the grid? Well, that's a whole, yeah, I mean, that's obviously- That's a whole other story. That's out of Brad Binder's hands, but he hasn't won for quite a while. You've got the whole kind of dark cloud hanging over KTM. Plus he's got Pedro Acosta on the other side of the garage now.

So he's under a lot of pressure. Don't get me wrong. I like Brad Binder a lot. I think he's a fantastic guy from everything I've seen him say and do and one thing and another. He always seems to be very correct in the way he behaves and the things that he says.

Quite chirpy and cheerful when I've been in sort of media debrief sessions on a couple of occasions, but he's under a lot of pressure this year. Yep. He is. All right. I think that covers about everything for this because, well, I mean, we're going to be in Thailand here talking about racing real soon, which is just amazing that we're already right back to this again.

At least again, we're racing well before Formula One, which is- I don't think they even start their first test until, was it next, middle of next week, I think. Yeah. They haven't started even testing yet, which is amazing to be quite- I think it starts next Wednesday or something, the Formula One testing. Something. By rain, I think.

Yep. So with that, let's finish off here by doing some news. This weekend is round one for World Superbikes at the island. Yes. Don't forget the mandatory pit stop required for Pirelli because Pirelli, once again, couldn't make a tire that'll last the whole distance, so we will have pit stops again.

What goes around comes around. Yes, I guess. Not just Michelin. Just a couple of quick things because I love World Superbike. I watch it, whereas I think you're less able to watch it, Jim, for various reasons, is that fair to say?

Yeah. I mean, I like World Superbikes. Don't get me wrong. It's just not fitting into everything else that I have in my life that goes on at the same time. No, fair enough.

I mean, it's a lot of racing when you look at it all combined, but just a few bits of headline news. So they've been out with a two-day test that finished- no, is it yesterday or today? Obviously, they're in Australia and I'm in the UK, so it's a bit hard to work it out. I think Monday, Tuesday, they had a test there. So Ray, as in Johnny Ray, out with a broken foot.

So he's ruled out at the first weekend. So terrible start to what is a critical year really for him. I wonder whether Johnny Ray will hang around after this season, to be honest. He has nothing to prove. Well, he has nothing to prove.

He certainly doesn't need the money and he is starting to crash a fair bit, which has not really been typical of him through his career. And a broken foot going into round one, which as I say, he will now officially miss. He's already been declared unfit. Don't mind it starts in a couple of days, first practice. So that's pretty torrid for him.

Nico Booliger on top, fairly comprehensively so in both days of the test. He is very good at Philip Island. So whether that's PI specific, I don't know. I think it's going to be sort of him and Toprak probably through most of the year, but there are plenty of other people. So let me just quickly go through the top 10.

I won't belabor this too much. So you had, this is the combined times, Booliger, Andrea Iannoni on the Ducati solidly in second. He's going to show up a fair bit again. Petrucci on the Duke. Then we had Toprak who had a big high side on day one.

So I think that probably affected some of his faster laps that might otherwise have been expected. Then Bautista, Locatali first of the Amahars, Alex Lowe's and Axel Bassani on the Bimota, which is quite promising. Seventh and eighth they were. Then Vierhe on the HRC and Scott Redding on another Ducati. So again, a bit like we all said MotoGP, half of the bikes in the top 10 of Ducati's Jim, but there we go.

So 2025 is going to be very close thought. And for anybody that follows World Superbike, I'm sure it's going to be absolutely magnificent as it was last year. We've got the fuel blow thing to keep an eye on as well in terms of whether that causes any consternation with penalties and stuff. And I haven't got any times, so I'm not going to mention more than this, but interesting to see Bo Ben Schneider and Jaume Massier who have had to come over to, or have chosen to come over to World SuperSport this year. First and second in World SuperSport testing ahead of this weekend in Phillip Island as well.

So yeah, the MotoGP, what do we call them? Well, they're rookies in World SuperSport terms. Are they refugees from MotoGP? Maybe. I think that's fair.

But showing their class already in World SuperSport. So that's going to be another fascinating series to annoy the hell out of my wife when I spend most weekends out in front of the TV every weekend again. So that was World SuperBikes. Just a couple of very, very quick things so we can wrap this up. There was some sort of slightly startling news.

So FHO Racing, BMW, which is this team that's been owned and run by Fay Ho, who's one of the sort of leading ladies who owns a team in the British Championship. They have split at the very sort of, well, not quite last minute, I suppose, but very unexpectedly with Peter Hickman and Davy Todd, who was going to come in. That very much kind of a Arleman kind of super team. And it looks like FHO have decided not to run on the roads this year. I don't think that's official, but that's what everybody is speculating.

And that has caused Hickman and Todd to jump ship from the entirety of the BSB program, setting up their own BMW team. No doubt quite heavily supported, bearing in mind how many TTs everyone between them. So yeah, that's a bit of an oddity. So I don't even think FHO are going to be running in BSB, as in the, you know, the leader super bike category this year. They are going to still field in a couple of the more junior series and they've got the ladies sort of team that they run in.

Is that in the, I can't think what the series is called now. So that will remain, but FHO saying she wants to concentrate more on kind of Asia racing series. I think she is from Macau, if I'm not incorrect, I think. Can't blame her for that one then. Yeah, it's an odd one though, because you know, it's been a very high profile team in BSB over the last few years.

I had Josh Brooks on the team the last couple of seasons, won a few races there. So a bit of a weird one. And just, I put this one in Jim, just because it's such a famous name, albeit it's not the father, it's the son, but Carl Harris, who is a very young lad. I did interview him at Donnington, which was on the show. I can't remember what episode number it was, but he is jumping up from the sort of the, it's not the junior super stock.

It was the one that replaced it last year, but he's moving up to the full blown British super sport championship this year. A series that his dad won, I think three times. The great Carl Harris senior. So nice to see his son sort of moving up through the ranks. So we'll keep an eye on that and try and stick the microphone under Carl's nose at some point during the year at BSB round.

And then a couple of bits of Moto America, which I guess you ought to read these ones out, Jim, but I just was perusing the website earlier for Moto America and saw a few bits that interested me. Yep. So the 200 will be on March the eighth. Remember it's a 600 CC class, not the thousand super bikes. And it's not officially Moto America.

I don't think either is it. It's not part of the championship, is it? Yeah. It's quasi Moto America. I think Moto America is sort of, well, how do you say it?

Adjudicating? I don't know if that's the right word. They kind of set the rules for it, but they're not really running it. It doesn't count towards the championship. Certainly.

No, it does not. It's sort of an independent race kind of a thing there. Interestingly, Loris Baz will go to the baggers with the Indian factory racing team. I mean, oh, I've seen the baggers race. It's kind of fun to watch, but it's also at the same time, you just kind of like, no, I don't know if it's interesting because it's funny or if it's interesting because their guys are really going that fast on a bike that you really probably shouldn't be going that fast on.

But hey, if it brings a certain segment of people to the track, then far be for me to argue about the legitimacy of that particular class. I think that's why I picked it out though, Jim, is because having, and I pick on Loris Baz because obviously we know him from Moto GP and World Super Bikes most recently. I don't know if he's racing exclusively in the baggers or if that's in addition to full Moto America duty because he was obviously on the Ducati last year, a teammate to Josh Herron, is it? He won the championship last year. So I'm assuming he will race in both series, but that was an eye catching kind of acquisition for the baggers, which I've only seen sporadically a few bits and pieces on YouTube.

I will personally take more interest in it this year for that very reason. So job done. Yep, that works for that. And Sean Dylan Kelly, SDK is moving from the BMW back to the Suzuki GSX-R 1000 with team Hammer. So that's a little interesting.

He won Super Sport with a couple of times. He won multiple Super Sport titles with team Hammer. Yeah, just a few other bits and pieces. John Ulrich's team. Yeah, oh, of course.

Yeah, famous John Ulrich. So yeah, just, I mean, not much news really in BSB and Moto America. Is it famous or infamous with John Ulrich? I mean, that's sort of where you got to leave. It depends on which side of the world you're standing on.

I've been around enough we're races with John Ulrich to know that he can easily become your best friend. He can also instantaneously become your worst enemy at the exact same time. Is he the guy that kind of discovered Kevin Schwantz and John Hopkins and whatnot? Or have I got that modeled up with somebody else? The Schwantz thing, I can't say for sure.

I can tell you that the Hopkins thing is pretty true. Right. Hopkins started on a team Hammer bike in Weirah, then was plucked to race, I think in Suzuki's and AMA Superbike or Super Sport or something. And then that's how he sort of got there. It's always been talked about that Orick was the one who found Schwantz, but I, there might be a thing where Schwantz was on one of his bikes at one point.

Now, it's so long ago, I don't think I have it all. But if I remember correctly, and again, somebody out there, if I've got this wrong, please let me know. But I kind of remember they used to have a race at College Station, Texas, and it used to be like a six hour Weirah thing or a Weirah whatever. And somehow Schwantz was on, I think, one of Ulrich's bikes, whether he was racing the six hour, whether he was just racing the Superbike sprint race or whatever that was there. And then somehow that propelled him into the Yoast team at Daytona like the next year.

I don't really know if that's true or not. But yeah, but he has been a person who has found people that are quite talented and has led them to the promised land, if you will. Open doors, let's say. Okay, that's a better way of saying. Yes, he found some people and has opened specific doors and that.

I mean, if you talk to Ulrich at all, he'd tell you that he was the guy who got Dale Quarterly's ride of Ducati and he was the guy that had, oh gosh, he was trying to think of the guy who raced on Ducati's in the Battle of the Twins and all that stuff with Arado Farracci and was on a Superbike for Arado Farracci. He's the guy, he was the tire guy. Dunlap loved him. And I'm drawing a blank on his name. I cannot think of somebody out there now is yelling at their podcast.

An American guy. He was a World Superbike. He won a World Superbike title. Title? I think it was.

No, maybe not a title. Maybe not a World Superbike title. Are we going back to sort of 90s here? Yeah, we're talking like. Doug Chandler?

No, Chandler was on a muzzy Kawasaki and it's not Kevin Russell. It's not Dale Quarterly. Oh gosh, it's going to drive me nuts. I can't wait to end the show here on Jim Bowie nuts trying to remember. This is what happens when you're in your 50s.

I'm pretty sure John Ulrich, doesn't he turn up on the original Faster film because that centers on John Hopkins a fair bit. And I think that's where I've got the connection from. I think you're correct. It's been a while since I've watched Faster. You know, speaking of which, I actually watched Long Way Round.

I did watch it. I thought it was very interesting for those guys to go around like they did. But I'm telling you, the crazy shit in Kazakhstan and in Mongolia. Oh yeah. It was just absolutely crazy.

I mean, I'm sure everybody's probably watching. I'm probably like the last human motorcyclist. I was going to say you're a bit late to the party on Long Way Round. Yes, I do. Yes, I know.

I'm trying to start. I want to try to start watching Long Way Down. But yeah, that was quite interesting. And it's not so much about the bikes, right? It's about what happens on a bike.

And it's, as I've said many times on the show, you meet the best people on a motorcycle. There were so many people who helped them do things that it doesn't even matter. There's a language problem, but it doesn't matter. We all speak motorcycle. And it's just totally, it's tower-based, which I thought was really fascinating.

And it's awesome going out for a ride with your best mate as well. I mean, it's just one of the best. Well, I mean, okay, my opinion, but it's just one of the best things is going out for a ride with your buds. You know? Yeah.

100%. I mean, I haven't been around the world, so I can't quite claim that level of bromance, but yeah. Well, Long Way Round, I think is by far the way, the best one. Long Way Down, I wasn't such a big fan of that one. Long Way Up on the electric bikes.

I actually thought, although I don't really buy into the electric thing quite so much as they did, I thought that was good. I'm just hoping, bearing in mind, Charlie Bum probably couldn't do it, but I'm hoping they do a Long Way Back where they do Long Way Round in reverse. Oh, that would be super cool to sort of finish off. But whether they've got that kind of in them at their age now, certainly Charlie Borman with his injuries that he's had. Yes.

But no, that's a great, great series that I'm glad you caught up on it eventually. Yeah. Well, anyway, I was trying to figure out who was on the factor. Hold that thought for next time. Yeah, I'm going to have to.

Either that or I'll come to you at three o'clock in the morning tomorrow. Oh, it's going to you. It's driving me nuts. I'm talking about the Ducati rider. American Ducati rider.

He was he rode for Arado Ferracchi and he's dark hair and Dunlap loved him because he was a great tire tester. And I just, it just, I'm just drawing a blank on this one. And presumably we're back in sort of foggy era Ducati and World Supers, are we? Yeah. Doug Poland.

Doug Poland. I said Doug Chandler. I had the wrong Doug. I knew that was a Doug. Yeah, I thought Poland won one World Superbike title, but I could be wrong.

I mean, maybe I'm confusing it with his AMA Superbike title, but I know he won a lot of races or whatever. But Doug Poland, but Doug Poland was like a John Ulrich find. Right. I think he rode Team Hammer bikes at the We're a GNF at Road Atlanta and like, well, no, maybe it wasn't Ulrich bikes. Maybe he rode on Ulrich's bikes after that because Poland showed up and like just laid waste to everybody at that Road Atlanta and like took home all the contingency money.

In fact, he was so far ahead of everybody that he got protested in each and every class and they tore every bike down to find out the only thing that was wrong with them was the fact that they were so badly worn out that they needed to be rebuilt, which is kind of what happened there. So that's that. That was the last of the I think from there, John Ulrich helped Doug Poland get a ride with a Rado Ferracchi or something like that. So he has been known to spot talent, US talent and help them to to the world scene. So interesting.

All right, we go. That's it. I finally figured it out. All done. That went way too long, folks.

But hey, we're going to be back with the racing and it starts on the weekend of the 28th of February. That is the first race weekend for MotoGP. Join in and until then, stay safe, ride safe. Yep. Catch you next time.