The Racing Is Back - World Superbikes Down Under

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 827, recording on the 24th of February today and we have race action to talk about. Off season is finished, Phillip Island has just happened in World Superbikes down at the splendid island, a hot topic of late.

And again, I'm not riding solo on this one. I've got a couple of pillions with me today. We've got Carl Hurn and Danny Smith again, resident World Superbike and seem to be British Superbike commentators. And so good evening both Carl. How you doing?

Hi Rich. Yeah, good. Thanks. Good to see racing back on the TV. Absolutely.

And yeah, Danny, good to see you again. How you doing? Yeah, not too bad. Thank you. Shoulders healing nicely, but it's good to have something to watch.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So I suppose we ought to just give a because we haven't done this for a little while. And as I was just saying to you both, we don't do this every single show, but I'm just going to do a quick shout out to the people that very kindly chuck a few quid into the tin every month. So we have and of course a couple of these names are going to be have to come off the list, I suppose in a way because they're now involved with the show.

But I'll just read them anyway. So we've got Gareth Locke, Jacob Nurkow, Carl Hurn, who I'm looking at now, Nari Ito, Nick Saban, Alan Fleming. They're on the PayPal side of things. And then through the Patreon link, we have Michael Cowan, Brenton Edwards, Scott Baldwin, Ollie, Dennis Kindig, Jeremy Burnich, Jacob Rower. Again, our friend over in the States who's going to be on the show now, Paul Lang and Gary Chavit.

So I think that's still fairly up to date in terms of the people. If I've missed anybody, I apologize. And if there's anybody that's dropped off there, how dare you? We'll update that list a little bit in the weeks to come. And yeah, as Jim always says, every time on the show, if you can afford to put a few quid in the tin, it really helps us.

Obviously, we've got more people on board now. The plans and intentions are trying to get to a few more races if we can do a bit more interview work. All of that requires planning and a little bit of cost. So anything that people can contribute to the show is gratefully received. And with that, Carl, you've very kindly done some comprehensive show notes for this.

There is a kind of a main piece of news that hit unfortunately prior to the formal undertakings at PI. Talk us through what happened. Thanks, Rich. So first on the news is Tommy Bridewell. He was supposed to be competing in British Superbikes this year.

But instead, his team has decided to compete in World Superbikes. So this is the Superbike Advocates Racing Team. Yeah, so it seems to this team seems to have a bit of a difficult birth. We sort of talked about middle of 2025 and there was there was definitely a buzz around this team because initially it was associated with Carl Fogarty. So Carl Fogarty, I'm not sure what his position was going to be the manager or team principal, but he was definitely going to be a figurehead of the team.

And then later on in the year, it was announced that Carl Fogarty wasn't going to be involved with that team. And then after the end of the BSP season last year, it was announced that Tommy Bridewell would ride for them that he would leave Honda and he would go back on a Ducati. We remember that Tommy actually won the BSP championship on a Ducati for Paul Bird Motorsport Team. And then he switched to Honda for two years. But then he's gone back onto a Ducati now.

But as we mentioned at the start, that team, that Superbike Advocates Team was intended to race at BSP and they've now announced that instead they're going to race at World Superbikes. But they weren't present at Phillip Island at the first round that we're about to talk about. I guess the reason is they just couldn't get out there in time logistics, although it is ironic that the owner of Superbike Advocates Team is actually Australian and they couldn't make the Australian round. But, you know, these things happen. So I think it's going to be interesting to see where they fit in.

Also on the BSP side of things, who's going to take over Tommy's slot or if it's even filled in BSP? I can imagine it would be filled, but we'll have to see about that. So, yeah, this Superbike Advocates Team. Yep. Let's see what happens.

As I mentioned, a bit of a difficult berth it seems to have had. But, yep, let's see what they can do and World Superbike. From what I've read, it seems that the guy who owns the team is quite a wealthy individual. I guess he's been or I think I read that he has run bikes or does run bikes in the Australian Superbike Championship as well. So it's obviously a solid looking outfit.

The involvement with Carl Fogarty was a bit weird, wasn't it, at the beginning? And the fact that it kind of came to nothing wasn't, to me at least, wasn't a kind of a huge surprise, I suppose. But yeah, I mean, thoughts on Tommy going over to the Worlds because he's been around for so long, hasn't he? But he's almost exclusively raced in Britain. I know he's done a few wild cards here and there, including obviously with Honda in the last couple of seasons.

But how do you see it kind of panning out? Because he's a very interesting individual, is Tommy. He's local to me, actually. He lives just up the road from me, although I've never actually interviewed him. He's a bit of a scary character sometimes.

I mean, he speaks his mind. How do you think things are going to go? As you say, Tommy's definitely a bit of a character. There's no doubt about his riding ability. Obviously, he won the British Superbike Championship and then he nearly won it this year after with a switch of bike to Fireblade.

So, you know, there's no doubt about his riding ability. But how do you transition that from BSB to World Superbike? The biggest difference being the electronics. So BSB, they run MoTeC, control electronics without traction control. Whereas when they go to World Superbike, obviously they're running.

They've got a fairly free rein of traction control and ride rates and things like that. So, yeah, how can he adapt to that difference in electronics, basically? Obviously, he's going to have a fast bike, as we've seen this weekend. The Ducatis certainly are a match for all the other bikes in the field. But yeah, let's see what he can do on the electronics side.

How about you, Danny? Where are you on the Tommy Bridewell fence? My main interest is, is he going to keep the 46? Yes, of course. An opportunity to come up for him.

So you've got to take it. BSB for years, he's proven in that category. So, yeah, why not go over there and see what he can do? Give it a shot. Yeah, like you say, he might not get the chance again.

So you've got to take these opportunities when they come. And he'll always have a home back in British Superbike, I suppose, no matter what, until he decides to hang up the helmet. So, yeah, going to be interesting to see. I think they are due to be out for round two in Portimao, aren't they? So they're only going to miss one round, which is not devastating.

I mean, nobody's going to expect Tommy to sort of turn up and be challenging Nico Boulogne, are they? So I suppose they can gradually find their feet as things go on. Now, from a slightly selfishly British perspective, the bit of bad news I was alluding to when we started to tee this up, Carl, is that Jake Dixon didn't make it to round one. So tell us what happened to him. Yeah, so I guess maybe it's commentators curse, although I'm not a commentator.

But in the last podcast, I did say that I had high hopes for Jake Dixon moving to Honda HRC. And then no sooner had I said that, that unfortunately he had an accident at Phillip Island. He sustained multiple fractures and his left wrist and hand in a testing crash. It was on a Tuesday before the race weekend. Yeah, apparently it happened at turn 11 during free practice on the Tuesday.

There's no video footage or anything like that. Not that we need to see that, but it perhaps would have told us whether he high sided or low sided or what sort of crash he had. Needless to say, he's out for at least Phillip Island and maybe a few more rounds yet. And we've also got his teammate who I must admit in the last podcast, I didn't realise, Sonkayat Chandra. He was out already with a preseason training crash in Sepang in January.

So he's actually got a broken arm. So yeah, that was a that's a problem for Honda HRC because obviously they want to be represented. But they were represented because Ryan Vickers travelled over from the UK to race as a wild card. Yeah, I'm not sure when he got the call and how much notice he had to go out. But yeah, he was there representing Honda at Phillip Island.

Yeah. Danny, have you got a theory on Honda and what were HRC and World Superbikes? I mean, they have had glory years, obviously, but you've got to go quite a few years back to find them. I mean, what's going on with HRC and World Superbike and that Fireblade? Is it just the wrong bike now?

I think it is. And I think a lot of the problem is they're focusing on developing MotoGP. They're pushing back. We've seen Marini coming up through the ranks again. I think they're going to have a good season compared to the last few seasons, which we've seen it's been dire.

So yeah, perhaps the financial side of things pushing for that. The engineers all focusing on the MotoGP. Yeah. I mean, like you, Carl, I kind of had high hopes for Jake, you know, coming off, you know, Moto Touring on a sort of a semi high, let's say, and no doubt earning a decent salary at Honda. But risks are nasty things to break, aren't they, for bike races?

And, you know, it's try and come back as quickly as you can. But yeah, it's a really unfortunate start to the season for well, for the whole HRC squad, as you say, because Chantra did both his arms several weeks ago and he's going to be out for quite some time as well. Good news if you're Ryan Vickers, I suppose. And Nagashima is the official HRC test rider, I believe, because he was out at the weekend as well. And actually did a pretty solid job, to be fair to the guy.

Likewise, Ryan Vickers as well. So yeah, just a shame for our Jake, isn't it? But anything else news wise that we need to touch on? Do you want to talk about the helmet situation, which is a bit of a head scratcher? Yeah, we can talk about the helmet homologation issue.

So a few riders were out at the weekend with plain black helmets. So this has come about because there's a new helmet regulation. It's got a complicated name, but it's short version. The colloquial version is FIM2. This FIM2 came out in 2022, but it hasn't been mandatory until now.

And I think the FIM, the Federation International Motor Cyclism, they decided quite late in the day that it was compulsory for 2026. And there's only one lab that can test this helmet standard. And apparently it's at Motorland Aragon, so it's actually the lab itself is at the circuit. So the helmet manufacturers are catching up. I think there's 18 helmets currently certified to this standard, this FIM2 standard or homologated, should I say.

I think it's KYT and Suomi are catching up. But one of the issues, well, there's two issues, two big issues surrounding this helmet homologation. First being that in order to get homologated, if you selling that helmet with multiple sizes, all shell sizes have to be homologated. So if you've got a small shell, a medium shell and a large shell, all three shells have to be homologated before it's allowed to race. And the other issue is this FIM2 applies to all FIM motorcycle racing.

So it doesn't just affect road racing, it affects off-road racing as well. So this is compounding the delays in homologation because everybody, so World Motocross, for example, they want to get helmets tested, road racing. So it may have an impact on MotoGP, I'm not sure yet, but it's not going to be a big impact because obviously if various MotoGP riders, I think Bagnoia is affected because I think he's either KYT or Suomi. If his helmet is not homologated, he'll just use a different helmet. But it was just interesting to see that some of the guys out there with completely unsponsored helmets, unbranded black helmets at the weekend.

I thought they looked pretty cool, actually, to be fair. I kind of like the stealthy ghost rider look. Anything to add on that, Danny? I mean, thanks God. Other than spotting initially why was Booliga wearing a sort of a black helmet, it was like his new kind of color scheme for the year.

And then thinking of Sam Lowe's as well, and he started noticing those and loads more. So it was clear that there was some big issue going on. But yeah, I didn't know that level of detail. But Danny, what was your thoughts on it? I thought they look quite cool as well.

Yeah, so it's the FRHPHE-02, just for any of the nerds out there. It's seemingly from the reports, everything is done with it. It's just kind of crossing the T's and dotting the I's just to get those back into the racing. So hopefully they can get that done before the first MotoGP race. But yeah, it's seen late, late news for these helmet producers to try and get all this done.

And like Carl said, with only one place at the University of Zaragoza, it's too much work for that one unit to be doing. It does make you wonder really, I mean, piss up in a brewery kind of comes to mind as a phrase really, that how that decision cannot be communicated early enough to allow the manufacturers to use the finite resources in terms of the testing lab then, particularly if it's in Motorland Aragon, which is kind of somewhat in the middle of nowhere as well. So plus your point, Carl, about all the off-road racing having to go through the same procedures as well. I mean, it's just a huge backlog of work, I suppose, which is why people have been caught out. But let's be honest, it didn't affect the race and did it?

It was just something a little bit weird to look at as well. But interesting to have behind the scenes how these things sometimes don't quite work as they should. Yeah, I mean, I personally I run a playing back black helmet because I like to look cool rather than share my army of sponsors on my helmet. The people that are queuing up to pay me to have their logos on my helmet. So, yeah, I just I just run playing back for that reason as well.

You see, good man. Yeah. Good for you. Right. I think that's most of the bits and bobs of news, isn't it?

So I suppose we will follow our Dictat that we're going to sort of not do like really detailed race reviews because there's three World Superbike races across the weekend, plus two World Super Sport races, which is usually worth a brief mention as well. So the Superbike Race 1. Danny, what have you got to say about it? I mean, there are one or two things that stand out, one of which is, I suppose, pretty obvious really of what we were expecting. But how did you sort of read the first race?

What did you take from it? Bear in mind that Phillip Island, as I always say, is a bit of a bit of an outlier track. It's so sort of unique that I don't know that it's necessarily totally representative for what's to come later in the season at other circuits. But anyway, it was a great weekend. What did you sort of take from Race 1?

Yeah, I thought it was a good race. The one annoying thing just from the get go is laps to go. Why can't we just put what lap are they on? Let's get that sorted straight away. Jim and I have bemoaned this problem in MotoGP constantly to the point where people are probably sick and tired of us mentioning it.

But I'm glad it annoys not just us. So that's refreshing. Yeah, obviously, Büliger is the man to beat, isn't he? We've seen that across the weekend. I won't give away too many spoilers until we get to the third race as well.

But Olivera, I know I mentioned him last week, but his pace from the back of the grid seems phenomenal. Whether that is because he's getting past these back markers, I don't know. But he's definitely showing some promise on that BMW. Hopefully he can keep that going and maybe be a challenger to Büliger. Because at the minute, there's not many that are going to keep up with his pace, dry or wet.

Yeah. Carl, how about you? I mean, my abiding thought was, blimey, even though it's certainly not a BMW track, but top-racks absence made itself known pretty quickly, didn't it? Yeah, it's pretty stark. But just for a moment, going back to Danny's comment about Olivera, he was at the back of the grid for the first race, the result of a crash at turn two on his first flying lap of the SuperPole session.

He was able to get the bike back to the pits so he could have another go at SuperPole. But an electronic issue prevented the bike from restarting after the repairs had been made. So you could see the mechanics in the pits. They'd made all the necessary repairs, but they just couldn't get the bike restarted. So yeah, he wasn't too impressed about that, as you can see on the coverage, as you would be as well if you've made all that effort to get it back.

So he started from last on the grid. And yeah, if there's a man of the race, it's got to be him for coming through. Yeah, he finished eighth from 15th. So yeah, that's some doing. But as you say, both BMWs are going to go on to the races, but both BMWs haven't appeared on the podium.

So yeah, it's the old top-rock magic, isn't it? Is the magic missing now? I think another one mentioned for race one is Montella. He started from second on the grid. So great qualifying position.

Yeah, and then he maintained that position to the end. Yeah, so, you know, Montella is really interesting. I hadn't really figured him as a contender before, but seeing him at the weekend, you know, he's got that pace to match Berleger, it seems. Although obviously he didn't beat Berleger, but he's definitely up there. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see Montella's performance.

I, like you, was very surprised by him because my recollection of him last year was a bit of a Frankie Morbidelli at times. I mean, he was a bit hapless, you know, with a few overaggressive moves and a few needless crashes and took a few people out, as I recall. But yeah, it goes to show that sometimes a winter off and then that crucial second season does wonders for people. So yeah, he was good. And Baldessari as well.

It was another standout in race one because did he podium it? I think he was third, wasn't he? Yeah. Baldessari was third place. Yeah.

I mean, again, we know that PI is traditionally a bit of a stronghold track for Ducati, although you might argue where isn't. But yeah, I mean, the loss of top rack was felt very much. And again, I always have to remind myself that obviously top rack was brilliant on the BMW, but Vandermark struggled like hell on it, as did pretty much everybody else that swung a leg over the BMW over the last few seasons. So it definitely was a top rack thing rather than a BMW thing. But like you, I was struck watching Olivera getting the bike out of the gravel when he had that little tumble in super pole as to how small he is and how big that bike is.

He looked like he was having a proper struggle getting it out of the gravel in terms of putting his foot down and not having it topple over on him again. So to me, it kind of makes his race performance all the more creditable, really, because he's not quite at one with that bike, I don't think yet. His level of talent, we often see this, don't we, with MotoGP riders coming across to World Superbike. His talent level is clearly very, very, very high at the moment. He just needs a bit of good luck, doesn't he, which he's been lacking for seasons and seasons in MotoGP.

But yeah, I'm hoping that he's going to continue to impress us. And of course, where are we next time out? Home race for Olivera. Yeah, Portimao. Yeah, yeah.

I think another mention as well is Bautista. He crashed in lap two in the first race, crashed at turn 11. He was at the front end lost, so he just slid the front. Yeah, and by lap two, we could already see Berlega stretching his lead as it showed to be. He had quite a commanding lead by the end.

Interestingly, Bassani received a drop one position penalty. That was for an irresponsible riding. He was quite forceful into turn four. And he received a drop one position. That deserves a penalty there.

I mean, what do you think both of you on this? I mean, it was a hard move and Sam Lowes was who he went past in doing that move. And Sam initially had a bit of a shake of the head sort of moment, although it's important to note that after the race, Sam kind of said, oh, yeah, it was a hard move, but that's racing kind of thing. So he wasn't too bothered by it. Smutly.

Borderline Nanny State or do you just they just need to stamp some of that out? I think so, especially the position on the track that he did it as well. I don't know if you noticed down the home straight, straight back in the slipstream and nearly got back to him on turn one. So it's a long lap would be too much, I think. But the drop one is easy to overcome, isn't it?

It's a tactical move. But my point is, was the drop one place warranted in the first place? I mean, bearing in mind it was quite a tough move and he didn't take Sam out, didn't really hold Sam up too much or am I being a bit sort of too rose tinted glasses thinking about things were better in the olden days, Carl? Well, maybe, but a couple of laps later, I think it was around lap 12, because Gerloff passed Surra and it was a hard it was passed so hard it took Surra's left wing off his off his body work. So and then Gerloff wasn't penalised for that.

So you would think although Bassani would put a hard move in, Gerloff also put a hard move in where there was physical contact. And yeah, Gerloff didn't receive a penalty. So yeah, a bit strange. This is the problem with this sort of regulatory approach, isn't it? You've got to catch everything the same or otherwise you sort of well, it's not favouritism.

It's just hard to keep that level of scrutiny up, I think, and stuff will get missed, as that one clearly did. I mean, are we still all advocates for the bit of Rubbins racing or modernity caught up with us and that's not allowed anymore? I think I think you have to judge a rider not on the history necessarily, but if a rider is repeatedly doing dangerous things, then you have to say, look, we're going to start penalising you because you repeatedly doing it. If a rider does it one or maybe two times and it's just a racing incident, or they've made it simple as making a mistake, they've braked a bit later than they should have done and they've cut in front of somebody, then that's understandable. But if it's repeated behaviour of too aggressive, you know, contact and things like that, then yeah, I think it has to be judged on how the rider's behaviour is over a weekend and then maybe over a season as well.

And I think that's something that MotoGP kind of implement. Yeah, although they did drop the penalty points system, if you remember, back in 2015, which was, I think, partly as a result of what happened in the infamous kind of end of the season with between Lorenzo Rossi and Marquez, who can forget, because the penalty points, I think, disappeared from 2016 onwards, possibly as a sort of an idiot reaction to what had happened in Valencia the previous season, but anyway, and Malaysia, of course. But we won't touch on that just in case Danny's other half's listening in. Danny Bimota, they were another bright spot for me along with the sort of the Oliveira thing. They sort of stood out.

I mean, Alex Lowe's had a bit more of a struggle than Axel Bassani did, but and again, you can't judge a season on one round, but Bassani in particular, I mean, perhaps that hard move was just that he was so excited that he had a bike that he could actually do something with and get on the podium with it, because across the weekend they looked pretty good and seemed to have made quite a big step. Yeah, they did look strong. I thought Alex Lowe's did really well. And then obviously he had the bike issue look like a tire issue, and then you could see him start dropping back down the field. But it looks like it could be a bike that could keep up with the Ducati.

Obviously, we've only seen it on the one track, Phillip Island, but it'd be interesting to see that going forwards, how that develops across the season and how the riders get used to it and what advantage they can make of that power that it's got. Yeah, so Carl, do you want to just run us through what the sort of the top sort of sit? Well, I would go for pull 15 if you want in terms of points, scoring positions, but I did race one finish up then I know no prizes guessing who won the race, but talk us through it. Yeah, so as Danny mentioned, Alex Lowe's started dropping back by about lap 14. He had that potential tire issue around lap 16.

We saw Chavy, yeah, he had a big crash at Stone as a big high side. Fortunately, he was OK. Yeah. And then the rest of the race, we saw a bit of a push from Bassani towards the last couple of laps. He nearly caught Balduzari in third, but he couldn't quite manage it.

Yeah. So the final standings were Bülagur finished first. Second was Montella, then Balduzari. Fourth was Dali. So basically you've got three Ducatis on the podium, followed by the Bimota.

Sam Lowe's on a Ducati in fifth, Lecce on a Ducati in sixth, Alex Lowe's on the other Bimota on seventh. Then you've got Oliveira in eighth. So that was the first of BMW's. Perhaps don't need to go through the rest of the standings. But on with you guys about that Bimota.

I'm amazed at how fast that is, because that's basically a ZX-10R engine, a Kawasaki engine in a Bimota frame. And that engine is actually quite an aged engine now. It's quite an old engine. So you would imagine it's towards the end of its development. But they seem to have found something in that engine because, yeah, it wasn't lacking in speed at all.

So, yeah, very interesting. What platform do you guys watch the World Supers or the other Superbikes on? I'm on TNT Sports, which is kind of Euro sport, as I always used to think of it was still doing in fact. So I had Greg Haynes and James Tosland doing the commentary. So the reason I asked that is that they mentioned several times over the weekend, the aero on the Bimota apparently is very, very good.

Maybe that's helping the bike an awful lot as well, because I'm assuming, I mean, obviously, we don't know precisely what specs of engine people are running, but Gerloff's in the Kawasaki, got the ZX-10 engine as well. So clearly the whatever the motor are doing, if they get to fettle it a little bit more, I mean, obviously, the rules are the rules and there's only so much you can do. But the package of the Bimota being such a sort of specialist frame, I mean, it's kind of it's not a Moto GP bike, is it? But clearly that's a very expensive piece of kit with a fairly old standard ish engine in it. So, yeah, I just think the overall package looks to have moved on quite a bit.

And clearly they've made some steps with the aero side of things and the chassis side of things after that first year. Yeah, I believe the Bimota road bike, I believe it's got active aero. I think that's banding with a super bike. So, as you say, it's a bespoke chassis. So perhaps the stiffness is up there with a Moto GP chassis.

But again, that engine, I'm really surprised because that as a development from a development point of view, that engine is quite old. So, yeah, but they clearly got some very clever engineers who've managed to extract more from it. Yeah. You ever swung your leg over a Bimota, Danny? I know I certainly haven't.

No, it's definitely not one that I've swung my leg over. I wouldn't mind a go on it though. It looks a bit fun to ride. And of course, they run in the same bikes in BSP, aren't they? The FFS3 squad, Nigel Snook's team.

Is that right? I think they run in the Bimotas this year, aren't they? They haven't been sort of the store, the sort of the normal Kawasaki's Alex 10 for many, many years. So, yeah, cool to see how the Bimota goes and copes with the British tracks. Yeah, they've switched to them this year.

Yeah, from Kawasaki. Again, I think it's an age thing that that frame, that whole bike is quite an old design. I mean, if they've got the same kit that World Superbikes have got, it's going to be interesting to see how they do on British tracks and if they've got the same turn of speed. Yeah. OK, so that was obviously the Saturday late afternoon race.

We then move on to Sunday morning. We'll just sidestep Super Sport for a moment and focus on the World Superbike. So we get to SuperPol race then. So the short burst on the Sunday morning. Danny, do you want to sort of just talk us through a few highlights of what happened in SuperPol?

Yeah, so before the race had even started, Javi had gone. He retired with a technical issue. And then Booliga, again, he's just unreal pace on this bike. He dropped to fourth on the opening lap, though. I don't think the start was great for him.

But then obviously by lap four, he'd come back to front. Yeah, it's a weird system, isn't it, with the almost the sprint race, as they call it in MotoGP. But again, standout was Oliver Superb from the back of the grid, but then suffered another technical with the bike, which again dropped him to the back of the grid for the next race. Yeah, you certainly wouldn't be going to Oliveira to choose your lottery numbers, would you? What did you make of it, Carl?

Yeah, so again, we saw Booliga dominate. Interestingly, on the last part of the race, Lecce Ono was pushed off the track and he ended up at the back of the pack. So he had to fight his way through. He had a similar sort of fight as Oliveira in the back of the pack, although he did well because he finished it in ninth. So he'd come from the back to ninth.

Really impressive. Yeah. And of course, we had a few spots of rain towards the end of the SuperPol race as well, didn't we? Which there's quite a bit of water appearing on a couple of the cameras at various points around the track, so we had to come here to sort of slow him down one little bit, which is always impressive at Philip Island of all places. But yeah, I mean, Petrucci, I'm just trying to remember back now because I haven't made detailed notes, but Petrucci and Oliveira had a pretty spirited tussle between them.

All good natured, must be said. But yeah, you just can't really get away from how dominant Nico Booliga looks already, which is a theme that we will return to in a moment. In terms of the SuperPol race finishing order, so it was Booliga, but this time Bassani gets it on the podium in second place and a great rate from Alex Lowe's to have a double Bimbo to podium celebration. So just echoing what we were talking about just a moment ago. I mean, SuperPol race is kind of over in a blink, isn't it?

Because it's quite a short, how many laps was it? Was it nine or something like that? It's quite a short format. Twelve. Twelve, was it?

OK. I did sort of watch it first thing in the morning before I headed off to the race retro event up at Stonely Park. Just caught it before I left. So yeah, good race. I mean, I don't know if I make you think, oh dear, losing Philip Ireland.

I hope World Superbikes don't, this hasn't really come up in the discussion, has it? But I hope World Superbikes do continue with their association with PI, even though it looks as if MotoGP is, well, unless there's a last minute reprieve or some last minute deal going on. I don't know if you've heard any gossip on this. I certainly haven't. The first for World Superbike is they are corrected until 2027, so they'll be racing their next year.

But then after that, and I think you mentioned it on a couple of podcasts ago, The Bend, it looks like they're heading there. Right. OK. Crikey. I mean, that's quite the change about it, isn't it?

Both World Championship events leaving there. Well, what can you say? I mean, money talks at the end of the day, doesn't it? I hope it sort of finds its way back one day if they can make some of the changes that are needed. But because, of course, World Superbikes going at this time of year, I know they had a few spots of rain here and there, but it was looked quite warm and pleasant for most of the weekend.

That's how it looked to me. I mean, obviously I wasn't there, but it is. It's kind of late summertime there, isn't it now? So again, just echoing what I've said continuously again to people who are bored of hearing it. But why the hell MotoGP hasn't been going there at this time of year is just completely unfathomable to me.

Yeah, I think I think it's a massive shame to lose Philip Ireland from any World Championship. It's so iconic seeing him go down the straight and then you've got the ocean in the background and then the geography of the track as well, the topography of the track. It's just it's fantastic seeing coming over the hill, you know, similar to Portimount topography. You know, you've got the ups and the downs and it just adds to the spectacle. And yes, just a massive disappointment if PR is not included.

But we're not the ones making the commercial decisions, unfortunately. Yeah. So, yeah, let's enjoy it while we can. So as Dan mentioned, it's contracted for World Superbikes for twenty seven. Yeah.

Watch this space. Yeah. OK. So race two. You can talk to us about the main highlight of this, I suppose, was the fact that it was a sort of a what tires do I start on?

That kind of a deal, wouldn't it? Because was it spitting and spotting at the beginning of the race? Oh, no, I'm thinking about Super Sport. I think so. I'm thinking of the Super Sport race.

Yeah. So for race two World Superbikes wet race or riders on full wets. So I think I think they'd prefer that rather than running intermediates. You know, either wet or dry is the best best scenario. So Balega was on pole again.

Yeah. He looked mainly from the start despite standing water. We had a high side from Rato at Hay Shed on the first lap. Yeah. Montella in second place.

He did crash out there, didn't he? At some point, because that's what my notes say. Yeah. So lap 15, Montella had an issue. So he crashed out second place.

Massive shame there because it was towards the last quarter of the race. His rear tyre came round. It wasn't didn't look like a high side and the commentators didn't say said it didn't look like a high side. It looked to be like an early back shift issue. So he'd shifted down maybe a bit of fraction too early, locked up the rear or not locked up rear with a slipper clutch.

Certainly put more pressure on the rear than normal. And yeah, the rear end came round on him and don't get it back. Unfortunately, I suppose the main thing that happened again, slightly from a British interest point of view was Sam Lowe's had a mother and father of a crash. I think it's Stoners or coming out of Stoners corner anyway, which is along with the Hay Shed, probably one of the two places you don't really want to be crashing, given the angles that you're at and the speed that you're going at. I mean, because I picked up some insta sort of feed stuff while I was at that race event up north.

And so I was doing my best not to see what had happened, but I was sort of seeing old Sam Lowe's injury update. So I was kind of fearing the worst slightly. And then so he did sort of trot out of the gravel, didn't he? So what has he actually done to himself? I'm assuming he's broken or sprained a wrist or something as well.

Yeah, is this broken left breast? Is it actually broken? Is it, Danny? Broken left breast. Yeah.

Apparently contusion of the right hand, left ankle contusion and the broken left wrist. Yeah. Right. OK. So that's another one that's going to take a little while to get back from.

Did you see the crash, Carl? I did see Sam's crash, but I can't remember the circumstances around it, unfortunately. And also Alex's brother, he crashed later on in the race at lap 18, approximately lap 18 into turn one. So he was having quite a battle with Taz McKenzie. The rear came around again, but unlike Montella's crash, I think Alex's crash was just a classic high side.

The rear came around on the power and he was slightly wide coming out of the corner. And I think he was trying to put him to the racing line and it appeared that he's just too much power off the racing line and by his side unfortunately. Yeah. Did you see the crash that Sam had, Danny? I'm not sure they actually caught it on camera, did they?

I don't think they caught the actual crash, but you could see the damage that it caused to the bike as they were going round. But no, I didn't see any of the footage of it. But he has said that it's one of the worst crashes that he's had. Which is saying something because he's crashed quite big quite a few times, doesn't he, Sam? Unfortunately.

The only other thing I was going to mention from race two, I mean, maybe you've probably got some of the things you do want to pick up. But again, across the weekend, a bit like Olivera, although he'll probably have gone away from the round pretty disappointed. But Lekwona put in three kind of fighting rides, I thought, and ended up finishing top ten in race two. I always think of it as race three because of the Super Bowl race in the morning. And then the other one that really sort of stands out in terms of the second main race is Taron McKenzie finishing in one, two, three, fourth place.

I think it was in the end, unless the standings changed after the event. But great ride for that team because they've really been through the mill over the course of the last couple of seasons. Yeah, Taz, he really seemed to get to grips without Ducati in those wet conditions. He was really pushing. As I say, Alex crashed trying to catch him.

Alex Lowe crashed trying to catch him. And as you say, he finished fourth. So, yeah, he seemed to really be able to exploit Ducati in those conditions. I think Taz's best finish before this was seven. So it's a vast improvement on his previous best.

So a ride from him. We should remember that he did he win a race on the CBR 600 in World Super Sport at Phillip Island in the wet a couple of seasons ago? Got a feeling he did. I know he's won a race in World Super Sport. I didn't know where and when though.

So you could be right. I need to check that. I might be wrong, but he's definitely won a race in the wet on that absolute dog of a Honda in Super Sport. The first season they brought that thing back. I was never quite sure if you called it MIA or MIE Honda.

Any ideas? I've never been clear on that and they seem to have disappeared now anyway. Certainly not in World Superbikes this year. Or if they were, I'd completely miss them. Although they were so far at the back.

But I think I think they've disappeared from the grid this year. So, yeah, I mean, entertaining races, all three of them, as you would expect in Phillip Island. And OK, as I say, I'm sure I'll say it several times this year. If I do hop on a few more of these calls on World Super, we're going to miss top rack a lot. But there was a lot of really good racing elsewhere to be found and some very hopeful signs in terms of the BMW pair.

I thought Lekwona when he doesn't have bad luck or doesn't chuck it up the road. And yeah, a couple of surprising Ducati standouts as well. So let's see if Montella and well, Bautista actually didn't have a terrible weekend. I mean, I know he crashed in race one, but he kind of redeemed himself a little bit over the rest of the weekend. And we'll no doubt do quite well throughout the season because he's on a Ducati at the end of the day and he's had a lot of success on it.

So I thought overall it was a very promising start despite the absence of the world champion. Carla, I mean, any other finishing thoughts on World Super before we touch on Super Sport? Yeah, as you mentioned, Bautista, you know, he didn't have the great start, but he managed to finish on the podium in race two the last race year. So very good for Bautista. An interesting fact actually that James Tozlin mentioned in the commentary, I didn't realize this, but the wet tires.

So in race two, the wet tires actually displaced 20 litres a second of water. Yeah, I heard him say that a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I just can't imagine it's being pushed out of the way by a tire per second. But it's given me a bit more confidence now for when I'm doing wet track today on my wet tires.

Watch this space or I'll end up in Osville. Danny, any final thoughts on World Supers? Yeah, I just think it's going to be very similar to MotoGP, isn't it? Mike is running the show on there and Booliga is going to do the same in this. Potentially could be his last season here.

I know he's expressed his wishes to go over to MotoGP. He's already a test rider for them. So I think this is probably why he's going to push so hard is because this is his last chance in Superbikes to get that win. I mean, it's worth pointing out that in terms of the TNT coverage, which I'm sure they just show the feed that everybody gets, we didn't really see a great deal of Booliga because he was several seconds out of the road and there were more interesting things to watch elsewhere. And thankfully, for once, the director chose to show us the racing that was actually going on rather than a guy that was sort of four or five seconds out the front.

So we didn't really see an awful lot of him. But it did look like a bit of a kind of Sunday afternoon ride out for him, really, didn't it? Which doesn't bode well. We'll see. I mean, there are bright spots and if the likes of Bassani and whatnot can keep qualifying on the front row and hit a few more favored tracks, which are perhaps not quite so good for the Ducatis historically, then maybe there'll be a few fierce battles out front.

So World Super Sport. Carl, I think you said you didn't manage to watch the World Super Sports. Is that right? Is that what you said? Or did I mishear you?

No, that's right. Apologies. I'm not going to be much use on that. No, that's OK. Well, Danny, you did.

I sort of made a point of watching them because as I keep going on about as well, I've an inkling that World Super Sport might become the premier category in this championship before very much longer. And the bikes are not don't really look that much slower when you watch them on the telly. I suppose there are a few seconds a lap, but you don't really kind of notice a huge difference. But again, I don't have sort of comprehensive notes to talk about on that. A couple of things for me and you perhaps give your impressions, but unfortunately a pretty disappointing opening weekend for Tom Boutaimos from a British perspective.

I'm conscious we mustn't keep talking about the British riders because this is a, you know, listen to all over the place. Massey won the first race, I think is likely to be the guy that you would expect to lift the championship given his pedigree. And he had a very strong rookie season in the Super Sport last year. But Albert Arenas, again, proving the point that if you come across from the MotoGP paddock, you're coming with a lot of talent and a lot of class. Admittedly, the second race on the Sunday was in mixed conditions and he made the right call on tyres.

But boy, he looked impressive across the weekend and certainly in race two, which he won. So what were your takeaways, Danny, in terms of the World Super Sport races? Yeah, I think the racing is going to be much more exciting in there. There's going to be a lot of chops and changes. Like I say, there was a couple of mistakes with the tyre selection with the wall well, which we weren't expecting that heavy rain at Phillip Island.

And I think it caught some out. But yeah, to be honest with you, I didn't make the comprehensive notes on that. I just sort of had it on in the background and heard a lot of the commentary, getting a bit excited. But it's a shame that Arriss did miss out on that podium in his debut, so I think that would have been quite a nice little story to talk about. Yeah, again, I'm expecting World Super Sport to be something that's worth watching this year.

So we'll try and talk over it, not on the same level as World Superbike, obviously, because World Super is the World Superbike, I should say, is the premier bit of it. But overall, yeah, just, I mean, my wife probably shaking her head at me, but great to have racing back on the telly again to while away hours and hours of the weekend when you should be out doing DIY and other boring stuff or riding around outside on your own bike. But not that it's the weather for it in the UK just at the moment. But I suppose let's just briefly mention as we're kind of just doing this in the run up to MotoGP round one, we've just had the the test in Thailand. Again, I'm always very suspicious of testing, so you can't draw too many conclusions from it.

But I would be surprised if Ducati on, you know, one Ducati in particular anyway, isn't proving itself to be a bit of a sort of menace in terms of dominance again. But Aprilia looking pretty strong on their race runs in particular, certainly Buzeki looking very, very strong. And Ayagura turned in some impressive long runs as well. So any thoughts just heading into MotoGP round one, Carl? Yeah.

How far away are we from it now, Rich? Well, this is Tuesday, so they'll be getting going on Friday this week. OK, so yeah, let's let's see if the Aprilia's can still take the fight to the Ducati. I believe is is Martijn in full fitness now? I'm not sure full fitness, but I think he's substantially less broken than he was for pretty much the entirety of 2025.

Yeah, OK, so let's see if he can take the fight to him. But I still think Marquez is going to be at the top, isn't he? He's the guy to beat very much so. Yeah, feels that way. Danny, I mean, what did you draw from any of it?

If you sort of caught some of the testing action, not that it was televised, but obviously in terms of just reporting from people were there and times and whatnot. Results wise, I think Buzeki is looking sharp, like he was towards the end of the season. You mentioned Ayagura. He had the fastest average lap time across the testing session. Yeah.

Which that's unheard of with him. So potentially coming on with the development side of things. Mark had a couple of crashes in one of the tests, whether that's him pushing to the limit like he normally does or whether that is something that's not quite there with the Yucati. Then again, yeah, we'll see first race. I think it's going to be Mark and Bez up there potentially with Banyaya coming back to the fray as well.

Yeah, I heard on one of the other podcasts that Marquez had a sort of jippy tummy throughout the weekend of the test. So I think probably plus it that part of the world Thailand is pretty hot and humid at the best of times. It's particularly hot and humid at the moment. I think they're having some unseasonally sticky weather there at the minute. So I think that plus being ill probably meant his concentration might have suffered a little bit and he wasn't really kind of looking to do lots of long runs.

I mean, he had the runs, just not those sorts of long runs. So that's dented him. And of course, with the race weekend being so close to the test, it's not just the matter of a moment to get over an illness like that, particularly when you're staying put in that sort of debilitating heat and humidity in particular in that part of the world. So, yeah, Mark might not have it all his own way. But of course, Thailand, they run this super hard rear tire as well, which is a bit of kind of curve ball that might come into play.

There are some bikes that particularly don't like that tire. So the only other thing I was going to mention about it, just in case you got any thoughts on it as well, is that from the testing, what we've seen with the Ducatis is they're sort of reverting back to 25. And in some cases, 2024 spec equipment, particularly on the aero. So it does make you wonder whether or not Ducati have kind of just taken a rather conservative approach in this last year, whereas perhaps I think Aprilia are still pushing on hard, as are the likes of Honda, of course, as well. Honda's traditionally don't go that well in Thailand, but I've got high hopes for Honda this year in terms of putting in a few what will be surprising results.

I'm not quite sure I'm still on board with Nils Boulding's prediction that they're going to win the championship in this final year of this ruleset. That was a pretty bold claim, but I'm sure he's probably sticking to it. But yeah, overall, you look at World Superbike and the racing is so great. And generally we don't say the same in MotoGP, although there are occasions when there's a bit of good racing that goes on. But what's your feeling each of you in terms of are you kind of looking forward to this last year or are you just kind of looking forward to not you should wish time away, but looking forward to 2027 when everything kind of resets in the biggest possible way.

I mean, where are you on that, Danny? It needs a change, doesn't it? It does need a change. It needs freshening up a bit. We've had a substantial time with this setup now and it's a clean slate.

Nobody knows how it's going to go. Nobody knows how the riders are going to take on with these bikes. And it's yeah, I'm hoping that it might mix things up a bit. Obviously, silly season has already come and gone and there's whispers in there going, with the riders going to each separate teams. And it's a shame that that's come around preseason for this season.

They should be focusing on what they've got coming forwards rather than where they're going to be in a couple of years time. Yeah, interesting. What about you, Cal? I'm not really looking forward to the 850s, if I'm honest. I'm looking forward to the restriction of aero and the removal of ride height devices.

I think they're not really helping the racing. In fact, ride height devices in particular have caused a few issues. Yeah, but for me, 850s, I'd prefer it to stay 1000cc. But yeah, let's see. Let's see what happens.

Yeah. Well, you made your feelings clear on that with World Superbikes when I asked that question. Do you like your liter capacity? Yeah, no replacement for displacement, as Americans say. So, OK, well, I think that was the first run out covering World Superbike.

As I say, you two got to sort of do this on your own in the fullness of time anyway. But it's been fun talking about World Superbike round one. And it was great to have some bikes out on track last weekend. And of course, yeah, MotoGP to inverted commas. Well, no, I am looking forward to MotoGP.

I mean, it is the premier class. It's just I just hate all of the gizmos. And again, we've got some of our listeners, you know, the likes of Alan Fleming, who've always made the point that prototype championship, you know, it should be within reason, anything goes. And that's obviously what we've seen over the last few years, isn't it? But when you look at, say, the Honda in particular, I saw some stills of it during the start line practice starts.

I think it was in the Sepang test. And I mean, it looks even more like a drag bike now. I mean, the exhaust is virtually rubbing down the ground now. I mean, they just to me, they just look hideous like that. But the point is to go fast, isn't it?

I suppose every year they are going faster, which is why they're having to clip them back a little bit from 2027 onwards. But I certainly won't lament the removal of the rear ride height device in particular. I don't know, really, with the Gini out of the bottle on aero, quite how they're going to manage that in terms of the restrictions. We'll have to see. There's always very clever people that come up with ways to circumnavigate things.

Danny, you look as if you've got a point to make there. We've seen the restrictions on the aero already, haven't we? With top rack. I don't know whether you've been privy to it with the rear aero missing on his bike from testing. It was all to do with the height because he's so tall.

He's had to have the seat lowered. So there's not that gap between the top of the seat and the aero. Yeah, because he famously sits low down in the bike anyway, doesn't he? Or he did on the World Superbike machine. He virtually didn't have a seat on the bike at some stages to get his weight down as low as possible.

But yes, I did pick up on the fact that he was not able to run the rear ride height. But I mean, he looks to be in a spot of bother at the minute, doesn't he? Because he just, I think, is realizing just the enormity of the difference in the tires in particular. So I think Yamaha overall are going to have a pretty tough season. But just on the silly season thing again, just listening to something earlier this evening.

So it does sound as if the Bagnata Yamaha, sorry, Bagnata Aprilia deal is now done, albeit not announced. But I think the expectation is that that will be announced on probably on Thursday, which is likely to cement the Jorge Martín at Yamaha with, it sounds like, Fabio DiGiantonio coming across to join him. That sounds like that could be a done deal as well, which means that Fabio Quattraro is almost certainly going to be running on our HRC bike in 2027. So, yeah, there are some big moves that have happened over the course of this and inevitably a few people are going to be left standing up when the music stops. I struggle to see where Alex Rins is going to land, for example, in terms of MotoGP series and a few others as well, probably.

So, yeah, I don't know. I'm sort of I'm not bothered when the announcements get made in terms of rider moves. But this close to the season, I mean, I take your point, Danny, that it's a bit of a distraction. The Acosta deal looks as if it's done as well. Marquez is the odd one.

He's sort of hanging out by the sounds of it for a shorter term deal. I think DiCati will have time in for longer than he's prepared to commit to. So I think that might be part of the reason why that still hasn't come out. But I would imagine that we might see a bit of a raft of announcements Thursday, Friday before the weekend sort of really gets into full stride. So, yeah, interesting times.

Any closing thoughts, Carl? Wow. Yeah, we're already in silly season. We haven't even started this season. Yeah, well, I think silly season's almost finished, isn't it?

Before the season started, which is a novel approach. Yeah, so maybe the comment about Marquez shows his intent to to retire. I mean, he certainly deserves it. Yeah, perhaps he wants number 10 and then then adios. But yeah, a lot of a lot of movement before the season's even started.

I just wonder whether or not part of his thinking is that at some point when I think the teams have got an agreement that they're not going to run the eight fifties out with kind of race riders until a certain point of the season. So I suspect that perhaps, I don't know, summer late summertime, Marquez might get a first run out on the eight fifties, at which point you might think, oh, I really like this. I'll carry on or God, this is a bag of bag of what's it. I'm not interested. I like to my thousand.

Thank you very much. And I'm going to go and enjoy the line in the summer with my pretty girlfriend and the dogs, which you wouldn't blame him on either of those schools, to be honest. How about you, Danny? Well, going late with Marquez's girlfriend. I don't think my other half would have that.

Obviously not. I would never, never suggest such a thing. She doesn't want him to get his tent. I'm sure. Yeah, I think, you know, he's he's done his time as an ease said about the injuries before taking the toll and they're only going to get worse as you get older.

I can guarantee that I know full well. Yeah. But yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of changes. I think there's going to be like Carl said, maybe disappointment in going to the eight fifties. And is it going to be a case of can we bring back the thousands, please?

I'm just kind of liking the fact that the bikes will be radically different and there's a lot of big rider movements going on as well. Just to add in even more kind of intriguing jeopardy. He used to say, Yamaha, don't knock it out of the park with the 850 just as Fabio leaves. No, because he's been whinging and moaning about the inline four demanding to have a V4 and now he doesn't like the V4 by the looks of it and is going to have a bit of a struggle this year before he goes off to pass his new. So yeah, there's a lot going on there.

But anyway, five weeks. Well, as we sit here now, four and a half weeks away from World Superbike round two at Portimao. And I guess when will that take us to the back end of March? So World Superbike round two will certainly happen before BSP round one, because that's at the beginning of May, I think we said, didn't we? So it'll be a little while before we show up again talking about World Superbike machinery.

But for now, for episode eight to seven, that's a wrap, I think. And yeah, we'll be back together again in a month or so. So thanks, guys, and see you next time.