Red Bull Ring Race Review

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk. Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 812, recording on August 20th, 2025.

We're going to be talking about the Red Bull Ring. I'm Jim McDowell hosting, riding alongside me fresh from, fresh from Cardiff, I think you said, Rich, is Rich. How are you, Rich? Did you have a good holiday? I saw a photo, Rich, of, I saw a photo, people, of Rich lounging by the poolside in some exotic Mediterranean area, island?

Yes, yes, Corfu, which is an island, a lovely island in actual fact, of Greece. So yes, thank you, Jim. It was very, very nice, quite hot, obviously wall to wall sunshine there, lovely food, lovely people. Spent half the week working or doing little podcast bits and bobs, so my wife was a little bit irritated with me on and off. But yeah, long time no see, isn't it?

Because of course you were traveling that week or two beforehand as well, which is how we came to do the kind of lone traveler pieces to cover Bruno and, what was it, Saxon Ring, which I didn't actually get to watch much of Saxon Ring just because it was so busy in the lead up to going away. So it feels like a long, long time since we've actually been sat down together, well, I say together, separated just by a few thousand miles, but putting that to one side, it feels like an awfully long time. It is quite some weeks, isn't it? So it's nice to be back. It is nice to be back, nice to talk to you.

Yes. I must say, I do enjoy our little free podcast chats as well, but that's for another day. Another behind the scenes look if we ever decide to. Anyhow, so yeah, I was in Europe. I had to travel for work to Belgium.

We were staying in Aachen, Germany because the town of Oipen was flooded, I think, three or four years ago. And that's where the hotel was that we used to stay at. But it is, they was completely, I don't want to say completely destroyed because the building is still there, but the water damage was insane. It's now been bought by somebody and it's being refurbished and it's supposed to open like October of this year. So yeah, it's funny.

That was the closest we'd ever probably been to each other. It was only one hour time gap in time. And we could not figure out how to sit down and have a chat, which is the most amazing thing when you think about it. That's what happens when you have jobs and we travel and do it and we do not. Correct.

Hey, Aachen's a nice little town as well. I've stayed there once. It's not very far from the Nürburgring, actually. I'm surprised you didn't take a little trip over to the Nordschleife. Well, that would have been on the list, but we preempted that with doing World War Two things.

Yeah, fair enough. I'm fully on board with that. We usually only have like a weekend to do anything when we're over there because we go over for two weeks and that middle weekend is try to crash everything in that you could. I really couldn't pass up a tour of the D-Day beaches in Normandy, so we went there and did that. Good chat.

It just, I highly recommend if you ever have the opportunity to go and visit them, please do because it is an incredible moment in history that your grandfather or great grandfather or potentially now almost great great grandfather accomplish some amazing feat of daring, bravery, luck, I think, as well in there. It's a humbling bit to stand where they stood and look at what they were faced with and what they had to overcome. Yeah, hard to imagine. Hard to imagine unless you do it, but this is not a history podcast, not a geography podcast, not a vacation podcast. We're here to do racing, right, Rich?

That's what we're here for. If you like the show, please help us out. Subscribe to the show, donate to the show. Give us some love on your social channels. That would be nice too.

Anything you can do to help the show, get the word out, keep the word out, that'd be great. Really love that if you could help us out in that way. I think we should just get right into it and let's start off with the fact that Gary Chavit decided that I needed a geography lesson and he wrote a very nice letter about my confusion between, oh, please help me out here, Rich, Czechia, where the Brno race is, and Czechia, which is somewhere by the Ukraine. I will admit that after the communist wall and the bloc countries all divided up into 30 different other countries, I sort of lost the plan of where everybody was, went, and whatnot. I'm of the old school pre-wall coming down to where I only remember there's Czechoslovakia, Romania, and those things.

There was one big country called the Soviet Union that encompassed and broke up into many different countries. I get the point, Gary, and I appreciate you explaining to me the very subtle difference between Czechia and Cetsnija so that hopefully I will not ever make that mistake again. Fine details and they mean a lot. Commas and places make sentences really different. Tiny little difference in the pronunciation, but a big difference culturally, historically, politically, et cetera, et cetera.

You can see how people get into trouble because they are fine lines, these things. Actually, just a word to Gary, that was actually a very interesting email that he wrote with the history of it all because much of that I must admit I didn't know particularly. That was a useful bit of learning for both of us, I think, Jim. It was a great history geography lesson by the professor himself. Hey, Gary, just hope everything's working out okay for you over there, just a little side note.

Anyway, let's get back to what we want to talk about. Let's talk about the news that has come out. Oh, sorry. I didn't have any say on Brno because Rich covered that, but I would like to do what is going to be four little quick things. One, I agree with you, Rich.

Brno is a track on the same level as a Mugello, as a Phillip Island. It is that kind of a racetrack and you are so right in what you said and how you said it. That's one. What was up with Denis Foggia in that Moto3 race? Did you not have a brain functioning at that point in time?

Because legitimately by eyeball you could tell if Keelys was in front you were catching Rueda yet you wanted to keep passing him in that combination that's three and four, I think. Yeah, they were really- And then slowing everything back down and let Rueda just get away again. Okay, interesting. Although I can't help thinking, Jim, that they kind of knew that they were racing for second place that day because Rueda was just- I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with that.

Third thing, the Moto2 race. I was in Aachen, Germany. I was sitting in my hotel room watching that race. If the people there didn't know I was an American, you sure did after that Moto2 race. I didn't have the flag with me that's tucked away in the drawer here at the house, but It was obvious that I was a MotoGP fan.

It was obvious that I had an American winner and that's all I'll say about that one. And then finally, is anybody going to stop Marc Marquez? No, they're not. He is not a matter of if he will win the title. It is when will he win the title?

What round does he wrap this thing up? It's been an incredible- that was incredible. That was five rounds in a row that he won both the sprint and the feature Sunday or Grand Prix. That's an incredible feat, quite honestly. I was thinking about this, Rich, and I want the viewers to write in about this one too because I got the thinking and this is a long way out here.

If Marquez were to win in 27 a world title on Pirelli tires, he would be the only person in the modern MotoGP era here. So I'm talking like from for me, like somewhere around from what I can remember back to the early 80s to ever win three world championships on three different makes of tire. Now I'm not saying that Sertis or Agostini or someone did not do the same thing way far back, but Marquez would have won it on Bridgestones with the Honda. He then is going to win this one on a Michelin and then he would win on a Pirelli, which I think is a feat that I can't come up with anybody else. I can think of people who've done it on two, right?

Agostini did it on a Dunlop, Ranney did it on a Michelin. There's other ones that I had thought of for a little bit, but I think Roberts did it on a Goodyear and then wound up doing it with a Michelin. But I can't think of anybody who's done it on three different tire makes. Certainly in terms of titles, I mean, there must be many riders that have won races and GP on different makes of tire, three or four maybe, because you had Dunlop and you say Goodyear at various points and possibly a couple of other Japanese brands besides Bridgestone as well at certain points maybe. But in terms of titles, that's a really good question.

We need a proper statistician. We need the Honorable Michael Rainsworth, is that his name? Martin Rainsworth, is it? Yeah. We might have to hit him up on that one.

I think that's an amazing stat, right? It would. I mean, I learned earlier on today, because this hadn't occurred to me, that Marquez as of this weekend, which we're obviously going to come to, but he is now, I believe, the only person to have won six races in a row on different manufacturer bikes. So he's now got that one chalked up and that run is obviously going to continue. Because he could actually, he could win the title if things went absolutely perfectly and Alex and Peco were inconsistent as they've started to be.

He could wrap it up as early as Mizano, apparently. But there's an odds on certainty that he'll clinch the title at Motegi, which will sting Honda a bit. Yeah, I figured the most logical place would be he would win at Motegi just to kind of not necessarily rub Honda's nose in it, but rub Honda's nose in it. Like, ha ha, did it here too. I think allowing for some more second places for Alex, it's likely that the points will mean that that's the likely point at which he will first get to win it.

But he does need to keep kind of doing the doubles. But I mean, at the moment, it doesn't look like there's any other. I don't think it's going to stop him. Quite honestly, there's no one there. But anyway.

All right. So let's focus on this round here. We were in the Styrian Mountains in Austria, home of KTM. And this is why I pulled this one out, Rich. I don't know because you watch like the TNT coverage of MotoGP, but in the Dorna feed, nobody talked about attendance figures at all.

There was no mention of it. Now it was very obvious that the large, what always I will refer to as the KTM grandstand right behind the big bull or in front of the big bull, I guess, was completely tarped, covered over and nobody was in there at all. I do know that I've always believed that that was KTM employees, if you will, all sort of had entry to that area. And with KTM being in the state that they're in, they're not there. So attendance was quite low, I think, for the event.

It was. I heard a figure around about 50,000 for the weekend, which puts it on a par with Silverstone, which is damning with a fake praise or false praise. The problem is this has been a kind of a bit of a scheduling cock up really by Dorna through design or otherwise, I don't know. Obviously, you had Brno a few weeks ago, Austria quite close by. Then you've got the round in Hungary this coming weekend as we speak now.

They're all very close to each other. And so they're all going to be taking attendance off of each other for that reason. So I think that's part of it. And as you say, Jim, I think if that is true about the KTM stand, it wouldn't look good to be throwing a lot of money at that. Although things have obviously improved and the rescue package has been agreed and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But, you know, they're not out of the woods yet. But somebody on the TNT coverage, I think, mentioned over the weekend that KTM have actually started production of motorcycles again at the factory there. That's because they had this massive backlog of bikes unsold that needed to sort of clear through. So I guess that's work in progress. So things are improving.

But nevertheless, there is the optics of this thing. And overplaying it, I think, would have been a bad move this weekend, which is ironic, really, because KTM had one of their best weekends so far this year, if not the best weekend so far this year, arguably, as we'll come to. But definitely, I think it was about 15,000 down on last year. It's not the easiest place to get to. And it's very expensive there as well.

I think it's expensive to get into the race in terms of ticket prices and given its mountainous location and stuff. I don't imagine hotels are plentiful or particularly cheaply priced for that weekend. So I think it's probably one where diehard fans tend to go. It's a funny one. I'd like to go just because of the setting and because I love the history of that track in terms of the old Osterreich ring.

And there are bits of the old track still that you can walk around. Much of it has been bulldoze to make way for the more modern facilities. But the original turn one further up the hill and the loop around the back of that kind of forest there, that is still there, I believe. And so I would love to walk that. I don't understand why they don't put some type of chicane combination of turns at the top of the hill, run down and then put a – I'm going to use this term – a boot like Watkins Glenn has in that forestry area to then get themselves back out onto where we consider turn three to be.

Yeah. I'm sure it's a money thing, isn't it? Yeah, it'll be a money thing. Maybe some planning issues around doing that, having shrunk the track. So I'm in this kind of weird position where I'd quite like to go because of the place and the history.

But as a racetrack, the stop go and particularly since they put that chicane in, which I understand why they did it. But to me, it's not a very suitable track for GP. Yeah. Just my opinion. They're there because KTM is there.

I mean, that's kind of why. And Red Bull. Probably more so for that, yes. Yeah. That combination makes that race work.

But coming from Burno, for example, you can't really talk about the two tracks in the same breath as far as I'm concerned. I'm just old school like that. Yep. All right. So you're ready for a little silly season?

Yeah, always. So it looks like Rollstone is out of tech three, Moto three. That's the rumor. Where he is going, don't know. But it is a performance based business, especially at that level.

And if you're not turning it, you're done. I think he's going to wind up on a I'll use this lightly, a lesser team. I don't think he's going to be out of a Moto three class. No, I'd be very surprised. Yeah, super surprised if somebody would pick him up.

But it's going to be like a Bowie or something of that nature that's going to pick that. I must admit, I haven't heard that rumor, Jim. So thanks for pointing that out. I'm a little bit surprised. I mean, he's kind of had some flashes this year, as he did in his rookie year last year.

But obviously he had that really very serious neck injury preseason. That's curtailed his early season progress. And he's been popping up. He's just been consistent, I suppose. And in tech three, you can't probably afford to have too many seasons like that.

But I cannot believe he'll be out of Moto three next year. No, I don't think so. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in Moto two, because he's quite a tall lad. Because I interviewed him at Silverstone last year and Dawna used to like us. And sorry, I always have to get it in.

Yeah, you do. Not that I'm bitter. And yeah, physically, he's one of the guys that you would think would start to suit the Moto two machine a bit more than the Moto three. Bit like a kind of Colin Vaya type of situation. Yeah, yeah.

So this one involves our friend, Aaron Kinnett. We had speculated forever that this man was going to World Superbike. Turns out that he signed a multi-year deal with Mark VDS, keeping him for next year, at least, in the Moto two class. The question I have is, when does he move to the World Superbike team that Mark VDS has? Yeah, I must admit, I'm pretty surprised.

Because I mean, we're not the ones that create the rumors at the end of the day. But the BMW link was being talked about by a lot of people for quite a long time. And clearly, he did have that option. It always felt like an odd move to me, actually. I couldn't say the BMW always looks quite a big bike.

And Kinnett is quite a short, stocky guy. Never quite felt like that was going to work out physically to me. But so in that sense, it's not a surprise that that hasn't happened. Although BMW's decision on which way they are going is equally a bit strange to me. Which I've put a little note in the news that will come to.

So, yeah, I mean, Mark VDS clearly, I don't foresee any situation where Kinnett makes it into MotoGP. Do you, Jim? Unless he wins the title so convincingly that people can't ignore him any longer. But it kind of feels like it's MotoGP for another year or two. And then, as you say, Mark VDS do have the World Superbike team, but Sam Lowe's now.

And could financially, I'm sure, quite easily stretch to another bike if they needed to, if Sam was still there. So, yeah, not what I was expecting to hear, though. Nope, especially the next one I'm going to talk about. You definitely wasn't expecting, I wasn't expecting. But it turns out that Jake Dixon will go to World Superbikes next year, leaving the MotoGP paddock.

And he has signed with the factory Honda team to ride the Fireblade. That's the way they were talking on. Yeah, they were saying that that's this is a done deal lock stock barrel. We're good to go here. Say, but, OK, I'm like TNT commentators kind of saying the same thing, but not officially the case yet.

Well, there hasn't been an announcement yet, but I think everybody believes that there is ink on paper. Yes, and it's just a question of when they decide to announce it. And just to sort of parallel to that, but it's in the news for later, but I'll bring it up now because it fits, is that another rumor that's now gaining some traction is that Ikeleko Ono, who rides HRC World Superbike at the moment, has been offered Bautista's, what will be Bautista's vacancy in the Aruba IT Ducati Official Work Squad next season, which, again, is slightly surprising to me because I didn't think he would get that kind of opportunity. I think he's fully deserving of it because I think he, as I always used to say when he was in MotoGP, I think he's a great rider. He does crash a bit too much and he tends to hurt himself.

But so that kind of creates the vacancy in HRC that Dixon would then slot into. So these things I think are going to probably be announced once World Superbike comes back in, at mainly core, I think in two weeks time, two or three weeks time. Something like that. Interesting there. This one's a good one.

So Denys Ontu had a training crash just prior to going to the Red Bull Ring, left him with a broken tibia and ligament damage in his left, I believe it's his left leg, I think they said. Plus it's rumored that he will not be with Akihaya next year. That's a rumor. That one's a rumor. Again, doesn't surprise me necessarily because, again, I mean, he's found some form this year, but it's taken a long time to get to it and he is still a bit inconsistent.

Because I'm sure somebody was mentioning about his brother coming back over to Moto2. I think that's just internet fodder. Do you reckon? We talk about this a lot, his entourage that has to be there. That's a World Superbike thing, right?

It is not a MotoGP thing. And we've had that discussion, not going to belabor that point. But I am actually surprised that Ontu has stayed around as long as he had. I thought Ontu was done after a couple of years in Moto3, to be honest. I thought for sure he was going to be like a World Super Sport, then maybe move to a World Superbike ride.

But I think he's talented. I mean, he's obviously got some injury problems that are there as well. But he just never seemed like the fit. You could say that about a lot of other people that are in the paddock too, right? Like they're not fit and go on from there.

But he just really seemed to just be wrong way around. Yeah, the problem they've got is that you have a kid like Diego Marrera come up. He wasn't stellar last year in his rookie season, but he was good. But in his second year, he's doing the business. And as a result, he's got a couple of offers on the table, which we'll come to in a second.

And so your Ontu's looked really underperformed by comparison. It kind of puts them in the shade a little bit. I think that's the issue. I mean, like you, Jim, I would more readily see him going over and joining his brother in World Super Sport, perhaps. That would make more sense to me, although it would be odd that you've got Toprak coming in the other direction.

And he would then be the only Turkish rider in the MotoGP paddock. So but I mean, it's not about having gangs of people from certain countries. But yeah, poor old Dennis, he does beat himself up, doesn't he? He does. And he'll be out for a few rounds.

Yeah, yeah, I don't think they expect him back before the first couple of the first flyaway. So, yeah, yeah. Lex, next on my list is that it's heavily rumored that Arbolino will leave his spot on the Blue Yamaha team and go to replace Kinet at Fantic. And it was that was stated by the guy who owns Fantic that his number one choice is to put Tony Arbolino back on the Kalex. I think that would be good for Tony.

Yeah. I mean, Tony's lucky to get that lifeline if he gets it because he's not had a very good year. Now, you can, I think, make the argument that most people on the Bosque Scura chassis have sporadically had good times this year, but for the most part are not having good years. And so the Kalex does appear to be the bike or the chassis to be back on, doesn't it? Yeah.

Although Tony Arbolino had a pretty poor year on the Kalex last year, but we were blaming it on the Pirelli tyres. Maybe going back to the Kalex with the experience he has on the Pirelli now means that things will start to make sense. And that is obviously another top team. So he would slot in there quite easily and perform, you know, or be expected to perform. So I mean, I love the guy, mega talent, but he's another one that was meant to be in MotoGP by now.

And that ship might have sailed, unfortunately. I think you're right there. Well, somebody's ship who appears to be sailing in the right direction is that Diego Marrera, who has two offers for MotoGP teams. But as I understand it, Premac Yamaha and LCR both won his signature. Yeah.

And pinching news from better informed sources than we are, it appears that the Yamaha deal is a three year deal, whereas the LCR is a one plus one, which is what Honda tend to do. Yeah. But they will have found a way from a sponsorship standpoint to put Pirelli Sonke at Chantra back into MotoGP, presumably. Yeah. And, you know, get around that kind of Idemitsu, is it, you know, the sponsor they've tended to have on there.

I don't know if that would end that kind of link to Southeast Asia. But my money would be on him going to the Premac team, to be honest. I don't know what your feeling is on it, but I think that's kind of the one you'd go for. We know that Toprac is coming to Premac. I personally would not want to run two rookies in that class.

Sorry, I would not. I would so desperately want to keep Jack Miller as, as if anything, a development rider, a person who's been on different bikes who could help you, especially if this V4 is going to show up. Right. Two rookies trying to figure out a V4. No.

But I do understand wanting to have, you know, Toprac experienced hand. You got to want to keep him happy. You can harness his Pirelli knowledge, right, especially going forward into twenty seven. But it's like I wouldn't. I mean, I get it.

I get it. But I know I know if it's my money and my team. No, sorry. I didn't strategically for Yamaha. I mean, let's not think about it from a premac standpoint because I know that sort of the loyal that's called the satellite.

They're running works bikes. But in terms of monster Yamaha, it's becoming easier to imagine Quattro Raro jumping ship in a year or two. And poor old Alex Rins, I mean, it just doesn't seem to be working out for him. So they really need to bring a couple of riders on, even if they are rookies and sacrifice a year or two, perhaps, as part of that learning process, so that they got some top talents put onto the main bikes. That would be my thought process around it as to why they might justify that to themselves.

Yeah, I see that point. But isn't that exactly the thing that Hervé didn't like about being a part of the Yamaha satellite team? I mean, there was money involved because he was paying a hell of a lot for parts and pieces and things like that that he obviously isn't for KTM. Yeah, I think that was a bit of a different time because he was getting that they were nowhere near kind of up to date bikes that he was running. As in the Yamahas at that time, so it's a little hard to compare them, I think.

Whereas now we have genuine semi works satellites, don't we? And part of their role is to bring the talent through. So to me, it makes sense to do it, even though it is a risk and it would be potentially an underperformance for a year as those two guys get up to speed. But let's be honest, next year is a sacrifice year anyway, because it's the last year of that 1000cc category. And then everything has changed and everybody's a rookie effectively in a sort of funny sort of way.

So to me, it makes sense to do it. But I mean, it's hard cheese on Miller and Oliveira. They could both find themselves out of a ride. Yeah, they're hard done at that point. Because, again, just so I know we mustn't talk for hours and hours and hours.

A lot of talk on TNT over the weekend was, will Yamaha do the dirty on Alex Rins, who does have a contract? And nobody's talking about some exit clause that Yamaha can exercise in terms of performance. And the Japanese tend to be very honorable when it comes to contracts. So I think the wisdom at the moment is that probably Rins will stay put for next year, despite the troubles that he's having. And who's not to say that once the V4 appears and they are almost certainly going to run a V4 1000 next year, that might just click together and he might suddenly start to perform.

Who knows? Yeah, you have no idea where that's going to go. All right, let's talk about the schedules because the MotoGP and the World Superbike schedules dropped close to each other about a week apart or so. But I do find this interesting. I find the structure of the MotoGP races interesting.

So we start in Thailand, go to Brazil, which there is no Argentina. It's Brazil or bust here. So, OK, now that's a straight. Right. But again, we're talking about going to a track that's still being built and whether it gets done in time becomes another wholeheartedly question.

I don't believe Brazil is actually on the calendar until they're sitting there with bikes. Sorry. Yeah, we've been in this position before. Yeah, correct. Then we go to the US, then we go to Qatar, then we go to Spain, to Jerez, go to France, then go back to Spain for Catalonia.

That doesn't make a lot of sense because you have the problem of the fact that people are only a couple of weeks. What is the dates? I don't. It's April, late April for the first round in Spain. And then it's the second week in May.

So it's roughly three-ish weeks. My calendar math sucks. I'll need Gary to help me out with that. So I'm kidding, Gary. I'm kidding.

But they're going to be right there again. So somebody's crowd is going to suck. I don't know which one. Jerez won't. No question.

But the Catalonians. No, Jerez won't. Would you miss Catalonia, Rich? If Catalonia and the Barcelona circuit, would you be mad if it disappeared? No, I wish it would.

I hate it. I am, as I've said many times on the show, so I won't go on, I'm absolutely opposed to more than two races in Spain anyway, because it's meant to be a world championship. And for the most part, it is a world championship. But we should have Kyle Armey in there any day of the week over Barcelona. Agreed.

Because there's no race on the African continent, and there should be. I wholeheartedly agree. Particularly given the Binders and other people that are racing at the top level from South Africa. South Africa certainly deserves a race. I know it has its troubles.

Right. But again, we won't go into the politics of it. But I don't think for me, I don't think Barcelona has ever produced that many stoning races. Yes, I know there was the Rossi versus Lorenzo, but that was a long, long time ago. So any race is capable of popping up, or any track rather, is capable of popping up a decent race.

But it kind of came about as a Formula One track, and it always feels like a Formula One track to me. So for that reason, I kind of don't go with that track. But a lot of the teams are based in that area and stuff, so I kind of get all of that. But scheduling wise, it's very, very peculiar. I mean, Le Mans and Barcelona are not kind of close to each other, but they're not majorly far apart either.

So they are bound to take credit off each other to some extent. So then you go to Italy and Mugello, that place will be packed. Italians would show up every weekend if they had a race. That's just how they are. So then you go to Hungary now will be in early June.

And then we go to Czechia in late June because there's a week break in between there. So again, those two places are not that far apart from each other. So they're going to take credit off each other. Well, that seems weird. Then we go to the Netherlands.

That place will be packed. Then we go to the Saxon Ring and then sort of you're into that summer break. Then you pick up the summer break with Great Britain. That's fine. That's probably the better time to put it there in August.

When's the Formula One race there, Rich? July, normally. Yeah, so they're going to be. So again, now you've decided on having a problem there again. However, let's say that Liberty might start to work a bit of magic in terms of getting some of those two crowds to sort of appreciate each other.

Maybe. Maybe. You know, again, what's cooler than if everybody at a Formula One race gets to see a MotoGP bike flash around through maggots back. It's cops, maggots, beckets and chapel. I'm just saying.

Then we go to Aragon. So we go back to Spain. I'm OK with that. I love Aragon as a track. Although nobody goes to it because it's in the middle of nowhere.

So again, it's a great track, but it's in the wrong place. Yeah, right. Then we get to San Marino. Then we go to Austria. Austria is the last race before we jet off to the flyways.

Yeah, but I suppose we can't on the one hand criticize Austria being close to Bruneau on the calendar and then criticize that it's separated away. And that would certainly help the crowd there, I'm sure. I think so. Then we fly away to Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia. Then we go to Portugal and then we go to Valencia.

Yeah, see, this really sticks in my throat. Again, I don't need three races. I will take Hereth and Aragon any day over Valencia and Catalonia. We all know why they're in Valencia because that is a party town that everybody wants to party in at the end of the year. So be it.

But it just seems... But putting Portugal there hurts. It's like you need to move something around somewhere. But again, that's all for Liberty to decide what they want to do. Now, would you not agree, Rich, that you would consider that a world championship schedule?

Oh, yeah. Given the places we're going and... With the flyaways, we've got Brazil's appeared in there. Okay, I know it's almost like a straight swap for Argentina. Nevertheless, we've got a race on the South American continent, which is obviously crucially important.

We've got loads of races in Asia, obviously in the European heartland. Where did Cota figure in all of that? The beginning. They're the third race again. Third race.

Okay, so... You have that covered. I'm pretty sure that... I mean, let's be honest, Liberty have only just come in and there are existing contracts in place with tracks. So, none of this can be changed overnight.

But I would be astonished if come 27, 28, we're not looking at one or two less races on the Iberian Peninsula and one or two more races in North America. Because there ought to be a race in Canada somewhere if there's a track that's suitable. And there may not be. Off the top of my head, I cannot come up with a place that would be suitable. Most park would be the closest thing, but it would take a...

Oh, no. The Blanc would probably be the closest to a MotoGP circuit, but it would take a huge amount of work to improve it from a safety standpoint. Yeah, and that's obviously always the issue because then you're talking about prohibitive costs. But, you know, okay, so let's say perhaps another race in the US. If we dropped one of the Spanish rounds and had another race in the US, or as I said, bring in a race in South Africa.

Turkey. That's an obvious one. Turkey. Yeah. Again, I would be astonished if we don't have Turkey back somehow.

I love that track. Of the Tilco Dromes, that one's the best. Yeah, there's the fiddly bit at the end. Okay, fine. But you can change that relatively easily.

Yeah, it's very little cost you could make, but Turkey is a great racetrack for motorcycles. It is. You know, it's not quite Bruno, Philip Island, Mugello level, but it is definitely in that next category down for me. Sure. It's a second tier track, if you will.

Right? Yeah. Sort of the three crown jewels, Australia, Bruno. A high tier. A high tier two.

Yeah. A very high tier two. Okay. But my point here, the point I'm trying to get to is if you look at the World Superbike schedule, you start in Philip Island in Australia, then it's you're in Port de Mayo, Assin, Hungary, Czech Republic for World Superbike, then Aragon, Mizano to the UK, to Magni Cours in France, the Italian one, and wherever they're going there in September, then Portugal and Spain, and that's it. How is that a World Championship?

Well, it's not. And this goes for everything that I always say about Dorn have done a piss poor job when it comes to promoting and supporting World Superbikes. Whether Liberty will sort of sell it off might be a good thing if they did, actually. I think so. At this point.

Unless they're prepared to actually make it a proper World Championship. And you have this bizarre kind of seven week break in the middle. Yeah. Where you could literally forget how to ride a bike in that period. I mean, it's so dense that it's just bonkers to me.

To me, I think World Superbike needs to be in the United States. I can't remember the last time World Superbikes was in the United States. I can't remember. That's how long ago it has been. If it's not anywhere close to 15 years, I would be shocked.

I'm guessing it would have been Laguna Seca, wouldn't it? It's Laguna Seca at some point. And that's going to be a long time ago. Long time ago. So, you know, do you go to Kota with them?

I don't really know. Could you get a Flat Rock and run a different circuit configuration there? Probably, but that's not done yet. Could you go to the Ridge with World Superbike? And given the fact that I've seen some other sketchy racetracks that World Superbike has gone to, I think the Ridge fits in real nice with that one.

The point of all this is that you have these two conflicting schedules. It's like, guys, you've got to really come up with something. Again, is Liberty Magic about this? I don't know, because they have spaced out the three Formula One races that happened in the US. Miami, Las Vegas, and Kota.

They have done fairly well to space them out as they do it. So they don't seem to be affecting each other. Plus the United States is so big. That's the thing. It's absolutely huge, people.

I don't know how to explain it to you. But you know, Texas is bigger than I think than like all of Europe combined. I think it can fit every country in Europe into Texas. That's how big it is. We are not going to draw.

The people that are at Miami are not going to go to Kota and they're not going to go to Vegas. And the people that are in Vegas aren't going to go to Miami and vice versa. So that's one of the big things after this set of schedules that have just dropped. Liberty needs to sit down and really think about what they want to do with this. And they really need to think about what tracks they want to go to.

I'm for less races spaced out a little bit more evenly, if you will, to make it better. But man, that's what I got there. To me, just one thing also. I don't like it when we have... Now I understand why it happens.

There's too many MotoGP races, in my opinion. Now that might be sort of heresy, as far as some people are concerned. I personally sometimes think less is more. I agree. And I think they should expand the World Superbike Championship to be a proper global championship and avoid weekend clashes with MotoGP.

And don't have them racing on the same tracks either. Totally agree with you. I know it's easy for me to sit here and say all of this. Much harder to make that happen. But World Superbike is such an afterthought.

You just sometimes wonder if Dawn have ever really had to... Now that's nothing against the Dawn of people that run World Superbike, in terms of the operational people, because they're all great. But the powers that be, I just don't think have really given it due... And let's be honest, you've got HRC there, you've got BMW. All the top brands, or most of the top brands, are there spending an awful lot of money.

So I think they get very short-changed. Yeah, I do not disagree with you. Oh, let's see. The last thing for MotoGP that I have is there was a crazy... Because we when I talked about this, there was a crazy Instagram post that said that Gunther Steiner, the drive to survive fame, the Formula One series, is buying the Tech 3 team.

Now, this is what you've got to watch out for AI in all these different ads. People are going to ask AI to create and generate something for you, and this is it. Now, I've heard other people, other podcasts talk about this and yada, yada, yada. And it's like, I don't think so, people, because one, I don't think Herve would sell. I don't see that happening.

He might. There's always that possibility that one would sell their team. I don't have anybody. I just think this, again, none of this is even anywhere from a certified journalist, if you will. This is not your Matt Oxley's, Simon Patterson's of the world talking about this.

It's just some person with an Instagram account that's trying to cash in on it, which is one of the things that I think Liberty needs to look at too. But then again, any press is good press for them, and they're not really going to care now, are they? I think there is a bit more to it, to be honest. Do you think so? Yeah.

In fact, funny enough, these two things could be completely unrelated. But again, last August, was it August? Yeah, last August when I was at Silverstone Motor GP in the paddock, I tried to interview Gunter Steiner because he was there. So he's been sniffing around it for a while. Obviously, he refused to talk to me because he's from Formula One.

He kind of looked at me as if you might stare upon something on the bottom of your shoe that you just accidentally trodden in. But anyway, putting that to one side. I'm sorry, the analogy is just so good because that is how Steiner is, in my opinion. Yeah, he's a laugh. I mean, obviously, he's become very, very famous and stuff.

And I'm sure he is a nice bloke. He was on his way somewhere else and didn't want to talk to me, fair enough. But the point is he was there. And there has been talk on, again, on TNT about this. I mean, there's nothing official, but the timing of it with Liberty coming in, these teams are suddenly going to go up in value.

So if you wanted to get a stake with a consortium of investors, I hate it, but that's the way it works. Now would be the time to buy. And let's be honest, I mean, Herve and Guy Coulon, I think are the main sort of shareholders of Tech3. I believe so. They aren't getting any younger, so they can't go on indefinitely.

But like you, it would be hard to imagine a MotoGP paddock where, you know, Herve isn't given his hilarious interviews every twitch and turn and just been the great guy that he is. That is not a world I want to kind of think about at the moment, although it will obviously will happen sooner or later. But this is the worry with what's going to happen to MotoGP under the Liberty ownership. You know, it will go more global. The teams will get bigger, more kind of exclusive.

There'll be a lot more money sloshing around, which is good and bad for different reasons. So I wouldn't be surprised if it did happen. I would be sort of heavy hearted if and when it does. Yeah, but I don't think it's just pure clickbait. I think it's a bit more serious than that.

I felt it was I felt it was click baitish, but I mean, everybody's got their opinion, right? No big, no biggie there. I mean, I see your side of it and maybe there is. But all I know is if Steiner winds up buying a team and being in the MotoGP paddock, the world is going to be a very different place. Yeah, that's all I'm going to say about that one.

Oh, so that brings us to like world super bike rich. So Bradley Ray to BMW. Really? That's the that's the rumor doing the rounds again. It could be a bit click bait stuff, but you hear it or read it in different places.

And I mean, although funny enough, I won't say he's gone off the boil, but everybody else has stepped up a little bit in BSP in the last couple of rounds. So Bradley hasn't had it all his own way. He's still leading the championship, but they've got such a kind of. I better be careful with my words. I don't use the word contrived, but adjusted points scoring system at the moment, although he's won most of the races so far this season, he doesn't have that big of a points lead because you don't get that many more points for winning at this stage of the championship.

Then you go into the showdown and then there's big points available. You can argue to the cows come home as to whether you like that that sort of stage managed way of doing the scoring anyway. He has shown his real class and what he's learned from a couple of years on an admittedly underperforming Yamaha and world super bike. So you can't imagine he wants to hang around in world. It's only in BSP for too long if there is an opportunity to go.

And he's young. He's very talented. He's great on a super bike, you know, so it would make sense for BMW. On the other side of the garage, the immediate replacement for top bracket BMW is Danilo Petrucci, which. Again, great guy, love you guys, one of the sort of great characters of the paddock and stuff, and is a very, very talented rider if you look at his history, he's won stages in Dakar, he's won MotoGP races, but you know, yada yada yada.

But he's kind of not a guy that's going to be winning in championships for years to come, let's be honest. So to me, it's a slightly strange appointment, that one. So they do, you would feel, need a much younger talent on the other bike. And now that it's not Kinet, I could see the Brad Ray thing making sense, to be honest with you. As to whether it happens or not is another another matter.

Yeah. But anyway, for now, it's just a rumour. Yeah, there we go. Well, let's see, you talked about Lecawanna going to Ducati, or River Ducati, which is like the factory team. OK, I think that's everything from the news, Rich.

Are we ready to actually talk about MotoGP? Yes, I suppose we should. Sometimes you got to. Oh, can I just say, before I do forget, Jim, just whilst you're having a coughing fit, I just want to give a quick shout out to, Now, I rather embarrassed it. So Danny Smith, who's a new subscriber to the show and on the Instagram and so on, his partner, wife, possibly, his name, I don't think I took it down, was resplendent in her VR46 gear all week in Corfu.

At a certain point, I just had to go up to them and ask, because I just assumed that they were Italian. Turns out they're Brits. And yeah, we've got chatting about bike racing, as you do, because Danny himself was wearing a Honda t-shirt, a retro t-shirt. You're a good man, Danny. You're a good man.

Here's a couple of Dyland wall bike racing fans, if ever I saw them. So, yeah, we got chatting and Danny's off to the Manx, which is the kind of the mini TT. Yeah. So we have sort of tentatively said that we'll try and perhaps catch up on Zoom or something once he's done that. And he can tell us all about it, because I've never been to the TT or the Manx.

And so it'll be good to get some insight into that. So, yeah, as we all say, if you sort of bump into people, if you're a fan of the show and you see other bike racing fans, yeah, get chatting and that's how we get more followers and listeners. It's great. That's how we do it. All until the Moto3 race, right?

Or the Moto3 qualifying from Ostrichring. Or Ostrichring. So you got me thinking Nostalgic Ridge. Yeah, I'm saying Ostrichring. Let's get to what it really is.

All right. So in the first... You really should... Sorry, I will stop this. But people really should go to YouTube and just type in F1 Ostrichring and put up some 1960s on board laps, because that place was just something else.

It was crazy. I mean, even I remember it in the early 80s with the turbo cars. And that's when they put the chicane in at the top of the hill, because it used to be... I might be wrong about this, Rich, but it was up the hill and you went... You just bared to the right slightly.

And it was a blast down past the forest to a hairpin that led you to another blast back to where you meet the track. Or when we think of the turnpike or whatever. I think it was called the Bosch Curve back in those days. Okay. There was two very, very fast...

I'm going to call them hair... 180 turns, but they were very fast. One was called the Rint Curve after Jochen Rint. Yeah, Jochen Rint. Yeah.

And the other was called the Bosch Curve. I can't remember which one was which. One was at the end of the lap. And one was sort of at the end of that top straight. And it was just a super, super quick place.

I thought Bosch was at the beginning of the lap and I thought the Rint was like the last corner. Possibly. I can't remember which now. Yeah. If you remember, the race kind of fell into...

Well, the Formula One race ended because I think it was in 80... I'm tempted to say 84, 85. They had two or three goes at the start. It was very narrow in those days and they just kept having start line part ups. And so it fell off the calendar at that point and fell into disrepair until it came back, I think it's the A1 ring at that point.

That is correct. That is correct. In the version that we know it today was the A1 ring. Yes, that cut down, more manageable size track. And obviously a lot safer because the old track, there was no runoff or very little runoff, etc.

But yes, it is a shadow of its former self. There are some really entertaining YouTube clips of onboards and races from there. So they are well worth checking out. That's one of the things I like to do during the winter when we're starved of actual racing action. Sorry, I promise not to interrupt again.

No, that's all right. It's fine. All right, qualifying for Moto3. In that first session, Rollstone, Buchanan, Rossi, Perez, Nepa, Moodley are all there with a newcomer, one O'Gorman, who is an Irish lad. Wow, did he look impressive for his first go?

Not his first go on a Moto3 bike, but the first time in a Moto3 Grand Prix weekend. He showed quite well. He did not get himself out of that first qualifying session, but he looked really good, I thought. It was basically Carrero, Rollstone, Urate, and Buchanan all got out of that first qualifying session to get to the second qualifying session. Now, the second qualifying session starts off with everybody lined up at the pit end, pit end of pit road, I guess I should say.

Not the pit lane, because the pit lane takes you up the hill and then exits you out after turn one. Pit exit, let's call it. Yes, pit exit. We'll say pad exit. Buchanan was way ahead of everybody.

It's like, I'm looking around also, like, wait a second, whoa, what happened here? It's like there was a lot of questions as to whether he had left early from the box. Now, apparently, since he didn't enter the track, apparently it wasn't a problem. I'm like, that's a wishy washy rule here, people. Come on.

The one thing that I didn't mention, and I think we need to talk about this, was Peroni's save of the absolute century. Oh, the hand, I was going to say hand job, I shouldn't say that. Sorry, I'd be allowed to cut that out. Yeah, watch that one, will you? Yeah, sorry, but that's obviously not a new thing.

Yes, anyway, he literally has the bike and his right hand is off on the ground and he pushes himself up with it. Now, I give you, I think even Mark Marquez would have to tiff his hat to that one. It is probably the most amazing save on a motorcycle I've ever seen. I thought Mark's one with both wheels weren't on the ground because it was on the swing arm bolts and the axle bolts. I thought that was pretty good.

Apparently, that's nothing to this kid. I mean, I can cover that, but if you haven't seen it, go to the MotoGP Instagram account. It is on there and I had to watch, I monthly watched that like 50, 60 times because it is absolutely incredible. The right hand is completely off of the handlebar on the ground and somehow the bike goes back upright and he rides off. It kind of goes to show how light those Moto3 bikes are as well, doesn't it?

Because he literally just bashed his hand into the ground almost. It was totally instinctive. You could try that a thousand times and not do it again, I would imagine. When they come in, you see the mechanics of picking them up and turning around, don't they? They sort of featherweight those things, but it was quite the save.

It was. It was quite the save. Halfway through the second qualifying session, Piqueras was there in front ahead of Yamanaka and then Quiles and Foggia and Perone with the great save. Fernandez there. Now, Rueda is 12th.

Rueda not having a very good weekend at all at this point, but everybody is kind of waiting around. That waiting game happens again, Rich. And it's like, oh, I hate this weight guy. Guys, just go a set of time. But everybody finally left.

I'm thinking like it takes you a good lap as a 1 minute 40. Figure you got to be close to a 150 and they all just leave pit lane with 2.03 left to play. Now, to their credit, all the guys that left all did get across the line to have one last flying lap and one chance to go at it. They did. Perone would go quickest, but Quiles was on a flyer, but he wound up not being able to hang on to that flying lap because there was a track limits infringement, I believe, that took that lap away from him.

There was like what he said, something to the effect of over 250 laps were disallowed in the Moto3 class just because of track limits violations. That's absolutely crazy. But it came down to Perone actually winning his first pole, having done it the hard way by saving the bike with a push up. He got that one. Picaris showed some great form to qualify second.

I think that's only the second time he has been on the front row all this year. Which is quite crazy when you think about that. Yamanaka would finish out the front row followed by Foggia, Quiles, Fernandez, Carpe, and Rueda would start eighth and then Almanza ninth. So there's your first three rows from the Moto3. Yes, Rich.

Can I just have a little moan? Goal, please. Why the hell is the no-go area on the side of the track painted green and not red? And the bit that you can go into, why is it not painted green instead of blue? I agree.

Does that make any sense to you? No, it does not. I think if green is good and blue would be bad. Because you know the B and the B go together and the G and the G go together, right? Yeah, it makes no sense.

I know why it's not red. That I can tell you because the curves are. Yeah, I kind of get that. But they could paint the curves white and blue. To me, red is danger.

Don't go here. And green is okay. You can, yeah, that's okay. You can go there. I don't know.

I mean, here in America, everything is labeled as safety yellow. Yeah. Right. So I get the idea that red is not the danger part of it. At least from the mentality that I have and the industries that I've worked in, it's all yellow.

Yellow implies danger, which goes to beg the point. In the buildings that I work in, why are the steel beams that support the roof, why are they painted red where the fire extinguishers are? And not yellow. Anyway, let's stop that right now. Sorry.

No, I just always use sidetracked this yet again. Richard, now is the safety. I get obsessed with my new shy and that one every weekend. I know. Think of it and say, why?

I do not understand. You know, to me, why could you not paint the green areas yellow? That's visible, bright. People could see it and know to stay away from it. I mean, that seems the logical thing to do.

I think green then is a good one because I'm like wondering how many of the how many riders are colorblind? Because then you'd be really messed up, wouldn't you? I mean, I don't know. I have to stop thinking about these things because sometimes I agree with you. It is weirdly how they decide these particular instances.

I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we race for decades without all these bloody sensors triggering off warnings and stuff. I just don't really think we should have them full stop. But anyway. Yeah. OK, so we get to the race on Sunday.

Your Aute was going to have a double long lap penalty. I think that was for fractions of slowing down people from the weekend. It's hard to keep count with the mode of three guys, the who's there, what, wherever. But Picaris got a great start. He was running pretty well at the beginning.

Peroni was behind him. Keeley's got a great start too. Then Yamanaka, N'Fazio and Buchanan was down in that first couple of turns. I think he is there. Keeley's got to the front.

The front four guys seemed like they were trying to break away at this point. I mean, we're like one lap in and there's a huge chunk of distance between the front four and there. And you're like, OK, well, I guess this is kind of over with. Rereada was back in 11th, having started eighth, he lost three places. That was there.

I thought at this point that Keeley's was riding just brilliantly. He was just riding absolutely awesome. His gap he could create through four, five and six, which are left-handers. Four is a right-hander, sorry. Five, six, seven are left-handers.

But that gap he had from four, five, six was second to none. He was putting time on everybody. This kid was showing some true brilliance. At 15 to go, it's Keeley's, it's Yamanaka, it's Picaris, it's Peroni. They got a one and a half second lead over Fagi and Fernandez.

That's huge. At this point in the game, that's huge. Munoz had moved his way up to sixth. Yamanaka had gotten by Keeley's at the turn two, a chicane. So that was there.

Rurayda had worked himself up to sixth by lap 12, or 12 to go, sorry. The top four had a 1.7 second lead. This is just getting bigger. It's getting bigger. This is going to be what's going to happen here.

Keeley's got back by Yamanaka. Then Keeley's got past Peroni. Keeley's is going back and forth between them. The three guys out front are definitely just playing around now and whatnot. Keeley's was flirting with the long lapelony because he had received a track limits warning.

I get it, that's where it's fast, but you have got to keep it reined in. He was definitely having some trouble there. Peroni was got by Yamanaka. Peroni was in the cat bird seat in my thought because it seemed like he was right where he wanted to be. I thought he could win.

Thinking he can win, he's right there behind Keeley's. He's in the right place. They still have a pretty good gap or whatever, but it wasn't to be. We will see as this plays out. With six to go, Fernandez has broken away from the trailing pack, which is saying something on a Moto3 bike.

He was only 1.1 seconds behind. He was turning fast laps and you're like, can he get there or not? With five to go, it's Keeley's, Yamanaka, Peroni, Piqueras, 8 tenths, and then Fernandez. In a matter of a lap, it went from 1.1 down to 8 tenths. He's aided by the fact that everybody's juggling around in the first four.

If everybody's cutting each other off, nobody's riding the proper line, they're not going to have any kind of speed. It's understandable Fernandez is getting there. Fernandez and Furusato are actually catching because somewhere Furusato got out of that pack and it somehow latched onto Fernandez, which I didn't see. Perhaps TNT showed that a little more clearly, but all of a sudden, whoa, Furusato is in this thing. And Furusato had some serious pace.

If you caught Fernandez as the first thing. Second thing is Furusato actually drags Fernandez to the front with him. And now those two have joined the front four to create a lead pack of six with about three laps to go. Wow. Okay.

Now some action is going to happen. It was as if the Moto3 guys decided after the break, they needed a warm-up of about what is this race? 20 laps of about 15 laps of warm-up before we got back down to actually racing right again. We had to ease back into this one, but oh my golly are these last four or five laps just absolutely golden, right? Because three to go, Peroni's out front with Keeley's, Yamanaka, then Piqueras, then there's Furusato and Munoz.

But Furusato is there and that is absolutely wild to me because his pace, absolutely amazing. Peroni then led with two to go and he led out of eight, but Piqueras then led as he got past. Munoz was then under Keeley's, I mean, who went wide as a result of all that. They're just every which way now because it's all hell is broken loose. It's now.

I think you're being a bit kind to Munoz on that move because he I'm quite surprised he didn't get a penalty actually in the modern contest. I'm not saying he necessarily should have done, but they went three wide into that. What is the penultimate turn in there? Yeah. And I mean, he pretty well barged Keeley's wide, which yeah, Keeley's was basically done at that point.

But what I think happened is if, is this as, as you look at it, if you look at it, Keeley's was tucking the front. Just before Munoz shows up. And I think Munoz. I'll have to go back and have another look. Yeah.

Have another look. It's, it's very slight. And then this is, this is my opinion. Okay. It may not be what happened, but my eyeballs show Keeley's with the front end starting to fold and Munoz kind of helps propping back up.

Okay. So props to Munoz for, I mean, again, I, you know, I can only look by the camera angle that I have and you know, I know Simon Crafer and all the guys have a whole lot more, but that's how I interpreted that one. Now, did Munoz still deserve a, you know, long lap? I don't know. I think you have to.

No, I don't. I think that would have been, I think it would have been harsh. I think that's too much, but I think you are right in the fact that maybe I was not harsh enough in saying that Munoz sort of barged his way past Keeley's. Yeah. There's a little bit happening on both ends here.

Peroni came off the worst on that move as well, because I think he got shuffled out wide. Yeah, he gets shuffled wide. And the thing is when Munoz has come through, let's say the lead pack, you know, there's going to be some collateral damage involved somewhere. And so this time it would, as I thought it was Keeley's, but I'd have to go back and look again, Jim, see if he was sort of helping himself off the track a little bit at that point, because that is a fearsome turn. It's not a great, as I said, not a great track, but that is quite the corner, that one.

It's quite downhill too. It's sort of go up the hill and then it sort of comes down. It's sort of a little bit of camber there, maybe. So they do go in there pretty hard. But yeah, that was Keeley's done really at that point.

Remember Munoz started 14th. Yeah, great ride. It was a great ride. I mean, you know, but Munoz was second. Furusato was now third and Piqueras was leading the event.

Then it becomes, as we get to it, Furusato then got past Munoz at seven. Peroni was wide at four, five. Piqueras was leading into nine. I'm thinking, last place you want to be leading. We've seen what Munoz is capable of, but Furusato bumped him wide.

Yamanaka and Munoz all sort of kind of get moved out of the way, but it finishes as Piqueras winning the race, Yamanaka finishing second for his best finish in Moto3 ever. Munoz came home with a podium after all that. It's a great race. I mean, you got to kind of wait for it, but it builds nicely as you go into it there. Somehow out of all this, Keeley's is fourth.

And then there's Jose Antonio Rueda in fifth. The kid is doing what a champion should do. I do hope that when we get to the race in Hungary, that it's going to be a more level playing field because nobody's really been there. So hopefully Rueda finds form again. Maybe he just thought all the hard breaking points on the circuit are not quite his strength slash forte of what he does.

Perhaps, maybe, well, though Hungary looks like it's going to be tight, but I don't think there's going to be as high a speed. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. It's well, I mean, certainly in terms of the MotoGP bikes, they're saying those guys are going to be sort of stuck in second and third gear.

These a lot of the time, it's not a go-kart track. The World Superbike race, as I said, was sort of entertaining, but there are some corners that just create havoc and crashes. And there isn't really much of a straight to speak of. And there's a couple of sketchy-ish corners. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see.

But it certainly feels like more of a Moto3 track than a MotoGP track. That's for sure the Hungary. Oh, it's the Valencia of the Eastern European nations. Let's put it that way. Yeah.

Sort of go-kart track. Yeah. First, I would come home sixth. Peroni, your pollster was seventh. And Fernandez, Pini, Carpe, Kelso, Almanza, Foggia, Rollstone and Ogden taking the last point.

Now, if you look at the championship standings, well, it's still Jose Antonio Vareta. He's still there at the top on 239. He's 71 ahead of Picaris. But at least Picaris is trying to fight back now. I don't know.

Did it take him this long to get used to a KTM versus a Honda? I don't know. Is this a track that plays to his strength? Don't know. But we are going to, at some point, to San Marino, where he sort of busted onto the scene last year.

Was that great from last to first win there? Oh, yeah. So, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe he's going to put something together here. It certainly looked like the summer break had done Picaris a lot of good, didn't it? Yes, it did.

I mean, he's always moody, kind of slightly, well, yeah, sort of moody kind of looking kid. He's very intense. And I think his behavior around the paddock with some of the other riders is a bit legendary already. But yeah, he needs to step it up, doesn't he? But Rueda, you know, he benefited from a bit of shenanigans on the last turn.

So he sort of snuck through to fifth, otherwise, I think he was going to finish seventh or eighth. So he just rode a sensible race, really. He wasn't feeling it for the weekend. And he banked the points he needed to and he still got that massive lead. So job done, really.

Job done. Munoz is now third in the championship. He's only 100 points behind Rueda, which it sounds like a lot, but it's Moto 3. So anything can happen. Kielis is fourth, then Carpe, Kelso, Yamanaka, Firasada, Fernandez and Almanza.

And that's Moto 3. Anything else, Rich, before we move to the Moto 2? The only thing I sort of observed, as you said, that Kielis was mighty through that back sort of third of the track, but Picaras was just making up all of the gain on the brakes. So Kielis didn't look, I'm not criticizing him, who am I? But everything he gained he kind of lost in the braking zones, it appeared to me.

That might have been a bike setup thing or a relative lack of experience at that track. Maybe, I don't know. But that was kind of how he didn't quite manage to break away. But because you've got those sort of two longish straights, if you can't break the slipstream, you will get the pack, which is why it was quite impressive. As you said, that Fernandez and Firasada and Munoz bridged that gap because the front four were quite a way out, weren't they?

Good one and a half to two seconds in the early part of the race. It's not really a tire chewer of a track and Moto 3 generally doesn't have tire issues anyway. So yeah, it was entertaining. It was a good first race back. It was a good first race back.

All right, with that, let's move on to Moto 2. Now, in the first qualifying session, we had Robert Solonzo, Dixon, Vier, Navarro, Zonta van de Gerber or whatever. We had talked earlier about on-chewing him not being there. But Alonso set a track record to get out of the first qualifying session. Munoz, not that Munoz, the Daniel Munoz, who was substituting for...

Who was he substituting for? I forget. I didn't write it down, but that was my own fault. Well, he was subbing for on-chew. Yeah, that's right.

Yes, he was subbing for on-chew. Yes, you're correct. Thank you. Then Zonda van der Gerber and Huertaas, Alonso Sasaki Munoz and Vier get out of that session. Dixon did not get through.

So a rough weekend for Jake for sure here in the Styrian Mountains. In that second qualifying session, Ramirez... Oh, sorry. I should have had this in the news, Rich. Ramirez re-upped with American racers.

So they're all set. I forgot to mention that he had re-signed. Now, Cannon had a huge high side in FP2. And that was a wicked one out. I came out of the 2B, out of the chicane, and yeah, that was a mighty high side.

He was definitely feeling that one for the rest of the weekend for sure. Yeah, I made you wince watching the super slow-mo of his head coming down. Oh, that's the part that just made me go... Anytime anybody goes head down like that, I've just got visions of Wayne Reining. Sorry, I just do and it's an instant flashback.

And I just, you know, days that I don't want to remember, but they are history. As we started this second session, we learned that Gonzales has a three great grid place penalty for riding slow and it was his third offense or whatever. And that's the penalty for this slow riding thing. I can't believe Gonzales does what he does sometimes. It's like you're a talent, but you're just blocking the chicane in Uranus.

I think it was the man that had the fury and the irate-ness over it all. These penalties aren't enough for these guys. If I'm Simon Krayfar, I would look at him and say, a verbal warning, you know, the first time you do it, verbal warning, hey, look, you're slow on the line. You can't do that. That's not right.

Yada yada yada. The second offense, I'd be like, okay, you are starting from the last spot on the grid. That's, you know, your third offense, you're starting from the pit lane. If you do it a fourth time, you're missing a race weekend. I don't think many people...

I don't think you're... I don't think I'm alone, right? No, no, I totally agree. I mean, I think those are draconian, which it should be because you don't want them to do this. You can pay attention and ride slow and find your toe or whatever it is you're trying to do.

Anyway, I'll step off the soap box. Oh, anyway, let's see here. So it doesn't matter wherever Gonzales started, he was going to be three places lower. Halfway through this, Alonso was quick, followed by Gonzales, Vier, then Holgardo, Arbolino. Then we had Gonzales go around with a 1.32.8, which was then lowered by himself to a 1.32.7.

So that's track records for that. Vietti was up and looked like he was going to go to the lead, but he lost the front and turned 10. So it was Manuel Gonzales, then Dani Holgardo, Marrera, Vietti, Alonso, then Aegis, Aranis, Kennet, Vier, Lopez, Balthus, and Ortola were your top 12 out of the Moto 2 session. With that, we will move on to Sunday's 23 lap event. Holgardo got a great hole shot, Gonzales got the second.

Truly, I guess pole position actually is Holgardo. As for the record book, I believe it's Holgardo, although Marrera did have that. I think Gonzales gets the watch, but Holgardo gets the record book for the pole. So I don't know how that all works, but anyway, just a watch, guys. Nice watch, a really nice watch, but a watch nonetheless.

Roberts and Dixon go wide at the chicane and then Joe kind of tucked the front going in. And I think that Jake kind of had the target fixation. I think he saw what was going on and he thought Joe's going down, but Joe somehow managed to pick it back up and save it. Then Jake runs off running through the gravel at the chicane. Well, that's what happens.

You've got a bad weekend, you're in the back, and it just sort of all piles on. And poor Jake just got every bit of the bad luck, kind of just swallowed him up and took his weekend really away from him. Now, Aegis then crashed coming out of the chicane. And everybody missed him somehow because he's like in front of the pack when he stepped it out, flipped off the bike or whatever. But that crash was going to cause havoc with other things in the race.

So keep that in mind that we had the Aegis crash then. So OK, 22 laps to go. It's Marrera, and he passes on the green. It's like, oh, you can't go to the green, right? Because green is good, but it's really bad.

And so that's not allowed. And basically everybody cuts to that side anyway, coming out of one going to two. And it was deemed that he was pushed there. Pushed? Did you see him get pushed there, Rich?

Well, debatable. OK, all right. I'm like going, did you ever hear of an elbow? Like, I mean, that's what I would do. That's how we raced in club.

Like, there's only so much track and you're not going to push me anymore. So here's the elbow. I'm over here. Yeah, so you can't just sort of magically vanish into thin air. Oh, yeah.

Again, it's like, well, green's bad, so you're not supposed to be there. But yeah, that's OK because you get pushed there. Well, what happens if somebody gets pushed wide and they run off on the green on the outside, which I think happened in like the Moto GP race? Oh, you've suffered enough. That's OK.

But this is we're starting to get into inconsistencies, Rich. Yeah, but these sorts of rules lead to inconsistencies like that because too many rules just become ungovernable at the end of the day. This is the issue. I know. But I will still give Simon props for everything he's done so far this year.

Oh, it's vast improvement. It's miles better, but I'm just starting to I'm starting to get annoyed. This track leads itself to having that problem, right? It's high speed to very hard braking zones. People are going to flub it and you're going to push people off.

And unfortunately, you have blacktop for acres on outside of all of these because they like to race cars there. So you have plenty of room to run off. I digress. Again, I will step off the soapbox and continue on at Gonzalez suddenly has a problem around lap 19. It was like I thought he had a transmission problem.

He was looking down at the left side. I thought maybe it was he had a gearbox issue. I know Triumphs have had gearbox issues before with their was it 765 triples that they're using. But this was the year where they changed it to where you had a true race transmission where neutral is truly at the bottom. So you didn't have to pass through it to get the first gear.

So I'm like, what's it becomes the what's going on thing. And he slowed down. He pulled to the inside, but then he somehow picked his pace back up again and was riding around for a few more laps. It's like, okay, what whatever like was it ignition fault and it just kind of cleared was it one of those weird things that just the electronics intermittently just quit for a second or something to that effect. Who knows.

But then he like runs wide at nine and then gets super duper agitated and then dies. You know, looks behind dives across the pit lane goes into there. And we come to find out that there was a hole in the radiator of Gonzalez's bike from the gravel that had been left by the wreck of Senate Aegis, his teammate. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

You know, it's called karma, right? Because if if Gonzalez isn't riding slow on the line, he doesn't get a three geared place penalty. He isn't where the crash is going to be. He doesn't get a rock in the radiator sliding doors, I suppose. But yeah, it is a point.

Good point. It is. But I think a lot of it is you make your own luck, right? I've always believed that luck is prep is an opportunity meets preparation. Yeah.

I think that's a Ross. Is that Ross Braun quote? No, that is a Richard Childress, NASCAR quote. Okay. I've heard that from Ross Braun before.

Okay, let me say that. Good luck is preparation waiting for an opportunity show itself. Something like that. Right. Well, I will say that.

I've got it written down in my phone because I always write down memorable quotes. I'm sure that maybe Ross Braun has said some version of that, but the version that I have there was from Richard Childress, and that's the only place that I've ever heard it. So anyway. Yeah, here we go. This is the Ross Braun quote.

He said, luck is preparation waiting for an opportunity. There you go. Yeah, we're just very close. I mean, it might have been quoting. That's same.

Maybe quite a thing. It's a British speaking individual speaking the Queen's good English versus some redneck American. Whoops. Did I say redneck? I didn't mean to.

Just somebody from the South saying something. An American. Yeah. So we mature everything. Yes.

I need to pick up on something. You betrayed another of my pet gripes a minute ago because you said with Gonzales that it happened on lap 19. No, it happened with 19 to go. Yeah. Back to this wretched tower.

Yep. Not showing what lap number it is. Make your mind up. Which way we're going. Yeah.

They were doing a thing which I didn't mind so much where I had laps to go at the top and then at the bottom smaller, it said, you know, lap three, lap four, whatever. That I can cope with. But for most of my notes, I've got lap question mark written down because, you know, I lose track during the race because I'm so involved in the race. What's going on? I just, have they gone around four times, five times?

Why don't they show their lap number? I don't know. The other thing that I don't like. Yeah. The other thing I don't like that I hope Liberty will fix is that if you watch a Formula One race, whatever car they're following, they put the corner down, I think in the lower left hand corner of the screen, lower right hand corner of the screen, which means that when you see that car, all they're in six or they're in eight or they're in 10.

Why can't we do that with MotoGP? Yeah. I mean, I got an idea of where they are on the track. I mean, I'm not, but for the average Joe fan to know there's nine corners and they are now in the fifth corner. When you cut to that scene, I don't know.

Anyway, we could rant about graphics and stuff. That's one of the things Liberty has to fix. Yeah, but surely knowing what lap number you're on is somewhat fundamental to watching a race. Surely. I think so too.

Or am I just back to, I won't swear, but. No, you're right. But there for a while we were counting down the entire time and then this time it sort of reversed itself around. It's like totally random. It's counting up.

It's lap one to lap, I don't know. I can't remember now. Now I'm confused because it's like they decided to change it all of a sudden again. Why not just show both numbers? I don't mind the countdown.

I mean, I understand why that's exciting because you know, three to go, it's two to go. I get that, but unless you can sort of remember that it's a 21 lap race and 21 minus nine equals, when you're trying to write stuff down like we are, it makes it very difficult. I agree. I agree with you. Sorry, I'm doing it again.

Oh, that really irritates me. That one. Oh, Moreira then has a track limits warning and it's Moreira, Holgado, Vietti, Alonso, Arenas and Ortolla. Alonso is coming, right? He has the speed.

I'm thinking, okay, the kid's going to win one here, right? I just really felt like Alonso is going to win this one because he just had the pace or whatever. With nine to go, Holgado is by Vietti, but Vietti gets back by. This is a good little race here. Vietti then gets a track limits warning, surprise, surprise, but he's holding up Alonso.

Alonso can't seem to get by Vietti and get onto the guys that are in the front. I mean, I'm trying to will Alonso pass Vietti, but you know, first to be old and wise, you got to be young and stupid. So Alonso is still going through the young and stupid phase where Vietti's at the old wise hound and he knows where to put the bike to keep Alonso at bay. It's kind of fun because part of that to me shows you the old hand and shows you the new kid and why the two are vastly different from each other because of the experience, because of the bike size, because of these other issues. It was really cool, I think, to see back and forth.

Anyway, for their water. Though it did wind up killing Vietti because he does get a long lap penalty because he does exceed track limits. So again, there's a problem, you know, so there, but that's how it is. Alonso then really trying to head towards the guys in the front. He's catching Holgardo, he's catching Marrera.

Five to go, Marrera, Holgardo, Alonso now, Arenas, Vietti, because that's where Vietti slotted back into. Then Arbolino, then Alonso goes down at turn nine. The front end goes down, just gutted for the kid. He was on par for at least a podium. I can't think if he's had a podium in MotoGP or Moto2.

I don't think he has. I think it would have been his first podium. I don't think so. Because it would have been a double podium for, I want to say Aspar, but I don't think that's right, right? Yeah, it is.

Yeah, CF Moto Aspar. Yeah, I had this vision of the problem. I got the pink logo and I can't come up with the pink letters inside of it. The Moto, the CS, what is it? The Chinese company.

CF Moto. CF Moto, thank you. I see something, right? So yeah, but I was gutted for him. But then that pretty much put us all at a halt station where Marrera wins his second race now.

This is why we are going to Brazil, right? This because of Marrera. Then Holgardo with a great finish to be second. Vietti would cling to third because he gets by. He's gifted that by Alonso falling, right?

Then Arbolino with a fifth, which was I think Tony's best finish, I think to date this year, I think. Then Artolo Bautista via Guevara-Connett slash Ramirez, Asaki, Munoz, and Bender with the last point. With that, we look at the championship. It's no surprise Gonzalez is still on top of the championship at 188 points. But Aaron Connett having rode the race that he did to finish, where did Connett?

He toughed it out to finish 10th to gain six points. He comes in on 169. That's only 19 points between him and Gonzalez. One more fatal slip by Gonzalez with consistency of Connett. Connett is leading this world championship, which I did not think was going to be possible at this time.

It was not on my bingo card, Rich, that Connett would be this close. It's 19 points and that is absolutely nothing. If you're under a race win, we are talking about having a battle on now. Gonzalez needs to get his head straight. He's got to put all the bad behind him, focus on what he does, go out, pound down laps, take pole positions, and get out there and pound down laps.

That's what he needs to do. This championship will open the gap back up and he'll be fine. Marrera, on the strength of this win plus the other one that he had, has jumped to third to be 153, only 35 away from Gonzalez. That's not an insurmountable amount if he goes on a bit of a tear now, which you can see happening. That's what I think.

If he ends it with a MotoGP contract in his back pocket. Not over this championship. No, this might get even better. Marrera has that talent, I think, in the desire of the drive to be able to pull this off. He's in the right mindset because if you look at him, he's happy.

Happy riders are fast riders. I mean, when you're happy, you are good. I'm happy for Marrera. Quite honestly, I think he's a talent. Does he deserve a MotoGP shot?

I don't know. My jury is out on that one, but he's a damn good Moto2 rider. Oh, I think he definitely does deserve the shot. I get that there's probably is an element of passport involved in this one as well, but I think that would be quite a tough position to take on him because he's winning Moto2 races now. I agree.

He is becoming quite consistent now. Do I want to say I hope? I don't know. I don't hope, but I think possibly Gonzales, who has been the standout performer so far this year, because Kinet is very up and down and by down he crashes a lot, but I can see Marrera winning quite a few races and then if Kinet can up his game a little bit, they will start to squabble over smaller points. By that way, Marrera could start creeping his way back up because 35 points is not completely the question, I don't think, for him because there's a lot of races still to go.

If Marrera can win a couple of races against Gonzales when Gonzales is on form, I will say a MotoGP contract is this kid needs one. So I was going to look at the benchmark guy that's there. I think Gonzales is that benchmark guy. We have flashes of it, but we've got to consistently do that. We've got to consistently ride at that high level.

I haven't seen that yet from Marrera. It's coming. Trust me, I think it's coming, but I'm going to reserve judgment. This is very much an intangible thing and somebody else will have a completely different opinion to me, I'm sure, but I don't want to say things that are unkind, but Gonzales to me is quite sort of steady and he's obviously massively upped his game this year. I mean to be in this position obviously he has, but nobody really saw this year coming.

But Marrera kind of has a bit of star quality about him that is very hard to pinpoint precisely what it is, but when you look at him off the bike he's a sort of superstar on social media and he does a lot of motocross. Apparently he's a top, top class motocross rider. He just has the sort of pizzazz about him, a bit sort of a costarish as well I suppose, just that sort of intangible thing. It's hard to put your finger on it, but Gonzales is quite steady and methodical in the way he goes about it. Marrera is a bit more exciting I think and so for that reason I think he fits the MotoGP mold at this stage.

And what the bizarre thing is Marrera turned down the Prilia test which Gonzales did if you remember for Trackhouse. But it looks like Marrera will be the one to graduate, which is not necessarily a just world sort of thing to happen, but particularly if Gonzales was his champion. But Yamaha and Honda obviously see something in Diego Marrera. I can fully understand why, even though he is a little bit unproven compared to a couple of the other guys there. But yeah, obviously there's something about the kid.

So Baltas isn't fourth, he's on 143, that's 45 behind Gonzales. Baltas is not a part of this championship chase, I hate to say that. He's had a great season. Baltas has had an absolutely fabulous season, but he's not the man that Marrera is for sure. Dixon's still clinging to the top five on 119 points.

Then Vietti, onto Uranus, Aegis and Ramirez. That's it for the world championship. Let's get into the Moto GP because we can go by this one pretty quick. Just very quickly before rounding out Moto 2. So Aegis is injured.

I don't know what his injury was, but he's out this weekend. And I read just before coming on to do this that Sergio Garcia will be subbing at Balaton Park in Hungary on the Liqui Molly Dynavolt intact team. That's a mouthful, isn't it? So Garcia gets a shot back in Moto 2 for a round or two. But Aegis is confirmed out.

All right, that's news. Breaking news. Breaking news. Where's my BBC button where I can go de de de de de de whatever they use? Don't they have some like Morse code?

Yeah, that's a teletype. I was thinking Morse code. Oh, anyway, shows you how old I am. Anyhow, let's go to Moto GP now. So let's look at this.

I mean, I'm telling you, I think some of the best action of the weekend is the Moto GP qualifying. The guys who are trying to get out of that first qualifying session, I think that's pretty wild. I mean, it leads to some funny, some good stuff, I think. I'm not looking at some of the names of who was in the first qualified session. Bastionini, Igera, Quattroraro, Digia, Jorge Martín, Vizecki, Miller is in there.

Vignoles has got his helmet on. He's going to try to give her a go. That didn't happen, right? But Bez and Martín get out of that. Bastionini had gone, then it's halfway through it's Bez and Martín, right?

But then Bastionini goes the fastest and then Bez was off or whatever. So Bastionini and Bez actually would go through to get to the second round of it, right? All the Yamahas are out in Q1. Now, Zarco is there. Now, again, an interesting name that's missing in this one is that of Luca Marini and Juan Mir.

All the Hondas made it, which take that for what it's worth. I don't know. I mean, these are up and down kind of things. But in the second session, Zarco was down. He had fallen off, right?

Halfway through, Marquez, as in Mark was fastest, followed by his brother, then Binyaya, then Acosta. Acosta looking really good on the KTM. There was a new KTM. There was a new aero package that had arrived. The smile was on Acosta's face.

He was a sad, petulant child looking person. When the last few races, he had been clamoring for some time since the Aragon test that he needed that aero package. Now, if KTM didn't have enough to go to all four bikes or cover all eight bikes or whatever, I understand it would take some time. Thank goodness they got this kit here for Acosta because you see the glow back in his eye. He rides like we've seen.

You're like, yeah, this is why this kid is a talent. This is why this kid will be a world champion in the MotoGP class because of what we were seeing on the track now that he has a, I will call it more competitive motorcycle than what he was previously on. I think, well, I heard on another podcast that there was probably a fairly frank discussion that took place with Pedro Acosta, probably his manager, Akki Io and Pit Byra, which probably went somewhere along the lines of, yes, we know we need to improve. We're getting better. Stop acting like a child and show people what you got.

And I think that plus the summer break, I think has done wonders for both parties, to be honest with you. I think, and you know, noticeable, I think I mentioned this either in my little bit on Bruno, perhaps we mentioned it on the last time we did a show like this, Jim, but noticeable that all of the KTMs look similar now in terms of what they're running in terms of the mass damper device at the back, the consistent aero package in a funny sort of ironic kind of a way. I suspect the troubles that KTM have been having financially has forced them to be a bit more rational with what they're doing to the bikes and follow a perhaps a slightly calmer path. And it might just be the case that this is the result of that because people thought that Bruno might have been a bit of an out like because they had a good round there as well, if you remember. Yeah.

But nobody had been there for a few years. It was a brand new track surface. It was very grippy and the KTM lights grip. But this kind of corroborated the fact that the KTM across the board has improved and obviously Bastionini has found something on the bike now that means he's much more comfortable. He's still crashing a bit, but at least he's fast and at the right end of the grid again.

So KTM are getting their feeling back and Brad Binder had a good race as well. So lots of good things are happening up and down the grid, including with Honda. We'll talk about Yamaha in a minute, I guess. But no, Pedro looks like the guy that we thought he was going to look like from round one and didn't. I think there's a combination of reasons as to why that is, but long overdue and thank God it's arrived there.

Yeah. But I didn't write his name down, but the new CEO of KTM was in the box too. Yes. I can't recall his name either, but he was there with Pissara. What's he like 20 or something?

I know. I agree. Is that dude even 30? Dude, do you know what a razor and shaving creamer for? Look at the peach fuzz on you, pal.

Anyway, whatever. Let's talk about Moto GPQ too. Zarko was down. We had Mark was halfway through. Mark was fastest.

And then the question was, did all of a sudden we see Acosta sort of pushing his bike? It was very hard to figure out where he was on the track at the time. It appeared as though he had run out of gas after the little crest at turn one. He took the shortcut, turned it around and was rolling the bike downhill all the way to the pits. I was impressed.

He carried his momentum and went right through the door, which is no bigger than a man door. Taking no prisoners. No prisoners. I'm surprised he didn't get a fine for it actually. Well, maybe he did.

Who knows? Yeah. It looks as though that they had filled it for four laps of running and not five. Yeah. Apparently he was told that.

He just forgot or miscalculated and tried to do another lap and promptly ran out of gas. Probably did, which is kind of interesting unto itself. The image of Acosta rolling the bike through the door without flinching is going to live with me for a while because I thought that was, I don't, if I could make a meme, I would try to make a meme out of that because to me it's extremely funny in that one, in that respect. There were one or two journalists who kind of predictably started going on about how dangerous it was. And it was, but at the same time, these are the little nuggets of things that happened unexpectedly that a firm like Liberty will make a lot of mileage out of because it goes to his passion to get back as quickly as possible, to get back out.

It shouldn't have happened. You can make a lot out of stuff like that. And I'm sure this is where Liberty will start to do a much better job of promoting the sport. He is a marketing dream. Oh yeah.

I mean, he is a marketing dream. Anyway, we've got to get through this. Bez was like the quickest. Then Bastionini, he was looking super fast, but he was up to fifth. Then Marc Marquez was down at the chicane, tossed the bike away.

So at that point it was Bez, it was Alex, it was Benyaya, it was Marc, Bastionini, and Outager. Outager there. And then the question was, then Acosta was turning red. And the question was, could he take pole? He had obliterated the pole time.

He was over three tenths faster with one sector left to go. And he about threw that thing into the grandstand with that front tuck. I am not sure how he actually saved that one, let alone created the time that he did, which landed him actually in seventh place. I mean, it's a good chunk of time that he lost, but it was amazing nonetheless. So Bez would take the pole position, followed by Alex, then Benyaya, who was on the front row for the first time in forever.

Then Marquez would start fourth, Bastionini would be fifth, Outager is sixth. Note where both Benyaya and Outager start. Then you had Acosta Morbidele for Raul Fernandez, who had a really good weekend. He was way better than he usually is. Then Mir, Binder, and Zarco.

So I guess Luca Marini did not make it out of Q1. He was in there. But anyway, doesn't matter. That's the five that we had. So that gets us to the sprint on Saturday.

Man, Benyaya and Outager had massive wheel spin. It was carbon copy. Both bikes just went to, if you're looking down the straight at the start, they went to the left. Back ends went to the left or went to rider's right, if you will. That caused all kinds of chaos to go through everything which way, which left us with Alex leading, followed by his brother, followed by Bezeky, then Acosta, Fernandez, and Binder.

That was there. Acosta would get by Bezeky. Acosta was catching the front two, namely Alex and Mark. They were having that race amongst themselves. Acosta wound up with a track limits warning.

It was still Alex out front with 10 laps to go, followed by his brother, then Acosta, Bez, Outager, and Binder. Again, like we said, Binder having a good week with the updated Aero on the KTM as well. It was weird. At this point, the directors were looking for racing farther back in the pack. This is a sprint race and we were already looking for it.

You get what's going on here. Benyaya was down to 16th place. The bike looked like it was bucking around as he started to turn it in. It was very weird. So bad he retired.

He did retire. He believed it was a bad rear tire. I'm wondering if it spun on the rim. All the spinning may have spun the tire on the rim which then puts it out of balance to the rest of the system which can cause that kind of oscillation that you see because then it wouldn't be running true. It'd be running elliptically and then it would have that up and down.

Even if it was only a millimeter, that at that speed would create that harmonic that you saw Benyaya doing where it looked like the bike was moving up and down. It looked like a high-speed wobble, didn't it? Yeah, it did look like a high-speed wobble. I was going to compare it to a kid on one of those little pony horses in front of the supermarket that they giddy up and whatnot. It looked like that to me or whatever.

But he did retire. I think it was a rear tire issue. With five to go, the inevitable happened. Mark Marquez passes his brother at turn three. That's it.

Race over. Mark wins. Alex is second. Acosta gets on the podium. Warren's a bronze medal, if you will.

Then Bizecki, Bender, Outiger, Bastianini, Digiantonio Zarco, and Jorge Martín. I say that only because he just narrowly missed out on a point. He hasn't been able to get back in there. Now, Martín is definitely not riding the bike anywhere near the level that Bizecki's riding that bike at, which I give Martín some slack. He's going to take a long time to recover from everything that he's been through or whatever.

But will you get to something? Anything about the sprint, Rich? Well, it ignited the debate around ride heights again because these things are effectively drag bikes as they leave the grid under the green light. You're putting so much power through the bike, through the rear chassis, the suspension, electronics are doing a certain amount. But the point that the tire gets the power, this is what can happen.

Maybe they're on a slightly dirty track because it was interesting that both Outiger and Bagnari, who were next to each other or one behind the other, had a similar problem. But that could have been a really nasty big pile up on the grid because Marini and Mia certainly lost that big style because they had to check up big style as people shuffled to adjust. And for me, it's just yet another reason to ban the things straight away. Not necessary to force the teams to remove them, just disable them. Even if you only did it off the start line, you can still use them in the race.

But I think we're at the point where they need to start taking some action on this because throughout the weekend, there were ride height problems. Fernandez retired from the sprint with a rear ride height failure. Bike was stuck down. Was it the sprint or was it in the main event? I thought it broke in the main event.

I have it written down in the sprint. Okay, well then I wrote it down. Okay, it ruined what had so far been a very good weekend for him. Obviously, people might not have picked up. I think it was on Friday afternoon.

Quattraro's new ride height device failed, dropped oil and that's what caused Oliveira to go down. These things are just an unnecessary menace really. I know it will ignite the debate around prototype racing, prototype racing, but at this point, everybody's got the damn thing. So if everybody loses them, maybe it was still equal as well as I'm concerned. And it reduces a failure item, which is clearly the more complicated and the more they change them and fiddle with them, the more they start to fail.

And that was the second time, obviously, in recent times that Quattraro's had a problem. As we know, he had one that failed, which robbed him of the win in Silverstone. And we keep seeing it, don't we, with these things? They seem to be, it's weird, paradoxically, the longer into the being around, the more troublesome they seem to be becoming. Whereas we didn't have quite so much of this in the early times.

So whether the factories are tweaking them in an attempt to just get marginal gains and are just becoming a bit more troublesome and complicated as a result, perhaps that's what it is. My theory is that the riders have figured out how to ride with it. So they activate much earlier coming out of a corner. Remember, it is still a mechanical system that is moving this thing up and down. It's oil being sent through a set of, essentially, imagine what your forecast, if you've ever taken your fork apart, you have all these little shims and washers and they disperse the oil and there's little metering valves.

And so all this is happening within seconds as these things fall to the ground. And I think that they, what they have done in there to get that to drop as fast as they possibly can is that you tend to overpressurize the system and you're lightening the parts and you get to have these points where all that up and down motion is now more than what the system can take. And I think internally, the things are breaking. I don't think they're physically breaking. It's just wherever the reservoir is and wherever the fluid has to go from one place to another, doesn't happen.

And then there's no fluid to bring the back end back up again when you hit the brakes. And they're highly complicated devices and whatnot, which they need to be banned anyway. I mean, they are going to be, and I guarantee you, we're not going to think the racing is any less worse when we see it in 27. We're not going to notice that they're slower. We're not going to care that they're slower.

We're going to like it better, I think, because the bikes look more like what we consider to be race bikes. And I think we'll all be happier. Yeah, that's certainly my view. I know a lot of people will have a different opinion. They will.

That's okay. Whatever goes. That's fine. But I think they're kind of at the point where they're spoiling things now quite regularly as well. Yes.

Yes. So we had 28 laps of the Moto GP race. It was the 1000th premier race, which showed Simon Kreyfar and Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner riding around on bikes for a special parade lap. I would have loved to have heard Simon's 500 two stroke again. Just the ringing dingy sound, let alone just the smell, ha memories.

Anyway, moving on. The old smokers. Yeah. Yeah. I get excited when I hear chainsaw nowadays or a weed or ha it's a T-shirt.

Yeah. It's like squirrel. Anyway, we are, Bizecki got a great hole shot, right? You know, then I got it right this time. Didn't have any wheelspin.

He got the second. Mark was the third. Alex was fourth. Remember, Alex has to take a long lap penalty here because of his indiscretion with Mir and check, check. I want to say right now.

I'm trying to check. And I want to, I want to prove to Gary that I was learning from the lesson he taught me. I failed him. Sorry. Hey, anyway.

Oh, yes. So then Bizecki is out front, Benyaya, right? Acosta got to, had gone to fifth, then Bastianini is there. Then Mark got by Benyaya at turn three. Bez was still leading here.

Yeah. I mean, I'm like, well, you know, Mark isn't really taking anything out of him yet. I'm like, but you know, it's early days here. I mean, with 20, 22 laps to go, Fernandez had got by Binder at turn nine, 21 to go. Bizecki had a three tenths of a second lead on Mark.

I started to let, I started to let hope kind of seep in, like maybe Bez has got this kind of a thing. And then sort of like, I started thinking, well, maybe it's the fact that Mark has now realized I don't have to win everything. I can just ride second because I'm not battling Bez in the championship. I wasn't sure what was going on right there. Right.

Okay. In that small moment of time between a certain amount of laps, I just, I was, I was in a happy place. I was thinking different thoughts. Okay. I think Mark Marquez, he was obviously a supremely intelligent person anyway.

I mean, you don't get to do what he's done and not be, but I think he's really learned the lesson of Horef and Cota where he rushed it early on. He has so much in reserve that he doesn't need to. So I think he just was just waiting for the fuel to burn off a bit. Wait, just, you know, just no need to rush it. It's a long race actually.

20, was it 28 laps? 28 laps. It's a very thirsty. I know it's the same, I know it's the same distance, but it just feels like a long race. Right.

28 laps. Right. Short, short circuit, right? It's not very long, only four kilometers roughly. It's a thirsty circuit.

So again, if you burn off some fuel, things are going to be better. But you know, I let hope seep in there, Rich. I really did, you know? Yeah. Well, you and everybody else, I think, you know.

Yeah. I mean, at some point, Bez got this to seven tenths. Like good on you, Bez. I mean, seven tenths. That's, you know, I think at one point it actually got near a second, you know?

It should be pointed out as well, Jim, that this is not a track that has ever really favored the Aprilia. That is true. So it goes to show what a good job Aprilia have done. And it does sort of highlight what a shame it is that Martine has been so injured throughout the season, because it would be fascinating to know had that not happened, those sort of various unfortunate events, where would Martine be right now? Because Bez is knocking it out of the park as far as I'm concerned.

He sure is. That is for sure. A hundred percent. Speaking of Martine, he felt turned seven. Yeah.

But you know the funny thing, again, counterintuitively, although I think he was winded from it, because let's not forget, airbags going off when you've had recently broken ribs to the extent that he has, that probably wasn't pleasant. But I think I read somewhere that he was kind of quite pleased as a confidence building exercise that he had had a crash and had got up and walked away from it pretty much unscathed. I think that's done quite a bit of good for him. Because obviously you're going to crash. He's just had a succession of crashes that have really, really badly injured him.

And I think it's quite understandably knocked his confidence sideways. So I'm still predicting that we're going to see a Martine podium before the end of the year. I hope you're right. Because that was- He's at the stage with the bike really where Bez was in the first three rounds, isn't he? Let's be honest, because he just hasn't ridden it very much.

And I think once he gets to the sort of Bez's level of understanding of the bike, we'll either see- Well, I think we'll see the old Martine coming back to some extent at that point. I sure hope so. Nobody knows my opinion of Martine, but I think this year has humbled him somewhat. I think it's impossible to imagine that it wouldn't have done. And so I'm kind of- I'm back to rooting for him a little bit.

I know it sounds bizarre for me to say that, but I kind of admire where he's at now. We've got all this contraction and the guns out of the way, and that's all been parked and dealt with. And he can just focus on getting back and getting better again. Yep. There's a good little battle going for third between Benyaya, Acosta, and Outagher.

Who's there? Let's see. What happens next here? Basically, we get down to roughly, I don't know, like eight laps to go. Marquez finally closes in on Bez, goes by Bez at turn one.

Outagher then goes by Acosta at two B. And that was a serious stuff job. I might have missed the Munoz one, but I didn't miss that one because that was a massive stuff job there. Digia then explodes a motor. I mean, it was just flaming out the exhaust.

That was some oil and valve parts and other little bits and bobs and pieces coming through that puppy. Because of the temperature of the exhaust was burning. Expensive things were going wrong inside that motorcycle. Oh, very expensive noises. Those were very, very expensive noises.

And the thinner, that one was probably had mild out, if you will, or kilometered out, possibly. I mean, there's a life to a race engine for sure. There's no question about that one. I think that was at turn four, he got off the bike and dejectedly walked away. Bastionini was hounding Benyaya.

And then he was by Benyaya at turn four. Benyaya just goes on a slow backwards run through the pack, which is what he seems to be what he does. With five to go, Aldegar was absolutely flying. He had pace, pace and more pace. And the question is, could he win?

Oh, come on, please, guys. It's Marc Marquez in front. I mean, no. Right? I mean, I give him credit.

I mean, yes, he's got pace. Yes, he was going to the front, but he was never going to beat Marquez. No, not by any stretch of the imagination. Not yet. Not yet.

That is true. I mean, for sure. But it's Marc, it's Bez, it's Aldegar, it's Acosta, it's Bastionini and Benyaya. Aldegar is then by Bez at turn three. Then, then, Mir has made it all the way to sixth.

So there's a retirement in there, you know, so correct that he's still seven, eight, but that's pretty good for the Honda. And Mir gets points. He finished a race. Nobody knocked him off. He didn't crash.

He wasn't in a gravel trap. That's a very successful weekend for Jan Mir. I almost voted for him for rider of the races because he finished. Jim, I'm not joking when I tell you, but I had everything crossed for Mir in that race because that guy has just been so unlucky. I mean, I know he's crashed a hell of a lot on the Honda, but then most people who've ridden the Honda hard have crashed the Honda.

And since the Honda has clearly demonstrably got an awful lot better this year, and it doesn't sound as if they've changed an awful lot. They've just worked with what they got and just improved it. The problem with the Honda is it's stupidly compared to a few years ago. It's actually quite slow in a straight line. But the rest of the bike is working quite well.

And Mir has been robbed of so many good results for round after round after round. And he was involved in that little tussle with Binder and who was the other person in that? I can't remember now. Maybe it was Bastianini. And they were sort of taking lumps out of each other.

And Mir's kind of, you just knew what he was thinking. Do not crash into me. Otherwise I'm going to go berserk. Which he did. When Alex Marquez took him out in Brno.

So yeah, I was just so happy to see Mir have a good race because he so deserves it. And I know people, there's a lot of haters out there when it comes to Mir, but I think he's a class act. And he really deserves a bit of luck. Well, it wasn't luck. He just didn't get bad luck.

He made his luck. He rode really, really well and had a good finish. So I was really pleased for him. And kind of like you said, Jim, if it wasn't for Aldo, he'd almost be the rider of the day. Just forget about the finish.

Oh, gotcha. Aldo is my rider of the race, for sure. I thought he had the best race. So the race, it's no surprise. Mark Marquez has won.

He's won six, he's done six doubles in a row. 12 race wins. That's pretty incredible. Which is, as you said, I think is like what the longest streak or whatever. Oh, I also figured out since we decided that Mark Marquez will win this title, that is the greatest time difference between winning a title and winning your next title of anybody that I can find.

Okay. It beats Casey Stoners four years, 2007 to 2011. That's four years in between, right? Marquez will be five years in between titles. 2019 was his last title.

So 2021, 22, 23, 24, 25. There we go. Yeah. Another record that he'll take away with. And he did do six in a row on the HRC bike in 2014.

I believe seven is coming next weekend. Oh, yeah. Fortunately. Well, I mean, I suppose the fact that they're going to Ballaton Park, which is a brand new track, it's going to be pretty MotoGP bike-unfriendly, as we've already discussed. Does that throw up an opportunity for somebody else?

Maybe, but I mean, this is Mark Marquez, isn't it? I mean, he's so experienced, so fast and adaptable now. It's hard to see anybody else winning, but hopefully somebody will get a look in at least. Yep. Where were we?

Oh, Acosta was actually, Outaguer gets the second, right? So Marquez, then Outaguer, then Bez. I think I may have said backwards. I apologize. Then Acosta, Bastigny, Meir.

We talked about Meir getting points in six, 10 points, which is fantastic. Then Binder, Vignes, slid all the way back to eighth. Then Fernandez, Mark, Alex, Morbidelli, Zarco, Marini, Aguera, and Quattro, and the Yamaha. I don't know. The Yamaha was horrible all weekend.

All the Yamahas were terrible all weekend. I don't know what happened to the Yamaha. They were solidly the back four the whole race. This is a guy who's been on polls and it just completely fell off. So that leads us to the championship.

Mark is now on 418 points. His brother's on 276. It's 142 point gap. There are 333 points available between now and the end of the season. It's Motegi.

He's going to win the title. It's going to be Motegi, right? Then Benyaya, then Bezeki, on the strength of some good rise. On the Aprilia, he's fourth, right? Makes you wonder what could Martine do on it if Martine was truly fully healthy, which bodes potentially well for next year.

There may be a fight or a little bit of a fight between him and Marquez. Who knows? Then Gigi Antonio Acosta, Outegar, Zarco, and Quattro is still 10th in the points. That's everything from the weekend. Off to Hungary we go to the non-Moto DPE track of the East, the Valencia of the Eastern block countries.

Yep. I'm holding that great hope for a great weekend there to go on through the gym. Nah, I'm not either. Sorry to be downbeat about it, but I don't think it's really a suitable track for them to go to. Yeah, I don't.

If it delivers up a classic, I'll be delighted. I will be delighted, but I'm skeptical. Did you see the post-race interviews with Outegar? Yeah. The hole in his boot that he, assuming leg dangling because it was his right foot, it had worn the sole off of it completely.

I guess we're going to see sliders or something on boots on the tips or whatever somewhere. But he has proven that it is possible to overtake still. You just have to risk a lot to do it. He's young and dumb rookie. Not dumb, I don't mean to lie.

You know what I mean. He's just prepared to give it a go. If he could qualify a bit better, and he will obviously learn to qualify a bit better, and if he could sort out his pace in the first third of the race, which is not great, he's a bit of a bastionini. He hangs onto the rear tire and comes really strong at the end. It's just he's coming from too far back.

I don't think he would have beaten Marc Marquez like you, Jim, in a straight up fight. Marc Marquez is going to win that fight, I think, 99 times out of 100. But Outegar will have started some internal discussions at Ducati, I would imagine. Oh, I would love to see Outegar on the factory back alongside of Marquez next year. Well, I can't foresee that they would have been off Bagnari, but he might be looking a bit sketchy for 27 if this doesn't improve.

Because, again, I picked this up from, I think David Emmett mentioned this, I hadn't picked up on it. Marc Marquez's race winning time, in terms of the total time to win the race, was the same as Bagnari's last year. Bagnari, by contrast, was 20-something seconds slower. So it's not that Marc is going massively faster than Bagnari was last year, when he won the title. Well, no, he didn't.

Sorry, Martín won the title last year. But Bagnari was there and thereabouts. But Bagnari is radically slower this year. And we weren't in the post-race debriefed, but everything I've seen and read and heard about it is that he just has not a clue, really, what's gone wrong. He's mentally weak.

He is. I think at this point, and it gives me no pleasure to say it, because he's a lovely guy from everything we hear, but he really is a ship adrift at the minute. Yeah, that happens when somebody shows up and takes your motorcycle and beats you convincingly with it. And then… Yeah, but the point is he's going so much slower than he was last year. Okay, he's not on the same bike, but… But the psychological warfare that Marquez protrudes, oh yeah, Bagnari is great at this track, and he had some good long distance pace.

Whack, he's way in the back. Like, come on, throw the line of hope out there like, oh, I don't know about this weekend. Oh, come on. That's… And then it just gets comprehensively crushed again. He does not gel with the bike, right?

See, I don't think he can fix this. Clearly. I do not think Benyai can fix this, right? I do not think Ducati either wants to fix it or will fix it, because they're going to win a championship with Marquez. Yeah, I think they're going to say… And they're going to be like, this bike is good enough to go next year, and we're not going to go, we're not going to change anything on it.

And Benyai is going to have another year that looks just as bad as this year. If not… I mean, interesting to note also, I know he blew up, but it was a very poor weekend for Digi Antonio on the other 25 bike as well. So there is some credence to the point that Mark is able to make that bike work and the other two are not. And anybody who's on a 24 bike, by and large, are having a very enjoyable time. Yep.

Benyai will want to go back to the 24 bike next year, they'll call it a 26. Whether Mark will agree to that, of course, who knows, because he's never ridden a 24. Yes. I don't care if Mark on a 24 put Benyai on a 24, Mark's going to beat him. I really don't care.

I believe that's true as well. But certainly Aldegaard, I'm sure, will have caught even more attention. And the last thing I will say, because I know we've overrun, a lot of credit must go to Frankie Cartredi as well. He's great with rookies. We've seen it before.

And doing wonders with Firmino Aldegaard. And I'm really interested to see now that Aldegaard's had the summer break, he's learnt a lot in the first part of the season. He could come on strong. And as I say, if he can sort out his qualifying in his early race pace a bit better, he's going to start nicking points off Alex Marquez. Not that Alex Marquez is not in the championship, we know this, but it will hasten the point at which Mark wins the championship.

And that's a scenario where it could even happen as early as Mizano. True. So with all that, we're going to Hungary. We'll put a bill on this one called Done Rich. I think Hungary is going to be interesting just because it's a new track.

That's the allure, that's the charm of this one. I enjoyed it the first time because after that it's going to be just like F1 racing, processional in Hungary. You know, after that. But with all that said Rich, I'm going to tell everybody to ride safe. Yeah, we'll look forward to coming and talking about Hungary next time.

Cheers for now.