The Island and Sepang

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 818, recording November 4th, 2025.

We're going to talk about Philip Island and the Sepang GPs. Yes, I know it's been a while. We're back. Richard's with us here. Say hello, Rich, to the people.

Hello, Rich. Yeah. So we must apologize for not getting episodes out here for both Sepang and Philip Island. The problem was that both Rich and I were traveling and we became many, many, many time zones apart, which would nullify us being able to get together and actually do the show. And then there was internet trouble.

There was some stuff on my side that was causing problems. It's just been a, it's one of those things, guys. But we'll be going on a lot going on, but we're here now. We're going to talk about it, give you a condensed version of everything that happened over the last two GPs, get you ready and primed for the two, two that are left on the Iberian peninsula. That's not geography.

That's really what it is. I got that when I looked it up. And we'll get right on into with this one. First of all, I want to shout out everybody who's supporting the show. Be great.

If you could scratch up a little bit of change, you can go to our website, www.motopodcast.com. There's links to PayPal, Patreon, and that'd be great. If you can't, hey, that's fine. Why don't you leave us a review like Skald Baldwin did? That was a great review.

Thank you, Scott, for going out there and taking the time to let a review and help us get to the top of the algorithms again. So with all that craziness there, let's talk about the news that we've got going into this, Rich, what do you say? Start there? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, actually, we should start with listener feedback. Sorry. I, it's been so long, forgot how to do a show, you know? So we had this very intriguing email from Jacob Rauer about the Phillip Island flutter. And so you kind of condense what Jacob said.

He noticed how much the bikes were all moving around and had the wobbles and the wiggles and everything at this time at Phillip Island. And we've seen it before, but the question is like, why does it seem so much more pronounced? Rich, you'd replied to him first and you had stated your belief of it being the wind, which I agree with you partially. But I think there was more to it than just the wind, because there's always been the wind at Phillip Island. If you remember back, Rich, remember back when they used to drill holes all through the fairings.

Remember Lorenzo having his Yamaha just like Swiss cheese to let the air through for the crosswinds. Because that's the thing that really kind of gets a motorcycle is that crosswind. But I think the wind and the combination of how quickly these guys get on the ride height device and how fast the ride height device lowers the back of the bike was playing into all of these wobbles that we were seeing on the main straightaway. Because that's actually going uphill and then you kind of crest the hill and come back down just past the apex. And if you've watched numerous MotoGP races this year, especially if you've got anybody who's following someone on board, you can see just how fast the rear ride height device lowers it and how far into the back of the corner it actually starts.

So I think with like, Bizecki's bike was the one that I thought was, at least in a sprint race, was wobbling more than anybody else's because he kind of had to come through the pack. And if you noticed, he was definitely getting the bike to lower down almost right at the apex, or as soon as he got to the point where he wanted to pick the throttle back up again, he lowers the ride height device. You go over the little bump that's there and since you were taking the aerodynamics that caused the front end to be pushed into the ground, you're now rotating that backwards on the axis with the rear end going down to kind of trim out the bike to make it go faster in a straight line. Not only that, it also then creates a place for the wind to catch and pick the front end up. And a couple laps after, one or two really pretty massive wobbles, Bizecki was not letting the ride height device work until he had gotten himself upright and straight on the main straightaway.

I think that's what's behind it all, Rich. Your comments, if you want to, on that as well? Yeah, I mean, I've been, I think I've said a few times actually throughout the season, and I've certainly noticed that just about every round how particularly, yeah, twitchy, I suppose is the right word, the Aprilia in Bizecki's hands. I mean, it's been very noticeable all year long, much more so than anybody else, with the notable exception in recent races, of course, of Peco Bagnar. He was the one, obviously, that was having some serious tank slappers on the main straight at Phillip Island.

And I think I suspect that's what Jake was kind of getting at as a sort of main focal point of what the hell's going on there. I suspect, I can't precisely remember what I said in my response, but I think it was a combination of the wind, the wings, which obviously once, I mean, anybody that's ridden the bike probably at some stage has had a tank slapper of one sort or another on a MotoGP bike with that much power, all those wings and so on and devices kind of setting up oscillations and stuff. It just looked horrible, Bagnar's bike. Now, perhaps partly it's where he's been, well, as we're going to talk about, Bagnar had a very good spang and an awful Phillip Island. So whether he was chasing set up there and the bike was just not to his liking, I mean, I think we've probably given up trying to figure out Peco Bagnar season, haven't we, Jim?

So I have. Like all of these things, it's rather complicated. I expect the actual reason. But so my thought is the wind probably was a bit simplistic, although the wind was a problem, as it usually is at Phillip Island, along with seagulls and other things. So, but yeah, thank this again, Jake writes in with his thoughts and questions frequently and we very much appreciate it.

Yeah. Quickly with Bagnar's bike, I think Ducati at Motegi or Mandelica tried making the bike very pointy. So I think they kind of collapsed the wheelbase, maybe pulled the rake in a little bit to try to give you more weight, more feel onto the front end for Benya along with the older ride height device possibly. Who knows? We've heard all kinds of rumors.

And I think when you do that to Phillip Island on a track that you kind of want a lazy bike at Phillip Island, you don't want it to be quickly, to quickly turn. You want it to turn, then set itself because you let along radius corners and really there's really like one really good braking point and that's turn four and it's on the flat. And so there you got to have the feel on the front. So I think Benya's bike was twisty because twitchy because they just didn't have the weight on the front or the wheelbase had gotten so short that that thing was just going to go every which direction that it wanted to. I thought, I think in my reply, I think even said, you know what, I wonder if Ducati's got some crack somewhere in this system or something that they just haven't found yet, which I can't believe that they would.

Right. That's some wild speculation by my point because I've only ever seen what Benya's bike was doing as violently as it was if something had cracked at the triple tree or you had a crack around where the swing arm mounted to the frame, something like that. So that's what I was saying that that's there. But that's things race teams know they're 100% on top of all of that. And I'm not trying to suggest that they had been out there on an unsafe bike.

That's not the point. No, no, no. But there's something that they had in the setup that really just disagree with Phillip Island and the wind at that time. And they just can't get themselves out of that hole that they're in, which is just bizarre. Team of Ducati's status can't figure this one out with Benya.

It's just shocking. And that. Well, I mean, Empires rise and empires fall, Jim, at the end of the day, and nothing stays the same forever. I mean, they've been, you might argue, pretty lucky to have Mark Marquez on the bike this year. Not lucky exactly, but you know what I mean.

And as we were replying just before we hit record, your view is I'm not quite sure I'm fully with you, but your view is that the Ducati is not the best bike anymore. So, but you know, Ducati find themselves in a position of having to chase the settings a bit now. And perhaps that is leading to more compromises than we've been used to seeing. And Benya, who we know to be quite a sensitive rider in terms of setup, just keeps finding himself either in a, well, rarely in a sweet spot, although it has happened a few times recently. But obviously we are going to remember 2025 predominantly this year when Benya just had a nightmare pretty much, pretty much everywhere by his standards at least.

Whereas Mark is, whether he's just ridden around the problems or he doesn't find it a problem in the first place. I don't think he's got a different bike. And there's no shenanigans like that. I mean, equal number ones, I absolutely no doubt. So there's something weird going on, but you know, your point is that you feel like the Aprilia is the best bike now.

And you know, I think there's a compelling argument to make there. Yeah. I mean, from my standpoint, if I think about it, the Ducati only really looks good because Marquez is on it. Because if Marquez wasn't on the bike all year long, Ducati would be absolutely positively nowhere. So what would be the best bike at that point?

So to me, it's Aprilia because Bzecky's won races on it. It looks, it is twitchy, but Bez likes a twitchy bike. I think that's kind of his setup and how he wants it. Right. So, I mean, though you probably used to be a Aragon Barcelona special, you always knew they're going to be good there.

Now that bike works pretty much everywhere. It didn't work at Sepang. There's numerous reasons why maybe it doesn't. But I do think that it probably might be the best bike in the paddock right now. If it's second, I think it's Ducati.

After that, it's probably a tie between Ducati. Sorry. Tongue tie. A tie between KTM and Honda for third there. And then I think after that, you sort of have Yamaha's clearly sort of in the rears for some reason.

And given some of the things that Quattro has done on that bike this year, please Yamaha figure it out and get this man a motorcycle because you are wasting his talent. So, yeah. But that's how I see it. He's earning enough money to keep himself in pearl necklaces. There is that, I suppose.

I was just going to say, just to finish off on this point about the respective performance of the manufacturers, I'm very much on this Neil Spaulding watch in terms of where Honda get to next year because again, now I'm thinking about it. You've got Marini and Mia consistently performing very well on that bike. And I think Acosta is flattering the KTM somewhat at the minute. Now, it is true, we must acknowledge that Vinales, who was certainly in the first half of the season, the standout on the KTM, he's obviously been injured since Saxon ring. And I don't know that we'll see him back in any sort of decent form before next year.

So there is that. But really Acosta is the only one that's managing to make the KTM work at the moment. Whereas the Honda is looking pretty solid. The slight oddity really is what's gone on with Zarco. But I think he's complaining about the fact that he rarely gets to ride a consistent bike because he's kind of a bit of a tester.

So whether that's been just kind of catching him out a little bit. But I think the Honda is looking really good and I'm super interested to see where they get to by Tommy hit the road again in 26. Yeah, yeah. I think this time testing is going to be really interesting to watch. How much, think of the time, the money, the resources Honda has thrown at that bike, just so they can win one title in this highly aerodynamic dependent era of MotoGP that we are in.

It's like, it's not a rabbit hole to go down. Actually, we've got enough on the plate with the show as it is. But once we get post Valencia, I would like to have a bit more deep talk about Honda and Mia, who basically couldn't keep the damn thing up right for two thirds of his time there so far, was looking rather like Mark Marquez in Sepang last weekend. I thought the bike pivoting in all sorts of shapes and he wasn't crashing the front end. So, or he might have crashed once during the weekend, but by and large, that bike is starting to work to his strengths because he was always a front ender too.

So yeah, interesting times at Honda. And for the big corporate giant that used to win everything, and I was a bit fed up with them for a long time, but I'd like to see people getting back to strength again. So I'm a little bit behind Honda on that one. I can't disagree. It's a good off season show that we can do, but gosh, we're not even going to really have many off season shows.

No. There are scheduled to go to 22 rounds or something like that. No, whatever. Oh, the news, right? Let's get to the news.

So Mark Marquez is going to miss the rest of the season to rehab his shoulder injury that he has. He may test at Valencia, depending on what the doctors say. Don't know. Martin's going to miss the rest of the season too. He's certainly not going to come back for one race.

The test in Valencia may be there as well. Let's see who else was on the injured list that is out. I can't think of who it was. All Vinalas is probably done. Well, Vinalas, again, you know, the shoulder injuries, you see, devilish things to get back working properly and you lose so much fitness and conditioning, you know, muscle wise, which is vital on a bike to perform at the top level.

So yeah, I mean, Marquez, I think taking a much more sensible route than he's been prone to do in the past and just thinking I don't need to risk my body. I've won the championship. I'd almost be surprised if he's at the test, to be honest, but maybe he will be. But I mean, he just ride anything, can't he? I mean, and the only reason he's injured is because exactly knocked him off.

So it wasn't really his fault that crap. Well, it wasn't his fault full stop. So it's just a tough break. But anyway, yeah, yeah, it's the walking wounded at the minute. And again, this is what happens when you have so many races and so many back to backs as well.

Well, if you're going to 22 rounds, that's another weekend of back to backs that you're adding, right? Because we're at 20. I at some point, this is the off season thing is how many is too many? Well, I think there's an argument say that we've already gone. We've reached that particular point as it is.

There's certainly a lot of bloody podcast. Yeah, that's true. We can't even keep up. Oh, how did the teams do it? Oh, let's see.

Keeping up, by the way, Booliga has tested had his successful test on the Ducati. He were being for Marquez for the last two rounds. That'll be interesting to watch there as well. And one of the sadder things that kind of came out as a new story is that is this the last or are we nearing the end of us visiting Philip Island and to watch racing there? And there is a compelling argument about it because Philip Island was granted a 10 year contract, which I think runs out next year.

26, I think is the end. Certainly within the next year or two, isn't it? Year or two, yes. So they were given the contract under the idea that they would improve the facilities on the island. So that meant like new pit garages and boxes and some infrastructure and everything else that's associated with all that, to which none of that has actually happened.

There hasn't been anything that's been done or changed or anything. I think you could say the track in those 10 years has been repaved. I want to say twice, but I'm not 100% that it's actually twice. But that in itself is not cheap to do. So people are saying that, hey, this is going to become a sore spot, especially a sore spot with Liberty owning the show.

And the fact that it's sort of on an island that's what? A couple of hours to the south of Melbourne, I think. Again, geography is not my strong point. So I just know it's south of Melbourne that much, I'm sure of. But it's owned or it's partially funded by one of the Fox family, which is supposedly like a big trucking company that hauls things around in Australia.

And they have tried to get a racetrack built around Melbourne for some time. And they're the ones that are heading this charge up. And they haven't put any money into that. So they could theoretically, you know, quote, quote, build a new facility out in the outskirts of Melbourne, which is where they were going to build some Olympic Stadium thing or something at one point. It's the same ground, but it's a flat, vacant lot, which I have no desire to see MotoGP bikes, former the one Australian V8 supercars on a flat track.

You can make an OK racetrack, but I can't think of a great racetrack that's flat and has no elevation. If you know of one, please write in and let me know which one it is, because I don't know of one. I mean, anything that comes after PI is kind of like, I don't know, drinking a glass of Dom Perignon and then going and sipping from a puddle. I mean, I'm sure there are some things that they could do, Jim, to make the situation better. And I'm by no means the first person to go on about this.

David Emmett, famously from Pallet Pass podcast, is particularly grumpy on the point that they go at the time of year when they do, which is liable to kind of bad weather now. OK, they kind of got away with it this time out this season, but we have seen many occasions where it's been pretty dire there, cold, you know, because I think PI's problem is that, yes, it's quite remote, but so it's hard to get a decent crowd there. And obviously that's not going to be helped if it's kind of, you know, one minute it's 20 degrees and the next minute it's kind of like arctic conditions. I mean, it must be horrendous for the teams and the riders to cope with it through a weekend. So I think there are some logistic things that they could maybe do to try and improve the problem.

But I think, you know, you can't spend money that you haven't got. So I don't know that it really hosts a great deal of racing throughout the year. So I mean, obviously World Superbikes go there and they get interesting. They go at the beginning of the year when it's the weather is generally pretty good, but you don't get as big a crowd in World Superbike as you do with MotoGP. So that's always seemed like an odd thing to me, given how much we sort of globetrot around the world in a way that doesn't always seem terribly logical to me.

Why they can't shoehorn PI in earlier in the year is I don't understand really to try and I know it's the weather and you know, the British are obsessed with the weather. So it's one of the first things I think of. But would I rather go there when it's likely to be sort of warm and dry and sunny as opposed to wet and cold and windy? Well, yeah, I think I would. So surely that's worth a try because I mean, I can never quite figure out in my mind whether it's is it Mugello or is it Philip Island, in terms of which is the best track in the world, certainly in terms of the tracks that we race on regularly, you know, in these championships these days.

There's an argument for other places I know that have dropped off the calendar. So to lose PI would be a body blow. I think I don't think there are many people that would disagree with that sentiment. Yeah, there isn't. I mean, there was, I read this on the race and with Simon Patterson riding it, that there was a lot of construction going on to the Formula One circuit in Melbourne, which is through the park or uses part of a park.

Albert Park, thank you. And they're doing that. It's like, OK, well, they want, well, we'll just make it to race motorcycles there. It's like, no, no, motorcycles do not belong anywhere near concrete walls at all. And you can't, I get it.

But you'd have to tear down, like you'd have to remove every tree that's around the circuit. You'd have to bring in huge amounts of gravel to have gravel traps to slow the bikes down and to keep them away from the walls. And there'd have to be tons of air fence brought in to, you know, keep the bikes from going out. Look at Saxon Ring this year. Everybody was crashing in the wet.

It didn't matter. There were motor three bikes that went to the air fence in that corner. It's like, no, no. Albert Park is a complete non-starter. I mean, I'm sure places like Eastern Creek, where you might recall they had 500s ran around the creek.

But I suspect Australia has a lot of tracks, rather like the States, I suppose, Jim. But none of them are anywhere close to being suitable for World Championship racing, which is why you have World Superbike and MotoGP at Phillip Island, of course, because there isn't obviously the, well, I say obviously, I assume there is not another track that can make the standard. So that's the problem that they've got. And like a lot of Western economies, although it's not in the West, but let me use that phrase. You know, they're not getting huge government subsidies to cover the costs for this stuff.

That's the problem. So in the absence of cash and in the absence of big crowds, you get sort of slowly deteriorating, sort of dilapidated facilities as compared to the shiny sparkly multi, you know, million pound facilities that we see elsewhere. It's a shame. Hopefully we don't lose off calendar. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, here in the States, like you said, there's quite a few tracks in the States, right? But even middle America goes to tracks that I would suggest you are sketchy at best. Well, I could say the same for BSP here now. You know, the bikes have just got so fast.

And the ironic thing, of course, is that MotoGP in principle will slow down a bit in 27. Not a lot. And I'm sure they'll gain a fair bit of the lost speed back reasonably quickly, but it will kind of make some venues a bit more viable. Not that Philip Island is particularly a problem in that regard anyway. It's just the sheer majesty of the place in terms of its speed, the corners, the, you know, the ocean over the brow of the hill as you come down the main street.

It's just a absolute, you know, if God created a racetrack, that's the sort of place he would create, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I think he would for sure. Oh, let's move to World Superbike.

Top Rack is champion again. So that's three times. That's just the championship. Yeah. Double on the BMW.

So back to back. So quite the achievement and nice to see, as I was saying last time, the champion coming across from World Superbike to take up his position in MotoGP next year, which is going to be super interesting to see how that adaptation goes. There's going to be a lot of people watching the Valencia test just to see what it looks like when he's out there for sure. Sticking with World Superbike, a little bit of rider news. In 26, Rinaldi retires.

Then Chanon Chu is going to Tenkot Honda or it's cutting caught Yamaha. Well, I just can't say Tenkot without it. I know it still sounds wrong. It sounds so wrong, doesn't it? Oh, well, yeah.

Then add that to Tenkot Yamaha. Then Agatyr to Kawasaki. World SuperSport Kawasaki, that is. Yeah. So just a little bit of rider movement.

Rinaldi, he sort of shots a prominence in World Superbike a few seasons ago, and his decline has been fairly meteorically rapid in the other direction as well, which has been sad to see really. And it sounds as if he's kind of hanging up his helmet, certainly at world level. That was the impression I got from the press release. Sort of going off to do other things which may or may not be related to motorbikes, which normally means they're going off to start a business doing something peripheral. That's the impression that I got.

So it's a shame. Like coach, manager, agent, something like that maybe. Maybe, yeah. I mean, fairly enough, that competitive spirit that burns in these people does lend itself to starting up businesses and stuff. And we do see post-career car drivers and bike riders and stuff having quite successful commercial lives in the aftermath of, you know, particularly if there is a somewhat shorter, less lucrative racing career.

So yeah, not a lot of news around really at this time of year, Jim. Most of the big stuff has already happened. So just on BSB, I think I'll just pick up what did I put in there. Car Ride won the championship. So a slight somewhat of a rarity.

Somebody back to back in the titles in BSB. So an amazing job by Kyle Ride because first, certainly the first third to the first half of the season, it looked like nobody was going to touch. Oh dear, I'm having a mental block now. I'm so tired from work and travel. Oh golly, on the other Yamaha, came back from old Superbike.

Yeah. Actually, I've interviewed him twice. I've got his face, but I can't think of it. Yeah, doesn't matter. It'll come to me in a minute when the fog lifts.

So great job by Kyle Ride. And the sort of the biggest piece of news actually, which is kind of a hybrid bit of World Superbike news is that Ryan Vickers, who was on a two year deal at Moto Corsa in World Superbike has been released from the contract. I think because, you know, they were just asking for stupid amounts of money from to stay there. And it was, it sounds a bit sketchy what went on there. And I do feel quite bad for him because he had a pretty solid rookie season really.

So anyway, he comes back to BSB with the Honda Works team and Tommy Bridewell has decided to leave. He hasn't been removed from the team. That's not the impression I get. He is just decided to move on having won the championship a couple of seasons ago on the Ducati. It's worth pointing out.

But yeah, so a fair bit of change going on in BSB has always happened, but there will be a lot more news that comes BSB wise because we have the motorcycle show sometime later in November. I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss it because I'll be overseas again. And they have a BSB day at that event, which goes on for a week. And one of the days is sort of dedicated to BSB. So that's when a lot of the rider announcements happen.

So yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Let's get to Australia. Talk about everything that happened in Australia kind of quickly here. We'll start with Moto3. Now qualifying, well, the hometown crowd got what they wanted.

Their hero, Joe Kelso, took a poll for the Moto3 race. The Rueda was second. Then it was Lunetta surprisingly in third. After that, it was for Rosado, Bertelli, Carpe, and Esteban, and Fernandez, and then Keeley. So there's your guys that are in the first three rows for this race.

So those guys are there. And the race, this one was not a Philip Island classic by any stretch of the imagination. As much as we love to see the Moto3 races, but Kelso and Rueda kind of got away from everybody at the beginning. The problem was that the guys that were running, Kelso was running first. Rueda was second in that race.

And basically Fernandez and Rolston and Keeley and Carpe cannot keep their act together, is what it boils down to. They're fighting each other, taking the lines. And that allowed, and Kelso played it smart because I think Rueda got by in the first couple of laps. And then Joel just said, okay, I'm going to stay with Rueda. I'm just going to stay on his tail.

And they pulled away from the pack and rode off to the one, two. Right? So Rueda would win the race, then Kelso second. Now that fight that happens for the third, the last spot on the podium and everything, definitely is kind of crazy as it runs around. I mean, Keeley's was there for a while.

He fell his back, goes up, goes down. Linetta was there for a little bit. Forisada was in the mix. That's a pretty good race that's going on there, but it's not the race for the front. Right?

It's just those guys there. And it finally winds up with Esteban coming on to, or sorry, Carpe actually winds up being third in that race to take the final podium. And then you had Esteban, Keeley's, Fernandez, Linetta, Forisada, Almanza, and Bertelli is a final one in the top 10. But with that win, Rueda is world champion. So two of the three world titles have been sewn up now.

Rueda is the champion that's going into it. Picaris is still in second. Keeley's is only three points behind him for second in the championship. And mind you, I don't know why I feel compelled to always point this out. Keeley's has missed four races, two by injury and two because he wasn't old enough.

And his point percentage strike rate is better than anybody else's in the entire grid. I mean, presumptive possible champion between him and maybe Munoz next year, because we know Rueda is going up and we know Picaris is going up to Moto2 as well. Are there any thoughts on that, Rich, that you may want to add to this? Already fixed. Well, Rich's internet has struck again.

So I am going to continue on in the show here in the hopes that if Rich comes back in, he'll pick back up. But we're into Moto3 championship standings. Rueda, the champion, Picaris, Keeley's, Munoz, Kelso, Carpe, Fernandez, Yamanaka, Peroni, and Forisada being the top 10 in that championship. Let's move towards the Moto2 class. Moto2 from the island?

Well, there's been only one guy who's been quick the whole time that's out there. And that has been one Diego Marrera. Marrera would be on pole position. Hometown hero Senna Aegis would qualify second. Then it was Gonzalez and Dixon.

So Gonzalez doing his best to keep Marrera in sight and maintain his lead in the championship. Dixon was fourth, then Holgardo, Alonso, Sasaki, Canet, and Darren Bender. There's your first three rows. On race day, it was the Senna Aegis show. And Aegis basically got the whole shot.

He pretty much was just pulling away. And he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And he was able to basically break away from everybody. And everybody behind him basically becomes a pretty cool little fight. Gonzalez was fighting for second with Alonso.

And Marrera was up in there. And he was trying to get by Gonzalez. The fight is right there between Alonso, Marrera, Gonzalez, Sasaki, and Dixon. Those guys are battling for that second, that third place. Because Aegis is basically gone.

Now, Gonzalez did actually wind up getting past Marrera in the race, which was good to see. But eventually Marrera would get back by Gonzalez again. They have probably the best battle of the whole time. They keep moving around in there. But it's a battle for third, really.

And it's depending on where that is and where they are. And Gonzalez would have even more trouble. Because after Marrera got by, that sort of opened the floodgates. That allowed Horgardo to get by. It allowed Jake Dixon to get by.

And by the end of the race, Barry Bautista had also gotten by in there. So it was a hometown victory for one Senate Aegis. So the Aussies were doing pretty good. You had a second place for Kelso. You had a Moto 2 victory for Senate Aegis.

Then you had Alonzo Marrera, who bagged the podium. Horgardo, Dixon, Balthus, and Gonzalez. Not a great race for Gonzalez. He said Philip Allen wasn't really his track. So he was able to sort of limit the damage that Marrera did put on him.

But not to say that he did his best. After Gonzalez, it was Arenas, Kinnett, and Sasaki giving you your top 10 in the race. The championship is the big deal because Marrera and Gonzalez are battling for that championship. So given this race, at the end of it, Gonzalez is on top with 247. But Marrera has cut the deficit from 9 points to 2 points.

He's on 245. Basically, everybody else is done for here. Kinnett is 33 points behind. That's unrealistic that he's going to be able to... Actually, 35 points behind the leader.

He's going to be there. Balthus is the one that you got to worry about. He's only 7 points behind Kinnett. So he might take second place in there. Dixon's 15 points back from Kinnett.

So there's something to look forward to in there. But Horgardo, I think, wrapped up like the rookie of the year at this race. So he wins that over his teammate. And that's really everything that we got for the Moto2 crowd in that race. Now, let's go look at what went down in MotoGP at the island.

Now, the second qualifying session. Well, shock of all shocks, Fabio Quattraro puts his bike on pole, puts that Yamaha on pole. Kind of surprising. You know, we didn't really think that he was going to be able to do that. Bizecki was second in qualifying.

Then hometown hero Jack Miller was third. Then Raul Fernandez, Pedro Acosta, Alex Marquez, Fermin Outeguer, Paul Spargro, Luca Marini, rounding out your first three rows. So we knew that Bizecki was going to get a double long lap penalty. However, that was going to be in the race on Sunday. So the sprint race was going to be a matter of seeing who was going to win that one.

Well, as it turns out in that sprint race, Marco Bizecki would win having come through the pack. Now, he did have a bit of a fight with Raul Fernandez there a little bit. Took him a little bit. Bizecki did not start well in that race at all. He definitely fell back a little bit, but he was able to charge through the pack to take the win.

Fernandez would be second after that. Acosta did the yeoman's work to get the KTM to third. Miller would be fourth after it. Then Digi Antonio, Alex Marquez, Fabio Quattraro would finish seventh. Luca Marini and Paul Spargaro in the sprint.

So that was good for Bizecki. The Aprilias looked amazingly strong. And it's funny that the first Ducati was Digia, not Alex. But that was not Alex's day. And it was good for those guys there.

So that's everything for the sprint. We'll go to Sunday's race. The wins were so terrible that they did move the racing around and delayed it somewhat so they could be in the least amount of wind. This race was interesting. Bizecki got the whole shot.

He was ahead of Fernandez, Acosta, Quattraro, Miller, and Alex Marquez. Acosta would go to second for a little bit. And the big thing was when is Bizecki actually going to go in? That's the question mark. We really get it.

It was like how much time is he going to lose? So he took it. He maximized his time out at the front. Then went into the long lap penalty loop. That dropped Bizecki down about four places.

And then on the very next lap he took it again and fell down about another four places. So basically that left one Fernandez out front. Basically Fernandez was never going to be headed in this race. He would go on to win his first MotoGP race. The tears flowed, the joy, the excitement.

It was great to see another first-time winner. That's like two or two I think this year, which is kind of cool to have. But the race then became who was going to wind up finishing second. Now Pedro Acosta props to this kid because he would not give up. He had a shag tire.

It was crazy what he was trying to do to try to hang on for his place. But eventually as time wore on in the race, Digia, Bizecki, and Alex Marquez would all get by Acosta. So the win Fernandez, then it was Digia. Bizecki raced up to 30, got himself onto the podium despite having the too long laps. Alex Marquez would be fourth, then Acosta fighting a losing battle with a you know on the rear tire that just was completely shagged.

Then Luca Marini would be sixth, Alex Renz would be seventh, then Binder. Then we had Bastianini and then Paul Spergero finishing out the top 10. The bigger point was let's see what that did to the championship and who was going to be second. Well we all know Mark is the world champion. But his brother Alex edged closer to being the being second for the year.

He could have a chance to do that in Malaysia, we'll find out later. But Bizecki is in third in the championship. Then Benyaya and Acosta, Digia, Morbidele, Outiger, Quattrarro, and Fernandez. People who had kind of terrible races at the end, Zarco did. He crashed there.

Miller crashed out in front of his friends and family, which wasn't the best there. But again there's really not much going on there except for the race with Acosta. He's trying to hold everybody up. The KTM having all that really high horsepower and top end speed and not getting anything anywhere else. So that gives us everything that's happened at the island.

And with that we will come back and I will get to Malaysia next. Alright let's move on to what's going on in Malaysia for the Sepang race. So qualifying for Moto3 quickly. David Omanza would take a pole position for Layapart followed by Furusato which would put another Honda on the front row. Again you know track where you don't have the start stop, don't need the acceleration.

The Hondas do tend to look good. Rueda would be third and then Peeni Uriate, Brian Uriate who is going to be a name to watch. He is the Red Bull World Junior Champion or whatever that series is exactly called. He's going to be one to watch. Carpe Peroni, Keeley is having a rough go of it and so did Picaris.

But those guys are all your top three rows. Now this is where things get weird because of what happens on the siting lap. So the siting lap is you take the bikes out of the pits. You get your lap essentially to run back around. You can continue into the pits and take another lap as many times as you want.

And I think for as long as the pits are open. I think the pits are open I believe it's somewhere around five minutes that you have there. So with Sepang being a two minute race you could get maybe two laps into it. But we had a major issue and a major event that actually happens on the siting lap. So to set the scene everybody's taking off from the pits.

They're trying to get around. Some people take the siting lap seriously and they're trying to figure out their bike setup. Maybe they made a change. Maybe they crashed their bike in qualifying and they're trying to see if everything's all back in good. Some people are just trying to putt around save as much fuel as they possibly can.

Well what happens is that Noah Detweiler has an issue with his motorcycle. Now Rueda is coming up quickly. He's on what I'll call a hot lap. He doesn't see that that Detweiler has having a problem. And careens into the back of Noah Detweiler causing a huge accident.

Now that then put everything into chaos because it was a severe accident. And we didn't know it at the time. But they did have crews that were there emergency staff there immediately. And both riders were actually air vac'd to the hospital. Later we find out the extent of all the problems that happened on the racetrack.

Now this happens over the week or whatever. But Noah Detweiler had to be resuscitated twice at the track. His injuries were that severe. He's had multiple operations. He is now fine.

He is in stable condition. And he is going to be okay. I believe it's going to be a long road of recovery that's going to happen. But he's going to be okay. Rueda was air vac'd out because I think he was unconscious at one point in time.

And I think they may have feared that he had some other injuries. But it turns out that he's just basically battered, bruised, contused. And has a severely fractured hand. I do not know which one. But this has sparked a lot of controversy in the fact that MotoGP and their infinite wisdom took away the morning warmups for Moto2 and Moto3 to have a rider parade for the MotoGP riders.

I think it's farcical that they actually did that. I mean, I'm no fan of it. But the thing of it is that people are saying, well, we're going to have to bring back a warmup for Moto2 and Moto3 because we would have avoided this problem if we had done it, if we had the warmups in the morning. If we had the warmups in the morning because Deloire's bike would have had the issue in the warmup. People would have been more in a race mode.

They'd been paying attention. They wouldn't have been ran into the way Rueda ran into him. Who knows? I mean, I think that's completely speculative. But what I do know is this.

Forever and ever since I was racing, you always have to pay attention to what's happening on the racetrack. You can't go out there half-baked and decide that you're going to putter around and not pay attention to everybody else who's trying to go faster than you. You always have to have your head on the swivel. You always have to be paying attention to what's going on. And it seems to me like Rueda basically was on, I'm going to call it championship win over party mode.

I mean, OK, I know the kid's not old enough to drink, but you know what? He's in that euphoria that I'm world champion and he's just not quite as sharp as he should have been. That being said, in any video that I saw when I was watching it, Detweiler doesn't have a foot out, a hand up or anything to say that he's having a problem with the motorcycle. Now, Picaris recognized it. Maybe he was close enough to hear the sound the bike was making.

Maybe he noticed something, Detweiler working on the bike because he was paying more attention to Detweiler. Who knows? But the long story short of this one is that both riders, in my opinion, bear some responsibility to the problem that happened. One Rueda bears probably maybe, let's say, two thirds of the problem because he wasn't paying any attention at all. A world champion cannot be not paying attention to what's happening on a racetrack.

For sure. I mean, anytime you're on the racetrack, you should be paying attention. And a little bit, maybe one third of it has to go to Detweiler for not getting a boot out or a hand up. But maybe whatever was happening was so quick and so instantaneous that he didn't have a chance to put his hand up. So I'm not trying to put all the blame here onto Detweiler, but there is a little bit there because, I mean, I didn't understand why he didn't just move left off the racetrack with his bike.

It just it's one of those things where I can't see enough of it. There's not a good enough onboard. There's not onboard that I've found of Detweiler's bike to try to figure out what's happened. But it's safe to say that something needs to be done to figure out how to combat this problem because I don't think any of us want to ever see this again. Sepang is a place that we all sort of love to hate because of what happened with Marcos and Michelli.

I mean, there's just so many bad things and memories are there at Sepang. And we just don't want those memories to be brought back up. And no one wants to see tragedy happen. And we avoided it, thank God, to the quick actions of the medical staff and the ambulance crew and the doctors in the hospital. You're able to get Detweiler back to a stable condition where Wada is going to be here as well.

The other thing was, and this has to do more with the media and how they did it, was the CPI Green energy team put out a thing respecting Detweiler's privacy during this time, etc. I get it. Yeah, this is, you know, things were serious. Yet the Spanish doctor is talking to all the Spanish press officers about his condition. But I don't understand that.

I just don't get why they would do that. And so that made the situation probably even worse, which really they shouldn't have done, which again, you know, not that we're trying to, you know, get into this deeply and argue about who's right, who's wrong and all that. But somehow there's got to be some decency that has to be put forth. And the decency was, you know, the 658th Corpsial Squad saying how they had a contract ready for Detweiler. He was going to sign to ride for them next year.

And, you know, hey, guess what, kid? When you get better and you're ready to go, your bike's going to be there with us. And I think that's a heartwarming feeling. I think that makes everybody feel good about themselves and feel good about the situation, you know, knowing that there's going to be a long road recovery for Detweiler. And, you know, pretty good recovery probably as well, depending on how bad Rueda's arm or hand had been fractured.

And I don't even know if it's left or if it's his left or his right. I'm assuming it's his left, given what his onboard looked like. But again, both those guys are going to be taking some time. And it's good to know that they're going to be OK. So with that, that caused, you know, a massive delay in the racing here.

So the Moto3 race was delayed significantly. It was also then shortened to a 10 lap race. And, you know, they did a quick restart procedure there. So when this race started, it was Furusato, it was Keeley's, it was Almanza, Carpe, Picaris and Peony. Now, this this, you know, lead pack of six riders would basically try to swap things around a little bit.

Buchanan would go down. Basically, Furusato would go to the front. You know, there's a lot going on there, but basically Furusato pulls away from the rest of the pack. You know, I think everybody was riding with a bit of trepidation from what had happened earlier. But Furusato goes on to to the victory.

He was basically unchallenged as he rode on to win that one. You know, from there, Picaris is struggling a little bit, but Picaris does wind up having to basically get it together to finish second in there. Then Adrian Fernandez, who was strong on the Leopard bike, the Leopard Honda's are always strong here, would be third. But Amanza would then be fourth. Now, Amanza had like the save of the year, like he tucked the bike at 15 to the point where literally he had literally he crashed.

It's reminiscent of Mark Marquez with the axle dragging on his bike at Le Mans. And oh, gosh, I want to say 2014, 2015, something like that. But it was a hell of a save by Amanza and a nice recovery to be fourth. Yamanaka would be fifth, then Carpe sixth, then Keeley seventh. Scott Ogden, Yuri Ate and Peroni finish out the top 10 for the Moto 3.

Now, the championship standings, you know, Ruray is world champion, so that's not going to change. But Picaris is ahead of Keeley's by 14 points. With Keeley's finishing down the order a little bit and Picaris being second, that gave Picaris a little bit of breathing room. Munoz is still in fourth on 40 points given the fact that he's got a broken femur. The loser in all this was kind of Kelso.

He's falling down to fifth. And then you have after Kelso, you have Carpe, Adrian Fernandez, Furr, Sato, Yamanaka and Peroni. So that's what's gone down in Moto 2, Moto 3, sorry. So the Moto 2 race because of this late start, the Moto 2 race was moved to the end of the day after the Moto GP race. But we'll talk about Moto 2 right now.

With Moto 2 in the qualifying, basically, Daniel Holgargo, Daniel Holgardo, pulled an absolutely fantastic lap out at the end. He had not had any pace at all over the weekend. Dixon had the best pace over the weekend, but Holgardo would go to the pole. Balthus would be second. Dixon would be third.

I'm not quite sure why he wasn't as fast as he wanted to be. But still front row, good start there. Arenas with a blinder lap as well to be fourth. Then Munoz, Alonso Gonzalez, Canett, Arbolino, finishing out the front three rows for that qualifying session. Again, this race starts much later in the afternoon after the race.

As it starts out, Munoz basically had problems at the start. His bike was going backwards to fifth. At the start, Holgardo gets off to a great hole shot, followed by Arenas, followed by Dixon, followed by Alonso and Arbolino. Now, those guys are taking off going to the front. Roberts winds up crashing come out of 15.

He crashes out of the turn. He's got a tank slapper going. Eventually, he bucks him off the high side. I'm thinking, Joe, you got to get off the bike because there's the guard rail coming up there, the arm coast coming close. He winds up wildly getting off of it.

He gets off holding his left wrist and sprints away from the action. Now, Munoz then crashes with Binder. Then as we start lap two, a red flag comes out. The red flag was due to Roberts crash. Where the bike was was pinned up close to the guard rail that comes out for the front stretch.

There's all the bikes coming off of 15. That's a crash impact area. It's a long run for the people who are working that corner because they're on the other side of the pit entry to get there. The bike's just in a bad spot. We've already had a bad mishap this morning.

We don't really need another mishap. I think discretion is the better part of valor here. They put a red flag out, give the crews some time to pick up Robert's bike, check the track to be sure there's no oil or anything on it. They go back and they get Robert's bike removed in a safe fashion. Well, this then means we've got to have a red flag.

Since we've got a red flag, we're going to restart the race. We're going to drop the race down from the original race distance. We're going to run an 11-lap race with a quick restart at that point. You've got three minutes. You've got 60 seconds to get out of the pit lane.

You then get around to your box, get one mechanic. Is everything okay? Yep. Okay, cool. Mechanics off the grid.

You do your warm-up lap. You come back to grid and you go to the race. On the second restart, Holgardo gets out in front again, in front of Arenas and Dixon and Gonzalez. Dixon would work his way past Holgardo and then just pulled away. Dixon just had pace all weekend, as I said before.

Dixon's basically out front. Then Alonso, he winds up having a pretty wild moment there with him. Balthus is charging up through the field. He's in the fourth place there. Then Gonzalez is basically fifth.

Arenas is sixth. Dixon, again, he's gone at this point. With four laps to go, you've got Gonzalez working really hard to try to get up there and work by Marrera, who has been sandwiched. He's got some pace and he's kind of a little bit going back and forth with Gonzalez as they're trying to ride to the front. But then Gonzalez goes down at 15.

Basically, that means that Marrera is going to be leading the championship. It winds up being Dixon at that point leading Alonso, Balthus, Holgardo, Marrera, and Arenas because Gonzalez had dropped out of it. They finish up the race that way with Dixon winning Alonso, Balthus, and Holgardo. The biggest thing is the points here because Marrera is going to get 10 points for being fifth. But because Gonzalez crashes and remounts, he winds up only getting...

Does he even get a point? I don't think he does because there wasn't enough time left in the race for him to get back on. So he wasn't able to gain any points at all. So this championship is going to go down to the wire because Marrera now leads for the first time this championship on 256 points. You have Gonzalez on 247, so he's nine behind.

It's a two-horse race. Balthus is doing Yeoman's work. He is only 26 points behind those guys for the lead of the championship in third place. Dixon with the win is in fourth place. Then Kinet, Holgardo, Vietti, Alonso, Arenas, and Senna Aegis for the top 10.

Sort of an interesting moto. Not really the best moto two-race you've ever seen. The fight is definitely on between Marrera and Gonzalez. Gonzalez basically folds the bike up. He was talking smack that this was his track and he runs really good there.

Well, now we're going to see what happens at the last two races because it is a true dogfight between these guys. Basically, that's what we're going to be watching is who's going to win the world championship. Is it going to be Marrera? Is it going to be Gonzalez? Dana Holgardo, I think, wrapped up rookie of the year here at this track, which is good for him.

That's all I got to say about moto two. So let's move towards moto GP. Now with that one, Benyaya, who had to come out of the first session, would be the fastest guy there. It looks like they finally maybe, again, they figured it out for this track. Looks like he's going to be okay.

Then Alex Marquez would qualify second. Then Morbidele would be third. Quattro would be fourth. Costa fifth. Then it's Outagermir, Digia, and Zarco finishing out the first three rows.

We then go into the sprint where basically it's a Benyaya walk away. He's followed by Alex Marquez. Now Alex, with that second place, now confirms his position is finishing second in the championship to his brother, which would be the first time that brothers have been one two in the premier class ever. So that's kind of a historical thing going on there. Acosta would finish on, would hold on for third.

Now Acosta has been riding his butt off here the last two races. The KTM is definitely not easy on the rear tire, but Acosta is making it work. In the short distance of the sprint, which was only 10 laps, he was able to hang on and have a third. Morbidele would be fourth. Quattro would be fifth.

Then it would be Bizecki, Outagermir, Zarco, and Bastianini getting points in the sprint race. So the question was what was going to happen in the race on Sunday for MotoGP? I think there was a lot of thought that this is Benyaya's. I thought Benyaya was going to pull it off, that he was going to go to the front, and he did. He started out quick, but Alex Marquez did make it interesting.

Getting out there and he would pass Benyaya. There's a bit of that back and forth or whatever. Even Acosta got by Benyaya early on, but Benyaya fought back instantly, which was good to see. I thought, well, Alex is out front. Don't know if Benyaya's got the oomph to stay with him.

The interesting thing was everybody was on the soft. The thing was that they couldn't really make the mediums work on the bikes. Everybody knew the rear was going to drop off. The question was your ability to manage it. The pace is really slow for everybody.

I think Benyaya went with a medium front where Alex had a soft. I was waiting for Benyaya's front to gain temperature, and then he was going to be able to battle away with everybody. It didn't seem like that was really going to happen. It was just like Benyaya couldn't turn that front on. Polis Bargo would crash out in sector two.

Mir would go for a pass on Quattroraro and then go wide. There was a lot of everybody watching the racing in the back. By halfway through the race, Alex is out front Benyaya, then Acosta, Quattroraro, then Mir, Morbidele, and Outager. Mir would get by Quattroraro at turn four, so that would make him fifth. And then we get to the point where suddenly we wind up with Peco fighting it out really hard with Acosta.

Then it's like with a few laps to go, Outager goes down at turn 15. He just folded up the front end with three to go. And then Benyaya has a problem. I thought maybe the ride height device may have failed him. He was looking at the back of the bike.

He was putting around or whatever. He slowly was riding back to the pits and eventually parked him. So that put Mir onto the podium because he had been running fourth that whole time. Alex goes on to win the race. Acosta would be second.

Mir gets the podium. Then it's Morbidele, Quattroraro, and Digia. We find out later after the race that Benyaya had a deflating rear tire. That there was some slow leak that he was battling the whole way. That's why he couldn't get anything to work properly.

But he does... He seemed to be going well, but that's the problem. If you get a deflating rear tire, that's a bad news deal. There's really nothing you can do about it. But that is really kind of unheard of in motorcycles.

It's really, really rare to have that kind of a failure of that kind. Which I think is what's really interesting that what happened. I don't know if he maybe sliced him on a curb. Was he slightly over a curb? Was there a bit of debris on there?

No one seems to know. Michelin's not going to tell anybody, nor is Ducati going to tell anybody what they found. But he did have to battle a slow puncture. And eventually it was too much for him to control. It's not safe.

So Benyaya made the right move there in that case. That's interesting. Quattroraro here is in fifth. And Quattroraro made a statement afterwards that he thinks that the reason he did so well was because the rubber wasn't down from the Pirellis from the Moto 2 race. We've heard that before where tires don't work together with each other.

And the Dunlaps don't work. Dunlap, when Dunlap was in Moto 2, that the Dunlap rubber affects the Michelin rubber. Now Quattroraro is speculating that the Pirelli rubber is going to have an effect. As far as I can remember back, I can't remember there ever being one tire supplier that supplied every class in MotoGP. As well as back in the days of 125, 250, 500.

I realize that Dunlap has been predominant in 125 and 250s. Call it Moto 3, call it Moto 2 for decades. And now they've been surpassed by Pirelli. And Pirelli has done a fantastic job for those guys with their tires. But in the same sense that even when Dunlap was in the premier class, it was on Rainey's bike, they never really did stick around very much.

And they had the odd wins here and there. Rainey did win a championship on a Dunlaps. The first one he won. Then they went to Michelin's after that because Dunlap was true. And it took a long time before Simon Krayfar won one on Dunlaps.

So it didn't hit or miss there. But I remember through time people do talk about how the rubbers just don't seem to mix. So I'm really interested to see what happens when Pirelli is the only tire supplier and it's all Pirelli rubber across the track. What's that going to do? If the rubber of the Michelin isn't, quote, compatible with the other Pirelli rubber, I wonder if the track rubber is in and it's all Pirelli rubber, if we might see the 850s be very quick just because a good rubber in track will allow them to have way more traction than what we're thinking they would or would not have.

So something to look for when we get to the end or get to the next, get to 27th week. Still got a year of the Michelin, which stinks. But that's where the contracts are. There's not much that we can do about it. If we look at the championship, there's really nothing that we can do about that.

Mark is the champion. Alex has been confirmed now in second place. Bezeki is third. He is ahead of Benyanya, more than likely going to keep that position throughout the rest of the year. Acosta has a shot at getting past Benyanya.

Acosta on an upturn. Acosta, hopefully KTM will work on that rear tire. Hopefully they'll be able to make something work there. Hopefully Acosta may get a win at one of these last two races. Be nice to see.

And maybe he might vault ahead of Bezeki and be third in the championship. That would be really, or sorry, he will vault ahead of Acosta. Acosta will vault ahead of Benyanya to get fourth in the championship. And I think that would be really good for him as we move into the final two races of the season. So unfortunately, folks, that's the end of the show.

Unfortunately, Rich did not get his internet back, but Rich will get it fixed. He's been having some problems with that. But we will be back again. Remember, this weekend is Portamile. It's a great racetrack.

There should be great racing there. And with all that said, hopefully you enjoy this kind of hodgepodge kind of show. It didn't work out exactly as Rich and I had planned. But you know, what they say, best laid plans of mice and men are something times go awry. But enjoy it.

Enjoy the racing this weekend. And everybody, be ride safe.