Hungary For More?

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk Welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 813, recording on August 27th, 2025. We're going to talk about the race from Hungary at Balaton Park.

And when I say we, I mean me, Jim McDowell, your host, and my cohort in all this, partner in crime, if you will, Richard Jallad. Richard, a good afternoon, no, good evening to you. It's a good afternoon here. Forget where I am and what time zone because work is just that hectic. But anyway, we survived Hungary.

Yes, it wasn't a set of barnstorming races, but we're going to get to that. But no, lots to talk about. Nevertheless, I'm quite a bit of news to crack through as well, Jim. Yeah, there's quite a lot here. So let's just kind of get to it.

Hey, you know, if you guys can subscribe to the show, throw some money in the pot would be greatly appreciated. You can do that by going to our website, www.motopodcast.com. Anything helps. But if you can't do that, hey, leave us a review wherever you get your podcast from. That will help as well.

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So any of that would be really cool. I mean, I think Rich and I, I think we've got stories to tell about just seeing people out and about and introducing them to the show and they're listeners now. So if you guys could do that, help us out. We really appreciate it. With all that, a big thank you to everybody who's helping the show out and especially to everybody who wrote in this week.

There's just a ton of email that flew in. Weeks of nothing and then suddenly we get like four or five. Everything shows up at once, right? So we'll start this email with former host Martin Darlington's emails that flew around. The one I'm taking from this one, Rich, there was some argument about Hungary and everything else, but we'll save that for later.

Well, Martin had a statistic, if I have this correct, that there is a lack of champion slash winning riders that are in the MotoGP class. Was that a fair summation to what Martin said? I think so. I must admit, I wasn't getting all of these emails for some reason. I haven't mentioned that to you, so I need to dig into why that is.

So I'm kind of catching up a little bit, but anyway, back on. We'll get into the meat of it. That was the biggest. The biggest point was that Martin had come up with some statistic that if you look at who's on the grid now, how many of the guys that are on the grid are race winners? You start thinking about it, he's right.

There's not like Marquez, Alex, Baschini, Peco, Baschini-Peco, but then it's like after that, well, Mir, I guess, and Zarco this year. But there aren't many for a 22 rider grid. There is not a lot of that, let alone that Marc is one who's won titles in all three classes and then you've got some, but in the MotoGP classes, anybody else got titles? I mean, Mir does, right? There's a title there, but Peco's got a couple of titles, Quattrarro's got a title.

But I think after that, I'm hard pressed to come up with who I'm missing, who potentially is a world champion. There's obviously a couple there. Yeah. I think, sorry Jim, I think what I'm just quickly reading through it again, I think what Martin's pointing out is what I suppose you would call a bit of a paradox, which is that of the current MotoGP crop, a lot of them haven't won a title. Whereas if you go back, I guess he's talking back about 10 years or so, I think he pointed out that only Carol Abraham and Alessia Sparga in the season that Martin was recalling hadn't.

So and yet we kind of think of that as a less competitive time. So it's a little bit kind of weird at the moment. So is it because you just get one or two people that win a lot? Maybe. My thought was, and this is the kind of the corner of this, is that to me, what I thought the data represented was that a good rider with money will be a MotoGP rider for as long as the money continues to arrive.

Whereas a great rider without money will not be a MotoGP racer. That's how I saw it. Again, opinions or whatever. But you either have to be an ungodly talent to be there at MotoGP or you better be bringing along a good sum of money to help you get there. Now every one of those guys that's riding a motorcycle at that level is extremely good.

There is no question about that. It's just that there are the, we talked about this before, Rich, there's the aliens, right? How many people are aliens right now? If you look at it right now, there's only one alien in the class. That's Marquez himself, Mark.

To me- Yeah, with a couple of others that are hinting at the fact that they are going to be the next kind of generational alien in the class. Correct. Acostas is sort of the alien in waiting. I think Altegr is alien in waiting. But I think also, I think Martin maybe said this in his email too.

I don't have the email in front of me and haven't read it for a couple of days. But like Benyaya, is he an alien? He has two MotoGP world titles. He's a good, great rider. But he's the alien territory?

I don't think he is. He's kind of like Dovi, a thinking rider. Again, if Mark didn't have a good motorcycle, didn't have an injury or whatever, would Dovi have won titles? Probably. But Mark had a dominant bike and was able to ride around and didn't really have any injuries either.

Right. So he could ride a bike better than what Dovi could or was maybe more willing to risk everything to win as opposed to Dovi's more strategic thinking kind of concept that was going on. So anyway, I thought, you know. I have a theory just thinking about this a little bit more. So I think the thing that has changed and I think which underlines the point that Martin is making, which is that there were more champions from other classes on the way up to MotoGP, say 10 years ago, and there are less of those now.

I think the thing that's changed is that of those champions say that they had won a championship in supersport or in Moto 250s, it might have been then. More often than not, they were not arriving on top machinery. I think we have to remind ourselves that 2025 level MotoGP machinery is pretty well. I know there are differences between the brands, obviously. So if you're on Pramak Yamaha, you've got the same machine as Quattroraro effectively, but the Yamaha is several steps behind the Ducati and the Aprilia, let's say.

So accepting that there's always competitive differences between the brands. Nevertheless, I think all of the riders in MotoGP now are on very competitive and equal machinery allowing for the slight gaps in performance. And I think that's the difference now. So I think you can not be a champion in a lower class or in another series and come across the MotoGP, but still not necessarily... Well, I don't know.

Are you following my train of thought there? I think so. I think I see where you're going. I think it's easy to show flashes of brilliance in MotoGP now because you like to be on a good bike. Whereas before, if you're on kind of hand-me-down stuff or trues kind of satellite, think what...

We often talk about Tech3 Yamaha, don't we? And they were properly customer bikes. I mean, they were probably one or two years at a date compared to what was the works machines at those times. So even if you were a Colin Edwards on it, for example, as a world super bike champion, you were unlikely to win any races. And then indeed he didn't.

And he was on works machinery as well, but at various points in his career in MotoGP. I think... Sorry to interrupt you there, Rich, but the fairer comparison of that would be Ben Spees on Tech3. Yep. Ben Spees was...

Or Kyle Crutchlow. All kinds of AMA titles, right? And then went to World Superbike in 2009 on Yamaha and completely obliterated everybody in World Superbike. Wins that title, jumps to MotoGP. But there was the rookie rule that said that a rookie couldn't be on a factory team.

He had to be on a satellite team. Hence he's on Tech3, wasn't even close to winning, but then showed up on the factory Yamaha and won a race. He had the bad shoulder injuries and all that. Of course, that rookie rule got rescinded because Honda had a guy that they wanted to have on their bike as a rookie. And well, you know, whatever H wants, H gets.

So, eh, anyway. I was going to remind you of that. I'm glad you picked it up. Oh no, you don't have to remind me of that. Somebody got a leg up there.

Could it be a nationality thing? Who knows? Who knows? Had he toiled away on a satellite bike for a year or two, I'm sure he would have still raised eyebrows and got to where he eventually got to. But it might have taken a bit longer.

Yeah. Well, if he would have spent a couple of years on a satellite bike, he would have been the youngest. No, he's not the youngest race winner anymore. Is he? I thought somebody who took the no Acosta could have taken it, but didn't.

But didn't. Right. Yeah. Okay. I think that's where it is.

I could be wrong, but that's off the top of my head. But you get you get the point. He wouldn't have been a world champion in his rookie year. Yes, he would if he wasn't allowed to be on that factory bike. Just just to finish this point, I'm kind of curious now about what Jorge Martín does, because his my appreciation for him is going up a bit.

Just bearing in mind, I've been always been a bit down on him as a character. We saw glimpses of what's to come, I think, at this race at Balaton Park last weekend as he starts to regain his fitness and get some form on the bike as he gets to learn it a little bit more. My question for the future is, will he prove to be an alien? Because okay, beat Peco last year, just lost out to him the year before. So that's a bit of a it's not really the comparison we want to see at the moment, is it?

But he can actually start taking the fight to Marc Márquez as the year goes on as we go into next year, because we know Martín is going to stay on the Aprilia next year after all the contractual shenanigans. If he can start to beat Marc a bit, then I think that we start to have that conversation about Jorge Martín as well, because credit is due there if that's what he starts to do. And I think that will, in my eyes at least, elevate him significantly from the fact that he beat Peco last year. Because like you, I do class Peco, and as Martín said, as more of a dog-y kind of character, very good but on the best bike. A very intelligent rider, but we're seeing him hitting a bit of a stop this year as he can't get around whatever the issues are that he's got.

And it's actually raised this, you've probably heard it on some other podcasts, it's actually raised this concern that are Ducati in danger now of going down the HRC route, which is because they got Marc Márquez on the bike and there might be some issues with the 25, which the other riders on it can't surmount. Are they going to go down a blind alley if they're not careful? I mean, technically it doesn't really matter because these bikes are gone in a year and a half. But if it influences the 27 bike in some way, are they at risk? I mean, that's a big question Marc to put out there for another day perhaps, but although I'm sure you've got an opinion on that.

I've never been warm to Jorge Martín. I am starting to warm slightly. I have no way to defend anything that he said has done or the shenanigans he and his manager have tried to enact to get out of a contract. I'm sorry. I'm talking purely on track.

So I want to just make it, I was just trying to make it clear that I in no way appreciate anything that he's done in that respect. However, if we talk about what he has done recently on an Aprilia and a small sample size of one here at Bellatón. I've got to say if he is the man to then bring the fight to a Marc Marquez on a different motorcycle then that is an interesting concept to me. Because I think we, I don't know if we would all agree, but I think we all got to think that Marc is the best of his generation and he is definitely on a playing field that's different than almost everybody else in MotoGP right now. And you can say, well, Quattro has the talent.

Well, he doesn't have the bike. If Quattro was on another bike, would he have it? Well, here you're seeing the question asked of Martin, would he be as good as Marc on a different bike? And there are glimmers of hope that he is going to be as good as Marc on a different bike. Now a lot of that hinges on Aprilia and what they do.

And there's a lot there with that, but I am warming to that idea. Yeah, I think that's what we're going to either see or not see as this year goes on. I still, I think I said in the last episode, I can see a podium before the end of the year. I think a win is obviously going to be incredibly difficult because we just don't know how much extra Marc Marquez has got in his pocket really. He has crashed whilst pushing too hard, but that was tended to be early on in races or in sketchy conditions.

We haven't really seen him very, very hard pushed. Yes, he's been pushed by his brother, but I do consider I to this kind of notion that I don't think Alex is sending it to his brother like he sends it to other people. I just think that's clearly demonstrated by some of the moves he's made on other riders this year. It's a bit controversial, a bit unkind, I suppose, but I think it's true. Yeah, I do.

So this kind of all doves tails in nicely to Gareth from Australia in his email and he said, hey, MotoGP is boring. Is it boring, Rich? It depends how you want to define what you're watching. I think I mean, I remember having this conversation. I know you don't really watch a lot of World Superbike, but this came up a couple of seasons ago with Bautista in World Superbike where he was just winning everything.

And you can say it's a bit of a lame-ass excuse, but I kind of take the view that you just have to appreciate how good somebody is and just marvel at what they're doing, even if they are largely doing it on their own out on track, because it won't last forever because nothing ever does. And we've seen this with Marc Marquez before. Things can change very, very quickly. And then the whole thing gets shaken up. Not to say that we want Marc Marquez to get injured or anything, but things can change very, very quickly.

And I think in a way, what kind of frustrates me and what has made it a bit boring is, as we were just saying, the fact that Martin got so badly injured. And I think by the end of the season, we will start to see the sort of season we could have had had it not been for those injuries and some of the other distractions that have crept in along the way. So is it boring in terms of action out front? Yeah, I think it is. But then you get like in Austria where you had Aelderger storming through.

Was he going to catch Marc? In the end he didn't. And Marc probably would have had it covered anyway at this point in time. What's really super interesting to me, and I think we're going to have a much better – are we in the last half of the championship? We are now, aren't we?

Yes. I can't think how many rounds we've got to go. I think you've got KTM clearly making strides forward now. Martin coming on song to sort of go forward with Bez who's already there. And well, I mean, that's probably the main interest point, isn't it?

Is those two things. Because Acosta, as we've said, will definitely be there if the bike is there for him. And we're starting to see that that's coming together as well as with Bastianini and Vinales before he got hurt and so on. So I think there are signs that it won't be as tedious out front in the second half of the season as it's been in the first. So has it been boring?

Yeah, but I appreciate the fact that we're watching a real goat. And again, I've never been that bigger kind of flag waiver for Mark Marquez. But ever since he decided to change brands, I always admire that in a rider because I think you take that risk, you put your legacy in jeopardy a little bit. Because if it doesn't work, people think, well, he was only winning because he was on a Honda. Whereas we're actually really seeing the class that the guy's got.

And he's, let's be honest, he's politically kind of maneuvered and economically because bearing in mind the pay cut he took for a year, he didn't earn anything at Cresini last year. I know he doesn't need the money, but nevertheless, he took a big risk to get to maneuver himself into the position he's in now. So you have to admire that, I think. And again, to me, that off track part of him just amplifies that level of greatness that he's got because he can just he's got that swagger. He can just do it in the way that Rossi was like that.

I don't know that Rossi for me is kind of the greatest of all time. I think that's a debate which is very hard to have because I would put Lawson in there because he did the same thing, switching bike manufacturers. You know, Kenny Roberts has got to be in that conversation. You go prior to that and then you're getting into such a different world like with Agustinian stuff where he would win a race by five minutes. So you can't really you can't compare it.

I mean, you can't really compare the 80s to now. But you take my point. It's hard to have that debate, isn't it? But Mark is on another level at the minute. And is he making it boring?

I guess he is a little bit Gareth. Yeah, but it's a great point that you make and we appreciate the email as always. Yeah, I mean, if you're talking about goats like of all time, Freddie Spencer for me, the man won a 250 and a 500 title in the same year in a time when the style of riding for a 500 was a hundred and eighty degrees different than it was on 250. And that was the first time young first time Honda had ever made a 250. And he wins it.

OK, so that's there. I told I told Gareth in my long my long. You should reply back. Is that you know, my look, what Mark Marquez is doing right now is transcending sport. There are people who have not talked about motorcycle racing or know nothing about motorcycle racing that have come to me and say, hey, what's with this Mark Marquez guy having like basically like almost ripped his arm off and he's winning races again.

And this is what Liberty is going to do. They're going to market that. Right. And we're going to have people come to the sport who weren't in the sport before because of this story that's being created. So it's maybe we have to deal with this to have a greater good on the backside.

Plus, I said in my reply was, hey, look, I think when we saw Marquez go to Ducati to face the defending or a two time world champion on the bike, I won Peco Bagnani. I think all of us thought you're all of us are old enough to think this. But oh, Prost versus Senna at McLaren. And we did not get that battle. We have been robbed of it for whatever reason.

And we sort of got a Versapin versus Checo where the one guy just dominates the crap out of the other guy. And that's where we are. Right. Yeah. You know, I mean, Garrett does take into consideration, you know, I'm not really called market fan, but I understand his talent.

He gets all that, too. But it's a great thought experiment. I thought I thought it was a great, great letter. Garrett, I think it was really, really interesting. You know, it was a lot of back and forth that was there.

And as Garrett said, you know, one Bizecki saved MotoGP this weekend. What? Yeah, we'll get to that. Right. But it's a great email.

And I appreciated it very much, Garrett. Yeah. Oh, then. OK. Well, all right.

Jacob Rower, you know, calls in like writes in. It's like, yeah, I don't realize that Texas is not as big as all of Europe. OK, I did. It was tongue in cheek. Kind of.

OK. I know Texas isn't as big as Europe, but it's about as big as the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy and Germany and a little bit of Australia. It's about that big. So it's a good chunk. You know, it is a state that is a good chunk of the landmass that you consider to be.

I think we should just stay off geography. I think we have to. I'm done with geography. Again, you know, my perception of what's where because of the the iron curtain is being gone now messes everything up. But yes, I I did misspeak.

You know, I did get out of whack. And technically for all of you who really want to know, because I looked it up, is that the size of Texas is 15 percent the size of Europe, which includes your Scandinavian countries and a good the eastern countries and a good chunk of what is called Russia, because it goes all the way to the Ural Mountains, which is defined as the separation between Europe and Asia. That I looked up, so I know I'm right. OK, fair enough. Fair enough.

We're done. That's it. No more. Right. And then we've had Scott Baldwin had a great little find.

It was Casey Stoner's quote on the new rules where he's saying, look, you're not going to fix anything with the rules that you came up with. You know, and I think Casey was lamenting the fact that you got to get rid of all of the wings and you need to put everything in the hands of the writer. And oh, I I am not going to sit here and tell you that Casey Stoner is wrong because he very well could be right. But what I am going to hang my hat on for a minute is the fact that, look, the trash control is basically gone. The ride height devices are gone.

Holeshot devices are gone. The bikes are going to have one geometry and that geometry is all you're going to get. So you're going to have small wings on there, circa like 2015, 2016 kind of wings, if you will. That sprouted out then. And I don't think the racing was bad then.

So I think it's potentially going to go back to that. But, you know, somewhere, some way, I think this has been is a the bigger talking point to all this is that the speed of the bikes have to be slowed down significantly. I think we are flirting with danger here yet again. And it's a danger area that we don't want to get to. Again, I would be just as entertained.

And you can chime in on this, Richie, if you want. If you put the entire Moto GP grid on a set of mopeds or 50cc groms or whatever and had them go race that, it would be just as entertaining to me. I wouldn't care. That doesn't matter that they're doing 210 miles an hour on a straightaway. I could not care less.

We tune in for the competition and we tune in for the people that we support or the teams that we support, the characters. That's kind of the essence of sport. I mean, when you talk about people that transcend the sport, that is what made Muhammad Ali great. Right. Jordan, if basketball is your thing, Tiger Woods, name your sport, there are plenty that you could pick out that they become household names.

So that's all part and parcel of the sport in spectacle as far as I'm concerned. I mean, interestingly, Jim, on your reply back as part of the the Gareth Lock email chain, you wrote the best we can hope for is that the new rules will produce better racing. And I think where in my opinion, where Casey Stoner is kind of missing the point a little bit is that it doesn't matter what the rules are. I mean, yes, obviously, the the focus needs to be to slow the bikes down a bit. Whether they will achieve that, of course, is open to debate because they might be faster in other ways.

Carbon fiber brakes have to go. If you want to slow them down, I think that you got to go to that. Parking that to one side of my mind, though, I mean, the truism throughout most of motorsport is that it doesn't matter what the rules are. There will generally be one team or manufacturer that kind of gets it better. So you can make the argument that it doesn't make the racing better.

It will. If you have a process in the center in the same team, you'll just have the two guys on the same car or the same bike that are competing against each other. And obviously, that is not what we've got in the Ducati squad this year. We might mark as though we hoped that it would be different. It's very unusual to have seasons or prolonged periods of time where different riders and different brands kind of consistently win.

It has happened, but it's sort of vanishingly rare compared to the sort of domination you'll get from one brand or team for a period of time until something changes and then somebody else gets it right. So will Honda come out with an 850 that is kind of like the RCV 211V in 2002? They could do. And that will be moaning about the fact that Joanne Mears walk in the title. I say tongue in cheek because I'm a bit of a Mears fan.

Yeah, you know, who knows? Who knows? But point well made. But yeah, I think Casey can sort of be Casey Stonorish or Stacey Monorish about these things. And it won't really change that basic fundamental fact of motorsport because it's you know, you just look at history.

It's always how it goes. Oh, with all that good, good and great listener feedback. Yes, thank you, everybody. Keep writing in, guys. This is this this is the part of the show I enjoy the most is that interaction and talking about different things that you see that I don't see or Rich doesn't see either for that matter.

But let's get on to the news, Rich. Shall we? OK. So first thing here, Gonzalez will stay at the intact Moto 2 team for 2026. Now, the rumor was flying around in Hungary that he was in play at Yamaha again.

But apparently there's no room at the end. So Gonzalez stays in there, but it's for yet another year. And we'll then get his get his shot, I guess, in the 2027 season. Well, Willie, though, I mean, that's again, I was I watched the TNT coverage, as I've said many times as of this year. So I don't know what Lewis Sutterby and Matt Burt were saying on the Dawn feed that you will have been watching Jim, but they were making the point that because Gonzalez came through the SuperSport Avenue and then jumped across to the Grand Prix paddock, he's taken quite a long time to get to this point.

And as well as he's doing this year, he's obviously doing bloody well. There are younger people coming up faster. David Alonso will be ahead of Gonzalez in the Moto GP 2027 kind of draft picks if you want to use an Americanism. I would suspect even in Gonzalez, even if Gonzalez is the Moto 2 world champion, I just fear that's a sad fact of the way things are. Aaron Canette is another example of a guy that, you know, you could make the argument that he should have had a shot at Moto GP, but he's been in Moto 2 for far too long or hanging around in the lower middle class area of the sport for far too long.

So I feel a bit sorry for Gonzalez because a few couple of months ago he was having a Moto GP test on the track out of Prilia, did pretty well. And all of a sudden, two things have conspired against him. Diogo Moreira has popped up to be the rider that everybody was waiting for him to be. And Yamaha are definitely going to be racing their V4. And therefore they they need Jack Miller in the team.

And it looks like that is what's going to happen next year, that Jack Miller will will stay put because they need his experience and technical know how from having ridden for multiple other teams. And so that kind of rules Gonzalez out, really. I think that's what's going to happen. Yeah, I, you know, I see your point. I see your side.

I get everything that you said there. I look at it slightly differently. I think that you have to to do something with your own racing talent slash desire, win whatever to make it such an outstanding season that you have to be on a Moto GP bike. Right. Yeah.

Because I think if I think, you know, I look back a little bit, you think of how great was Acosta's season in Moto three that he then went to Moto two. Right. How great was Alonso's season in Moto three? And he is now in Moto two. Look at how great Acosta's second season of Moto two was.

And where was he after that in Moto GP? You don't think Alonso is going to not have a have a absolutely phenomenal Moto two season in twenty twenty six and will be in a team on a Moto GP bike in twenty twenty seven, because there's something special about those people that not that Gonzalez is special. OK, he's not the special kind of special. Yeah. It's star quality, isn't it?

Yeah, it's star quality. Right. What it is. Yeah. I mean, you could think of it from the standpoint of like the first time you saw you use this golf analogy.

First time you saw Tiger Woods play, you're like, jeezel, Pete's. That's something amazing. The first time you saw Michael Jordan play basketball in the NBA, you're like, wow, where did he come from? That's what you see in Acosta. It's what you see in Alonso.

It's what you saw in Mark Marquez back in the day. Right. Yeah. I think I said to my last time out, indeed, in the last episode, I think it was I was kind of saying and it's very it's an intangible thing. And it's very unfair to somebody like Gonzalez.

But I think I said he just he goes about it in a very sort of methodical, effective, somewhat under the radar way, which is a weird thing to say for a guy who's been winning so many races. But that is kind of how it feels to me, whereas Marrera, just when he lights up, you think, oh, blimey, you know, he suddenly arrived on the scene. And it's a bit unfair that he gets treated differently. But that is an off the bike. He just he kind of has that sort of exfactory look about him.

And, you know, as a great social media presence, as we said, he's very sort of active on kind of motocross and stuff. He's top level there. Just everything about him is just you've got something that teams can work with in terms of generating profile and interest, which is a big part of the sport. Like it or hate it. I mean, that is the reality of modern sport, whatever the discipline is.

So and I always think of kind of the Rossi thing. A year to learn, winning the class. Go up a year to learn, winning the class. That is what we're seeing with all the people we've just mentioned, Acosta, Marrera, David Alonso. So if you don't achieve that, I think you just you you start dims too much and then you just get overtaken by other people kind of metaphorically and literally in many cases.

So it's a shame, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Yep. So Miller is going to remain at Prey Mac for all the reasons that you previously stated, Rich, and he will ride alongside World Superbike team at Toprac. The question is, where is Olivera go? So it looks like his best opportunity is to join Aprilia as a test rider.

Yeah, because his name is not coming up in any of the World Superbike kind of chatter that I've been reading or hearing about. So you would assume that his signature in test or reserve rider duty would probably be quite highly sought. I think so. Yeah, he's a good setup guy. But it's a tough position for him because he has a contract for next year.

That's not right. But there we go. Contracts have written to be broken. Precisely. So Paul Spargera, who subbed in for Vignola's this weekend at KTM, he wants to return to full time racing and he wants to do it in World Superbike.

I don't know if anybody's really got an interest in him for that position, but I admire the fact he wants to get back at it, considering that really devastating crash, right, that he had that, you know, that was coming up kind of was the end for him, wasn't it? Competitively, because again, he'd been around for a bit too long, really, and not not achieving enough. I'm kind of surprised that he wants to do that because he's carved out quite a successful commentary career with one of the one of the, you know, the European channels. I'm not sure which one it is. But so that and again, I, you know, you don't hear his name coming up in chatter around World Superbike and there's I mean, I don't know that I've written it in the notes, but just quickly to mention, there's some suggestion that come 2027, World Superbike might be minus BMW and Ducati.

Wow. Hmm. All of which kind of fits into a change of scenery for World Superbike and the new kind of regime. So, yeah, it's going to be kind of interesting to see what happens in World Superbike over the next couple of seasons. Other news, Yamaha will race the new V4 engine at San Marino this year.

It'll be ridden by test rider Augusto Fernandez. That will be interesting to see here. Slash I really would like to be there just so that I could hear it. Right. Yeah, although I'm sure it sounds the same as all the other bikes and actually, I mean, all V4s, aren't they?

But, you know, that is the that is a problem. I remember, again, this is, you know, let's call it the middle part of the 90s, late part of the 90s. I remember going to a race with some friends and, you know, they had never been before. And we walked we're walking in and I think at the time, Superbike practice was going on for what you now call Moto America. And I'm like, oh, there's a Ducati that went by.

Oh, that's Yamaha. Oh, that's a Suzuki. Oh, that's the Honda. They're like, how can you tell? It's like they all sound different.

Yeah. Now they sort of all sound the same. You know, it's just kind of, hmm. Yeah. Anyway, I mean, if they're all going to sound the same, then put a muffler on them.

Yeah, I would need to look up, Jim. I don't know if you know this, but I don't know if as part of the modern rules, and I guess 27 would stay the same, whether there are whether they eradicated the weight limit differences for slightly different configurations of bikes. Of course, that was what made MotoGP when it first came up in 2002. So interesting was that the triple you could run much lighter, relatively speaking, say, than a inline four or V4, because we had triples, inline fours, V4s and a V5 back then, if you recall. Might have missed the engine configuration.

I think I know I think you got it. They played around with a six cylinder at some point. But anyway, that never race. But and that made for exactly that, you know, you could after you kind of got used to it, you could tell which bike was which pretty well. Yeah, it's why I like endurance racing, because I can stand there and know that that's a Corvette, that's an Aston Martin, that's a Ferrari.

They all sound different. Porsche, whatever. Anyway, Sergio Garcia was back in Moto2 this weekend, and he will race in the class next year at Grissini alongside Alonso Lopez. Yes, Alonso Lopez, not David Alonso. I had to finish that thought.

Yeah. Wait a minute. Alonso Lopez. All change at Grissini. All change.

Albert Arenas will be out. And who's the other rider at Grissini in Moto2? I'm trying to think now. It's escaping me. And it doesn't matter.

They're both out for next year. And yeah, so good to see glassy about. No, no, he's not. He's a Marvias. I'm just having a stupid late night mental blank at the moment, but it will come to me in a moment.

It's my normal, normal blank. Anyway, attendance figures for Hungary. They I didn't see them announced by Dorna, but Rich has found that found this that they had twenty one thousand roughly Friday, twenty six thousand on Saturday. Sunday was thirty two, thirty two and a half thousand, which gives us to like eighty thousand for the weekend. That is that's as good as it gets at Kota.

So, yeah, yeah, well, that's quite a bit ahead of where Silverstone was at this year. Yeah, it didn't look like it from the TV. I mean, obviously, people can be in different places and stuff, but at no point did I think the grandstands were in the seating areas were full. But hey, if you got eighty thousand, then call it a success and move on. The local village fate had more people in attendance than Silverstone had, to be honest with you.

So I'm not holding Silverstone up as a a marker of anything. Ouch. So a bittersweet bit of news here, in my opinion. Johnny Ray retires at the end of 2025 from World Superbike. That is it's sort of like an end of an era.

You know, Johnny Ray's stop, you know, not writing. Then the question is whether Iker Lekwona would be confirmed at Aruba Ducati. As far as I know, that did not happen. No, it has. That's official now.

This is official now. OK, so this is all official. I thought it did. OK, that's official. I think I had it on the notes last week when we recorded as a rumour.

It has now been made official that that is where Lekwona will be, which is good for him. I mean, great for him. I'm personally pleased. I think he's a really, really good rider, but it's a it's a slightly unexpected appointment, I have to say, but a great one for Lekwona and may well see him if he can make it work. It may well see him get back to some MotoGP duty in the future.

Possibly. Possible. Because that's the official Aruba IT team. That's not a satellite Ducati. That's he'll be in with the Booliga next year.

So he's replacing Alvaro Bautista. Big news. That is big news. All right, let's talk about the race weekend at hand, which is starting off with Moto3 qualifying. So I just say the other bit was report news is that Bautista replaces Pachucchi at Barney Spark Ducati.

So they have made accommodations for Bautista. And that was the ride that as far as I understand it, Johnny Ray was trying to get, but they couldn't agree on the terms. So in the absence of that ride and the fact that he would probably would have to fund a ride anywhere else in the world super bike paddock outside of the other works bikes which are taken. Hence, you know, he's not going to stay put at Yamaha. So the retirement news came for that reason.

But I think it's a good time because he's been falling off a bit recently and hurting himself. So it's better to stop and to look back on what is an amazing legacy and an amazing record in Superbike. And I agree. Lament the fact that he never really quite got a good shot in Moto GP, which I think he was due. But again, I think he passed up some opportunities because, you know, because of the terms on offer anyway.

There we go. All right. Let's get the Moto three. So opening and first qualifying, we learned that Uratte was going to go to the back of the grid, regardless of whatever he did in qualifying, because he was riding slowly online. Seems to be a theme with these people along the way.

But you had for Asato, you had Kelso, you had Buchanan, Ogden, Nepa and Moodley was there and Ogorman was there again, right. And the Irish kid was riding again. And they're, you know, as it boiled out or whatever, it came down to Kelso, Forasato, Uratte and Skogged and all getting out of that first session. Ogorman was fifth. He was so close.

It was only a couple of hundreds of seconds. Whiska, as they say, for him to be able to not go through. I this this kid deserves a Moto three ride next year. Somebody needs to put him on one. I think so.

And it's worth just pointing out Jim as well, his teammate in the sick 58 squadra, Corsa, is that the name of the team? Something like that. His teammate, Nepa, was last. He's having a bit of a mare this year, Stefano Nepa. So Ogorman's come into that team.

I think this is his last ride out, because I think Lineta, who he's been subbing for in this last two rounds, who had a broken leg, if you remember back in Assen, was it? He should be back for the next round in Barcelona by the sounds of it. But like you say, Jim, Ogorman has done easily enough to justify a decent ride on the grid full time next year, in my opinion. I'm with you, 100 percent. We got to that Q2 session and everybody was trying to get a tow from Kielis because Kielis was the fastest guy like all weekend.

He eventually just sort of rode into the pits just to get rid of the tow and said, well, you know, we're you know, I'm going to sit here for a while. Literally, it was halfway through qualifying and Kielis had not put a time down. And I'm like, dude, you need to go get a time. You know, if somebody falls, you got a yellow sector, anything. You're you're going to start not from the front row.

You're going to be back on row eight or something. You know, I guess you can't really go back that far to eight rows in the first from the first if you're in that second qualifying session. But he was going to be mired deep in the pack, right, if he didn't get out there, you know, because by halfway, it was Peroni, Carpe, Panini, Picaris, Rolstone and Fernandez were all there. And then finally, Kielis gets out and he sets a time and he got sixth. Right.

And then Kielis just goes to the top of the list. It wasn't like it was just by a little bit that he went fast. It was like he went he went fast by a lot and as he had been the whole weekend. It eventually shook out with Kielis on the front row and the in the pole position. Peroni would be second, then Picaris, then Carpe, Munoz, Pini, Rolstone, Rueda qualified eighth, then Adrian Fernandez, David Almanza, Fagi and Furusato.

It's a shame that Rueda qualifies eighth. I mean, I'm not sure we come back to Austria. Rueda is sort of off the mark. I thought, OK, you know, summer break, you got to put your mind back together again. Sometimes it takes a little bit to get that groove again.

But it doesn't seem like as of right this moment that Rueda was back in the groove yet. He seems to not be the dominant person that was so dominant in the first half of the season, which is, I don't know, I don't want to say it's concerning. But then again, there are times when these guys who are would be champions for the year have a little slump. I give you Pedro Acosta in his Moto3 season. Gangbusters.

He came back from the summer break. Right. Same thing had a slump. Fagi got close. But, you know, Acosta still winds up winning the title.

So, yeah, we'll see what happens. It is concerning. I think it will be more concerning if it happens next time out in Barcelona, because there you would expect him to be super strong. If he's kind of mired down sort of in the lower echelons of the top 10 there, that is cause for concern. I highly doubt that will be the case.

I think maybe he doesn't like Austria in the Balaton part. Is you going to get on with it or you're not? And he's in that odd position of having such a big lead that you're kind of scared to death that you're going to do something stupid and lose a big chunk of it all in one go. You know, they will say it's easier to be the chaser than the hunted, you know? So I'm putting it down to that at the moment.

We shall see what happens. When the at the start of the 20 laps for the Grand Prix on Sunday, Keeley's got a whole shot followed by Peroni and Piqueras, Carpe, Munoz and Varedo got off an eighth there. Peroni did get by Keeley's as the Keeley's went wide in one of the next turns. But Keeley's went right back by again. And Munoz was up the second shortly thereafter.

So Keeley's was definitely out front, definitely doing his thing that you would expect him to. And the front four guys had about a half a second gap, about six laps into the race. Piqueras would move back to second. So it's like, well, OK, we're kind of going back and forth here. Then, you know, Yamanaka and then Ogden crashed.

And Ogden crashed. And what really happened was that like Ogden went down and everybody else kind of avoided the situation. And then they kind of had little tip overs in the gravel and whatnot. I guess they're using the old rear rule. If your handlebar touches the ground, you have crashed.

So I guess you got to say that you crashed and remounted, you know. However, they want to look at it. That's their uproar or whatever. With 10 laps in, Keeley's is out front. Piqueras is in second, then it's Munoz, then it's Peroni, Pini and Ruraita.

So Ruraita is sort of in the top six here. He's made a few places, you know, hey, you can't pass it hungry, right? So, you know, whatever. I don't know. It seemed like he was doing OK with it.

Keelys has a mistake at 15, and it dropped him all the way back to fourth place. At least Keelys did the right thing. He rode or he didn't try to back out of it and cut across the chicane. He just dealt with it, basically stopped because it would have been hard to give back the second that was going to be required for anybody who did cut the chicane. So I think it was a smart riding move by Keelys to just like, all right, I'm just going to figure out wherever I'm going to be.

I'm just going to stop if I have to to not run through the chicane. And I'll just sort myself back out and we'll just go back at it again. And that is pretty much pretty much how this how that went down at that point. So Peroni is now leading, followed by Picaris and Munoz and Moukili slots back in in fourth place, which really wasn't that big of a deal. Right.

So he's only fourth. Now, at this point, Mounios winds up getting like all kinds of out of shape and Ruraita winds up moving by. I mean, it's like you leave the breaking late because you've got to get to that last instant to be sure that you're quick because you have to deal with the chicanes. And that's where you're going to lose time or make time. It's going to be on the break.

So Mounios is trying. But wow, that thing was every which way, straight for a lot of it. And, you know, he did get he did get by. Did get around it and was able to get on there. Now, it's about here that I remembered that Peroni was on a medium rear and everybody else is on a soft.

Now, I'm thinking, is it really going to matter? Because we've seen but then I thought back, but we've seen Ruraita run sort of the opposite strategy of what other people have ran on the rear tire and it's paid dividends. So I'm like, oh, this is going to be interesting to see how Peroni deals with this because he's the only man on that tire. And it's either he's either genius or fool, because usually that's how that works. But we were going to see as it came through.

It was a group of five that was out the front. And Chiles with 14 laps in had got himself back to third. So he dealt with Mounios, which is not the easiest person in the world to pass because he's going to fight right back. So it took Chiles a little bit to get there. And once he made it stick, he made it stick.

And then, OK, now he's third. So, OK, well, let's see where Chiles goes here. You know, with 15 laps in, it's Peroni, Mounios, Chiles. They swapped it back again. Or, you know, Mounios is back again in front of him.

Then Picaris, Ruraita. And then there's like 2.2 seconds to get to Panini. Now, Panini crashes out. Well, he's going to the long lap, long lap penalty lane for for an incident for a track limits, I believe, was Panini's fault. Yeah, his cause to go to the pit, go to there with five laps to go.

Now, Chiles is in second for a Sada crash to turn two. Then it's four to go. It's Peroni and Chiles, Mounios, Picaris and Ruraita. OK, now the front two have got about three tenths, have got a little bit of a lead on Mounios, Picaris and Ruraita. But with two to go, Peroni, sorry, has got a three tenths lead on Chiles.

I'm like, that's kind of a lot. But thinking about it, that's not a lot considering you've got the hard breaking zones and if you miss it by a millimeter, Picaris is going to be right back on or not Picaris. Chiles is going to be right back on you again. So like, OK, what's going to happen here? Last lap, Chiles tried at one and he tried to make it stick, but he couldn't get it right.

Peroni stuck to his guns, held the line for turn two and still led out of it. OK, where's the next good place? You're going to pass what we've learned is turn five. So all right, we're down a little bit of a straightaway. Chiles, demon breaks it, gets it there at five and he's leading.

He has now gotten to the lead. Peroni then tried at eight, no go. And then, you know, he tried again at 14, but that didn't work. So, OK, I'm thinking Chiles has kind of got this and he had a bit of a lead because these sort of mistakes by Peroni where he's trying to do something and that enables he has no drive onto the straightaway from 14 to 15. So Chiles has got a little bit of a lead and Chiles does what anybody would do in that situation.

Don't botch the corner that you're coming up to for the last couple of them. So Chiles actually breaks a little bit early where Peroni says, screw it, I'm just going for it. And now it's a race because they're both right there. They're trying to figure it out. They kind of go side by side.

They wind up coming on to the front stretch, heading to the short run to the line. Peroni is on the outside of the track. He's on the outside. Chiles is to the inside. So Chiles, if you're looking down the front stretch, Chiles is on the right hand side, Peroni is on the left and Peroni moves over towards Chiles as they run to the line.

Chiles puts an elbow out. They kind of bump, they separate and Chiles wins the race. So Chiles wins that race. He in great fashion. I mean, again, Chiles is that kind of special special that there is with Peroni, who is now starting to find some incredible form right now.

He's starting to look special-er, which I know is not a word, but it works in this case. Then Munoz was on the podium in third, then Piqueras, Rueda salvages a fifth, which is not that bad, considering where he was when he started. He was eighth. He made three places. Then Almanza, Kelso, Carpe, Rolston rounds out the top ten.

Then Fagiha, Carraro, or Gorman, who gets a point. This is his first points of this as in the Moto3 class, because, you know, this is the Irish kid that we're talking about and that we think has a lot of gumption. And then there's Yamanaka and Jurate finishes with the last point in 15th. I thought it was a great race, Rich, but some people think that the last move out of the final turn was a bit over the line. Do you think it is that that move in the last turn and coming to the line was out of line for Moto3?

Personally, no. I think it's just typical Moto3. It came about because, yeah, as you said, Jim, people were just kind of going for it in those last couple of chicaney corners. If you're going to design a track like this, this is the sort of thing that's going to happen, particularly in the class like Moto3. So for me, I mean, I took note of the fact that there was a bit of elbow in going on down the straights, but nobody kind of like kind of radically chopped across the front of anybody else.

It was just a little bit of kind of elbow to elbow stuff as people were kind of jockeying for positional Peroni and Max Keelers anyway. So for me, no problem at all. Hard racing. And they were the class of the field, those two. They swapped around a little bit as the race went on.

It was a race of one lap, really, wouldn't it? Which was the last lap. You know, they were in position. They'd ridden a good race, both of them. Munyath and the others has kind of dropped back a little bit at this stage, hadn't they?

So they weren't really in the game at that point. So not a terribly entertaining race as far as I'm concerned. But it kind of lit up on the last lap as Moto3 usually does. And as a track like this is obviously going to encourage to happen. Peroni's little gamble with the tyre didn't really sort of pay off, did it?

But he came up against a guy that is clearly for me anyway, is the class of the field this year. Yeah, Ruaida's leading handsomely, but that's been a sort of a stealthy thing. A bit Gonzales again, I suppose, but like the unspectacular. Whereas Max is kind of like a Winnet or Binnet kind of character. But he's starting to win it more than Binnet, which I mean, you're talking about the points in the moment.

He's quite far back. And I don't think he's got a sniff of the championship. But for me, he's the head turner at the moment. And I know there's recency bias. That's always a thing.

So you can't ignore the fact that Ruaida still got a 69 point lead in the championship. But Quiles is the one that everybody's kind of talking about in the moment. Yep. Quiles, remember, couldn't start at the beginning of the year. He had to wait several rounds because he wasn't old enough.

Exactly. And it's like, so if you if you take away those rounds that Quiles is not there because he can't race, he is a very close championship then. Yeah, but Piqueras has under delivered. I wouldn't say under performed, but he's under delivered. For the hype that surrounded him and everything that was done to get him off of a Honda, to get him onto a KTM.

And it's like, yeah, OK, well, you need to show a little bit more than that. So my take on the last lap, I agree with you, Rich. I think it was just good hard racing. And then it was, you know, it was a journalist that we talk about a lot who posted it saying, you know, hey, there's a line and I think this is over. Now, that's fine.

That's an opinion. You're allowed to it, right? I think it's good hard racing. The question that I should have asked back on on threads to this person was, was it was it Peroni that you're mad at? Or was it Quiles you're mad at?

Because Quiles had a reputation in World Junior that he put the chop on some people quite extensively. Now, he got the sitting down, got the talking to of a lifetime that pretty much like, look, kid, you pull that crap one more time. You are not going to be in this series or riding a motorcycle at all. And if you tell that to people that, yeah, you'll straighten yourself out. Now, Peroni was the one to you, in my opinion, was moving towards Quiles.

So I if there's fault and there isn't in my mind, right, it's good hard racing. If I had to, if I'm Simon Krayfart, somebody says you have to penalize one of these guys for hard riding, I would penalize Peroni because he's moving towards Keely's, not Keely's moving towards Peroni. Yeah. So I mean, it's hard to tell as well because the camera angle changes from what's happening in the corner to long shot looking down the straightaway. So there's a bit of angle change that you don't see maybe all of what's going on.

But I thought it was a good race. Again, it was a Moto3 race. So you had some passing, you had some RG bargy there, here and there. A rather subdued kind of race, I would think. But that eventually last lap magic appeared and voila, you wind up talking about, you know, this great last lap because it really was a pretty fantastic last lap in the lexicon of, you know, Moto3 races.

So, yeah, and I mean, I might be wrong on this, Jim. So I don't know that I hang around for the part for most stuff because I kind of watch the race on catch up. I don't think there is an inquiry in terms of it. It wasn't. I mean, the students looked at it.

So for me, I don't really get what the big who horrors, I think. And although I share, as we'll come to towards the end, I share some concerns about the track. I think people were a bit heightened. Certain people were a bit heightened this weekend, but good reason because they're concerned about safety and riding standards and so on. But like you for me, no harm, no foul there.

I totally agree. As we look to the riders championship, it's Ruraita's to lose because he's on 250 points. He's 69 ahead of Picaris. Picaris really needed to win here if he was going to try to make any attempt at getting to Ruraita. I'm beginning to lean towards it's not if Ruraita wins, it's when does Ruraita win.

He's got to keep that top five finishing going on and whatnot. But Kylis has moved into third. And considering like we talked about, he hasn't raced all the rounds. And I think then he broke his finger or something. So he couldn't run like another couple of rounds, I think.

Remember correctly. So he's in third on 164 points. And he puts him 86 back of Ruraita. But then after that, it's Munoz. So he actually vaults over Munoz and like he's got a nine point lead on Munoz.

And then Carpe, Kelso, Peroni, Yamanaka, Fernandez and Almanza finish out your top ten in middle of three. I think Barcelona will give us a better kind of gauge, Jim, as to where the rest of the season is going to go, because Red Bull Ring, straight after the summer break, it's a bit of an old track again. It's kind of straight break, straight break. Balaton Park, new track and the same sort of thing again. And so easy to kind of make a mistake.

I mean, the key thing about Ruraita is he salvaged the fifth again, as he did in Austria. So that's championship winning form when you're not having the best of weekends. Everybody's going to turn up at Barcelona. It's the track everybody knows, especially the Spaniards that have been racing there since they climbed out of the cot. So it will be pretty easy to see where the competitive order lies again, I think, once we get there.

Yeah, I agree. I agree with you. So let's move to Moto2. Yes. All right.

So with qualifying here, when the first one there's some big names in this first qualifying session. It's kind of shocking. Arenas, Arbolino, then Van de Gerberg, Navarro, Robert's Kinet. There's your big one, right? Vietti and then Baltis, right?

Those guys are all there, which you kind of don't really expect those guys to be there. But by halfway, things were looking poor for Kinet. He couldn't really string a lap together. The bike seemed to be really unstable under braking, especially from the shots that I saw. And he wasn't even in the top four to get out.

But Kinet did jump to first. Roberts moved to fourth. Baltis then moved to first. So it was Zonta Van de Gerberg who actually got to first. And then Baltis, then Kinet and Roberts.

That's how they actually got out. So those guys all got out of that session. The second qualifying session was was only interesting in the fact that they were talking about emphasizing, I think I don't know if they said this in Austria, which maybe they did. But I know they said it here in qualifying was that Alonso's problem. David Alonso's problem in qualifying is the fact that he can't get the best out of a brand new tire.

I think they said it in Austria. They emphasize it again here. They said, but, man, you put 10 to 15 laps on the tires and he it suddenly turns into magic. He just is going for it at that point. And he's been talking about how he has to work at getting better at his qualifying and getting the most out of that rear tire.

So I thought, OK, well, he's made it to the first qualifying session automatically. So maybe perhaps he's got something fixed. He's found a setup. They've got done something. Air pressures, who knows?

All those things are crucial when you're trying to get your tire temperatures up and get it to where it needs to be. But you had Marrera, Gonzalez, Salach, Baltis, Kinnett and Zonda-Gerberg who were going there. And then when you got to the end, there's a lot of guys that were going quick. I mean, there was people up and down the list that had red times, red sectors. So you really didn't know how this was going to pan out.

But it shook out to be Marrera with pole, Van de Goeberg, who would be second. Then Gonzalez jumped into third. Dixon had a good rescue to be fourth. Then Vier, who had been quick most of the weekend, didn't seem to be able to put it together. But you kind of got the impression that Vier was starting to figure it out.

You know, halfway through, right? Then Kinnett, who showed form because, of course, Kinnett seems to be able to suck it up and put a lap in and get there. So he was going to start in the first two rows. Then it was Holgardo, Alonso, eighth, right? Then Sasaki, full slatsch, Ramirez and Huertas was 12, right?

So there's your first four rows. We go into the race on Sunday and it was, you know, there was no tire drama that was going to show here. Everybody was on the same set of tires. Right. So there was no difference in here.

It was gone. The it was Gonzalez who got a whole shot followed by Marrera. And then it was you thought, OK, those guys are going to get out front. They're going to lead. They're going to go away.

But Dixon pulled off a great move. So as Gonzalez and Marrera both went deep into turn one, that puts them wide. Jake seemed to have sort of checked up a little bit, dove to the inside, took a very tight line, accelerated, scored it out and was able to get by both Gonzalez and Marrera to lead as they exited out of turn two, which was like, oh, OK, this is kind of different. Didn't see this coming. Meanwhile, Vietti, Kouni, Orade and Bender all crashed in the first turn.

Back in the back behind it. I watched the replay back and forth several times. I couldn't figure out who caused the crash. What really happened. It was a melee and even Race Control couldn't figure out what was going on.

Is there like, yeah, no further action because even they didn't know who did what, when or where. That turn one, turn two, that track is just we saw it in World Superbikes. Andrea, you know, only wiped out several people, including Niko Lekow, new broker's wrist as a result of that. Yeah, it's just going to happen. And I was amazed, frankly, that it didn't happen in Moto 3.

They all got through cleanly, which was like a big, big surprise. But yeah, unfortunately, Moto 2 and Darren Binder, he's the other guy on the Crescini this year. And the reason we couldn't remember him, of course, is we never see him in a race because he's either at the back or crashed. So another guy that won't be in Moto 2 next year. Correct.

So Dixon is leading, followed by Marrera, Gonzalez, Huertas, Kinet, who survived that first turn, and Vier. So, OK, cool. This is all good. Guevara would get a jump start. He was a little too good.

His reaction was a little too good. So he got the double long lap penalty on there. Marrera worked, by lap four, Marrera had worked himself into the lead. He was past Dixon and it was then Gonzalez, Kinet, Vier, and Huertas. Alonso was in seventh at this point and Marrera had like three tenths on Dixon and Gonzalez.

And it was one point one to Kinet. So Alonso was like two and a half seconds or more behind everybody. It's like, I mean, you know, kid, you really are going to. I'm thinking you really have got to sort of qualify because if you're on the first row, second row, you'd probably be leading this thing right now. But he can't qualify.

So I'm like, well, you're kind of thinking at this stage, he might get a third or a fourth. Maybe, you know, I think I thought fourth because, I mean, the way they were talking about his race, his times, it was like, well, the gap was so big that he could maybe only get to fourth. And I'm like, I kind of dismissed Alonso at this point. I mean, I like to look where Alonso is because I want to see the learning curve he's on. But it was like, man, I don't know what's going on with this by this point or whatever.

But Gonzalez would work his way past Dixon. He really needed that pass, right? Dixon was the roadblock because Marrera was leaving the situation. He was checking out and he was going to go for it. And, you know, good on Gonzalez to get the move, get it done.

And then, you know, hey, go chase down Marrera, which is what Gonzalez actually did. Alonso, so I should say with 10 laps in, it's Marrera, Gonzalez, Dixon, Kinnett, Vier, and Huertas. But by 12 laps in, Alonso has gotten by Huertas and he's chasing down Kinnett and Vier. Like, OK, this might be something. Man, that's a sniff of maybe a little bit better than fourth.

You know, maybe a podium might be in play here. You know, that's where I've got, you know, podium here, right? But Lopez then was down in a big crash. There was lots of barrel rolls, man. And then his own self barrel rolled into the air fence and bounced off of it.

I mean, I, you know, I'm amazed at the technologies of safety that we have now compared to just, you know, roughly the 20 odd years ago that I was racing bikes, airbags and suits, air fence everywhere. I mean, that was a pretty good hard wallop. And he got up and got there. But as I've said many times before, some of the tracks we go to are not safe because the walls are too close to the circuit for the speed that the bikes are traveling at. This is a Moto2 bike and it made it all the way to the fence without a problem.

And its rider made it all the way to the fence without a problem too. Yeah. One other observation of that crash with Lopez in particular, Jim, is that I know we're going to talk about the track briefly at the end, but so we'll kind of have the discussion about whether there should be more runoff. But what they've done to compensate for the lack of runoff is make the gravel quite deep. And what you tended to see was bikes digging in and going high up into the air.

And Alonso, from the angle I looked at that from on TV, was rather lucky not to get hit by the bike coming down because it landed quite close to him. And luckily we don't see those sorts of crashes all that often. But I think it was and obviously we'll talk about Pedro Acosta's crash. Sorry, I'm laughing. I shouldn't be laughing.

Same thing again, where the gravel was deep in order to try and slow stuff down as much as possible. But it does always risk this kind of catapult effect of stuff going skyward. So Lopez was lucky to get away with that one because it was a pretty big crash. It was. It was a big crash.

He wasn't hurt, which is the best news that you could possibly have. Bikes are replaceable. Human beings are not. Vier had got by Canet and then Alonso got by as well with 15 laps in. It's Marrera, Gonzalez, Dixon, Vier, Alonso, Canet.

So there's fifth. If Alonso gets Vier, he's fourth, which matches what Matt Bird and everybody were talking about in the commentary. Okay, we should be good there. But we found out that Gonzalez got by Marrera at turn five. So now Gonzalez is now back out in front again.

But on 17 laps then, Alonso got by Vier. I'm like, that's it. We're done. This is as good as he's going to get because you have to admit that both Gonzalez and Marrera had a pretty decent gap on Alonso at this point in time. And I thought, well, you know, a podium is good.

The kid is learning. He's getting better or whatnot. But the problem was that Marrera was not about to give up on Gonzalez. So if those two started fighting, well, then we can see some lap times get slower. And if you're on a clear track, you're usually faster than the people who are fighting.

And well, guess what? Alonso was moving on. So now Alonso had to get by Dixon and basically he made that move like right now. Like there was no way around it. It was a quick, hard slash pass.

Boom. Done. Got you. I'm out of here. And I'm like, whoa, you know, with that kind of pace.

And if the guys out front kind of get together a little bit, Alonso is in with a shout here. He's definitely got a podium, right? But he's in with a shout. You're thinking Alonso Moto 3 kind of. Right.

You have this flashback, right? End of the race. Here he comes. Yep. And it's like, oh, you know, it's like, what the heck's going to happen here?

Because we've seen this. I've seen this story unfold before. Just not in this class. But we got down to three laps and it was Gonzalez, Marrera and Alonso. But then a lot with two laps ago, Alonso gets by Marrera at turn one.

The rear was off the ground. The bike's snaking it every which way. The front starts to tuck as the back hits the back as the back sets back down onto the race track. That puts weight onto the front end because of the grip. It pushes the front.

Alonso just, I got it. Picks it up. Got it. Squirts it out. Done.

Probably one of the best Moto 2 passes I've seen in a long time. Just from the standpoint of that kid was out of control, out of shape. And in no way should he have been able to save that. But all of the people that we love to watch who can save things that nobody else can. He's sort of in that alien group of being able to do things that you shouldn't be able to do on a motorcycle.

But he did. What I like to call one of my famous oxymorons a control crash. Yes. It looked like a control crash to be honest with you. I mean, I don't know how he saved it.

There was one to go and Alonso tries to get by Gonzalez at one. And it was like, oh, that can't be, you know, it's like, it doesn't really work. But eventually Alonso gets by Gonzalez. Marrero would go by him as well and would push, you know, Gonzalez out so he could get there. But then Alonso like blows the last chicane.

I'm like, oh, no, you can't. You can't do this. Don't lose it now after putting in all this hard work to come from. I don't want to say deep in the pack, but let's say a significant distance back on a track that's hard to pass on. You do all this great work, but Marrero could not get him.

And Alonso wins his first Moto 2 race, which he kind of Moto 3d the Moto 2 guys. If you follow that sentiment, which it was a fabulous win. I did no way around it. It was an absolutely fabulous win for Alonso. I mean, that's one, you know, hands down, the best race of the day.

Easily, I think, you know, I think we'll agree with that. Marrero was on the podium followed by a second and then followed by Gonzalez, who takes the last spot. Dixon was fourth, Vire fifth, which was a great ride for Vire because, you know, I think the kid is starting to figure that one out, right? It just so happens there happens to be this other kid that's really good, maybe even a little better than you, who's figured it out just that little bit faster. And then you've got Kinet in sixth.

So that was a recovery for him to be able to essentially gain some points a little bit on Gonzalez. Then Huerta, so seventh and slouched, Holgardo, Ortola, Ramirez, Baltis, Vandigerberg, Albert Rance, and Tony Garberino got the last point. Can't say enough good about a good about Alonso and this one, Rich, how about you? Well, yeah, I mean, we kind of surmised early in the season or at the beginning of the season, it would take him a little while to adjust. And of course, let's not forget he had a broken collarbone just before the first round as well.

So that obviously knocked his final preparations before the season got going in Thailand, I think it was, wasn't it? So we always kind of say that sometimes a Moto3, a good Moto3 rider, or in Alonso's case, a Moto3 champion will kind of make the transition reasonably quickly, by which we mean to say within half a season normally. Again, talking about Pedro Acosta, of course, this is what he did. He just unfortunately broke his leg in a training accident halfway through the season. So couldn't kind of make good an Enran rampant the following season.

And I suspect that this is possibly, probably what we're going to see with David Alonso. I think I WhatsApp you, didn't I, Jim, to say, yeah, here we are. This is where we thought we would get to. It was just a question of when, not if, look at the Moto2 champion of 2026, and he'll be hopping onto a new generation MotoGP bike in 2027. I mean, there's a lot of water to go under the bridge before that all happens, of course, but that is something you can easily envisage happening.

So yeah, I think you're right. I mean, obviously he was challenging for the podium and was going for the win in Austria. Okay, he made a mistake. He sort of threw it up the road. So didn't finish that race, but he was already showing that late race pace again.

And this, well, it wasn't necessarily the feature of a Moto3, because obviously he'd been riding a Moto3 bike for many, many years. So there he kind of hang around at the front and then just sort of, yeah, did the business in the last few laps. Whereas at the moment, I made a note, and I don't know, this is probably just me talking absolute rubbish, but I would love to see him in the flesh, because I interviewed him last year at Silverstone and you were literally looking at a kid that looked like he'd just started at primary school in terms of his stature. And I remember making a comment to you. He was obviously going to need to bulk up for the Moto2 bike.

And I wonder if his continued struggles at the moment, and it would be fascinating to see where he's at physically in terms of his muscle mass and stuff. I wonder if he's still not quite there yet, which is why he's struggling to really kind of manhandle a bike on sticky, sort of fresh tires in qualifying. Whereas by the time he gets sort of late race, once the fuel loads dropped off a little bit, he's much, much better on lower grip at that later stage of the race. Because that, I mean, he was like way faster than everybody else in the last 10 laps, wasn't he? Oh, yeah.

So I just wonder if that's kind of where he's at at the moment. And I don't know, he's probably not going to grow much taller. So he's quite a sort of short stocky kid, but then most of the riders are, frankly. But I can't remember how old he is now. He's 18, maybe 18, 19, I'm guessing.

19. Yeah. So he'll still sort of change physically in terms of muscle mass and all the rest of it and strength. So yeah, it just would be interesting to sort of see where he's at on that journey, really. But I think we've seen the star sort of arrive.

So again, as I always kind of repeat myself, fascinating to watch the next few races because he's the kid that with that kind of form could go on a bit of a rip now. Yeah. I mean, I agree that it could be physicality. That's why he can't get a hold of the tire or whatever. But perhaps maybe this kid just has an incredible feel for the tire when it's also worn.

Yeah. So that's the flip side of the coin, right? Yeah. That sort of otherworldly sort of ability to read the grip before it's there sort of thing. Although he did screw up the last corner, but maybe just a rush of blood to the head.

I have to admit, the first time I won a dirt track, I kind of screwed up the last corner too, because you're thinking you're going to do something you've wanted to do and you're a little excited, I guess. But anyway, I will forgive him. And by the same token, they say once you've kind of got the monkey off your back, maybe it starts to come a bit easier. I mean, it won't come. It won't be easy in Moto too, because you still have to go to the same people.

But yeah, he would have caught a few people's attention with that ride. And I think Lonzo has come along at a great time as far as his age, maturity, and where he is, because he's going to jump onto a 27 Moto GP bike when it's all change. It doesn't matter who you are. Everybody's going to learn that bike. And he could really surprise us in 27.

However, we have a while to get to there. Before that, we have to decide who's going to be world champion in Moto 2. And as of right now, Gonzalez is still world champion elect at 204 points. But Kinet has now cut that gap to one race victory, which is 25 points. More importantly, is Marrera has now cut the gap to 31 points to Gonzalez, which is a race victory and a smidge more.

Any mistake, any problem by Gonzalez at this point, and Marrera wins. Well, that's a six point difference. Okay. Long way to go yet as well. Long way to go.

This one's going to the wire. This is the one championship that will go to the wire is going to be this one. After that, it's Baltus who's now 57 points behind. So that's, I don't see that anything good happening there. Dixon's fall into 72 points behind.

Then it's Vietti, who is not racing and won't race for a couple of weekends yet. And then Arenas, Senna, Aegis and Marcos Ramirez running out the top 10. That's everything I got for Moto 2, Rich. For Moto GP time? Yeah.

I think it's Moto GP time. Or nap time. Take your pick. Either one. Interestingly, in the first qualifying session for Moto GP, you had Martín, Bizecki, Digia, Benyaia, Miller and Zarco.

So the two factory Hondas actually were in the second session and one, Fabio Quattraro on a Yamaha was in that first session. So, you know, that's kind of it. It was obvious in that qualifying session that Benyaia was lost. He literally had no clue, none, zero at all what to do about that bike and what it was doing. He came in and he did the thing where it's pumping in the middle of a corner.

Whatever they were trying, because I think they tried a radical setup, if you will, to try to get something to work for him. Didn't even come close to doing anything for him, which was a bit terrifying. Bez was flying. That was for sure, right? He's a former race winner or whatever.

So Bez and Binder were out front or were going to go through halfway through. Then Benyaia did jump up to second. I admit to that he did kind of put a tire on, kind of sucked it up. I think he went for it. Miller then bumped out Benyaia.

Then Binder jumped into second. Then Bez just moved the goalpost by throwing down a lap like nobody was going to even remotely touch. Digia did try. He actually tied, sorry, tied as in he turned the exact same lap time as Binder. But Digia gets to go through because in the count back, Digia had a second lap.

His second fastest lap was faster than Binder's second fastest lap. So Digia gets to go into qualifying too, which is kind of a bad break for Binder because he's sort of been lost here lately, as most of the KTMs have been. Binder's a good rider, not a great rider, but Acosta is the man who's in charge there. Acosta wants, Acosta gets. So we shall see.

I mean Binder, it must be said, had a good race in Austria. He did? Found something or they've been developing something which he has started to be able to, with his own changes in riding style and so on, has been able to start to kind of take advantage of. And so we saw a continuation of that. And I mean, he missed out by the tiniest of margins in terms of getting through Q2.

I'm just curious on your take on Banyaia though, Jim. I mean, it's kind of like watching the five stages of grief, isn't it, with him? He's sort of gone through the angry stage and the sort of the disbelief bit. And it, well, I don't know, it just kind of seems like a, it's that sort of 40 yard stare now, isn't it? It's just complete, he's not even angry anymore.

I mean, interestingly, he made some pretty punchy comments towards Ducati at the end of the Austrian weekend. And he apologized for that in the Thursday press conference, I think. He kind of rolled back on that rhetoric a little bit and said that he regretted it, which I think was very magnanimous of him to do that. Because how can you say that when the other bikes winning at will, you know? So at this point, he just, it's a bit painful to watch, actually.

I mean, it just doesn't know what to do next, it seems. Whatever they try, it's just nothing's kind of working. And it's, I mean, I don't know what you think, but I think we now expect him to go out, don't we? Yeah. I mean, they're trying, but they can't figure it out.

And I have noticed, I don't know if this is truly a cause, a reason, but do you ever see on the TNT coverage, do you ever see DiGiGiulina anywhere near Benyaia's motorcycle, ever? Rarely. I mean, it's rare. Okay, if it's there, it's rare. From the Thorna feed, like the last two weekends, DiGiGiulina is nowhere near Benyaia's motorcycle.

If they're out on the grid, where's DiGiGiulina? He is by Mark's bike. Now, I do not believe in my har hars that DiGiGiulina is not trying to help Benyaia with that motorcycle. But I believe that actions speak louder than words at times, and it is plain as the nose is on your face that Benyaia is not the favorite son at Ducati anymore. Yeah, and I would support what you've just said by remembering how often Tardozzi and Dillina were down in the Cressini pit when Mark got a second or a third last season.

Have you ever seen them down here this year? Nope. And as far as has been getting one? Nope, nope. So it's clear what the direction of travel has been for quite some time now.

You know, Mark had that 23 bike, and, you know, basically DiGiGiulina was down there, notebook in hand on one knee, listening to Mark talk about what that bike did. And quite honestly, in most of those pictures from that year, DiGia is captivated, captivated by what Mark says. Hanging on every word. He is, yes, he is absolutely captivated by what Mark Marquez is saying. I don't know, is Mark's feedback that much better than Benyaia's?

I don't know. I have no clue. I'll never be able to tell you. Well, and this is the point that I raised earlier on about, is this a danger point for Ducati? Yep.

Do they get sort of lulled into a false sense of security? Because the warning signs are there. Okay, DiGia Antonio had a much better weekend, but that's off the back of several pretty poor weekends, it must be said, on the 25 bike. So it's not as if Benyaia is alone in terms of struggling on the 25. And it is a shame that there's only three of them out there, not four or five.

But, you know, that's just the way it is. So they got one guy that can make it work. Who's a goat? Possibly the goat. Possibly.

Again, that's what we'll part on for another day. And do they find themselves in the HRC conundrum? Which is that it's fine whilst he's there, but what are you left with once he's not? Yeah, I think it's in any motorsport where you have a teammate and you are theoretically in identical equipment, whether it's cars, bikes, whatever, doesn't matter. Formula cars, I don't care.

If the second car, bike, slash whatever, isn't anywhere near the front or in the top five, and there was one guy who is consistently winning, and the other one is 10th, 12th, 15th all the time, you have a problem with your motorcycle or your car. And you better fix it. And you better fix it quick because that means the one person that's doing whatever is special and it's not going to get any better. It's only going to get worse because it may accelerate itself somewhat here because... All right, everybody, we're back.

We just had a 10-minute break as Jim had a major power outage at home. So we've lost track slightly of where we were. But Jim, we were talking about Bagnore being a bit of a lost sheep at the moment, trying all sorts of stuff with the bike, not seemingly able to find a direction, retreating to a position of not blaming Ducati quite so much, but nevertheless looking like a man that's going to have a pretty tough, what, coming four months until this horror show is over. And then the next horror show that he faces is the argument internally at Ducati about whether they run a more 24 bike than a 25 bike next year, which I'm certain Mark Marquez, if he's true to form, might have something to say about. Bregman Yeah, I'm pretty sure we covered a bit of it till the power went out about Gigi and who he's by and how he hangs on Mark's every word and whatnot.

But I mean, Bagnore is lost, that's for sure. I think they're still working at it. It was said later on that he after the race on Sunday, we haven't gotten to yet, but he did say that he finally felt like he could ride the bike like himself. And he seemed really upbeat and really positive about what they found out. Who knows what it is, but if they found it, great.

If they haven't, this is going to be even worse for Bagnore, because the rest of the season is going to be terrible. But I mean, it's already a lost season. But I mean, we're hopeful that Benya can be, you know, next year, be on a Ducati and be equal to Mark or at least give him some kind of a challenge in here. And I mean, if Martin can have a good Aprilia, then hey, you know, things are going to be better. But yeah, at the moment, yeah, it's really tough to be Peco Benya.

It's tough to watch Peco Benya. You can't help but feel sorry for him. I think we're talking about the stages of denial or whatever. And he's just given up or whatever. I was thinking it's more like Dante's Seven Layers of Hell.

And he's now like he's he's now reached like layer, layer five or something, which is I don't know what level five is in Dante's Layers of Hell. But he's there at five where I think you're almost close to the acceptance that, you know, this is it. I'm refined to doing something that I don't want to do for eternity. And who's the devil who stood on the top, waving him down? Something like that, for sure.

Anyway, I just got to say, Jim, I don't give any credence to some of this speculation about the fact that Banyai is out of Ducati next year. No way. Not a chance that's happening. But for me, now, we'll be turning some heads in terms of what happens in the immediate aftermath of, say, Banyai and or Marquez not being there anymore. That's 24 bike.

Yeah, it's a 24 bike. So we have to keep that in mind, you know? Yeah, because the other thing we were talking about was whether they, do you get at risk of going up a bit of a mark Marquez blind alley? They are. It's, you know, this again has that familiar, familiar tune, right?

Lorenzo, Lorenzo can't ride a Honda. Mark is winning races on like there's no tomorrow. And then a year or so later, Mark breaks his arm trying to ride a bike that's unrideable. You've got to believe that it's that Ducati may do that. Right.

But I think it's more that one's more Honda's culture than it is anything else. Right. Honda, I don't think Honda ever wants to admit openly that their motorcycles were good because they had some of the greats riding them. I give you Spencer, doing Gardner, you know, throw Marquez into this. Right.

Because there was a long straight Rossi. Yes. Sorry. Forgot. But yeah, Rossi.

But there was a long stretch when they went to eight hundreds that Honda wasn't winning. They got it wrong. Yeah. They got it wrong because Honda, Honda, again, first things first, I don't know of any Honda motorcycle in Grand Prix racing over the decades. It's actually handled the new one.

They have right now might be the best handling one they've ever had, which is wild to think that right. But on the flip side, it doesn't have any horsepower either. So the chassis may be sucking once you get enough horsepower into it. Right. So there's always that risk that that's going to happen.

But I think that risk is way more cultural for Honda to inherently do that because Ducati literally could have taken this year off and not built a different bike at all. They could have just tinkered with the 24, but they didn't. They built a better what they thought was a better bike. And it's not they're lucky to have Marquez. Honda would look at it and have a great season.

They're like, no, this bike is completely trash. Let's just go pray at the altar of speed again and just make something with so much horsepower that no one can ride it. It's good to have horsepower. But if the rider can't effectively use that horsepower, it's pointless. All that being said, Jim, and I can't remember the guy's name, but Honda HRC have poached KTM's top engine guru guy.

Oh, really? I'm not sure when he goes over because I would imagine he'll be on some sort of gardening leave, but he will produce. That's stupid. The missing horsepower. I'm going to rant here for a second.

I don't understand the idea of gardening leave. Do you seriously think that if you say, you know, if I'm going to leave my work and go to a competitor that in a year off or whatever, I'm going to forget everything I know about what you did, how we did it, what we did. It's ridiculous. I just don't get it. Well, it's more to stop the transition of that knowledge happening any sooner than it absolutely has to, I think, isn't it?

Yeah, I know. But yes, it's very petty. It's petty. Whatever. We're done.

I'm over that. Let's be honest. Sorry, we were just getting to the end of Q1 there. Oh, we were at the end of Q1. Yes.

Looks like that's as far as we got. Yeah, it's as far as we got because then we kind of sidetracked things with Pucpeco. So did you get a second boot because he just traded Binder out, didn't he? Yeah. So we go into the second qualifying session and then Acosta goes down at turn eight.

Now that front end was just a bounce and that wasn't chatter. That was bouncing. There's a difference. Chatter tends to stay on the pavement. This one was not on the pavement.

Acosta did everything he could to save it. He eventually winds up just letting go and tosses it away. As you correctly said earlier, the gravel is deep to slow in an effort to slow the bikes down. However, that makes it very easy for handlebars, foot pegs, and things to dig in. And Acosta's bike gets to tumbling, gets to rolling, and what does it do?

It bounces up and smacks the camera that's there in turn eight. And you know Acosta's got the great view of this, right? Because he's sliding in on his back. He can see everything that's going on. You can watch Acosta look.

You can almost see his eyes go big behind the tinted visor at, oh, bleep because this is going to be bad because I may have potentially be going to kill a cameraman at this moment, right? Thank the lucky stars that the bike just kind of, I'll call it grazed the actual camera and then fell to the ground in a piled heap of absolute trash. I don't think you could salvage anything out of that motorcycle because it was trashed from that. Luckily, Acosta then jumps to his feet, looks to the camera guy who signals, hey, yeah, I'm okay after having left his post, which then Acosta then grabs a scooter from some journalist, photographer, whatever, and hauls back to the pits. So you can laugh about it now because it wasn't serious, right?

It was close. The reactions of the people involved make it funny, right? Because of what's going on. Now, to the team's credit, to Acosta's credit, they invited the camera guy down. Acosta met him.

They talked for a bit. Are you okay? Yeah. Did you break the camera? Well, I broke my bike.

Haha. Which was kind of a funny moment in the pits. He's like, hey, do you want to come see the box? So Acosta takes him in, tours him around. He signs a knee puck for him, a slider, knee slider.

And he's like, hey, I'll stop by after the race and say hi. Anytime. And he does. And Acosta does at the end of the race on Sunday. And I think it was great of Acosta to do that way.

I mean, Acosta is a real person too. And I think sometimes we tend to put the racers, the good racers on a pedestal and all that, but they are good people. And that was Acosta being a good person and doing what was right by him. I don't think that was the team saying, well, really we need to go over here, do blah, blah, blah. No, no, no.

Hey, where's the camera guy? Can I see him? I want to be sure he's okay. I don't think you ever find any more truer people than motorcycle racers. I've known some car racers that are real pain in the you know what.

But Acosta's not that way. So Acosta gets back or whatever. He gets back, he gets a spare or whatever. Marquez is on, at this time is on pole, then Bastianini, then Mir. Which is, whoa, there's a Honda that close.

Obviously the Hondas were probably going to be good because they handle, although Zarco couldn't figure it out, but Mir seemed to have it figured out. And again, you rate Mir and I'm pot and cold as to whether Mir is that great. So I'm not sure where to put that. But it does appear that he had something going right at this point in time. But when it came down to it at the end, Digia kind of bounced up to third.

Acosta bounced up to fifth, but he also got balked by yellow flags when he had a good run going. But Marquez would take pole, Bez would be second, Digia gets third, then Bastianini and then Morbidele, Quattroraio and Acosta. So Acosta would wind up at least starting sixth, which put him in a good place. But Acosta was really the only person from practice who had a chance at being near Marquez. So I think Marquez could pull something special out and have a one lap flyer.

Acosta, we haven't seen that really from him in a MotoGP bike, but I wouldn't put it past the kit because if you look back to Austria, he was like three tenths faster through the first three sectors and probably should have been on pole in Austria, but did have that big front end tuck in 10. And that kept him from being on pole. So could Acosta have been on pole? If some butts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a very Merry Christmas, right? But that's called racing and that's why you line up for the sprint.

I would throw Marco Bezzecki into the mix on that as well, Jim, because he, I think what we're seeing with Bez is that he builds through Friday and Saturday. Agreed. What we haven't obviously seen yet, again, going back to Martín, and at risk of repeating myself slightly, but Martín is the qualifier extraordinaire, let's not forget. So maybe he will start to trouble or at least push Marquez into having to stretch his limits. A little bit further, but I agree Acosta is explosive over a lap and that KTM is certainly getting much better.

Very much so. Pointing out as we come to the discussion about the track in a minute. So Marquez's pole-out was 1.36.518. I think that was his pole time. I don't remember.

Top rat, Rascati Argue's, well, super bike, sorry, just murdered his surname then. It's late, but his pole time a couple of months ago, or six weeks ago, whatever it was, was a 1.38. 3.97, so yeah, about, well, not quite two seconds slower a lap, but fairly significantly slower across what is quite a short lap. Yeah, and a tight lap. Wow.

Yeah. So if we look at how qualifying finishes out, we had our first three, right? Then Bastianini, Morbidelli, and Quattraro take up the second row. Then Acosta, Outiger, and Marini take the third row, followed by Mir, Alex Marquez, and Paul Aspargo finishing on that fourth row. We go to the sprint, right?

Marquez just gets a great start on this one, right? Quattraro then goes whipping up the inside. What was that line? Casey Stoners asked Rossi, what happened? Did your ambition outweigh your talent?

Something to that effect. Basically, that happens to Quattraro where he took his brain out and set it on the shelf with the helm with his baseball cap before he got on the bike. He goes up the inside and winds up smashing into Bastianini. Somehow, Bastianini stays upright, but the bike's aero on the back is completely trashed. Quattraro did get a long lap penalty for the race on Sunday, which was fair.

He really did talk that up, let's be honest. If we go back to the racing or whatever, it's what you expect. There's really nothing happening other than Marquez is out front. There is a pretty good battle that's happening behind them and whatnot, right? Nothing much else happens.

Aldiger does get by Mir along the way, right? Because Amir Mir ran wide. Acosta would fall at turn 11. He was through another one away in the gravel trap again. The only thing that's interesting is the race ends out, is the fact that Marquez gets a track limits warning, which you're saying, potentially this could be a long lap if he doesn't settle himself down and get it together.

But he does, so he wins the sprint. He beats Fabio Giudiantonio who climbed to second. Morbidelli is third, so it's a great day for VR46. Marini would be fourth. Aldiger fifth.

Mir sixth. So Honda has a great day, pretty much, right? Bizecki is seventh this time. And then Alex Marquez is eighth. And then Martín gets a point in ninth, having raced up from where he was back in there.

That's what happens in the sprint, which not a lot of great action there, would you say, Rich? Well, I wrote a couple of things. I mean, very little to write about in terms of the race. Although my opinion would change slightly the following day, albeit very slightly, I wrote in my notes, this track is not fit for purpose for MotoGP. I think I put it on a WhatsApp to you.

And that it kind of by comparison, it makes Valencia look like Philip Island. That's how bad I thought the track was in terms of the MotoGP sprint. And I wrote the sprint goes by very quickly. Thank, well, thank Beat. I won't say what I wrote down, but because it was, yeah, not an exciting experience.

And you are left thinking, you know, that's half an hour of my life that I will never ever get back. I agree. So, yeah. It was terrible. I'm not going to lie, it was terrible.

Was a slightly better day across all three races, but. So Sunday is a Sunday. It was a better day. So let's talk about Sunday real quick. And then we'll have a discussion about the track because that's a subject all to itself.

But I think you need to kind of get the full effect of three races in before we talk about that. We do have some drama that's we have some drama that's kind of happening here at the beginning. The Digia's bike, he finds a problem with the bike when he comes around from the siding lap to get out of the pits to get to grid. So there's a big discussion about what's wrong with the bike or what are they going to do and da da da da. And so they're not sure what to do about it.

And they actually are talking to, I cannot think of his name. I should have wrote it down, but the guy who's the head technical officer of MotoGP, they're asking what is the rules if we take the bike off the grid? What is it if we leave it on the grid? What if we change bikes? What do we got to do?

Da da da da. You know, hey, Digia, what, what, what, what way do you want to play this? Because if we leave the bike here, we start from our position. If you then, if we take it off the grid, well, then we got to start from the back of the grid. If we take that bike.

So now you're going to be at the back. Oh, but if you want to, we could, you know, basically swap bikes after the warmup lap. Then you'd have to leave by from pit lane, but you'd be at pit lane and not at the back of the grid. And all these decisions have got to be made, right? Digia says, well, I'm going to go with it.

I think it's fixed. Let's just take it. Well, on the warmup lap, some warning light comes on to Digia's bike. And Digia basically then bails for the pit lane. So he was going to get on the spare bike, which he did get on.

And then he had to start from absolute dead last because he would receive a green light after the field had gotten through turn one. And then he would be released from the pit lane. So we had all that going on, which you got to feel sorry for did you, right? I mean, yeah, because he was still on the grid. So it was third on the grid.

You know, he had a very good sprint race. Let's be honest. And the boringness that it was, Digia did really well there. His teammate did really well, too. Right.

So you're like, man, that's kind of sucks for Digia. But for the 26 laps at the start, you know, Mark, yep, he's into the first turn. First turn first, you know, he's a little bit wide. And then Bez dives into that small little hole, kind of a la Dixon. So, you know, was Bez watching what Dixon did that did?

Hey, I'm going to break a little earlier, turn a little tighter, gas it up a little sooner. Everybody else is going to kind of want to run wide. And if, you know, Bez gets the lead, it's like, wow, that was not what I expected. I'd be I expected Marquez to have the whole shot and be done. Then that's it.

Right. So Bez kind of gets in there now and basically they touch because the way Bez was going, the way he came into two, he had to roll off and he didn't have as much drive. Mark had more drive from the way that he entered the turn. And Mark didn't expect Bez to be as slow as he was in the line. And they wind up touching each other.

Now Marquez almost goes over the high side, having touched the side of, you know, the left rear of Bezeky's bike with his right front. And he almost goes over the bars. I mean, not almost. I mean, it disrupted it, right? It stood him up.

He caught it again. But that dropped him back to third. I'm like, well, now it's third and it's Mark Marquez. What do you think is going to happen now? Because it's well, it's a track you can't pass on, Jim.

Okay. You obviously don't know Mark Marquez nor were you paying any attention to the Moto3 slash Moto2 race, right? There are obviously, there is ways to pass, right? You just have to have some, some, some gall, but and go after it or whatever. But that's how we get through sort of the first few corners, right?

So Bez is leading from Morbidele, then from Marquez, then Acosta, then Aldegir, then Luca Marini, and then more, Jorge Martín was seventh. So Martín got a really good start too, right? In the chaos of that first turn, Martín came out with it pretty good. Alex wound up going down at turn one. So he was down.

I think he remounted and tried it again and whatnot. Martín had got himself to sixth. Then Mir and Raul Fernandez, they crashed together. So normal systems are resuming for Juan Mir. He's taken out by somebody else in a race or no, did he take out?

Well, Fernandez crashed. Oh yeah, they had some crashes. But Mir just went down in sympathy. Now, was there something on the track? I don't think so.

I think that's right. They were talking about target fixation or whatever, but yeah, just weird. But they both kind of crashed completely independently of each other in the same place. Yeah. Sometimes you are using somebody as a marker.

You do tend to do that. You follow it. You get that. I totally forgot about how that had actually gone down. Yeah, that little twitch there.

Now, Bez for his effort was trying to check out. Bez was putting in the best laps that he possibly could to get through. This is with 20 laps to go in the race. Mark's now second. He's taking care of getting through Morbidele.

That was like boom, bang. Thank you. Bye. I'm going on. And you're like, okay, well, this is interesting.

It's like now it's not a matter of if this is going to happen. It's when is it going to happen? Because now there's only one person between Mark and the lead. But Acosta in between this now what moves the third, he takes it at the eight, nine chicane. But Mark tried to turn one, but he went wide.

Bez still leads. He took the lead again. Right. Then Mark tries to turn five, but he's wide. Bez goes back into the lead again.

You're like, okay, these you to me, I looked at that and I go, yeah. Marquez, I think they had a half a second or more, I think, ahead of Acosta. They were some distance up the track. Mark obviously saw his board. He knew Acosta wasn't there.

These were trial runs to figure out where he was going to take Bez. Mark did not care one iota that he was wide. Didn't bother him. Didn't faze him. It was all part of the, I believe it was all part of the Mark Marquez training to get this right.

It was going to take some fiddling because he hadn't had to pass anybody all week. Right. So you got to figure out how to do it. But equally fair play to Bezeki as well for making a fight of it. Because a lot of people could easily roll over at that point and just say, well, Mark's on me now or just pass me.

But Bez, he did this in Austria as well, if you recall. He did fight back and made a fight of it for one or two laps. But let's be honest, we all know which way it was going to end up ultimately. Right. Yep.

I agree. Eventually, Mark does get by. He does it on lap 11 of 26. He gets by Bezeki. He did it at turn one.

Turn one, turn two. He got in deep enough, pushed Bez out, took the line. Typical block pass. Took care of it. He had business.

That basically was the move of the race. He's now on his way to victory. Audeger would go down at turn one. Audeger was having a great ride again, right, a la Austria. Audeger was coming, but Audeger misjudged the braking, lost it down turn one.

Bez had a mistake at the turn 15, 16 chicane. Acosta took advantage of that mistake and got by at turn one. Acosta was now second, which you kind of expected that to happen, given what you'd seen from qualifying and all that. Acosta should have been the second man to Mark Marquez, and he was. Along the way, we had five to go.

Zarco was down, and that was a very fast crash that Zarco had. He was down. Martín had gotten by with five laps to go. Martín had gotten by Morbidelli to be fourth, fifth. Fourth, fifth.

Fourth, sorry. Fourth, fifth. But the race finishes with Marquez winning. Acosta is on the podium in second, which this is a really good ride from Acosta. Given the adversity of what happened, the bikes that he damaged for him to come second from where he was on the grid was really good.

Bezeki would be on the podium in third. Martín would be fourth. Then Luca Marini fifth, which I was shocked Marini was that high. That really shocked me. I'm really surprised.

Marini is a good rider, but his days are probably numbered at HRC. Yeah, and I think actually that's a lot about how good the bike is starting to get, even excepting that it has some power issues, which is a crazy thing to say about a Honda. But they'll turn that around with this guy they brought in from KTM or who is coming from KTM. I think it tells you a lot of the reason why Martín was trying to break his contract to go on the bike next year. It very well possibly could be.

Definitely coming. Honda's going to come good here shortly, that's for sure. Morbideli would sink to sixth. Binger is seventh. A Paul Sparger on the KTM eighth.

So he had KTM second, he had KTM seventh, KTM eighth. That's pretty good for KTM given where they started the season. Let's be honest. Benyaya got to a ninth place. Now remember, I think he started 15th or 16th on the grid and got to ninth, which means that he had to be able to break and turn and score it out his acceleration.

So maybe there is something. Maybe finally we have found the secret sauce that we've been waiting for for Peco Benyaya to be good on his Ducati. I'm curious to see what happens in Catalonia. I don't think it's going to last. I think it's false hope, but I'm hoping because I'd love to see Peco at least try to beat Marc.

I agree. I'll show you a sentiment about hoping because we need Benyaya in the mix. But look who was behind him in terms of, you know, Quattro on a Yamaha that isn't working. Aguera who had a good couple of rounds at the beginning of the season, has had a bit of a mirror ever since. Olivera rins on the Yamahas again.

Alex Marquez who had a penalty to serve in that race and Digio who started from the pits. So ninth, yes, but and he, I think Benyaya at some stage had a long nap penalty because he cut a chicane and didn't drop a second. So yeah, I mean, ninth is not a great result for full stop, but you can take some small crumb of comfort from it. I suppose he finished, but I mean, it's bad. Not looking good, is it?

So if we look at the championship, Marc has 455 points, which that is truly amazing. And in fact, I've got something else about Marc that is interesting statistics, right? Just because it's this way. If you look at his here, he has a 71.4% Grand Prix win rate this year. He has a 92.8% podium rate this year.

He has a 92.8% sprint win rate. He has lost one sprint all year, all year. He has a combined win rate of 82.1% for sprints and the races on Sunday. And he has amassed 87.8% of all possible points to be scored. He has 87.8% of them.

I'd love to see what his percentage of laps led for the season. I'm sorry. I don't have that one. No, no, no, no, fair enough. But I would imagine it's well into the 80% zone as well.

So that leaves his brother 175 points shy. There are 296 points left for going to Catalunya. If Alex finishes fifth or worse in both of those rounds, Marc's champion in Misano. Can be. It can happen.

He can be. It's very, very possible because Benyaya is not going to solve this problem and delay Marc from winning the championship. The only one who can delay Marc winning the championship is his brother. And unfortunately, his brother has lost form, unfortunately, that's sort of kind of what happens with Alex. He's season goes on.

He kind of makes small mistakes and then they multiply and they just, you know, just kind of fades away. The bigger problem for Alex Marquez is that his teammate starting to show him up as well. Who's a rookie, let's not forget. True. But do you rate Alex Marquez better than you do Furman-Altagir?

That's a really tough question. It is. That's why I asked it. Yeah, no, fair enough. I mean, Alex Marquez is a Moto3 and a Moto2 world champion.

So that's correct. As if he doesn't have pedigree. He certainly does. I don't buy into all this stuff that he's only kind of got to where he's got because of his brother. I don't really buy into that wholeheartedly.

So do I think he's better than Altagir? I think Altagir is better than Alex Marquez. I really do. I do too. I'm not going to not going to share care of this one.

I mean, look, if it was all about your brother, if it was all about his brother and his brother's name, then Tommy Hayden and Roger Lee Hayden would both be a MotoGP. Right? Yeah, that's a good point. They aren't. Yeah.

Right. So it takes talent to get there. So if you're going to get there, you're going to get there on your own. Again, you cannot deny that Alex is a Moto3 world champion and a Moto2 world champion. I was trying to think if he did it on a 125, but I think- No, it was Moto3.

Yeah, he beat Wins, didn't he? I think he did. Yeah. So, but I mean, you know, he's not a slouch, but he's not, again, he's not alien territory like his brother. And again, he's another of these riders that takes quite some seasons to sort of build the form.

And he's certainly made good on the form. So to give him his dues there, but Altagir is kind of what I would call an explosive talent in the same way that David Alonso is an explosive talent and Pedro Acosta is an explosive talent. I mean, if you think about it, if when Marquez retires and says, I've had enough and I'm done, and quite honestly, he could hang his helmet up anytime he wants now. And legitimately, he's going to still be probably the goat. But it is a tempting concept to think about Alonso, Acosta, Altagir all at the front and winning races.

It would hearken you back to sort of like the 1990, I'm going to go with like 1990 season, Lawson, Rainey, Schwartz, Gardner, Dewey, and any of them could win on any day. So yeah, hope springs eternal, Rich. And the only constant is change. So, you know, Marquez won't be around forever. Nobody ever is.

And what's good is that we can seal these potential goats coming through. So that gives you great cause for optimism as to the quality of the racing in the future. Let's just hope they sort out the bloody racetracks as part of that equation. All right. Since you mentioned it, let's get to the track, right?

The track has been given a lot of flak over the weekend that it's unfit and unsuitable for MotoGP. I do not disagree with any of that, right? There were far too many bikes that went far too far into the wall. Oh, we didn't even talk about the most important part of it, right? So Acosta's bike almost gets a camera guy, right?

I mean, by the luck of about three feet, the camera guy doesn't get hurt, right? Or maybe killed, right? What we forgot about in the race, I totally forgot this, of course, you know, you have a power failure, you got to restart again, you forget where you are. But the thing is, is that Bastianini falls in a chicane and he's sliding into traffic that's going to be coming from what would be his left, right? He looks over to his left and I swear you could see the fear in his eyes that he was going to get nailed by somebody and by the grace of God, everybody was around him and didn't hit him because he was kind of being carried with the bike.

I think his one leg was maybe kind of under the bike a little bit at the seat section or he was at least close to the bike because I know he was going with it, right? Yeah. If Bastianini had gotten struck, I mean, you know, I don't know if he would have been hurt. I doubt that he gets away without a broken something, right? But if he got hit in the chest head on, that's potentially life threatening there, right?

Even at relatively low speed like that was, but they're still heavy bikes. It's a heavy bike, right? And it's blunt force drama that's going to get you. And the track is too short, too narrow. The gravel traps are too deep.

The walls are too close. I think there, as Martin said in one of his emails, who's starting the petition? Who is starting the petition to get us out of ballaton? Like, hey, Liberty, there's a couple of other tracks you could go to that are within three or four hours of where this is that would be far better to race a MotoGP bike on. I don't know the names of those circuits.

I'm going by what I've seen Simon Patterson say on social media. But we've dodged bullets twice here. If you go back anymore, you're going to get somebody hurt and get them hurt fairly bad, I think. Yeah. I mean, I said earlier on, I just think it's not fit for purpose.

No. For anything outside of people going around on track days on 600cc bikes, for example. Okay. So as I said earlier on, six weeks ago or so, maybe a little bit less, but it doesn't matter. World Superbike was there.

And the racing was okay. There was, I mean, Baratista had a big crash. I think I referenced it as we were kind of talking about this race coming up. He had a big crash at that turn eight. Is it where Acosta went down and had his whopper?

Yes. Again, totalled his bike. It was a bit further around the corner, so it went a bit further, but it still hit the barrier. And there you're thinking, well, if a World Superbike can get there, then MotoGP is going to be even sketchier. And there was a lot of concern about this going into the weekend.

And I think that for the most part, that was born out. What I just find hard to understand, and I don't know how much land was bought to build the track, but it's a brand new track. And for it to even be sanctioned for MotoGP, I can't get my head around. Given how restricted the space is there, I can't understand how it even got through the planning stages, let alone the approval stages from a safety standpoint. So lots of question marks.

I mean, for me, the Acosta crash and the ease with which that bike went airborne and hit the tower where the cameraman was. And as you say, Jim, I mean, a couple of inches of these aside, and you might be looking at a dead cameraman there. I mean, he was an extraordinarily hearty fellow to sort of stand back, brush it off, put his thumb up to another camera and sort of flag it away as if it was so no big deal. I mean, I thought it was a big deal. I mean, fair play to the guy, but they were bloody lucky that he wasn't killed.

I mean, that's basically the short end of what we're saying here. And I would have thought that on that occurrence alone, they've got grounds to move the race somewhere else, just because it's not fit for MotoGP bikes, not the current generation. And I don't think the 850s will be much better because the likelihood is they'll be going through turn eight quicker. So that ain't going to make the walls any further away, is it? If anything, they're going to feel a bit closer still.

So I just don't think it's suitable at all. And as I said last time out, whilst you might say, well, World Superbike is OK there, because they're a couple of seconds a lap slower, fine, keep World Superbike and MotoGP separate at venues. I don't like the fact that we go to the same places. I just don't think it's good for either series. It creates some differences, and that's one easy way to do it.

And on a track as sketchy as that one, I just think you'd be looking at Kaya Lahmi. I mean, I was talking about Istanbul Park again, as we've mentioned several times. Martin, I think, popped up on Twitter and said it's fallen into disrepair, not disrepute, disrepair that track through lack of use and stuff, which is understandable. But with Toprak coming on board, I would have thought there could be some way to hopefully get it back on the calendar. And that would make an awful lot more sense than going a couple of hours up the road, because you've already got Brno, you've got Austria, they're all pretty close to each other.

Again, we talked about this last time out. So no geography, Rich. It's a world championship. Go somewhere much further afield, because we've got unlike some of the concerns around Formula 1, for example, where races in Europe are dying out, that's not a problem in MotoGP at the minute. So we could afford to go to Africa or somewhere else in Asia or, you know, lots of different places that we could go.

And I just think, yeah, it's just it's a boring track. It's dangerous. There's clearly nothing they can do to change it. I mean, let's not forget a lot of the chicanes that are there were put in to slow it down and make it, in inverted commas, safer, which it would have done in some ways. But for every option, every action has an opposite and equal reaction.

And that's the Bastianini kind of event where he goes skating across the chicane. As I said before, we start to record engine, we see the same thing happening on occasion in turn two at Le Mans. That's the problem with chicanes. I wish we didn't have chicanes, but obviously they have to slow them down in certain places for safety reasons. Fair enough.

But those chicanes are so tight that a bike is just going to go sailing across and back onto the track as we saw. And if a rider is there as well, as you said, he was very vulnerable for a couple of seconds there. And again, thankfully, nobody nobody hit him. But that's not to say it wouldn't happen another time. So lots of people have been ranting about it.

I'll say no more. I don't know what other people think I can write in and let us know. But I can think of at least four or five other tracks that I'd rather be out than this one. Name them. Well, I've named two already.

Right. I think I would go back to the Nurburgring in Germany. Well, I was going to say one of the German tracks. I mean, maybe Hockenheim would be a bit too sketchy. And it's the short Hockenheim, but probably the Nurburgring could be made to work.

I think they could do something there. But I'm not talking about the Nordisch life. I'm talking purpose built track. Let's be honest. Let's be sure that we're there.

I mean, there's a lot of talk about Spa trying to become MotoGP friendly. And I think they, sorry, Rich, I think that they're trying to do that because I think they see the handwriting on the wall that they're not going to be grandfathered in as a classic track that Formula One is always going to go to. Spa has had an on and off relationship with F1. And I think they're like, look, you have a, they've got to a point where like we can't afford the fees. It's a great racetrack.

No doubt about it, which I love to see MotoGP bikes there. Hell yeah. You've got to, I mean, they did a lot of work. They moved a lot of dirt at All Rouge to make sure that there's runoff there. Now they needed it for the cars, but they kind of did enough to make it, you know, are we halfway there to being able to do it?

Do you have to have some sketchiness there for it? I don't know, but you could go there. I mean, you know, the thing of it is we also complained that we were in Spain too much. Right. So yes, I applaud going to a different country, i.e.

Hungary, right. But there's, you know, I'd love to see them go to the Hungararing where the Formula One cars are. I think it would be a better one. Obviously there's always politics and money involved in these things and regulations and stuff. It's not just a question of going, oh, we'll go there instead.

I do accept that. But for example, the track in India is great. Yes, that's fallen away, you know, as quickly as it appeared. So that's a shame because I know it's a severe challenge in terms of the weather and the location and blah, blah, blah. But that's one that's missing off the calendar.

I mean, you know, think of the market in India. Yeah. You know, for selling motorcycles, it makes no sense not to be there. Okay. There are other considerations that are causing trouble there.

I do understand that. So there are, I mean, okay, I was going to say Suzuka, which I, but I don't think Suzuka is necessarily any worse on safety grounds than the Ballaton Park, really, from what we've seen. And they're running, as with Spa, they're running the sort of the 24-hour or endurance eight-hour races at those tracks. So, you know, they are still at world standard, maybe not quite at MotoGP standard, but there are plenty of other tracks that we could look at. We could go back to China.

We could go back to China. I didn't think that was, that's not a half bad track per se. I mean, but whatever. I mean, if you're looking to add tracks, I mean, I think you could go to Bahrain. I think that one would be safe enough.

You know, so there's plenty of money in the Middle East. They're going to want to do something, right? I mean, what is so bizarre, and we said this before we started recording, is that, you know, they had a blank piece of land to build Ballaton Park. And that's what they came up with. Yeah, I don't understand that at all.

It's a decent location. The lake is nearby. That lake is huge from what they said. And I get it. The land is as flat as a pool table.

There's no elevation. So you're not going to be able to do anything, you know, super crazy, let's say. But you can look at the track in Thailand and the track in Mandelica in Indonesia. Those are right by the seashore. And they're relatively flat.

I think Mandelica has got a bit more elevation to it than Thailand is. But Thailand is an interesting track because of the way they laid it out. There's, you know, some sectors that take some work and some effort to do it. And you could have done there. I mean, they cover much bigger areas in terms of the land that they occupy.

And I think that's key. This Hungary, again, we don't know how much they actually borrow in terms of space. And that's the problem. So you've got the track sort of switching back on itself. And there's just no room for runoff or not enough room for enough runoff.

And that's why we saw what we saw. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, they've got a contract for the race to run the next year. It's on the provisional calendar. So but as I wrote rather naughtily on an X or tweet, you know, I think how the hell are Liberty supposed to sell that shit?

You know, because, okay, you can make an argument that there were decent bits of each of the races on the Sunday. The sprint was turgid nonsense. The motor race was okay in the last couple of laps. Motor two was okay in the last five laps. And there was a little bit of action in the middle of the Moto GP race.

But really, other than that, it was pretty hard work to get through as far as I was concerned. And I'm a dyed in the wool fan. How the hell a casual viewer is meant to sit and watch any of that? It's just not going to happen. And that's Liberty's problem.

And how can you sell that? Yeah, I don't think you can. You need much, much more exciting races and events and locations than that. Yeah, I don't disagree with you, Rich, but let's have a race at the bridge. Yeah, they're making it better.

The ridge is getting better and better and better. And I mean, at some point I'm going to have to go out there and watch a Moto A race just because I think it's a fantastic, it seems like a fantastic racetrack. I mean, you know, what a flat rock comes on and we get flat rock, you know, that one will be epic because that's up and down and around on the side of a mountain. Okay, not a mountain, the hill. Let's be honest about that one.

But yeah, I don't know what to do. I mean, this is for the boffins at Liberty to figure out what they're going to do and how they're going to sell this. It's not our job to figure it out. We just want good racing and competitive racing. And I don't think you're seeing really competitive racing in Moto GP right now.

And I think it's not Mark Marquez's fault, right? It's the fault of the other people are not as fast as he is. And that tends to happen. Rossi was at Rossi to go back to Gareth's email. Rossi understood the show.

Well, I know I can win this one. I'm going to hang out here in third for a while and then I'm going to like the last five laps. I'll get going. And I agree Rossi did that a lot. There was many a race that Rossi just sat back, relaxed, chilled out, passed a couple people, let them pass him back and I just went it this way.

Win at the slowest possible speed. I think that's what Jackie Stewart said. And that's kind of what Marquez has been doing this year. Yeah, I agree. Marquez is a changed person as far as after those first couple of crashes he had there at the beginning of the year, he is right at that ship, settled it down and like, okay, look, this is how you did it.

Yeah, I tend to, I was slightly disparaging towards Rossi earlier on. And then last night, I don't know why it came up on my YouTube feed, but I watched the 2003 Australian Grand Prix where he had the penalty for passing under the yellow and did the whole, okay, I'll just pull out 10 seconds and I win it that way. And I've said it before, I'll say it again. That was the greatness of the guy. He could do it if he had to.

Yep. That could have been every MotoGP race for about four or five years, Rossi could have won every race by that distance. Guaranteed. Yeah. Yet Rossi didn't.

He knew the, he understood the show. But that is the one time you saw Rossi race his heart out to win because he had to. And I would say he felt convincingly put a statement down on it. That's right, on the Yamaha. Oh yeah.

He knew that that was a pivotal moment in his legacy. Yes. To win that one. Especially after the Riccardi Finesse fiasco. Oh God, that was so good.

So yeah, I mean, Rossi was great as well. He really, really, really was. I just think he went on for far too long. And that's in a way that's tarnished his legacy. And you have to go back and watch some of those early 2000 races or even when he first jumped on the NSR 500.

Because he was really good on that very quickly. Yeah. Yep. Who can forget the Suzuka finger in the air going past BRG. There's a bit of payback for putting him on the grass.

I mean, that was just classic. Anyway. We got to get out of this one. We've gone way long. You'll have a monster edit there.

So that's everything that we thought of for the Hungry Grand Prix. Love to hear what you guys have to say. Write us motopod at motopodcast.com. That's the email address and we'll be more than happy to entertain you. With thoughts and comments about all that.

So ride safe, everyone. And let us know if you're hungry for more. See what I did there, Jim? Oh. Yeah, that was bad.

That should be the title of this episode. Hungry for more? Question mark. There we go. There we go.

That's the title. Sorry, everybody. We're sort of ad-libbing again. Yes, we'll see you next time. We've got a week off and then it's Barcelona.

Catch you next time.