WSBK and BSB - The Dominance Continues

Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode 841, The Dominance Continues. We're recording this on Monday the 25th of May. I'm your host Carl Hunn and joining me this evening is my co-host Danny Smith. In this show Danny and I will report on the latest action from both round 5 of World Superbikes from the Czech Republic and round 2 of British Superbikes at Donington Park.

But before we get into the racing, Dan, how are you doing? Not too bad Carl, thank you. How are you? Yeah, good thanks mate. Anything bike related since the last one?

No, just using it to go up and down the hospital really. The other half had back surgery, major surgery on her spine, fusing two of the vertebrae together. So it was up there every day, visiting her, taking her all the snacks that I could carry in my backpack. But she's back home now so life's a lot easier. It's all sort of settled down and surgery went as planned.

So it's just a long road of recovery for her and I'm still recovering from my shoulder and tucked wood. Collapsed lung, it's all good. So yeah, we're just moving on and we'll go from there. What about you? How was Donington?

Yeah mate, first of all I'll say I hope the other half recovers as quickly as possible. I hope everything's okay and good to hear that you were the fastest snack delivery in town. Yeah, so just for the listeners, I was at Donington yesterday for track day. So yesterday was Sunday. A bit of a weird one because we're on a Monday night.

It's actually a bank holiday in the UK. A sweltering bank holiday. We've had a good weekend of high temperatures, about 30 degrees. So Donington very hot yesterday, but better hot than raining. The boys, they'd laid down plenty of rubber for us on the track day yesterday.

So they'd been there the previous weekend as we'll get on to. And yeah, amazing day. Amazing day. Cheers. Lap times?

Anywhere near the boys? Oh, well my lap time was broke. Well, you're not actually supposed to use them on the track days. Oh really? I have got a lap time.

Yeah, yeah. I have got a lap time on the bike, but it's actually malfunctioning. Let's see, that's what it looks like when you look at the numbers. Yeah, you're going too quick for it. No, joking aside, it's not working.

But yeah, it was. As I mentioned in a previous pod, I've tried to push on a bit this year by going in advanced group and using slicks. Actually hired an instructor for one of the sessions to give me a few pointers. And he said, I'll give you a tow for a few laps to show you how to go. And yeah, it's mind blowing how fast some of these guys can go.

I did try my hardest to keep up with him. I managed to keep him in sight and he was, he did keep checking back to be fair, checking back. But something else, I just can't believe, even after all these years of riding motorbikes, I can't believe how much grip is generated from such a small contact. Yeah, it's crazy. It's just immense.

Yeah, yeah, unbelievable. Yeah, you see it on TV and you just go, how do they lean them over that much hanging off that bike? But it obviously works. That's how they get their elbows down and nearly the helmet on the floor. Yeah, no elbow down for me yesterday, unfortunately.

No? No. That'll come, that'll come. It'll probably come closely followed by my helmet because I've gone too far. And the bike.

Oh, don't say that. Don't say that. So yeah, anything else that springs to mind before we get into the news? Just to mention, I'm off to Mugello next weekend for the MotoGP. Oh, you hadn't said, mate.

Yeah, I don't keep mentioning it at all. I'm not jealous at all. I'll be cracking really good over there. We haven't cleared it with Jim and Rich yet, but I'm hoping I'll be able to do a cameo on the MotoGP podcast. Yeah, I can't see why not.

I mean, you're traveling further than Jim does to go and watch MotoGP. So yeah, that'd be awesome. I'm cheating though because I'm flying. I'm not going in an RV. It's a bloody long way to go with that.

The drive. You flying into, where are you flying into? Pisa. Oh, nice. Yeah, I think it's a couple of hours from Pisa.

Yeah, be good. Be good. Yeah, I'll report back. Don't worry, mate. Yeah, plenty of live action as well.

Videos and stuff. I'll get them onto the social media. Yeah, you'll be getting bored of it, mate, by the end of the weekend. You'll be saying, hey, him again. Can't get bored of that.

News. Yeah, I think the only point of news that I was going to mention is I noticed in World Superbikes Yamaha have had their fuel rate increased by 0.5 kilograms per hour. Yeah, we said about it last week, didn't we? Yamaha, increase of 0.5 and Ducati, a decrease of 0.5. I mean, has it made any difference the previous times?

I don't think it's made a dot of difference. It's all there, isn't it? The Ducatis are still at the front and the Yamahas are still struggling behind. So do we think they need to come up with a different idea? Maybe standardised ECU?

I don't know what we thought. Maybe, but I noticed in the latest round of check round that the Yamaha wasn't getting quite as swamped on that. Sorry, mate. I'm just barking. Just bear with me.

It's all right. She was barking because she's been taken out. Getting all excited. For a walk and not being shot. ECU.

Yeah, so your note, control ECU works in BSB. Yeah. Are we sure we want World Superbike removing traction control? I'm not sure. That's the trouble, isn't it?

I don't know. It's a difficult one. It is a difficult one. Do we have the Ducatis romping it and keep trying this fuel change? Or is it just sort of lip service now?

We'll change that. It will limit their power and then we'll go again. Yeah, I think they've tried to do it a number of ways in the past, haven't they? They've tried to reduce RPM allowed and they've had ballast as well. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's just a case of the manufacturers have to build a better bike. Yeah. Yeah.

It's pinnacle, isn't it? The V4 R1. Yeah, it's the pinnacle of racing. Something needs to change. Like I say, is it the manufacturers or is it something that could be implemented onto each bike?

Yeah, there wasn't much else, I don't think, news-wise. I mean, we had... We had a few bits in practice, didn't we? Obviously, Nicolo Bouliger had a crash in free practice two, turn one. The first crash that he's had this season.

Is it a sign of things to come or is it just one of those things that happen? No injuries, but the crash did a lot of damage to the bike. Yeah, I think that was pretty much it. Yeah, I heard about that crash, but I didn't see it. What happened, Dan?

Just lost the front, I think, at turn one. Yeah, but obviously, straight back out, doing what it does best. Obviously, we'll come... We'll cover that in the podcast, but... Yeah, okay.

So, we can move on to the Czech round, Czech Republic round of World Superbikes at the Most Circuit. I think you say it like that, Most, Most. Yeah, Most, yeah. Most, okay. So, Superpole qualifying, top 10.

Bolle going first. There's a surprise for you. Montella second, Lecone a third, Sam Lowe is fourth, Surra in fifth, Gerloff in sixth, seventh was Bassani, eighth was Balzeri, ninth was Petrucci, and tenth was Manzi. So, pretty telling there. The top one, two, three, four, five, top five were Ducatis.

Yeah, and then you got that Kawasaki with that little bit of extra fuel pumping through it. Yeah. So, obviously, the free practice to crash that he had, and then it was a bit of a statement lap from Bouliger. That's his fifth pole from the first five rounds, and he had the last in Jerez in 2025, Stats Corner. Third best consecutive pole streak in World Superbike history, matching records set by Doug Pollan and Tom Syke.

There you go. Good start. Not bad, Dan. Not bad, is it? Yeah.

But, yeah, he did a lap time of 1.29.616, which absolutely obliterated the previous record, which was four tenths slower than that. Yeah, pretty good, really. Alex Lowes, he had a crash as well in that qualifying, but he recovered and took the road two spot. Yeah, that's it. Okay.

So, moving on to race one. So, 21 laps in total for race one. First lap, Bouliger leads into turn one. He's followed by Montello and Lecone. And then Petrucci crashes.

He crashed into turn... Oh, sorry, I couldn't work out which turn it was that he crashed into. But it was a very strange crash. It looked like a big high side, but it was a long way before the corner. The camera didn't actually catch the point at which he came off the bike, but the bike was in the air.

Turn 13, mate. Okay, turn 13. Yeah. Yeah, it just looked... It looked weird, because the bike was already in the air a long way before the corner.

Yeah. I don't know if it's a high side or if on the brakes, the back's come around on him and then gripped again. I don't know. But it was a fast crash, and it resulted in Petrucci being ruled out of the rest of the weekend's racing. Yeah.

So he's got a lower back and left hip contusion and bruised the first four fifth fingers of his left hand and a pelvic injury. But then he had the scan at the hospital, which also revealed a fracture of the coccyx. Yeah. That's a sore one. Ouch.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that resulted in a red flag.

And the commentators were... Well, commentators, obviously. They were saying... They were commenting that there's no service road on this Moss circuit, so the ambulance can't get to a rider without going onto the track. So any incident like we saw with Petrucci would result in stopping the racing.

Yeah. It seems odd for me. For an international circuit, we'll see for what level, to not have these sort of access roads that you see at other circuits. Yeah. You'd think it'd be a bit of a standard, wouldn't you?

Yeah. Strange one. But they did go out and recover him, and then the race restarted. So it was restarted at full length, because they hadn't even completed one lap. So full.

Full length, 21 laps. They're on the restart. Bulliger leads into turn one again, but he's followed by Montello and Lecce owner again. When we get to lap four, Sam Lowe passes Surra into fourth place in turn 15. It was quite a late lunge, so it wasn't the cleanest of passes.

And then Surra comes back at Sam in the next corner. But then there's contact, and it causes Sam to lowside. And then Gerloff then comes through on Surra. So Surra's had that contact with Sam that's caused his lowside. Then Gerloff comes through on Surra.

Because of the Sam Lowe's incident, it's caused Surra to slow down. Yeah, Sam Lowe's wasn't happy looking at the footage of him on the side of the track. It's a good job they didn't have the old onboard microphone in the lid. Because, yeah, he was jumping up and down. What do you think?

Deserve a penalty? Well, yeah, I was going to say, four laps, five laps later, the race control did decide to give Surra a long lap penalty for irresponsible riding. But when you actually look at the incident itself, it was only the lightest contact between, or at least it looked like the lightest of contact between Surra and Sam. Perhaps it was the combination of just a light contact and the fact that they're off the racing line, the dirty part of the track that caused Sam to go down. It does seem a bit harsh.

You know, it was a late lunge by Sam into the corner before. And then Surra came back at Sam. And then the incident happened. So it's perhaps a bit harsh, that penalty, I'd say. Yeah, Surra's a bit fiery, though, isn't he, as a rider?

He's young. Perhaps he saw that red mist and thought, I'll have him on this corner. But there's no leg off the peg or anything, is there? It is, like you said, that minimal touch. Sam's in the dirty part of the track, heavy lean angle.

Off he goes. Well, Sam was a bit fiery when he was in the gravel trap. He was, yeah. He made his feelings known. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. So on from the incident and lap nine when Surra got given the long lap penalty, get to lap 13. That going, he's putting pressure on Villiger. So Villiger's not having it all his own way.

And he runs wide at turn one. So this increases that pressure on Villiger. He seems to be having a front tyre issue because he's running wide at quite a few corners at this stage in the race. And then when we move into the, so that was lap 13. We move into the next lap, 14.

There's the coming down the start-finish straight. The eco-owner actually levels Villiger down the start-finish straight. And he passes him into first in turn one. And he manages to hold that position for a couple of laps. So, again, this is...

Villiger is not getting it all his own way. But by lap 17, Villiger passes the eco-owner at turn 15, 16. He can't make it stick on that occasion, though. But then as they're coming around to the start-finish straight for lap 18, Villiger levels the eco-owner on the start-finish straight to pass him into turn one, into first place. So, basically, it mirrors the move that the eco-owner did on Villiger to get into first in the first place.

And, yeah, it's pretty static from there until the finish. Villiger finishes first. Eco-owner second. Montella third. Gerloff on the Kawasaki in fourth.

Bassani fifth. Baldazzari sixth. Seventh was Alex Lowes. Eighth was Locatelli. Ninth was Surra, even with his long lap.

Tenth was Manzi. And then we also get a British nod. I know he's Scottish, but it was Taylor. Taylor McKenzie in 11th. Yeah.

Villiger finished 1.3 seconds ahead of Lequona, even after Lequona was in front, how close it had been. But, like I say, he's not... He's not having it all his own way. Lequona seems to be learning from him. And I know Lequona's been racing World Superbikes a bit longer than Villiger, but he seems to be learning from him.

And just picking up where he can gain that extra speed and gain that extra time. And, yeah, he's definitely going to start pushing for a win, I think. Yeah. Yeah. But, same result.

Nicolo Villiger wins this one. That's his 17th win in a row. He's won 13 of 13 in 2026. Mad. Mad, isn't it?

Well, we'll move on to the other races now. Because it's going to get even madder. Yeah. Should we... Just on that, the rumour mill is that Villiger is potentially going to be at VR46 next year.

Yeah, I heard that also. Yeah. MotoGP. Yeah. Rossi, obviously, keen on the Italians.

Villiger's very successful. Why not? Give him that chance. But then, if he does go, who's going to take the Ducati place? I'll get the details this weekend, mate, when I'm in Mugello.

Yeah, if you wouldn't mind. I'll have a word of valet. Mate, I'll just say, look, mate, what's going on here? Is Villiger coming to your team or not? You'd be better off speaking to Uccio.

Ah, yeah. Okay, I'll get to Uccio instead. Yeah, it's... La Crona leading for those laps. That's the longest that anyone else has led one of these races in 2026, other than Villiger.

It's just phenomenal, that record that he's holding. Absolutely phenomenal. Yeah. On to the 10-lap Super Bowl race. Yeah, on to the Sunday.

So, the Super Bowl race. 10 laps, as you mentioned. Lap one, Villiger leads into turn one again. But he did make a mistake and runs very wide. Sam Lowe then goes down in turn one.

Manzi pushes Vierge wide. He pushes Bassani wide to go down the slit road at turn one and rejoins. So, there's kind of this Constantino effect. La Crona leads in lap one, followed by Villiger and Montella. When we move to the second lap, Villiger block passes La Crona in turn one to take first place.

So, again, mirroring what he did at the end of the previous race. Down the start-finish and Vierge crashes. Sorry, I haven't got it here in my notes. Which corner he crashed at? It says I've got him crashing at turn one.

Ah, okay, yeah. And then, obviously, the speed demon at the back, Somkat Chantra, he crashed at turn 15 in that race. Okay. I don't think it was covered in the footage. No, okay.

I just noted him going down the pecking order of all of one place. Yeah. Moving on to lap five, Safa Oglu's engine lets go. But it doesn't seem to leave any oil on the track, so it's safe for the other guys to carry on. There's a good battle between Sur and Girl off the fifth.

A bit of two and a throw in there between them two. But Sur manages to hang on to fifth place at the finish. And Villiger wins by two seconds. Yeah. So, finishing order.

Villiger, again. I must still say Villiger, right? Villiger. Am I annoying everybody by saying Villiger? I've always called him Bulliger.

Bulliger, okay. I don't know. You can ask him when you're out there next week. I was going to say, again. Have I mentioned I'm going to Magellan this weekend, mate?

I'll ask when I'm there. Yeah. Sorry. Second place was Lecoena. Third place was Montella.

Again, it's that same top three. Fourth place, Baldoseri. Fifth place, Surra. Sixth place, Gerloff. Seventh place, McKenzie.

Good finish from McKenzie. Eighth was Bridewell. I think we'll get on to it in the third race. But Bridewell seems to make a big step this time round, in this round. Yeah.

We'll see for the bikes. Ninth was Alex Lowes. Tenth was Vandermarck. Yeah. Good race from Tommy in that one, actually.

Yeah. Like I say, he's making steps, moving forwards. Yeah. Bulliger, 18th win in a row. It was a new Superpole race lap record.

He did a 1.29.920. That's his 34th career World Superbike win level with Tom Sykes. And he's eighth on the all-time list now. You're the main man for stats, Dan. Every time.

Every time. I know Tom Sykes. I know we've said it before. Would Bulliger be this dominant if Toprak was still there? What do you think?

Has the Ducati stepped up that much? I was going to save this point until the summary of the chat round. But what is going on with that BMW? What is going on with that bike and that team? Yeah.

It's not going well for them, is it? It really isn't. Is it just they haven't got the right riders in Vandermarck? Is it Vandermarck? Vandermarck, yeah.

Michael Vandermarck. And Petrucci. Is Petrucci, I know he's a previous MotoGP race winner, but is he too old now to run at the top of World Superbikes? Age has got to play a part, hasn't it? But then, you know, BSB.

Look at Leon Haslam last weekend, or the weekend before. He was still doing it at that age. I just don't know. I don't know what's going on with it. But they haven't kept up at all, have they?

You could argue it was just the Toprak magic on the BMW. But again, it's this new Ducati as well. It's not a straight answer, but I really expected the BMW to be higher than it is. It's this year so far. Yeah, and me.

Do you know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see them just go, do you know what, we'll get Toprak back in for a week, get him to do a bit of testing on the bike, see what he can pull out of the bag, and just see where he is, because something needs to change with it. But yeah, watch this space, I suppose. Race two. Yeah, race two.

Four races again, 22 laps total. Lap one, Völlergaard leads Sleko and Montello in the first lap. Again, getting deja vu. I've written that twice already. Fairly static then, really, until lap two.

12, Sura and Gerloff battling for fifth place again. Gerloff passes Sura in turn one. Not an easy move for him at the end of the start-finish straight, especially when you're on a Karazaki versus Ducati. But then Sura comes back past for fifth at the next turn. Lap 15, Gerloff passes Sura at turn 20.

So again, this battle's ongoing. This fifth-place battle is ongoing between Gerloff and Sura. Yeah, I mean, it's going at lap 18. Gerloff passes Sura into fifth again in turn 20. Lap 19, Sura levels Gerloff on the straight and passes in turn one.

But Gerloff comes back past. It's just constant turn and throw-in between those two. But Gerloff does manage to hold on to fifth until the finish. I haven't mentioned the front of the pack because the racing was pretty static. Again, Völlergaard finishes first, 0.6 seconds ahead of Leko Oner.

Again, it's only 0.6 seconds, so he hasn't stole a massive lead from Leko Oner, but it's still the same result. That's it, isn't it? It's almost like he's just managing it and he's just watching that gap, just monitors it. And it sort of fluctuated between 0.3 and 0.8 seconds throughout the race, but it never got above a second. But then, yeah, final lap just opens that gap up again, a bit more comfortable.

The result, again, adds another one to his tally. 19 in a row, 15 wins of 15 in 2026. How bored do you think Leko Oner is looking at the back of Völlergaard's bike? About as bored as we are watching him win every race. However, it was Leko Oner's 12th consecutive second place, which is an all-time record.

There you go. Yeah, it's just going that way, isn't it? Nothing seems to be changing. He's there, he's controlling that gap, but he's not getting it all his own way. Now, the start of the season, it was, yeah, he was just romping it, but I think everyone's learning from him and they're getting more data each week, aren't they, to compete with him.

Where do we go from here? The only thing I'd be concerned about is potentially Leko Oner's going to get so pissed off, but following Völlergaard, he's going to make a move that he shouldn't make and maybe wipe them both out in one race. Yeah, potentially, potentially. And then they'll build that wall in the garage. Yeah, there's that friction then.

Yeah. Perhaps there already is, I don't know, but yeah. So, finishing order, top 10. First was Völlergaard, second was Leko Oner, third was Montella. So, again, same top three as the previous two races.

Fourth was Barthes Eri, fifth Gerloff, sixth was Surra, seventh was Lowe's, Alex Lowe's, eighth was Bassani, ninth was Locatelli, seventh was Lowe's, eighth was Lowe's, tenth was Tommy Bridewell. So, yeah, tenth figure. Again, Tommy, and he has commented in the press that he feels like he's made a significant step with that Ducati, and you can see that in the results. Yeah, yeah, he's done well this weekend. Yeah, I think that's it for World Superbikes.

I was going to, my crazy thought was going to be about the BMW, really, but we've touched on that already. I really expected it to be higher. Yeah, yeah, me too. It's really struggling, really struggling. It's going to be a long, dark season for them with the injuries and the results going that way.

So, World Championship after round five at Most is Nicola Bulega on 285, Lecuona in second on 195, Montella, after his good weekend, he's on 155, Baldassari on 141, Sam Lowe's on 137. So, yeah, that's a gap of, what have we got, a gap of 90 points and 62 available in the full race weekend. So, that's one and a half full weekends worth of maximum points and a gap of 90 points. So, that's one and a half full weekends worth of maximum points and a gap of 90 points and 62 available in the full race weekend. It doesn't seem like that's going to happen, does it?

Some gap, that. It is, yeah, at this stage, yeah. I think they said if this carries on, Bulega will be crowned champion with about three weekends to go. Yeah. Just unreal.

Similar to Marquez then last year. Yeah. Good for Bulega, but not so good for the fans. Yeah, yeah. To see that amount of dominance.

I think that's it, isn't it? You know, with the MotoGP last year with Marquez, unless you were a massive fan of Marquez, it got a bit boring and you started watching the fights before, but, so, yeah. And while we're on MotoGP, podcast of 839 is out today and I've just been told 840 is ready to go out as well. So, there's two new podcasts to listen to. If you're listening to this one, you've missed the other two, go back and have a listen.

Right, so we'll move on to British Superbikes at Donington Park. Superpole qualifying. We had Kyle Rye taking pole. He set a time. He set a time of 1.26.123, which absolutely smashed the previous benchmark set by Scott Redding in 25, which was 1.26.781.

So, that's six tenths of a second faster just on the one lap. Max Cook, he was in second and he was only 0.48 seconds back. Scott Redding in third. Leon Haslam in fourth. Danny Kent in fifth.

Storm Stacey, he was in sixth. And that's his first. First top six qualifying since getting into BSB. Bradley Ray in seventh. Glenn Irwin in eighth.

And Glenn Irwin qualifying in eighth. He did a 1.26.772, which was still quicker than the old lap record. So, they're obviously progressing. That was our qualifying order for those. Do you want to go on to race one or is there anything from qualifying that you picked up on?

No, nothing done really. Just into race one. Yeah? Yeah, so into race one. 19 lap race.

So, lap one. Cook leads. Followed by Ryde and Kent. Really, yeah, really strong start there by Cook on the Bermuda. By lap three, though, Redding passes Kent into turn one.

Redgate to take third place. The race is then very static until sort of lap 14, where Kyle and Redding overtake Cook at the Melbourne loop, which is the second to last corner. I think Cook, he made a mistake going into Melbourne and that allowed Kyle and Redding to overtake. Lap 15. So, next lap.

We get a rain warning. So, the rain flags come out. And maybe, well, that gives an indication maybe why Cook dropped off his pace the previous corner and let Ryde and Redding through. But the rain never seemed to develop. And we get to lap 19.

Redding passes Ryde into the old hairpin. There's some sliding, though, from both of them. And that gives an indication it could be due to this rain now starting to fall. Yeah. The Melbourne loop.

And then Kyle runs wide at Melbourne. And when he runs wide, he actually puts his hand up to signal that the race should be stopped. So, again, that's an indication that this rain is starting to come down now. But Kyle's dropped back to third. Redding's first and Cook's second.

And then into lap 20, just as they get to the second corner, Hollywood, the red flag comes out and the race is stopped because of the rain. And they're on slicks. But because all the riders have finished, have passed the finish line, then the lap 20 results are taken. They're not rolled back by one lap. So, unfortunately, Ryde loses out on first place.

And it's Scott Redding in first, Max Cook in second, and Kyle in third. Fourth is Leon Haslam. Fifth is Christian Iden. Sixth is Rory Skinner. Seventh is Brad Ray.

Eighth is Storm Stacey. Ninth is Danny Kent. Tenth is Lee Jackson. Yeah. The race looked like it was Ryde's.

He put his hand up and dropped those two places. I think he just thought the race had finished before they crossed the line. Yeah. So, yeah, obviously, they got across the line. Then it was red flagged.

So, the other riders still on lap 19, they stayed as they were as well, didn't they? That was it. Okay. Yeah, okay. I think that's what the commentators were saying.

Because they hadn't crossed the finish line, the results stayed as it was. Okay. It was how they crossed the line at 19 rather than when they crossed at 20. Oh, right. Okay.

I thought Scott Redding looked pretty decent out there. He was keeping up with Cook and Ryde really well and got into first place. Yeah, deserved that win, really. Yeah, definitely. Great showing by Max Cook.

And as we'll see for the rest of the weekend as well, Max is doing really well on that Bimota. Yeah, yeah. I think that stiffer chassis seems to suit him. I know a lot of the riders moan about that being a stiffer chassis, but he seems to have taken that one. And, yeah, he's just improving each week.

Yeah, I think some of his background is in prototype racing. Did he do one of the Moto classes? Right. Maybe. Yeah, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. Okay. One for our listeners, perhaps. Yeah, again, I think I heard a commentator say he's raced prototypes in the past, which might play into his favour with this stiffer Bimota chassis. Yeah, yeah.

It makes sense. Apparently, that was the anniversary of Redding's first Donington win, the 15-year-old in the 125 class. Yeah, I know he'd won there previously in the 125s. Yeah. Did they say what year?

No. No, I haven't got that. But he was 15 years old at the time. I don't know how old he is now. Yeah.

I don't know how old he is now. I don't know how old he is now. I don't know how old he is now. I don't know how old he is now. The haircut and the tash sort of makes him look a lot younger, but that's for another podcast.

I can see from your face. He's 33 now. Is he 33 now? Yeah. Ah.

Yeah, it's a good result for him. Good result. Race two, the sprint on Sunday. Scott Redding was on pole because he had the fastest lap of the race won. Kyle Ryden second, Max Cook third, Christian Eden fourth, Bradley Ray fifth.

And this was Max Cook's 100th start. Yeah, and BSB Superbike class. Yeah. So, lap one, Scott Redding got the whole shot from pole and led into turn one. Kyle Ryden was in second, Max Cook in third, Christian Eden fourth, Bradley Ray fifth.

Laps two to three, Kyle Ryden, he wasn't content in waiting, moves past Max Cook at Redgate on lap three, and that promoted himself into second. Redding still led the race, but the gap was minimal and the lap times were already into record territory. Kyle Ryden. Second lap, 126.317 was a new race lap record, and that was the first lap we had of the entire race. And then on lap five, Scott Redding, he made a small error at the final corner.

Scott adds, and Kyle Ryden overtook him, dove down the inside of the lead. Then laps, I've got laps six to 12, Kyle Ryden pulled away from the pack, and he got himself a track limit warning in the closing zone. And then laps, I've got laps six to 12, Kyle Ryden pulled away from the pack, and he got himself a track limit warning in the closing zone. And then laps, I've got laps six to 12, Kyle Ryden pulled away from the pack, and he got himself a track limit warning in the closing zone. Then laps, I've got laps six to 12, Kyle Ryden pulled away from the pack, and he got himself a track limit warning in the closing zone.

And then laps, I've got laps six to 12, Kyle Ryden pulled away from the pack, and he got himself a track limit warning in the closing zone. Max Cook was in third, Brad Ray in fourth, and then he was over five seconds behind Kyle Ryden. Leon Haslam in fifth, and he passed Christian Eden coming towards the end, didn't he? And Roy Skinner also overtook Christian Eden, takes sixth. Eden was in seventh, Glenn Irwin was in eighth, and he wasn't far off the Eden group.

And Storm Stacey managed to get ninth. taking a late move to get past danny kent um so we had kyle ride scott reading max cook bradley ray leon has rory skinner christian hidden glenn irwin storm stacy and danny kent back to the normality kyle ride at the front with a bit of a gap normal service is resumed yes yes indeed the cream stays at the top uh race three then mate yeah so race three another full-length race 20 laps first lap ride leads cook and reading so cooking second reading the third lap two rogers uh fraser rogers crashes at turn one red gate hidden passes ray into take fourth place on the run down to melbourne loop um reading runs wide at melbourne and concedes second to cook but then later on in the same turn talbot and irwin crash together at melbourne it takes them both out it there's no there's no television footage of it but it looks like talbot at a low side and took out irwin because talbot's spite was underneath irwin's on the uh on the edge of the track sorry if that's wrong um no that's that's what i took from that one as well yeah yeah lap four storm stacy unfortunately crashes at red gate turn one lap five nesbit crashes stark his bridge that's that's a fast corner that is a very fast corner um and he did have to be stretching away i don't think he's too badly injured from that uh no the the safety car came out didn't he yeah but yeah i haven't heard of anything major about any injuries with nesbit just back to um storm stacy that was the first crash he's had this season um and apparently it was it was apparently it was a mechanical fault as well that caused the crash so still not rider fault okay yeah as you mentioned safety car comes out for two laps while nesbit is recovered so with the safety car intervention we're on to lap eight um when the safety car goes it back into the pits rider he makes a big gap in the pit actually he seemed to catch the other guys napping he does uh he does manage to take advantage of that and moving on to lap nine lee jackson had a fast crash at the old hairpin and he seems to again unfortunately the cameras weren't directly on this incident but he seems to um knock it and off course so christian hidden is also not off course and he he rides into the gravel and he has to drop the bike i think into the gravel at the old hairpin because otherwise he's going to hit the barrier laps 9 to 17 fairly static kyle ride man manages to maintain his lead between him and redding so they're running together but car's leading uh between but between them and third place which is max cook again there's a 3.5 second gap when we get into lap 18 redding actually starts to lose ground to rise so i'm starting to drop back a bit redding just his rear tyre just seems to be uh used up basically and when we get to lap nine so ride rides where it also starts sliding so again it looks like the grip they're both struggling with grip now towards the end well at the end of that race but yeah end of the race and again car ride first scott redding second max cook's third again i'm just going to say about max he's doing a fantastic job yeah yeah he's really settling in with that one isn't he fourth was bradley ray fifth was leon haslam six was glenn erwin seventh was rory skinner eighth was ninth was josh brooks tenth was danny kent one thing i didn't realize from that race was um josh brook after the sprint they had to fit a new engine onto his bike onto the um the cbr 1000 yeah they had to fit a new engine uh so he started in 22nd um and then made his way up to nine okay that's not bad going from the from the aussie um so yeah kyle ride taking that one and the championship standings after round two at donnington on 104 scott redding on 85 leon haslam on 82 brad ray on 71 and max cook is also on 71 so that was two wins from three for kyle ride um sleeve scott redding's broken that that run that he had could be signs of scott redding coming back back to the top but yeah like you say max cook on that promoter on the podium for three or three races um and it's his first first ever career treble so yeah he's doing pretty good next round is knock hill and we've got a bit of a break now for bsb because of the isle of man yeah yeah isle of man started today monday the first road closures were today for racing uh just free well not for racing for free practice and qualifying and but unfortunately during the super stock qualifying today they had to uh had to cancel the free practice because there was an incident at parliament square i believe a ride has come off in parliament square but i was i was watching the yeah it's it's mind-blowing you forget how fast they are until they start on the course again just uh well i mentioned it in our whatsapp group down about sentinians crossroads where they come over the top of the hill yeah flat out yeah it's just so fast they're so fast nine on 200 miles an hour down the straights and it's yeah you've got the risk of anything deers rabbits people running out from left right and center um yeah but that crash at parliament square apparently um one of the first things they've done is they've been to hospital as well as eight members of public who were watching the racing um it does show just how dangerous this sport is for the riders but the fans as well um so hopefully that they're all conscious they're all at the hospital hopefully they'll all make a full recovery um close down all the practice for the day so that will reopen i think they're back practicing again tomorrow and so yeah next up world superbike is aragon which is this coming weekend yeah bsb we've got knock hill on june 19th to the 21st uh because obviously like we said island man has started um and a lot of the riders are either taking part or just it has this down from how many are over there um yeah and they're also filming the hollywood blockbuster over there i was watching the um they do like a pre-warm-up on tt pass i don't know whether you've watched that 25 minutes long worth a watch they interviewed the uh director the new film basically they're going to film this whilst the tt is on to get the most authentic coverage they can and we know full well that the the schedule at the tt can be chopped and chained weather injuries crashes technical difficulties people on the track all sorts um so that'll be interesting to watch when that comes out i just hope they portray it in a decent light and it gets the popularity going um who's your favorite who's going to take the most wins for the tt yeah i fancy dean harrison yeah for the racing i mean not not as a man he's cute but come on um yeah i think he's very he's very sharp at northwest yeah um i'm lucky over there yeah hickman's normally a front runner but i think he's still carrying injuries from earlier in the year daytona um you can never bet against the dunlop at the tt so michael dunlop but i don't know he seems he seems a bit unsettled because there's a bit of chopping and changing going on with which bike he's going to use i mean nobody knew until today that the superbike that he was going to use was going to be the fireblade yeah exactly um i think the hawk racing side of things he's happy as larry with but yeah the superbike's chopped and changed doesn't it all through so yeah be interesting to see um just hope the weather holds out obviously we've got brilliant weather here but the island man's got his own little micro climate it can change whenever it wants um and i know it's supposed to get colder towards the end of the week a bit of rain so we shall see um yeah so you you and i dan will do we'll do a tt show yeah i think we'll probably wait till after the tt now and just do the whole review the whole fortnight i guess yeah i think so yeah um hopefully uh i'll get that interview that i've been promising with one of the riders um said last time he's trying to do all all 10 races finish all 10 races it's never been done before uh so keep your eye out for number 55 michael russell um he's a local lad to us so yeah um follow us social media official underscore motor pod um instagram twitter x threads the whole kit and caboodle um hopefully have a new website coming shortly uh we're just waiting on a couple of mock-ups for merchandise try and get that put out live uh if you've got any questions any comments either do it on the websites that you listen to the podcast on or on the social media or you can email us at moto g pod at moto g pod.com and that that email will come through to us all so whether it's moto gp uh british super bikes world super bikes road racing moto america whatever it is um the right people can answer that and then we might even mention it on the next podcast um anything else carl yeah absolutely if people want to email in we can cover any questions or any topics in the next podcast i'll try and i'll try and keep up with the footage from world super bike this weekend and the tt but uh i'll be in i'm not sure i've mentioned it yet but i'll be in my jello next week so i might struggle to keep up with all the all the other racing are you going to my jello what you hadn't mentioned it i didn't realize you were going over there i've been trying to keep it on the down low uh i know i keep saying it but i'm not jealous at all um yeah you'll have a cracking time mate make sure you enjoy it get plenty of pictures and stuff um and then yeah we'll reconvene next time for world super bike at aragon and maybe a bit of the tt but yeah we'll do a tt and we'll go from there right case all the best mate safe travels cheers cheers dan thanks mate thanks for listening i'll catch you next time bye you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Thank you.