And So It Begins; MotoGP 2025 Is Go

Hey, it's Michael Goudjus with Road Racing World and motorcycle technology. I just wanted to wish everybody at MotoPod a happy 800th podcast. Keep the throttle open and your knee on the ground. Keep it up. Welcome to MotoPod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing.

This is episode number 800 for March 3rd, 2025. Rich, do you believe it? We're at 800. We've made it. Wow.

Yes. Big number, isn't it? I'm looking forward to a number thousand, whether we can hang around long enough to hit that benchmark, Jim, I don't know, because that's still a ways off, isn't it? 800s are quite an achievement, isn't it? Yeah.

There's not that many people that I think have got 800 pods. There's not that many I know. Just because you had to start it long ago. I think the only one that I could think of that I know that I listen to personally is the people over at the Park for May. You may have known it as a former blog.

They're in 900s, high 900s, but they never take a week off. I give Grace and Todd and Paul credit over there. Every week they're on it. So we're at 800, which is great as if we planned it. It is a race weekend.

We get to talk about racing. No more testing, no more anything else. It's all now. It is completely 100% the real deal about the racing. And I think honestly, Rich, I think we should just jump straight into it after we cover just a little smidge bot of news here.

And that little smidgen of news is that Jorge Martinez left wrist includes a broken scaphoid bone. As we all know, the motorcycle racer's nemesis. So this could be a much longer road to recovery than anticipated. You could ask Joe Roberts. You could ask my buddy who broke his.

There's a lot of people I could ask that question to. But more he's probably going to miss. I think they said he would miss Argentina and I would be surprised if he makes it to Coda. Yeah. I mean, it's not news in a sense.

It's just extra clarification that came out kind of around the time or immediately after we were talking about it on last week's show, where we knew he had a kind of I think they called it a radial fracture of one of the bones in his wrist and I think probably some hand damage as well. But yeah, the scaphoid bit certainly escaped my immediate attention when I was reading on it last week. So yeah, it's really just to it helps to explain a little more why there wasn't any kind of gritting teeth and bearing the pain going on at the weekend. The scaphoid is notoriously difficult to heal, isn't it? It doesn't have its own independent blood supply, I think, so it can be very tricky.

He has had it plated, or pinned rather, which tells me that it's obviously he's broken the scaphoid itself into some smaller bits, which sounds tricky, doesn't it? I mean, it is, as we were saying last time, it's the leprous, which is perhaps the slightly less serious of the two. But anyway, when you're hanging off the bike and taking the sort of G-forces, particularly under braking and so on, it's going to be a tricky road back, I would think, unless he's lucky and it just heals nicely and he doesn't do anything to aggravate it. Thankfully, I've never broken a wrist, touch wood. I'll probably go out and trip over now and end up at the hospital for the night.

But so I can't talk from personal experience. I know a lot of people that ride bikes and get flung off bikes and come down on their hands will know about this particular injury. And yeah, as we'll go on to say and mentioned just there, Joe Roberts is taking a very long time. He has a few other issues, I think, as well. But I think his wrist is really and that was a crash from trying to think that was either the penultimate or about three to go.

He had a crash and it was Philip Island. He crashed in one, I think, which is obviously a big crash. Yeah, did the same kind of injury. I'm not sure if that's his right or left, actually, Jim and Joe Roberts case. But anyway, this is not a great start for Martin.

And given what one of the other Aprilias in particular was doing, he will be itching to get on the bike because it does look to have either taken a step since last year or it had more capacity than was being used in the last couple of seasons. Yeah, I mean, I think they said something about how Mark Marquez had texted Martinez is, you know, respect your body, let it heal. I didn't respect my body and look at the problems that I have, which I mean, once Martin read that text message, I'm sure that it went in one ear sped up to supersonic velocity, somewhat motivational and shot out breaking the sound bearer from the other ear because I just don't I mean, he's going to do what he's going to do. I agree with what Marquez has said. You need to respect your body and you can't do that.

I mean, I had that similar concept. I was racing club. I had had enough points to go down to where it's a road in Atlanta to do the GNF. It was one of those like, you know, it's a bucket list. I want to check that off.

I want to go do it kind of a thing. We were at Blockhawk Farms some two and a half weeks prior to going to GNF. And I fell off. I destroyed my elbow, like whatever that muscle is, it's from your wrist to your elbow. It shaved it down to where I could see the tendons and everything moving in it.

It was a gnarly piece of road burn and road rash that I had gotten. And I was like, oh, man, I can ride. I can ride. I couldn't even barely move my arm, let alone ride a motorcycle. And even then, you know, so that was basically it for me.

I think it took what wasn't until that was in early September. I think it was end of October, first of November, where I was able to get back on a bike and actually just ride. So these guys are amazing. And Martin will probably be back sooner rather than later. I know for 100 percent Argentina is off the books, but I'm going to go with mine.

I'm going to go and say no to Kota. That's just my own personal opinion. No, I would tend to agree. The only last thing we'll say is we need to obviously get on into the race. And is given the performance that Aguirre in particular put on the Aprilia over the course of the weekend, the bike does look fast.

And so it's going to be imperative really for Martin and for the team for him to get back fit as soon as possible. And I'm very excited to see what he can do on it, despite some of my reservations about him as a character. But anyway, putting that to one side. Yeah, I think he'll be really fast on that bike. The question is, is can he not have crashes that aggravate the injuries that he's already got?

I suppose that's going to be his challenge in the short term. But we do need a bit of competition up front, because as we'll come to talk about in a moment, somebody had a not an easy weekend. You could never describe winning MotoGP races, certainly not in Thailand in that kind of heat and conditions. But yeah, Marc Marquez has got a fair bit in reserve by the looks of it. So he needs challenges for more than one place, you know, with his teammate and Alex and whatnot.

So yeah, interesting races, Jim, as we're going to talk about. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, let's get started with Moto3, that's how the weekend rolled out. The big story, I mean, you couldn't, anytime you tuned into any of the coverage, it was all talking about the heat.

It was like 95 Fahrenheit, which is like, what, 37 Celsius or something like that, 36 Celsius. Touching four times. Oh, yeah, it was super, super hot. It's oppressive when it's that hot. I mean, I know personal experience.

We were it was 103 degrees and 108 on the heat index. We were racing at the Roval at St. Louis and here in the States. So we were inside like a NASCAR oval track, no wind blowing or whatever. I just remember going through turn one for bikes after about three laps and breathing out.

And it was nothing but hot, stale air coming back in. Horrible. I can't imagine doing that. We were only doing it for they cut the laps down because it was so hot for all of us amateur type people. I think instead of doing our normal 20 laps, we did a 15 lap race.

Brutal, brutal. I mean, so I can't imagine riding a Moto GP bike in that oppressive heat and everything else that was going on. But we're talking about Moto3, so we'll talk about that. The first qualifying session, we had the known names of Esteban and Foggia. The other guys were all sort of the new people to the class.

So really got no idea yet who's supposed to be in Q1 and who's not supposed to be in Q1. But it was interesting that Pini had a high side at turn 12. Just got on it a little bit, back in, stepped out, tossed him over the top. But the people who got through were Carpe, Basari, Foggia and Eddie O'Shea. All got through to get into the second qualifying session, which was great to see that they did that.

Foggia, he was always on a Honda. He's learning the KTM. It's definitely a little bit different bike. And there's some adaption that's going on there. But really in the second qualifying, it seemed as though this was, I don't know, it was just Bertelli was out there and nobody seemed to have a time that could even come close to what Bertelli had.

I mean, by halfway, it was Bertelli. Kelso was a good half a second off of Bertelli's time, I think, at that point. And then it was Lunetta. And then Munoz, Almanza and Adrian Fernandez. So, okay, not too bad.

And everybody's going to throw in one last tire, give it that last run to get out there. It was a bit of a people moving to the top and then somebody else running a fast lap and running down, which I'll take a moment here and I will give credit to whoever designed the new graphics that are on the side of the screen in the Dorna feed. I'm not sure about that's how I consume it. I consume it through the Dorna app. The Dorna app.

I thought it was very easy to read everybody's names because they were much bigger in print this time. It was a font that's much easier to read, which made that even better. And they would turn names yellow or orange to indicate that they were on their fastest lap they had done. Red was the fastest overall lap. So you could really quickly be watching and pick up the data as you were trying to take notes or anything.

And I know, Rich, we just said this in the off part. But when you got to the races, the way the numbers counted down, they would say, oh, we got 22 to go, 23 to go. Well, now we're on lap six of 24. Six of 20, seven of 28. Oh, then it flipped back to we only have three to go, four to go.

It's like now I got to do mental math to take my notes, which is never a good thing to have me doing mental math. But I applaud Dorna, the graphics. I thought were pretty good. Rich, do you want to take a little bit of time there and talk about the graphics? Well, I need just to mention that I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I know there's a lot of furor over the new logo and stuff. I don't really care about that sort of stuff. I thought the actual presentation was very, very good. I think the sort of the Dorna feel, I think that's basically what everybody gets, even if you're watching it through other national broadcasters or whatever. So it's going to be interesting this year, Jim, because I've moved off the Dorna app for this year.

Dorna are not top of my list of favorite people at the moment, although that's not the reason why I've done it. But I've so I've actually moved over to TNT Sports in the UK. So I get to listen to Hodgson, Michael Lavatis on there, Sylvan Contoli. They got really, really good sort of strength and depth in terms of the rider analysis. And then you've got Gav Emmett and so people that have been around for a long, long time.

So it gives me a sort of a different set of things to listen to, a little bit different to what you'll be getting from Lewis Sudeby and who's he with now? Is it Jack Appleyard? Jack Appleyard is in them. So that's good as well, just to give a different sort of bit of flavor and color in terms of what they pick up on. As you say, Jim, most of the talk all weekend was about the blistering heat and our riders were really suffering in terms of mental fatigue and some riders actually having to pull in because they were just burning up.

I think I saw a tweet from Simon Patterson that people had burn marks. Some of the GP riders had burn marks because it's like 100 degrees C or something coming off of this. And so like their inner thighs had a burn mark or around their knees. I'm like, oh, that's just that's too much. Really?

Yeah. What are we talking about? I'm sorry, Moto3 back to Moto3. Well, we were talking about the graphics, weren't we? Which I like them like you take a bit of getting used to and they definitely need to show the lap number as well as the countdown all the time.

I don't know why they kept sort of switching. That just seemed pointless to me. It didn't really use up any valuable space on the screen to have both things there. Anyway, minor gripe. Minor, definitely.

But in the end, Bertelli would take the pole position. NEPA would come through for a second. Rureta, who had pace from practice the whole time, was third. It was like, well, OK, what happened? Hot day, missed the setup.

What was going on there? But then Scott Ogden on fourth, man. Yeah, a bit of British nationalistic pride there, my friend. Yeah. Which was I thought was great to see him there.

I mean, he really just jumped up sort of out of nowhere to get it, which was great. Then Lunetta and then Carpe was the last guy on the second row. So we move into race day. Rureta would get a hole shot, but Bertelli would go right back by. So it was Bertelli, Rureta, Carpe, NEPA, Kelso, Lunetta.

Then O'Shea did go down early on. It looked like it was just a low side and he just had a tuck and away it went. Yamanaka got by Lunetta and then Bertelli had gotten by at 12 because Bertelli and NEPA and Rureta were sort of trading those front three places that first lap, like just anywhere you could shove a motorcycle, they were going to it. My theory on the rather aggressive start to the first lap was nobody wanted to be breathing the exhaust of anybody else. That's just horrible when it's that hot and then you add.

Yeah, so I think that was where all the aggression was. And I maybe a little bit of it was, hey, let's try to put a stamp, put my stamp on Moto3, show that I'm the player. I'm one of the main people to all that. Conspicuously through all of that qualifying, Picaris, who we had talked about as being our favorites to be champion, was like non-existent. So it was so it makes you wonder because Picaris had all that success on a Honda and he went to a KTM based bike.

So now you got to go, huh, is there that much of a difference or is it just one of those teething things or was it, you know, who knows what it was, but it just odd that Picaris all throughout qualifying was really never near the front. To me, that was just odd. I just wasn't expecting it. Yeah, it was odd. I mean, Yamanaka, who's his teammate, I believe in the is it called the MT helmets?

It's not quite called that anymore. They've slightly changed the name, I believe. But anyway, putting that to one side for a moment. I mean, it's first race and it's such an extreme race, given the conditions, which was the whole weekend long, it was just blistering and humid. So maybe he just had struggles in that department.

I think we'll know a little bit more after sort of around three or four won't win in terms of what his season long prospects are looking like. But he was, yeah, strangely muted. It's our fault for both putting him in first place in our top five lists. Do you think so? I will take the blame.

Your gripe email can be sent to MotoPod at MotoPodcast.com. But Yamanaka got by Lunetta. I thought, okay, that's good for him. Then Ruradek sort of got to the front again. Then Munoz had made his way there passing Bertelli with Yamanaka into Kelso, then Lunetta and Kelso was just sitting outside the top six, which was kind of good for Kelso at this point in the race because most of the time you see Kelso sort of start there and he kind of charges to the front.

And I thought, oh, it's a little different strategy from Joel this time. Perhaps the heat, the tires just hang on to that pack. Maybe he took a page sort of out of the reigning world champion's playbook of David Alonso as, I only need really to be fifth or sixth or seventh. As long as the guys out front are within sight, I can get there kind of a thing. But we would see how this would roll out later on.

With 11 laps into the race, Lunetta was off at turn three and Munoz bumped him out there. This is where I think we get to the controversy of the race is this particular move at turn three. Now, Lunetta is where he's supposed to be on the racing line, breaking as late as he dares. Munoz is right there too. And the only look that I had from it, maybe you had a different look, but my only look was that basically into the turn.

So watching them come at me. Lunetta holds his line and I admit that Munoz becomes aggressive with the shoulder because I think he was thinking Lunetta is going to start to come towards the apex, towards that line. So he was riding elbows out at that moment in time. So when that happened, the two bumped together. This causes Lunetta to then go wide into, I don't think it was necessarily dirty, but it caused him to try to break a lot harder, which on the front, which then locked up on him, which he had to let go of, which then he ran straight onto the very dirty runoff area by the gravel trap, then into the gravel trap.

All that being said, Munoz was then, a lap or two later, was given the long lap penalty for aggressive riding. Was it fair, Rich? Well, I definitely think it was. Yeah, I thought he deserved more than a long lap penalty in actual fact, because I have a slightly different view of it from you. I thought he actually deliberately sort of shoulder checked Lunetta and he has plenty of form, let's be honest, for kind of red miss, brain out, whatever you want, or just being overly aggressive.

I mean, there was so much room, it was only the two of them. There was not really any need to cut that tight into Lunetta anyway. And just to compound matters, a lap or two later, he did it to somebody else at turn five, is it? The really, really fast left-hander. Oh, did he get tied up with Yamanaka?

It might have been. I need to just double check my notes in a minute, but it was literally a lap or two later. He did pretty much precisely the same thing and arguably an even more dangerous, well, a much more dangerous place. So I wrote on my notes, and this was before the long lap penalty came along, I wrote on my notes, this is a chance for Simon Crafer to make a clear statement of intent, because he has said, having made a lot of comments about this kind of behavior over the last few years when I've listened to him on the Dawn of Feed, he has said in his new role as Chief Stewart that he's going to start from playing at this or come down hard on the perpetrators of this sort of thing. So this was obviously an opportunity for him to do so.

Now, all of that being said, I think it might well be the case that a long lap penalty within the inverted commas, letter of the law, was perhaps in that scenario, the maximum penalty that they could dish out. I don't know if you want to talk about the post-race penalty now, Jim, or whether you want to come to that later. Oh, let's save that for later. Let's just continue to what we knew at the time. I thought he was way out of order.

And to be honest, in terms of the TNT sport coverage, and again, obviously I haven't watched the Dawn, because I don't have it anymore, Sylvain Gintoli, Neil Hodgson, both said the same thing, that he was absolutely out of order doing that, and that they thought he deserved a very strict talking to about it. Well, that puts me into the wrong side of things. Everybody has the opinion. But Gintoli, Hodgson, are guys who have raced at the World Dive Rule and understand it. I don't have that.

I didn't think it was that far out of line. I just thought it looked worse than what it really was. But I will stand by and I will give Simon Krafar props. And this is sort of the overarching thing from the entire weekend about Stewarding. Decisions were quickly made.

They were then put out and people had to follow it. There wasn't, oh, we're going to wait till the end of the race. OK, yes, before you all start screaming at me, I know the other incident that happens in the race was decided that it would be talked about later, but that's because both riders couldn't continue. And I think that's fair. Both riders were down.

Let's really sort it out later. We have racing going on over here. If there's another incident that happens after these two guys are down, we need to take care of that while we are in the race and not wait till later when we can't correct the problem because it's been too long. To me, race control was probably the best I've seen it in a long time. There were things happened, decisions were made, and long lap penalties applied, et cetera, for the infractions that they had.

And to be fair, when Morbidelli got a penalty for impeding Benyaya in Ractus, it was final practice before deciding who was going to be in Q1 and who was going to be in Q2, Simon had him. They talked about it. He got a Morbidelli grid penalty. Three, three, three penalty. And Morbidelli comes out of it and says, I accept it.

We talked about it. I understand where the line is. And now I know what to do. Or I'm paraphrasing. That's not a quote of what Morbidelli said.

But he basically, a guy got penalized three grid positions, had to talk with the body about why he got it, and then praised them for what decision they had made. I can't remember anybody ever, no racer ever doing that. But such is the difference that Simon Krafar is doing. It's one race. It's a small sample size, but he had enough stuff to take care of this weekend.

I like the directions are going. I'm 100% behind the direction that we're heading, for sure. I'm pretty sure that a peeved Simon Krafar is a person that you don't want to be messing around with too much. I'm pretty sure he will be making his opinion plain and saying, this is a penalty. Suck it up.

Don't do it again. End of discussion. I'm sure he spent a lot of time over the winter making sure he's very clear on the rules. And obviously he has a big team around him to help him disseminate what goes on and the hundreds of pages of rules and regs that are there. And you don't want to be messing around with him.

He's quite an intimidating character. And he is a, I mean, okay, Freddie Spencer was a racer. He was even further back than Simon was. And Simon Krafar has not raced recently in that sense. But I think he probably commands a bit more respect in that way as well.

That's just my feeling. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but I don't think many riders, at least in this early period of his tenureship, will be coming out and shooting their mouth off about decisions that have been made. Let's put it that way. I think he's quite an authoritarian and that is what is needed, particularly with the Moto3 lot. Yes.

And again, all props to how he is controlling the Moto3 guys. On the level of it with Munoz, the Lanetta thing, I'll believe that I'm obviously in the wrong. If Neil Hodgson and Gintoli are saying he was bang out of line, then I'm out of line because I saw it differently. That was the take. But Munoz then went to go to the long lap penalty, but he crashed before he took the penalty.

So he had actually crashed himself out, which after the race, we learned that, hey, you are now getting a pit lane start for your infraction. Now, having heard your side from Neil Hodgson and everything, I was kind of like, whoa, this is getting out of hand. You're going to pit lane for what I didn't think was that big of a deal. However, the idea was, and where I applaud Simon is, he doubled down on the look. You have been a problem child and apparently the penalties you've been receiving aren't sufficiently strong enough for you to change your habits.

Therefore, I am going to give you the strictest thing I'm allowed to do to be sure that you understand that you are not supposed to ride that way, which again, I 100% applaud him for that. So I think Simon's going to take care of business. I do think he is sort of an intimidating authoritarian, as you said, and I'm looking for good things for the rest of it. Is there anything you want to say about the pit lane? Yeah, I had a quick read of the post race additional penalty statement that was released and I'm just not quite clear on precisely where this bit crept into it.

But another part of the reason why he's got the pit lane start is that the stewards accused him of carrying out one of his maneuvers. Now, whether it was the move on the netter, whether it was when he actually high sided himself down in turn three, whether it was when he overtook Rueda when he did the barge again, and that was actually turn four, not five, I think, you know, the really quick left hander. But at some point in one of those incidents or somewhere around this part of the race, he did it with a yellow flag flashing as well. Part of the accusation was you put marshals at risk with your behavior as well as other riders. So for that reason, or that just added to the amount of weight that came down on him and quite rightly so.

Yeah. If you don't give them a proper penalty, I mean, I know the long lap in the Chang circuit is quite long, long lap. So it is an inconvenience in that sense. But, you know, as we saw with somebody else, Aegis in the Moto2 race, he got a long lap and didn't lose a position, lost time, but didn't lose a position. So I look at it and think, well, is that really a penalty?

But if that's the rule and they're applying the rule, fair enough, they should change the rule. But Munoz needs calming down. And given that it's the first race, I think they have plenty of grounds to chuck the book at him and they have done so. I think that's just overall correct, really. So as we sort of threw all that, Yamanaka was down at five.

I thought he and Munoz had contact to get him, but you're right, it's Ruraita that actually does it. Yeah. So at that point, Ruraita and Munoz before having crashed, they had one second lead on it. At that point then, Munoz would get the long lap penalty for the Lanetta infraction. He then crashed before he took the long lap at turn three.

And I did not realize that that one was under a yellow flag when he did it, which is there. That meant that Ruraita had a one and a half second lead at this point in the game with six laps roughly to go or whatever. But it finally all kind of this shook out to where we now understood it was Ruraita, Fernandez, Carpe, Nepa, Piqueras suddenly shows up and falls you because it was so much attention was being focused on the top three to four guys because that was where all the racing was that you didn't know anybody was coming. If you're paying attention to the really nice graphics on the side, you could see that Piqueras was starting to turn laps over his personal bests and he was starting to come. So if you're watching, at least on the door in a few, you could do it.

I guess you have the same on the TNT. Yeah. That's sort of why it isn't like a surprise that they were there, but they were coming. Now, Carpe rode around the outside of turn three to get to second, which I thought was a baldy move and it was just brilliant. Deep, late, carried the momentum around the outside.

Old school dirt tracking, which I love so much and great move. I mean, move of the race. That's mine. I love it when a guy goes around the outside of somebody because that takes extreme amount of talent and a lot of balls and you're so tiptoeing around the edge of where the real grip is. You have to have some insane feel to be able to do that.

So that was really, really awesome. Piqueras and Kelso crash at turn 12. Kelso, I think, lost the front end of the bike and then slid into Piqueras and just cleaned him out. Kelso was lucky that, was it Foggia who ran wide to avoid hitting them? Yeah.

And it was very close. At one point, I was scared that Foggia was going to hit Kelso's helmet because he was really close. I mean, he didn't. It was a nasty little spill there. That incident because both Piqueras and Kelso had crashed out was the one that was going to be reviewed after the race actually happened.

Do you know what came of that decision? No further action is what I'm hoping for, but I haven't seen anything today. Yeah, I haven't seen it. In fact, I think Piqueras remounted because I've got him finishing all bit down in 13th. I think it was.

Kelso obviously didn't restart. So I haven't seen if there was any action from that. I doubt it. I think it was just one of those kind of typical last corner tuck in the front and then you go and if there's somebody on the outside or nearby to you, then you just get caught up. I mean, exactly the same thing happened at the end of lap one, which is what took Eddie O'Shea out.

In fact, that wasn't Eddie O'Shea's crash, Jim. Just go back to the end of lap one. He was actually hit by Cormac Buchanan, who was, I think, one of the young New Zealand riders. Yeah, the Kiwi rider. I think he tucked the front and took Eddie O'Shea out.

Again, Buchanan, ironically, did remount and finish 15th. But they definitely said no further action on that one. That was just deemed to be a racing incident. So I'd be very surprised if there was anything different for the Kelso Piqueras one. Yeah.

But as you say, he was lucky not to get hit. Yes, very lucky not to get it. Basically, Rueda ran home for the victory. Carpe rode a great couple of final two, three laps to finish second, which that made it a KTM factory team one, two, right? Yeah.

With those two. Adrian Fernandez, who we basically didn't talk about at all because we never saw him at all during the race, finished an outstanding third from where he had come from. Nepa finished fourth, which that was a good little battle. The Fernandez, I guess I should recant a little bit on that because the Nepa Fernandez battle for the last two or three laps, they did show the coverage of that because that was the good battle that was going on. And it was a ding-donger there for sure.

Nepa was trying to taste that first ever podium, but he just didn't get it and finished fourth again, which was terrible. Foggia on his return would finish sixth. Then Almanza, Ricardo Rossi, Joel Epstein, Lunetta would finish a disappointing 10th. Then it was Moodle Piqueras who had remounted to finish 12th. And Crucis and Buchanan, the Kiwi, finished in 15th.

A good opening first race to kick off a new season with Moto3. The guys never disappoint and I thought it was a great race, Rich. It was. It was a very good race. The only main disappointment from my point of view, selfishly again, was Ogden appeared to be having some either some bike or maybe some physical difficulties in the last few laps.

He dropped back quite significantly and he went down in the final turn. So again, got caught up in an incident. I didn't actually make a note of who that was with. But anyway, so that was a disappointing end to a very positive weekend for Scott Ogden, who again, dipped into my top five. So I'm expecting him to have a good year.

And certainly all the evidence from Thailand was that that's what's going to happen. It was just a bit of an unfortunate ending really. But yeah, I mean, my abiding thought is this young carpe, another sensational Spaniard hits the Moto3 ranks, Jim. And is he, I mean, he's the Red Bull rookies champion from last year. I don't know the answers to that one.

I don't know if he caught his interview in part for me after the race. But let me talk about a polished. I mean, I don't know how old he is. I'm guessing he's 17 or 18. You have to be at least 18 to participate.

18 or 19 maybe. But yeah, he's properly polished already and quite a funny young lad as well. So yeah, he's well, so keeping on him. But I think we're going to see an awful lot of him basically on the strength of that performance. So and the other thing that was mentioned a couple of times just in Dennis Foggia's defense, because again, he had a sort of bit of a so-so return given that he's jumped on to David Alonso's old bike.

But somebody made the very relevant point that he's now having to, as quickly as he safely can shed quite a lot of weight from the muscle that he's built up over a couple of years on the Moto2 bike. So he's going through a bit of a change to get his weight down and perhaps a little bit more agility for the much, much smaller bike and much lighter bike, of course. So that might take him a little bit of time because you can't just sort of go on a starvation diet and expect that to work out for the best. So you've got to kind of train yourself or retrain your body over a period of months to be better suited to that smaller bike. So again, be interesting to see how his season goes.

But that wasn't a bad start. And of course, he was delayed in that last turn incident with Kelso and Baccaris as well. So given where he finished, that wasn't bad. And Lilleta, yeah, it was a disappointing finish, but don't forget he was punted off into the gravel and was down to 20 seconds, I think, as a result of that. So he did pretty well, actually, to battle his way back to a top 10 finish.

Yeah. There's a lot to be excited about with how this is going to shake out with Baccaris. If he gets on a roll here, you know, the first race, who knows, but it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun to watch how this is going to develop. And we've got what?

Weekend free. I know that before we go to Argentina. The last thing I want to say is in a moment of what should I call it? Rich's sort of mad hindsight regret. I don't know why I didn't put Jose Brouhada in my top five.

Anywhere? Yeah, because when I went back and looked at the testing pre-season, and bearing in mind I did actually, I think, gave him a bit of a shout out as one of the better performers last year, given how much difficulty he had last year with injury and illness because he had appendicitis at one point and he broke a leg at a certain point of the year. So he had a troubled kind of first couple of seasons, given that he was the guy that effectively came in and replaced Pedro Acosta or was the kind of the next big thing Spaniards wise. Him and Carpe in the same team is going to be something to behold, I think, this year. So I'm kicking myself that I didn't think about Rouhada and put him in my top five.

And likewise, I'll have a quick moment myself when we get to Moto2 as well, but I'll save that one. But yeah, typical Moto3 race, start as you mean to go on, and as we expected them from every race last year. So it was very entertaining. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I did notice that CF Moto is still prominently displayed on a KTM type motorcycle, which I think justifies our theory that a lot of the money that's coming for KTM is from CF Moto because there is no Gascasse, there is no Hescavarna anymore.

But CF Moto is still a brand that's listed, which I think is interesting. Although the whole KTM saga, and I guess we should have put this in the news and I can apologize for not doing it in the notes because it's been a crazy couple of days here. But the hot rumor, BMW wants to buy KTM. Well, I think there might have been a bit of shenanigans going on there. You think so?

Yeah, I think that might have encouraged a few other investors to get their hands a bit deeper into their pockets. You know, an Austrian company does not want to be taken over by a German company. You cannot make the argument about how close they are culturally, and we won't get into that, not now. But I think there might have been a bit of trouble making there going on. And I think as somebody else pointed out, BMW's financial position is not exactly the rosiest at the moment either, because like all of the European car manufacturers, and particularly the German ones, they're in a world of hurt with all the net zero stuff going on and people just not buying electric cars and anything like the numbers that are required to allow people to turn a profit.

So that would not be a good time for BMW to buy KTM or a stake in KTM. But I'll tell you who, again, I'm pretty sure this is correct. You mentioned CF Motor. I'm pretty sure QJ Motors, who I believe is a Chinese motorcycle manufacturing brand, they are heavily investing, I understand, in KTM. I think they already had a position in KTM anyway, and I believe their stake will increase probably quite significantly as a result of this open door that exists for investors to come in and help with the bailout.

So yeah, there'll be lots of money coming in from all sorts of different quarters, I'm sure. But I don't think BMW, to be honest. I mean, to me, I thought when I saw it, I thought it kind of makes pretty good sense to me from the standpoint that you think of KTM as a dirt bike brand and not a road bike brand. BMW you think of as a road bike brand and a road racing company. It's like, well, okay, yeah, if you put it together, it kind of, well, yeah, KTM kind of does what they do best.

BMW kind of does what they do best. And it's like, I'm thinking, that's kind of weird, because, again, the whole thing with Net Zero, the electric and all that, but somehow somewhere deep inside, you know, I was just thinking like, man, maybe get the band back together again, you know? Well, I don't know. But anyway. Yeah, I mean, some people might, I don't think it's snarky to say it at all.

Some people would say, and I think there's a history, recent history has borne this out, that KTM has been far too acquisitive itself in terms of buying other brands. And that's part of what's led it to this doldrums position that it's in. Sometimes you're better off just focusing on what you've got and not complicating it with adding in lots of other flavors. So yeah, down that road, both kind of success and failure can lurk, I suppose. And so some people find that one out of the hard way, don't they?

But I think KTM as a business is going to be fine. KTM as a racing division is another story that we'll come to shortly once we get to MotoGP. Okay, sounds good. So let's go to Moto2 then, because I can't wait to get to MotoGP. Things that we learned, Triumph is now signed on to be providing motors to, up to 2029 now.

So they came in at 2019 as the new motor of choice. That'll give them a decade of having supplied motors to the Moto2 class. I think that's a good thing. I think Triumph has been really good because they have provided a really good motor, a better bike to be in the gap in that middle ground between the 600, a little more torque and a little more traction control and stuff like that. So it makes everybody a little bit better before they get to MotoGP bikes.

Now, the one thing that they have done for this year is they have built a new gearbox for that Triumph engine. They've now put the neutral at the top of the stack, if you will, which means that you don't have to pass through neutral to get to second. Everybody who rides knows it's usually one down and then you pull up two, three, four, five, six. So that means you've got to fall through that neutral if you want to go back down to first gear. MotoGP bikes are not that way.

They are a one, two, three, four, five, six and neutral is at the bottom of the stack. So all the way down. And plus there's a lockout so that once you get done after the starter, as you engage the start launch system, it locks neutral out of the box and you can't get back into to depress the anti-lock, which I believe Triumph has added to their system. I believe it's a manual cable thing to lock out neutral. So you cannot get it back in and you cannot get a false neutral, which was one of the things people had a problem with with the Triumph motors and whatnot.

So we had all that. And we also learned that there was like extra Bosca Coras on the grid. They had doubled their numbers from the four to eight and Kalex went back and redid their chassis. And from the initial impressions that most people have from the testing and stuff was they put a lot more fuel into the front end of the Kalex. So going to be interesting to see how this rolls out between Bosca Cora and Kalex, because that's the one thing I wish I would have thought of when we switched to Pirellis was I guess the Bosca Cora had a much better fuel on the front because when I was racing Dunlaps, my Honda had great front end fuel.

New executive was happening. As soon as we put Pirellis on the bike, it became vague and lifeless. Not that I felt like I just couldn't feel like where's the edge. I don't know where it was. I put it up to me just being an idiot club racer and not a professional that I didn't know.

But it makes sense that maybe the Kalex were built to that really stiff Dunlap and the fuel goes away. So they had to do something to change it. And everybody was thinking that they had done a lot and just really bang on. So with that, we head into qualifying. And in the first qualifying, there was Alonso was in the first qualifying.

I think we sort of expected that. Vietti was in there. Arbolino was in there. Roberts was in there, but he is nursing his injury still that he had. Bender was in there and Holgardo was also in there as well.

We learned also that Garcia was out of this weekend's events because he had broken a finger. And was he going back to Spain to get it laid or fixed? I can't remember what they said, but I knew he wasn't there. So anyway, that's where we were. But we had at the end of it all, Bender was looking very quick.

And so he went through Holgardo, who looked really good on the Moto2 bike. This is a kid that came from Moto3 to Moto2 now, looked really good on a Moto2 bike. And we've seen those kids make that jump. And it's a bit tougher. Vier was not having a good time.

And I thought Vier would have done much better on a Moto2 bike because of his size. But Holgardo was, if you always ever saw him on a Moto3 bike, he couldn't get his shoulders in behind the bubble. He's a very stocky lad, full of muscle, which I think is helping him make his transition across to Moto2. But he got out. And also, Vietti got out of that system.

Poor Arbolino couldn't get out of it at all, which of anybody I thought he would have been there. And on this one, was it just me or was the graphic wrong for who was in qualifying and who wasn't in qualifying? They had it reversed. All the people were reversed on the opposite side because I started right now that, whoa, Canet and Roberts were in there. And then I realized Canet was on the other side.

I thought it was just maybe like they put Canet's name in the wrong side of the thing. I didn't spot it, Jim, to be honest. Yeah, because they did screw it up for MotoGP. That I know. I don't have a rant about it, but I have a funny thing about it or whatever when we get there.

Anyway, when we got to the second round of qualifying. Oh, that's it. Mark VDS and Pre-Mac Yamas are all Bosca Kora's. That's where the other two are, plus the original Bosca Kora factory team, if you will. And then the MTI helmets, which I like, that were a Gora 1 on last year.

Anyway, we were going there halfway through. Baltis, Gonzalez, Bender, Canet, Marrera, and Guevara were all there. Sorry, yeah, Guevara. We're all at the front. And then it was like all changed when the second qualifying session came, when the second part of Q2 rolled out and everybody got onto a brand new rear tire.

It was just all changed with Gonzalez, who had been quick all weekend, asserting his dominance by going to the top. Vietti, having come out of the first one, went to second, which is kind of Vietti's MO most of the time. He comes out of that session. He seems to just be dialed in and then he just goes. Canet would start on the outside of the first row.

Ages had a great run. He was in that 2-3 spot, but got pimped at the end to be fourth. Then Baltis, Bender, Ramirez, Dixon was eighth, Lopez, and Diego Marrera was 10th. I thought it was a pretty good qualifying session. If all the rest of those are like that one, it's going to be worth watching because it was really interesting.

You got any thoughts on qualifying before we go to the actual Moto2 race? Only as in the other series, really, that it's just kind of nice to have a little bit of a shakeup in terms of different riders, different teams, a few different chassis out there, kind of just mixing up the competitive order. Obviously, Aguirre has gone up. Chantra, who did shine from time to time in Moto2, he's gone up. So there's a couple of opportunities for newer people to shine now.

And again, just in my richest hindsight, masterclass, what I was thinking not putting Gonzales in my top five prediction, I just do not know because he was solid all last year. He kind of had that not a lucky win. He won in the damp conditions in Mategi, if you remember, which is so far his only or was his only win in Moto2. But nevertheless, Gonzales was strong all of last year and I completely neglected to think about him in terms of who I thought was going to do particularly well. I mean, if I had my chance again, which I don't, I'd probably sacrifice, given that he's injured, I'd probably sacrifice Garcia out of my top five and put Gonzales in there now.

I couldn't blame you. Because I still think Dix and Marrero and Agis are going to have a good year. But Gonzales is definitely going to feature and I'm kicking myself for not putting him in there. But Gonzales has now moved to the Look With Molly team, Dynatac, Dynatac Involt, Look With Molly team. There used to be the Husqvarna team in terms of branding, so that's gone now obviously.

So it's obviously a team that's very good, right? Yeah. And Gonzales, I don't think he could wipe the smile off his face. He was just so dialed in, so confident of what he was going to go do. It was just a matter of, well, I got to wait to go do it.

So as the Moto2 race starts, Vietti got a whole shot ahead of Gonzales. Agis made a great start to be third. Then it was Bender, Guevara, Cannon, and Ramirez. Navarro went down. Now Bender and Guevara were given a double long lap penalty because they jumped the start at the beginning.

Clear as mud they did. It was caught, dealt with. Again, we only got about one lap completed and I think we were almost two laps completed when it came across that they had jump starts and they had the double long lap. Again, the efficiency at which Simon Krayfar was running the show was awesome. I cannot give the man enough props for what he was doing, but he was on top of it, dished it out, done.

There was no, well, it was, we're doing this, which was great to see. I always believe in the idea of make a decision, whether it's wrong or right, make a decision, stick to that decision, and then deal with the consequences afterwards. There's nothing wrong with making a wrong decision and have somebody argue with you after the race and go, yeah, that's my bad. Sorry, I screwed your race, but from my chair, this is how I called it. So it was refreshing.

I'll put it that way. Vietti was still ahead of Gonzalez, Bender, Guevara, and Canet. Gonzalez was out. Gonzalez then moved to the front and he looked like he could pull away because he did put a few bike lengths on everybody. And quite honestly, it was Gonzalez and Vietti who were starting to pull away a slight little bit with Aegis there.

Canet had now brought himself up. Moreira had come up. Baltis was now showing in the front. So we sort of were changing out people in that bottom part of the top six as this part got along. Gonzalez by, with 15 laps done, he, or not 15 laps, on lap 15.

See again, there's my notes are backwards because of the, what's going on there. It's not your fault, James, don't as well. Yeah, that's true. So what were we do for about six or seven laps in, Gonzalez had about eight tenths of a second lead, which was a little bit scary because we were thinking, I always think this is going to be like a bit of a runaway for him possibly. But when we got to 11 laps to go, Vietti and Aegis had a battle that was really, really starting to heat up.

Now, Aegis takes Vietti down at turn 11, which is that flick from what is it, right or left to right or right. And that necessitated Aegis getting a long lap penalty. In this one, does the penalty fit the crime that was committed, Rich? Or give me what Neil Hodgson said, because that's what I'm really wanting to know. I think the comment was made, which was exactly what I was thinking.

And again, I wrote in my notes, is that a penalty? So the comment was made that he took the long lap from fourth, exited the long lap loop in fourth, OK, dropped three seconds or so. Vietti, meanwhile, is tuned gravel and is out of the race. So in that sense, it probably feels like a bit of a weak penalty. But again, I suppose they've just applied the rule that exists and the penalty that goes with the rule for that particular infraction.

So it was pretty tough on Vietti. I mean, there's absolutely no doubt about it, unlike the Mimov thing. Aegis went for a move, I think panicked at the last second, thinks, I'm not going to make it. And that kind of made the move worse in a way, because he kind of sat up and kind of T-boned, I suppose, Vietti, if he wanted the better word. Whereas if he probably just hung it out in the corner, they probably would have touched.

But I suspect they might have both made it around, having lost a little bit of time. Not to say that wouldn't have resulted in a penalty of some description for Aegis. But I mean, Aegis is a very correct rider. I mean, I like him a lot. Again, he was in my top five for the year and he looks good on the bike.

I mean, it's the same team, obviously, slightly different livery on there, given that the Husker rider bit is gone. So I mean, your question was, was it a proper penalty? I mean, yes, but he didn't really lose much as a result of it, did he? So these things do have a habit of ironing themselves out over the course of a season. So he'll probably be on the end of one or two bits himself and hopefully he'll kind of suck those up.

He was very quick to apologize in the post-race interview as well. And I'm very sure he would have trotted down to the garage to see Vietti and the team to do that face to face as well, because I'm very sure that that's the kind of guy that he is. I mean, he's an Australian, so they tend to be pretty, you know, straight down the middle in the way they go about their business. So sorry, I'm rambling as usual. I mean, it wasn't, it didn't really penalize him though, did it?

Not really. I mean, he might argue that without it, he would have had a better chance of getting up to second. And maybe that would have been the case because he was quick in the latter part of the race for sure. And he obviously had to make up that time that he lost in the long lap penalty. So yeah, I mean, it was a penalty in that sense, but Vietti came off by far the worst.

Let's just put it that way. Yeah. To me, given what happened, I thought a long lap penalty was the correct amount of penalty to place on it. He made the situation look worse by sitting up, as you correctly said. It's one of those things where he misjudged the line that Vietti was using because Vietti's on a Bosca Cora.

That's the line you really want to be on. I think Aegis was carrying a little bit more speed to that section than Vietti was. And it was like two motorcycles got to the same spot in time and space and Aegis knew it and was like, oh, but it happened quicker than when he thought it was going to happen. And when that happened, his reflex was to brake, which is anybody's reflex, but that stood him up because if he didn't, he would be on the ground because you can't break over on the side of the tire. There's not enough adhesion there generally.

I mean, you can trail brake to it, but you're releasing the pressure off of the brake as you're getting to that apex and applying lean into it. Here, we're going really fast with a bunch of lean. That's not really a great place to do. Consequently, he sets the bike up, tries to brake to stop this problem from happening. Tags Vietti, and I agree with you, if he'd have just rolled off the gas, left his arc and tried to turn with his body in, they probably would have just brushed into each other.

Both of them may have wiggled and probably Vietti's still on and he's probably still on. The race goes on and we would have thought, wow, that was a great try to pass, which really wasn't an attempt to try to pass at all. We'd be talking about rubbing his race in. Correct. Instead, we're talking about the penalty that's there.

But again, Simon looked at it, said that this is the penalty, issued that penalty, which again, yay, compared to five laps later, I think you need to get a long lap penalty now. In a parallel universe in that race where he doesn't hit the brake like that and they do sort of tough it out, uses Vietti as a bit of a burn, but they make it through the corner. I think probably that would just be deemed a racing incident by Simon Kreyfar and his team. I think the point in this one is that because Vietti went down and was out of the race, they had to apply the penalty. I think the clear distinction for me with the Munoz example is that there was no intent to do harm.

It wasn't a brain out moment. He was going for an overtake and he just misjudged it a little bit, but it was a genuine try. It went wrong. Vietti went down, hence the penalty. As I say, if they both made it through the turn, even though it would have been perhaps a bit marginal, I don't think he would have had a penalty at all because I think they're going to try and let a bit more of that sort of thing go this year.

It's people doing stupid stuff that they're going to come down hard on. That's my take. I'm glad it didn't ruin his race though, Jim, because again, another rider who had a really solid weekend all the way through. Vietti It was really good. After the long lap penalty and whatnot, González, who's now pulling away, Canetta has moved into second.

Then you had Marrera and then you had Aegis and then you had Ramirez. Aegis did lose a little bit there because of where he was in the stack up with everything, but he didn't lose as much. Again, the penalty was disruptive, but it didn't ruin anything, which is your point that you had made. Aegis, towards the end of the race, two or three to go, he's trying to battle into that podium. Canett's got a big enough gap that really no one's going to touch González, not Canett anyway.

Canett doesn't have any pace, but Marrera is there and he's there for the taking, but Marrera is not going to get to Canett. Senna Aegis has got a chance to get Marrera to take away the podium, which is what he did. Aegis was quicker, rode a great couple laps. Again, the last couple laps of Marrera and Aegis together are fantastic because they're both like, I think Aegis caught him and thought, well, I'm going to go right by him. Well, he did, but Marrera was holding something because I think he saw on the pit board that Aegis was coming.

So he tried to save a little bit of tire and they both were really on worn tires and shag motorcycles. It was a great little battle there right at the end, but when it came down to it, Aegis got by just at the end to get that third place. So González won and with quite a distance. He was the man of the weekend. He got his just reward and then Aaron Canett, who had a very quiet qualifying, wound up with a second place, which was nice to see.

And then again, Aegis is there in third. Then it's Marrera, Ramirez, Baltis. Dixon had a good ride as he came through the pack because we did get to see some of the racing in the back of the pack because the front wasn't as good as the Moto3. And we've still got to see Dixon kind of come through. Rider of the race, Holgardo hands down, first race on the MotoGP bike and he came in an eighth.

Now, Holgardo and Dixon are teammates, correct? No, Holgardo is teammate to, he's on- I'm trying to get, oh yeah, because Dixon's on the Mark VDS bike now. Yes, that's right. Yes. All right.

Yeah, that's hard. I got to get this all straight people. It's going to take me a race or two. He's Holgardo's teammate, having a mental blank. Oh, it's David Alonso.

David Alonso. The two rookies. The two rookies. No, all right, right, right, right, right. But I mean, he kind of put some shade on Alonso.

Now, Alonso's got an injury and he's got the shoulder dislocation and all of that going on. But still, I'm sorry, Holgardo had a great race. He just did. I've got a theory there, Jim. Go ahead.

I've been fortunate enough to see Danny Holgardo on the couple of times that I've been in the paddock. And he's kind of an unusual little guy, actually. He's short like all of these riders are. As you described him earlier on, he's stocky, but he looks really strong. I mean, he looks like he could handle himself in a sort of a cage fight.

He's one of those sorts. So he has, I think, a very, very good set of physical attributes that will manifest in the way that they are on the bigger bike. I think, whereas perhaps it might have been a slight problem for him on the Moto3 bike, as you said, getting himself tucked in. Because he's quite broad. He's properly strong, but he's got that excellent combination of still being quite short.

And I guess he won't really grow much more sort of vertically now. But he has that real kind of sinewy kind of strong ability, I expect, to manhandle the bike in a way that Alonso, yes, he's got his shoulder injury that he's recovering from, or his collarbone. But he's a very, very small, skinny guy. He's going to have, obviously, have to bulk up in the same way that most of them do. Vaya, as you mentioned earlier on, yeah, he's tall, but he was like ridiculously thin in order to get away with it on the Moto3 bike.

So again, he's going to have a bit of a challenge, I guess, to put the weight and the muscle on in the right places. Whereas Holgarda, I think, comes straight out of the traps physically in a really good sort of position to make the most of it. And that's what he did all weekend. Yep, yep. He did really, really, really good.

Salach was in 9th, Lopez 10th, Albert Arenas 11th, Ancu was 12th, Arbolino raced his way to 13th, Hueroz was 14th, and Agi was 15th with the last point. You know, I think the Moto2 racing might be pretty good this year. I think it's going to have a lot of different winners. I don't think anyone's really going to dominate here, but who knows, Gonzalez may just run off with it. But it was an enjoyable race because there was enough in it to not be one of the dull, boring Moto2 races that we usually see.

So I was happy about that. I think you're misremembering some of the races last year, James, to be honest. Last year were really good, yes. There were some good Moto2 races last year. Okay, there's fewer good Moto2 races than there are MotoGP races.

You know what I'm saying? Of all the races, the worst one is usually the Moto2. So you kind of like anything better than that, because my standard is so low. I think that changed last year, actually. I think in the majority of cases, the MotoGP race was the least enjoyable or exciting anyway.

Moto3 generally wins that competition just because they're also bonkers and close together. But Moto2, I really enjoyed last year. For the first time, actually, probably ever, because Moto2 has never really floated my boat, but it was good last year. I've got to tell you, Canet, who was my pick for the champion this year, if you remember, interesting interview in the Parc Fermé after the race, saying that he just knew he couldn't catch González, and González was on a different level all weekend. Canet did qualify third in the end, but making the point that these are the days when it's better to get a second than, rather than crashing, trying to get the first.

And that it's a long year, many races, 22 races, there's going to be lots of ups and downs. So I think his mental mindset has changed from the guy that we used to see crashing out of the lead much, much too much. Obviously, he broke his duck last year with his first win. Did he get more than one win? I can't remember now, but he certainly got a win last year, and I'm sure we'll see him get a hat full of them this year as well.

So it was a very mature ride by Canet, but González was really on a different level, wasn't he? Yes, he was. Well, that's all I had for Moto2. Are we ready for MotoGP? Yep.

Okay. So in qualifying one, they had this so messed up. They had the qualifying order wrong. They had the people in Q2 were the people that were actually in Q1, because if you look at it, and I had to go back and watch it again, still there. They had like Chantra and people like that already in Q1, and I hadn't seen a lot of the practice heard anything.

So I'm thinking, well, because of what was going on for my weekend, the first thing I was watching, because the time zone is like 3 a.m. for me to watch is like, I'm not getting up at 3. I'll get up at 5 and watch, but I'm not getting up at 3. And I was like, whoa, was there like a rain shower or something that happened in the final qualifying session that nobody was going out and a couple of people guessed it right? I thought, whoa, then they kind of got into the actual, hey, here's what's happening.

And I'm like, whoa, this is completely different than what was shown before. And it was weird that they had done that. I mean, everybody makes mistakes. I guess there's teething problems along the way with getting everything sorted or whatever. But it threw me for a loop because I was not prepared for what because I'm like, oh, did I look at that wrong?

So I'm like going back and I'm like, no, I'm reading this right. But eventually we figured out that Acosta, Mir, Bzecky, Mark, because I had, you know, it's like, well, Mark, I had Acosta, Mir, Bzecky, Mark Marquez, Alex Marquez, Benyaya, all in the first qualifying session. That's what I've got written down. And I'm like, wait a minute, hold on. They swapped Q1 and Q2 people.

So that's not what they messed this all up with because it's like, oh, really, the people that are in Q1, well, it's Vinyala's Benyaya, which that was an oddity that Benyaya was there. But we've seen this out of Benyaya before, right? There was extenuating circumstances for Benyaya being there, which we do need to mention. It was all because of Morbidelli being on the racing line in that. Not just that.

So let's just quickly talk about it. So in the last session that determines who's straight through to Q2, and yeah, he had the lap blocked by Morbidelli, which was, you know, typical Morbidelli anyway. He got his penalty. And as you said earlier on, he didn't seem to be in an argumentative mood about it. Benyaya was also given an incorrect yellow flag on his other fast lap.

It was human error. And it actually resulted on Saturday morning in an official apology press release coming out from whichever bit of the race organization. That's nothing to do with Simon Craver and his lot. But yeah, somebody just pressed, must have been one of the marshals on the corner, just pressed their button for an incident accidentally, whether they nudged it or something fell on it. Don't know.

But anyway, a yellow marker went off. Benyaya didn't slow down, but his lap was canceled, of course. So he had both of his fast laps, I think both of which would have got him through were, well, canceled or ruined in one way or another. So it was a little bit of an unfortunate start off the things for him in that sense. So that's why he was in Q1 basically.

Yeah. He was blindingly quick in that Q1. He was definitely fast. He had some time of hand on everybody. The big question was, was Benyaya going to go back out again?

Was he going to sacrifice another soft to be able to get in there? They had talks. You could see they were going back and forth. They were kind of there, like, well, who's going to get close or whatever? And really it was close.

But Benyaya actually stayed in. He didn't go out. Miller was pushing for P1. But Benyaya and Miller did go through. They were the two guys who got out to go the second qualifying session.

Now the second qualifying session, you know, one of the cool things was that Miller was directly into Q2 with the Honda, which I thought was great. Zarko was there too. So even if you put Benyaya in because of the mistakes of his taking away laps, you still had one Honda in the top 10 first time, first shot out, which is fantastic for Honda. But then all five manufacturers were in Q2. Yes, all five manufacturers had a bike.

Iagura on the Aprilia was like, whoa, mind blown. That Golf livery rich, beautiful. I want that for the rest of the year. It is choice. I love it.

It's fantastic. Keep it Trackhouse. I'm telling you right now, keep the Golf livery. It's perfect. It is a wondrous looking thing.

And I will hold my hand up because I was quite dismissive of the Trackhouse launch, which I don't, did it have the Golf? It didn't have the Golf on it then, I don't think, did it? It was not prominent. It was only on the front fender was a small Golf sticker that I had caught. I'm like, oh wow, an American.

I remember you mentioning it now. Yeah. But the whole bike was the classic Golf livery of the 70s that you think of mainly because of the movie Le Mans with Steve McQueen. Yeah. And thank you.

I have my blank there. And you think of that car, the 917K that they were racing, but that Golf livery on the Porsche 917 is just iconic. It's like Martini on Alantia and Raleigh, right? They're just synonymous to each other and they're just iconic. And I thought it looked beautiful.

It wasn't a remake. It just was beautiful. I love it. That bike does look particular. I mean, it's so clean.

I mean, you might say, well, they've only got one sponsor, but hopefully they're getting plenty out of Golf for the prominence that it now has. And it's just a lovely clean looking design. And the blue is particularly a thing to behold. I bet it looks really, really nice in the flesh, so to speak. First three races are that way.

So I'm going to get to see it in the flesh. So I'm going to be pretty stoked. Apologies that I was a bit, well, I wasn't dismissive. I was worried really by the sort of how unflashy the Trackhouse launch was, but I know it doesn't matter what the launch is like. It's what they do on the track when they get going.

Oh yeah. Actually both bikes didn't have a bad weekend, but obviously one of them is utterly outstanding. So yeah, off we go again. So halfway through, Marc Marquez is the quickest man followed by his brother and then Ayagura there. And then Benyaya Morbidele and Bezeky.

Bezeky went down on the Aprilia, which is bad. Benyaya was stuck back in third. Mir went down at turn three, which sucked. But at the end you had, and get ready for this people, because you're going to hear this a lot, 93, 73, 63, 43. You could have had a 33 and a 23, because you can go all that way, but it was all about the threes, right?

So that's how it was. So it was Marquez, Marc, Marquez, Alex, Benyaya, Miller, Ayagura fifth. First time out qualifying on the Aprilia, Ayagura showed his raw talent. Everybody said, well, what was your goal? Was your goal to be on the top six?

Was your goal just to make it to Q2? And they're like, yeah, I had no expectation of this whatsoever. And it's working. And it's why Ayagura is there. I studied Ayagura's leathers.

I did not see an HRC logo on there. But you know, one can dream that he may be on a straight one, one oil sponsor for another and ride on an HRC bike. But we keep going on about HRC, like to get the checkbook out, to get somebody on to one of those bikes. And he will be coming into sharp relief again. I mean, obviously he's got that connection with HRC anyway, although it's hidden away for the time being.

But I suspect we'll see an HRC on a set of leathers that he's in at some point. Oh yeah, for sure. So, Ayagura fifth, Morbidelli sixth, Acosta seventh, which is about where I feared the KTMs would be, far and away ahead of the other ones. Raul Ferrandes on the other Aprilia, which was good to see. Then Bizeki, of course Bizeki had fallen.

Quattro Rau being the other Yamaha, the other manufacturer of the Yamaha in there. And then Mir and Zarco, the two Hondas. That was qualifying, which then set us up for the sprint race. How much you want to talk about this sprint race? Other than the first corner, there's not a great deal to say, is there?

No, but I think there is a bit of something that we learn here. A couple of things that we learn. One, Marquez got that whole shot. Benyaya was right with him going into that first turn. And Mark kind of strong-armed a corner.

Benyaya is that sort of a thinker kind of guy. I'm going to let it go. Mark takes the corner, is followed by his brother, then Ayagura, who had made a good start, then Miller. Bizeki was just always eight ways to Sunday sideways off the line, which was really wild that he was there. But I'm going to just flat out say it.

Marquez just pulled away from everybody. He was two laps in and he already had seven tenths of a second lead on his brother. Oh, he's just gone. There was a pretty good fight between Acosta and Binder as they were trying to decide who was going to be best KTM there. Miller crashed the Yamaha at turn eight with a front tuck on seven laps remaining.

Acosta got by Quattrararo for sixth. That happened. It's really a lackluster race. Digia retired from the race thinking that, wow, this is kind of the heat or whatever. I think they said it was just way too hot for him to deal with.

But you wound up with 93, 73, 63 again. Get used to hearing it. But then Ayagura had a fourth. He just missed the podium out of it all. It was a lackluster sprint race.

It sort of reaffirmed the fear that I had from testing. Mark Marquez is the best rider on the grid now on the best motorcycle. He is Gigi Delini's chosen one. That is probably why because the best rider on the best motorcycle resulted in the absolute obliteration of everybody in the sprint race. Yeah.

I just wrote obviously position one Mark Marquez and that's what I put. Here we go! We're going to have a lot of that. I don't think he's going to win every single race. Of course he's not.

But on that evidence in very challenging conditions, let's be honest, I think ominous is the word. And Banyaya was cutting a bit of a dejected figure really. He was forced to use the hard front in the sprint as well or chose to use the hard front because he couldn't make the soft work. So whether that was a bit of an impediment to him making progress, but he just never looked like he was going to get anywhere near Alex Marquez. Did he?

Nope. It was going absolutely nowhere and it was kind of crazy. So flash forward to Sunday morning. Again, remember Chantra has a grid penalty. So does Morbidelli because of their indiscretions that they had during the time.

Now this time we start off. Yep. It's Marquez as in Mark out front. He got the whole shot. Banyaya did a better start because he was actually ahead of Alex Marquez.

Agurra got out to third, but then we had Agurra get by Alex and then they flipped it back again. There was a good tussle there for the first few corners as they tried to figure out who was going to go where they were. Morbidelli had a very good start because he went from ninth to fifth and the opening part of it. A couple laps in, Mark is going good. He's got his brother right behind him.

He's pulling away. Mark is definitely pulling away. I wrote in my notes, goodbye. Then you had Ayagura still lingering. Banyaya was third, Ayagura is in fourth, then it's Morbidelli and it's Miller.

Acosta went down at turn one. Morbidelli was by Agurra and then all of a sudden six laps in and Mark Marquez coming out of turn three literally pulls over, looks back, and lets his brother go by. What's wrong with the bike? You could see the panic ensue inside of the Ducati garage. Gigi is looking awesome.

Gigi from the beard tugging that he does was up, snap, looking, data, looking at a stream. Tardazzi is like, what? He's got this look of like, ah, what is going on here? This is not the script. The script is a factory Ducati winning, not a Grissini Ducati winning, and sure as heck not a Grissini Ducati winning with Alex Marquez on it.

Right? So it's just weird that what happened. Now, my first suspicion, Rich, was that there was a low tire pressure alarm on Mark's bike and he needed to get back into the heat of Alex's exhaust or take the heat that tire up to put it up to snuff so that it would be low. Now they played back on the doornafee. They played back the sound, the audio track of Mark's bike.

There was no false neutral, no cutouts, no electrical grimlin that appeared again. And then not to fast forward, but we all know what happened. But after the end in Park for May, there was a very quick conversation between Mark and Digi, Digi Jelena and Tardazzi that they were covering mouths so cameras couldn't see. And then Tardazzi was like, oh, okay, and walked off. Now, all of that makes me believe that I'm right, that it was a tire pressure alarm.

I mean, Simon Patterson was saying it on Twitter, on Twitter too, X, whatever they call it. But do you agree? A hundred percent. And Tardazzi, somebody lip read him and he said something along the lines of, we don't talk about it. So they clearly under pressure the front tire.

And I think they, sorry, go ahead. Under or over? I can never remember which way it is. Undered. I think they undered it.

Undered. So, and he got that warning, as you say, pretty early on. I mean, Italian teams have a bit of a sort of history of this sort of behavior. They don't like to tell what actually happened. It's like the old days when the Ferrari or no, Alfa Romeo in Formula One very famously once said, the car stopped because there was an oil leak.

There was an oil leak because the cylinder had come out of the engine block. So there's this kind of, in the modern parlance, they call it spin, don't they? So there was definitely some of that going on. Yeah, exactly. So there's loads of that going on.

Somebody, I guess, perhaps just made a very, very slight judgment error in terms of that starting pressure. And yeah, it was going to be, because they have to run 60% of the race within a pressure zone, don't they? And if they don't, he would have had, I think if you don't meet that requirement, you get, is it a 13 or a 15 second time penalty added to your race time? Yes, it's a time penalty of the extent I do not know. My initial reaction was always got a problem, but then, you know, immediately tucked straight back in and you think, oh, okay, there's something else at play here.

My mind didn't immediately jump to tire pressure, I must say, because I'm not the technical guy. I'm just sort of salivating at the screen, but trying to work out what the hell's going on. But yeah, I think it was Michael Lavaty on the TNT coverage very quickly chimed in to say, oh yeah, he's under pressure on the front tire. So he's getting into the wake to get some heat, to get the thing back up again. And yeah, Jimmy, he could not have ridden any closer for how many laps it was that he was behind Alex.

Fivers, I mean, he was literally like in his wheel tracks, like exactly right behind him. Yeah. I mean, almost dangerously so at times I thought. Well, I, if all the people was the right person, because it was his brother, right? Now, how many times do you think that these guys don't ride like that all the time at some super moto tracker?

Oh yeah. Motocross tracker, whatever. He knows exactly what Alex is going to do, right? There's no way around it or whatever. I theorize that because Benyaya had a really pretty good launch in the sprint and Mark kind of muscles his way to the lead in that one, that they assumed that Benyaya would get a lead and it would take four or five laps for Mark to get by Benyaya.

Because Mark's pace was really when the tires got worn is where his pace just didn't drop off. Benyaya's did, right? So I think they kind of under did a little because they were assuming Benyaya was going to get the whole shot, which makes sense. Or maybe even Alex or Alex. Yeah.

Either way they were, they were thinking that they were going to be having to come from third or second. And it was going to take them five to 10 laps to do it, thereby giving the tire to have enough pressure. Either way, there really isn't, there's just an intensity in this race because Alex is leading, Mark's right behind him. Is Benyaya going to be able to actually catch them or do anything with them? And sort of by halfway you realize Benyaya is not going to really be able to do any part of it at all.

But you're still kind of like, well, when's Mark going to pass? For a guy who ran off and hid in the sprint, you think, okay, well, once we get past 13 laps, because that was the distance of the sprint, oh, he's just going to open the tap and be gone. And that didn't happen. What did happen along the way was the fact that Mir was off at the last corner. I mean, he was seventh when he did that, which for the Honda and Mir, that was fantastic.

Where in the world was Quattroraro at this point? I don't know what happened. I mean, he didn't have a great start, but still Quattroraro made no progress whatsoever going forward at all in this race. We didn't really get to see any of his race at all, did we? There must have been a problem of some description.

I mean, he did finish, I think 15th, was it, in the end, but yeah, sort of weirdly absent from the action. Yeah, I just don't know where it was. I mean, we were way into the race and it's still Alex, Mark, Benyai has kind of settled for third. He can't really do anything with the two guys at the front. He's just kind of keeping everybody else at bay.

Morbidelli has gotten by Ayagura, who has been riding amazing and then Vizecki is behind that. With a few laps to go, you kind of realize that Alex is starting to spin it up coming out of the corners. He's got a lot more that he's working on than what Mark is and with four to go, Mark just basically decides, I'm going by it, turn 12 and I know how this idea works and boom, bye and hello. It was like easily like one or two tenths of a gap immediately when Mark went by. Well, Jim, he pulled out 1.1 seconds at the end of the lap after which he had repassed or passed his brother.

Yeah, that was insane. There was so much pace. It was scary that he had that pace, which is just incredible. And so I want to come back to this point, but let's finish this. At one point, Benyai was closing in on Alex, but it didn't work.

Mark wins, Alex is second. So it's again, 93, 73, 63. Get used to those numbers, folks. That's what you're going to see a lot of. Then Morbidelli hung on for fourth in the battle with Ayagura.

But again, Ayagura ride of the race. I mean, yeah, Mark Marquez was superlative, but Ayagura is a rookie on an Aprilia and he's in the top five. Riders weekend, I think. Wander the weekend and you're going, what could Martin have done if he was healthy on that bike? Oh, he probably the only person to have any kind of pace that may or may not have rivaled what Mark Marquez had, quite honestly.

And then you had, where were we? Oh, Zarco was seventh with the Honda, which I thought was really pretty good. Binder was eighth on a KTM. Bastianini was there ninth. Then DG Antonio 10th, Miller, Marini, Aldiger, Olivera and Quattroraro rounding it out.

Now, when they talk to Benyai post-race, he's like, oh, we must go back and work. I don't have the feel because Mark's pace is amazing. That's not where you want to be if you're Benyai. I mean, I don't want to say Benyai, if he wins, he's a very happy, charismatic guy, right? If he's second or third, he's happy, but he's not as jovial as if he wins.

He looked downright depressed and then bewildered at the pace that Marquez had. His mind could not comprehend what he just saw because it didn't make sense to him because it's like, I have the same bike and this was me last year and I can't even do that this year and I don't know what happened. And you could kind of see the eyeballs. If he didn't have sunglasses on, you can see the eyeballs spinning counter-clockwise against each other, right? Because he has no clue how Mark is doing it and he's got access to the data.

You've got a treat coming up at Circuit of the Americas. Oh, yeah, we do. With all those left hand turns, Jim, because I think what Benyai said that I picked up on was that Mark was as fast as him in the right handers, but much, much quicker in the lefts. And that's where his lap time was coming from. Argentina is that way too.

You've got the lefts and stuff that are in Argentina. Argentina is one of Marquez's favorite tracks. So he won in Thailand, he won a title in Thailand, so he kind of likes the Thai track. He's won there a lot, right? He likes Argentina, we're going there next.

And then he goes to Coda, which he's the king of Coda. It's like, I'm sorry, but I would not bet against Marquez to run the table of sprints and Grand Prix Sundays and run the table. I think he can, which at that point, if his brother is in the mix to take points off Benyai, Benyai is going to have a hole to dig out of. Now that's not impossible. There's a lot of points still to play for.

Anything can happen. But I also sensed a bit of maturity in Mark as well. Because the way he kind of acted afterwards, there was the young fan who had cried the year before when he crashed. He had him and how he dealt with him. And isn't Mark going to be a dad?

This is his girlfriend. I was wondering about that because his girlfriend wasn't there. I didn't see her at any point of the weekend. I didn't see her anywhere either. And she's pretty hard to miss.

So maybe she's back at home with child, as they say. So that would explain that one then. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I heard a rumor of it somewhere because Benyai's wife is, they're having a child.

And I think Mark's having a child too. I think. I know Benyai, yes. I know that. But I think Mark does too.

But Marquez keeps his life, his private life, very personal, for sure. Which I understand. I get where he's coming from and all that stuff and whatnot. But yeah, I don't want to be Benyai right now. In the interest of balance though, Jim, I think it must be pointed out that Thailand and indeed Argentina are two of Peko Benyai's least favorite tracks.

So. Agreed. There are tracks coming later on in the season that will in vertigo favor him, maybe mentally, perhaps a bit. But I just think that Marquez is going to be hard to contain because he looks, I'm not going to swear, but there's a saying, you know, happy as a pig in. Yes.

That's what he looks like at the moment, isn't it? And the nature with which he pulled away and pulled that second gap when he decided, or the warning light went off the dash in terms of the tire pressure, in terms of the number of laps and whatnot, that was dizzying. And even Benyai was saying, he was playing with us, I think was what Benyai said. Now he wasn't, he was doing what he needed to do to get his tire pressure under control. But when he decided he go, he went.

So in that sense, I suppose you might say he was sort of playing with them a little bit. So yeah, it's kind of, it's a sort of tantalizing, I mean, already people on X sort of saying, oh, I don't want to watch racing when somebody is just disappearing at the road. I would take the opposite view, which is to say that you need to savor this because Mike won't be around for many, many more years. You're going to see a master at his work this year, provided he doesn't chuck himself off and injure himself at any point, which I don't see why he would need to, because he appears to have quite a lot in reserve on what is going to be probably all year, the best bike on the grid. Easily.

Unless Martin comes back and really does something special on it. I'd be interested in what Bizecki does in Argentina, because he's a bit of an Argentina specialist. Good point. He had a topsy-turvy weekend, he had crashing qualifying, and then he had that problem off the start in the, was it in the sprint or the main race? Only in the sprint.

He had a, I won't say it was a great start, he had a good start. Yeah. And then he finished, what, you finished fifth or sixth, didn't he? Yeah. So not a brilliant start, but not a terrible one either.

So yeah, kind of curious to see what he'll be able to do on one of his, if not his very favorite track in Argentina. So there might be a bit more of a challenge coming Mark's way, but, and obviously the conditions aren't going to be draining your energy and all the sweat out of your body after five laps in Argentina. But yeah, it's kind of the start that we expected, isn't it? Yeah. It's pretty much going swimmingly to the Marquez playbook.

I mean, you know, mission accomplished, ride Ducati bike and understand what it's about, catch big break that the 20, the bike, the 25 bike isn't what you're using, using the 24 bike. I think Banyai called it the 24.9, didn't he? Or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Something or whatever. Right. And, you know, it can't get any better. You are the favorite son.

They are going to, despite what anybody says, they are going to work. Gigi will make people work harder for Mark than for Banyai, but it is Italian, Italian team. So you really can't say they won't be equal. They'll have equal equipment. It just depends on what you do with it.

But you know, I'm confident that the pendulum will swing between them, depending on who's having a good or a bad weekend, or is that a track that they like or particularly dislike. It's just, I suspect that Mark will have more better weekends than Banyai does. And then obviously there's the wild cards that you can throw in. There's what three or four other riders that could show up on a Saturday sprint or a Sunday main race to kind of interfere for a while. But I really don't see anybody sort of race long week in week out, kind of taking the fight to either of those two guys on the red bikes to be honest, and certainly not Mark Marquez.

Yeah. I have another question for you. I don't think you can answer it because I can't come up with the answer. Has Peco raced at Brno? I'm assuming in the smaller classes, yes, but I'm almost positive not in MotoGP.

He must have done because the last race at Brno, if I'm not wrong, didn't Prad Bindelwin or am I getting it mixed up with another race? Maybe I'm thinking of... I don't know. Maybe I'm getting confused with Red Bull Ring. You're talking about that pendulum swing, right?

I think like Van Dyke is ultra quick in Mugello and he's really good on home soil. San Marino, the other obvious one. But I just can't look at a track or think of a track in the schedule where you go, yeah, Mark Marquez really sucks at that track. Yeah. Like Saxon Ring, you almost got to pencil him in now for it, right?

Philip Allen, you almost got to pencil him in for that one, right? Brno, you almost want to pencil him in for that one. I'm not saying there's not a weakness in his armor. I'm not willing to hand the title over to him right now, but it's just... You just look at Benyai and you know he's on the back foot right now.

Now he's got to come out swinging, right? He's got to get it together. He's got to come out swinging and he's got to do his thing at the next round. Yeah. He needs to react as quickly as he possibly can.

Stem the tide quickly. I'm just busy. I'm not being rude, Jim. I'm just looking down. So the last time they raced in Brno was 2020 and Benyai was on the Pramac Ducati.

That might have been his first season. So he has raced MotoGP there. I knew it had been a while since we... Yeah. It seems...

It feels like longer ago than 2020 in a way, but... Yeah. I don't remember being there during COVID at Brno, but... Was it not a race that binda won because it rained or something and he did one of his crazy... I know there was the very famous one at the Red Bull Ring where it rained and he stayed out on the slicks, but I don't think it was that race.

I would need to go back and check. There was something weird about that race. I'll tell you that, but I... Yeah. I have to go back and have a look.

But yeah. So I'm struggling to think of a race that immediately comes to my mind that you think, oh, that's really not one that Mark Marquez likes very much. No, I think everybody's got a problem. I mean, it'd be interesting... Mugello is obviously the one that will be the really fascinating one because if Mark beats the Italians there, like his teammate, that's really going to be a tough one to take.

And Bagnari was sort of cutting... The word that comes to my mind about Bagnari in defeat normally is what's called sort of magnanimous. He takes it like a gent and he tends to be quite respectful about people, but he never really kind of looks as if his shoulders drop. He kind of understands why he hasn't won. Whereas on Sunday, as you say, having been looking at the data all weekend, I think he might be scratching his head thinking, I don't quite know at the moment how to react to this.

And he did cut a much more sort of dejected figure, I thought, in the way that he looked and the things that he said. But it's only one race. It's only one race. And he did look... And he says, we have work to do and we must find a solution.

So he knows he's got work ahead of him. I mean, he's not thrown in the towel right now, for gosh sakes. But anyway... And he's known to be that kind of analytical, work hard to get to where you need to be. We were saying, it's kind of like the Prof Center in the same team with him and Marquez, isn't it?

Oh, yeah. So I just personally... Well, we both have Mark Marquez's win in the championship this year, didn't we? So I think this is the start of what we felt it was going to be like. I think...

But just before we sign off, Jim, I think we've got to talk about KTM. Okay, got it. Because I mentioned it earlier on. I mean, it wasn't a good weekend for KTM. The Costa crashed out of the main race.

The bikes look awful. I don't know if you've sort of clocked that new rear bodywork that they've got with the mass damper in there. It just looks absolutely hideous. I know in the overall scheme of things, that doesn't matter if the bike's fast. It's just adding insult to injury that it's not fast either.

I don't know if they were chewing the tyres again or what it was. But I mean, just looking down the list here, where did Binder finish? I mean, he came in eighth, I think, was it, in the main race? Yeah, eighth. Sort of completely out of nowhere.

Bastianini in the main race finished ninth, I think. Yep, right behind him. Where the hell did that come from? I mean, he was seconds of that. But I think possibly it was just his famous kind of keeping a rear tyre alive in those conditions that perhaps helped him to go forward a bit towards the end of the race.

Because he'd been having a miserable time up until Sunday afternoon. So overall, it was not a great weekend for KTM and certainly not the start to the season that they would have been hoping for, given all the other problems afflicting them elsewhere. So anyway, as we all say, one swallow doesn't make a summer. And one race in Thailand, of all places, in those conditions, certainly won't be representative of the entirety of the season. But I think we've already started to get a glimpse of some of the headline points, which is that KTM are perhaps in bigger trouble than everybody would like.

Honda look resurgent. Yamaha, bit of an odd weekend. But again, it's only one race. So let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Aprilia, they've got a superstar on their hands.

Again, it's one race, so we can't say that for sure. But Aguirre, he was the sort of rider, you look to the way he used to sort of manhandle and slide the bike in Moto2, you kind of felt that he might be the guy that would kind of adapt to the MotoGP bike. And Aprilia obviously is good. So I can't wait for Martine to get on it fit and to really see what it can do. Because the signs are very positive there.

But I think we've got to kind of go down the whole top rat, Razgateli, Oglou kind of line that this is going to be the Ducati Cup again this year. So in terms of the podium at most races, I suspect. Yeah, I do not disagree with you. But it's great that we came out of this weekend with so many different storylines that we can follow. Yeah.

And I made a particular note of this, Jim, 225,000 people in that event over the course of the weekend. That is an amazing, amazing crowd. You don't have that many at Kodak. I can tell you that. Well, I mean, I think we only just tipped somewhere just over the 50,000 mark across the whole weekend at Silverstone last year.

So really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's why they've moved the date into May this year. And I hope that it will clear the summer season and some of the other big sporting events that happened in that kind of July, August, September time, and get some people through the gate.

But yeah, 225,000 people turning up in that heat and humidity. Bearing in mind most of them are locals, I'm sure, so they're used to the conditions. But even so, that's a hell of a crowd. So yeah, it goes to show that in the right place with the right support and the right marketing, et cetera, and the right ticket prices, I don't know what it would have cost to get in to the Thai Grand Prix for the weekend. But you can certainly pull a big crowd if the conditions are right.

Yeah. So great credit to the organizers and whoever else was involved in promoting the event because they did a great job. All right. With that, I think we're done, right? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. Nice to have a week off and then we'll be back to talk about Argentina. Argentina. Because we don't have no BSB starts until April. We've got the Daytona 200 happening this weekend.

Well, it's not a big event for us, that one, I suppose. But we'll see. Not like it used to be, for sure. I'll catch it because there's nothing else going on other than Formula One. But again, I've got some paint I can go and watch drive if I want to instead of the F1.

And then, yeah, no World Superbikes now until I think the 20 something of March. So we got a couple of weeks before World Supers are out again. So yeah, no bike racing other than Daytona this weekend. So chance for us to have a week off. Head into Indianapolis for the Supercross.

So nice. Go check that out, which will be fun. Cool. All right. Well, it's been fun to talk about the racing at long last.

So yeah, it's very enjoyable. All righty, folks. Ride safe. Cheers, everyone.