MotoGP Balaton Park – Hungary For The Ton

Hello and welcome to Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 844, 8th of June, 2026. Hungry for the ton as we look at the racing that happened from the Balaton Park Circuit in Hungary. And as always, to help me out with this podcast is my good friend, Richard Jodd. Richard, good evening to you, sir, there in the UK.

How are things? Yeah, very good. Thank you, Jim. Nice to see you again. Doesn't feel like five minutes since we were last talking about motorcycle racing.

So off we go again. Not the most majestic weekend of racing, it has to be said, but some talking points nonetheless. Oh, there's always talking points. It just depends on whether you really want to deal with the talking points. So, folks, shout out to everybody who supports the show financially.

That's absolutely amazing. Glad that you're here. Glad that you're with us. Glad that you're supporting us. If you can't support us financially, that's okay.

Just give us a review or where you pick up your podcast. That would be a great help to us, helps us out. And, you know, share the podcast with people. Tell your friends, you probably got a track day. Tell your buddies at the track day.

If you go to the track, talk to somebody, say, hey, I listen to these guys, it'd be great. And it's not just, you know, Richard and myself doing MotoGP. We also have Jake and Scott Bolton. They're doing MotoAmerica coverage. And we have Danny and Carl.

Those guys are doing the yeoman's work with World Superbike, BSB, or British Superbikes, I should say, and with the Real Roads. So a lot of action there going on with it. So, Rich, we will get moving here in this show. First, a little shout out to Scott Bolton. Listening to the pod from him from MotoAmerica.

One, yes, Scott, I do admire Kevin Cameron. I read his articles, Top Dead Center and Cycle World. All the time. I have his book. I think it's fantastic.

So as an engineer, I do relate to Kevin Cameron. But I want to make one thing clear. It's not that I don't like the baggers. This is kind of like how I feel about Corvettes. I don't dislike a Corvette, nor do I dislike the baggers.

I dislike the people who own the Corvettes and who own the baggers. That makes sense. That's where I am. But I agree. What you said there and what Scott said was basically that, hey, this is kind of akin to superstition.

We're bikes in the 70s, really big horsepower on frames that don't handle. And here's all the work that they did to make them handle. And yes, I admire that as much as I can look at a Corvette, admire it, look at a Mustang, admire it. But you know what? I'm a JDM fan and that's my calling.

So shout out to Scott for that one, because he mentioned the guy that really I hadn't thought about in a long time, which was Kevin Cameron. So, yes, sir. Just a quick one, just before we move on to the news and then the racing thereafter. A couple of quick shout outs. First of all, it's a bit of a cheat because Helen Woods has kindly subscribed.

To the show with a couple of quid each month for the time being. Helen is actually Danny's partner. So I said to Danny, well, she doesn't really need to be doing that, given all the work you guys are putting in. But anyway, we do have a new financial contributor to the show, which is always very, very welcome, of course. And just coming back to Danny again, doing some amazing work with a new website that we've got coming out.

I don't know exactly when it will be live, probably within the next few weeks. Let's say it looks absolutely awesome. I think people are going to love it. And again, we're working towards having merch on there as well. That might come a little bit after the website itself goes live, but we will let you know once the new one is up and running.

And hopefully we'll get some really positive feedback from that as well. But yeah, I mean, got to say thanks to Danny, really. He's a real whiz with this sort of stuff. I mean, as I've said before, I actually met Danny quite by chance on holiday last year in Greece. And so all of this is kind of coming back through a somewhat chance encounter, really.

So not only is he a massive fan of Rossi and bike racing in general and roads in particular or real roads in particular, but also somewhat of an IT guru as well. So it turns out so lucky us. Anyway, there we go. Just a couple of things I wanted to chuck in there before we get to the news. Good shout out.

All right, let's get to the news here. So in MotoGP front and rear ride height devices will be permanently banned for starts from Silverstone subject to the final test slash agreements at the Czech GP. So when we go to Brno in two weeks, you guys can check the start, see what's happening, because we can watch them try to launch these things without any kind of assist. So that's going to be fun. I think that's the best thing they could do for Silverstone.

That first turn has been troublesome as it's not really a breaking zone per se for those bikes. As they get there, they will tend to go through on the throttle. And then that next set of turns, when you want it to work, it's not working and they can't seem to get it to work. So hopefully that will have some effect on the racing, Rich. Good idea.

I think they're at least trying to make it better. Yeah. I mean, this obviously leads into what's going to happen next year where these things have gone all together. So I think there was unanimous agreement amongst the teams. And the manufacturers to implement this early ban.

I mean, of course, it's only off the start line. The rear ride height device will remain and will be used during a race. Obviously, the front hole shot was banned for being used in a race. Blimey, when was that? A couple of years ago, I think, wasn't it?

Right when Digi Gelinia first figured out that you could make the front move and he was like, no. They're like, no. But as these bikes have developed into more and more sort of monstrous creations, obviously, the front and rear ride height devices off the line have made these bikes get to speed very quickly. They arrive very, very quickly into corners that used to be a little bit more sedate, inverted commas. And of course, the whole action of the back of the bike popping up is now starting to create other issues, one of which we'll be talking about probably in a little while.

So, yes, this is a total ban of the start line devices from Silverstone onwards. So basically after the summer break. So that's not just Silverstone, but for every race after Silverstone as well. The rest of this season. I misinterpreted how that was written.

I thought, hey, it's banned for starts from Silverstone. No, they weren't. They're talking about that anyway. But I think on the back of particularly the Zarco crash in Barcelona has really brought this to the fore. We've then had another instance this weekend, which, OK, some people will say, well, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't the start device.

But again, as I say, the back of the bike popping up violently like it does obviously creates an instability on the front end. So I think this has just hastened the need to stop this before somebody else gets seriously injured, because it's not until somebody gets hurt. We've already got lots of people getting hurt. And in these kind of, I mean, Morbidelli and Silverstone last year had the same problem, skittled a couple of riders. So this is a kind of, to some people, a long overdue action by the powers that be to sort this out.

As far as I know, unless they changed course, this is permanent from Silverstone. Well, that's going to be really interesting. OK, so next thing on the list here from the German GP onwards, the gap between rows will be increased by three meters. This is obviously a reaction to what happened to Barcelona. We're somewhat of a reaction to what has happened this past weekend as well.

I think. Why not? Right. This is another move to try to give a little more space, a little more room so that there's a little bit more time for everybody to sort of sort themselves out a little bit, I think, to try to keep us from having these problems at the start. Now, I don't care whatever you do.

If you give somebody a long enough run to a tight enough turn, there will be somebody who will fluff that braking to the point that they do create a problem. Yeah. But I mean, it's three meters a lot. Not really. What is that?

Roughly in old money, it's roughly nine feet, something close to that. Right. Maybe a little closer to nine and a half, nine and a half, nine and three quarters of a foot. But that's not really going to change a whole lot, I don't think. It might be the right panacea.

It may not. I mean, I remember the whole stink from back from going from four riders per row to three riders per row. And you thought the world was going to come to an absolute screeching halt. Stop. Put it in reverse and spin backwards for a while because this was going to be, oh, there's got to be four bikes on a row.

Did you miss a four row start? I don't. Yeah. I mean. The truth.

The truth is you just get used to new stuff fairly quickly, whether you like it or not. I mean, how much do we question that a sprint race happens on a Saturday now? It's just normal, isn't it? It's just another measure that's aimed to try and prevent as much as you can. I mean, your point, Jim, is well made.

Everybody's converging onto the same piece of tarmac, you know, the line or trying to. So you are still going to get this sort of bottleneck going on. But it does just create a little bit more gap, I suppose. If a bike goes out of control, it's still going to skittle other bikes. I mean, that's just inevitable, isn't it?

But it will put more of a little bit more. An onus on qualifying well, won't it? Yes, it will. Yep. It's going to be a lot harder to come from that fourth row.

And so it's going to be, you know, since this affects everybody, the grid is the grid, right? This isn't, oh, the MotoGP bikes are going to be nine meters farther apart from each other. No. Moto3, Moto2, they're going to be nine feet farther apart from each other, too. And that's going to be a big thing with Moto3.

I don't know if it does apply to Moto2 and Moto3. I assume it will, because I don't know that they'll want to have very sort of complicated, grids with different positions for different classes. So I'm assuming it will apply to all of the three classes. I don't know that for sure. I've only seen it mentioned in relation to MotoGP.

But, yeah, I mean, obviously we'll find that out in due course. But let's assume it does apply to everybody. Yeah, if it does, then you're going to want those first two rows probably in Moto3, probably the first two rows in Moto2. You could maybe say you could get there from the third row on MotoGP because bikes are a little different. And then you figure, hey, we're going to have no more ride height devices or start devices.

If that's enabled, that's going to be wild because if you're that far apart, so that could spice things up. And I don't know if this is purely a measure just to get us through the rest of this year and whether they then revert to how things have been with the three bikes on the line in terms of the spacing from next year onwards when the start devices are gone as well anyway. So that I don't know. But this is what I've read is happening. Yeah, start devices from Silverstone and then this refigured kind of grid positioning from Germany.

And I suppose there's a bit more of a gap just to allow people to get. This implemented because obviously that's quite a big structural change because there's all sorts of sensors and stuff and all kinds of stuff. So that is just an overnight change. Now. All right.

Let's go on to the next thing. The Leopard engine scandal, which was resulted by that two of their Moto3 engines, the seal had been broken. Allegedly. Yes. So we don't get sued.

Yes, I don't want to be sued. So allegedly the seal had been broken or tampered with in some way to which, they results are then null and void for that bike, which was Adrian Fernandez's bike that that motor was in there. So basically the first six rounds or whatever of the season for him is basically disappeared. It's as if it never happened for him. And that's the penalty.

Now we have speculated for a long time that the Leopard bikes always are the fastest Hondas. And it's like, there's something going on there. Now they team claims vehemently that they have. Not. Not done any such thing at all to these engines.

Now that's entirely possible, but it doesn't explain how the seals were tampered with or who tampered with them or what the actual tampering was. Or if the people that are claiming the seals have been tampered with are correct, which is Honda. Cause the engines go back to Honda. So Honda says they were tampered. I'm just trying to be balanced in this.

Yeah, I understand. I understand whoever is checking the engines when they go back to where they go to. So that's obviously an engine builder, straight rebuilder. And I could only assume it would be a, you know, associated with Honda, if not HRC themselves have said that the, yeah, the seals and the little wire kind of tags and stuff that are part of that whole very tightly controlled system are not consistent with how they should be when they're coming back from that particular team. So we have to be very careful on this.

And of course, Leopard have gone instantly gone legal on this one and are going to fight it through the courts, which I don't see how they can do anything else really. Otherwise it's almost an admission of guilt. Isn't it? And they're claiming that they're innocent. So, I mean, innocence or proven guilty, but for this to blow up in the way that it did suggest that, you know, the old adage, there's no smoke without fire always applies, isn't it?

And as you say, I mean, ever since I've been on the pod, particularly at places like Qatar, we have a very long straight. We've been kind of scratching our heads thinking, well, how can the Leopard be so much quicker in a straight line than, well, certainly than all the other Hondas and often than the KTMs as well. So, yeah, I mean, this one's going to run and run, isn't it? But as soon as I saw that news, I thought, oh, Jim's going to be on it now because you've been having this head scratch for, yeah, well, as long as I've been involved on the pod with you. It's been one of those things where it's like, this doesn't make sense.

Like, this isn't how this happens and not in this class and not with the way the rules are written, not with the way the engines are and not with these now sealed engines. Like, I think early on they weren't sealed because I think they weren't exactly, they didn't have an unlimited supply of them. But the team sort of, here's... Here's your engines, here's your allotment. And the teams kind of did what they wanted with it.

And then, like, it became, oh, no, wait a minute, this has got to come back now. And you sort of went to that method. And, you know, oh, well, we're going to seal these off because you only get X number now. And so, you know, again, I read the sort of Instagram press release, if you will, from Leopard. Their V meant that the oil is the correct oil, that the parts are the correct parts, that nothing's been changed or replaced, et cetera, et cetera.

Again, you are innocent until proven otherwise. And I'm going to go with that, too. But, boy, it sure does kind of put some dots together for everybody here that there's been something. But, again, let's be honest. There has been cheating in all forms of motorsport.

From the conception of the first rule book for racing, there has been cheating. And there have been teams who have cheated. And there are teams that have taken a long time to get caught for it. Again, I can give you Toyota's WRC cars in the 90s when they had the Celica GT4s. They had a turbo.

It would actually separate and allow more air to come in when the car was moving. And then it would close back up. And it took two years for people to find that particular problem. And immediately, they were thrown out of the entire rally championship. So, it remains to be seen what happens.

The best one is, oh, no, which team was it? Was it Williams that had water-cooled front brakes on their car to get the ballast weight up or something? And then they would dump the water. I'm pretty sure that was Williams back in the 80s. Yeah, that was an absolute classic.

Now, again, sorry, Jim. Go on. No, they did it because they were like one of the non-turbo cars at the end of the turbo era. And they said, well, we're braking so much harder. We've got to have water to cool the brakes.

Oh, okay. And then they would just simply dump it and their car was now underweight the whole time. It was just ingenious. Absolutely spectacularly creative. And that, as you say, rules are maybe not there to be broken because that's not really the spirit of the sport.

But they are there to be bent and explored to the utmost degree. And who's to say that the specific rules around looking inside an engine aren't perhaps worded with a little bit of a chink of light in there that allows somebody just to play that game a little bit. Now, I mean, some of the very well-renowned journalists in the paddock have been a lot less careful with their wordage than we're trying to be on this. So, I mean, I think we're okay, Jim. In terms of the whole kind of people have been saying this for years.

Yeah, I can't remember what a couple of them said. But being much more insinuating the fact that not only were the engines being... broken open and the seals broken, but parts were being changed. Now, that's a very, very serious allegation. And an actual fact, even with the allegation that the seals have been broken, it only affects Adrian Fernandez.

It doesn't affect Guido Pini's engines. Read into that what you will. What you will. Yeah, exactly. Read into that what you will.

I mean, part that to one side a moment. But, yeah, I mean, it's a real mess, isn't it? I think that's all I can really say about it. It's a real mess. And it's highly, highly sort of...

Well, this is going to go very legal. And it's going to go very legal. It's going to go on for quite a while, I would think. Yeah, we're going to have updates on this almost constantly. But, yeah, as of right now, those engines are gone.

And they've been essentially knocked from the championship. And it's like they're starting at day one now. Well, I mean, he's done for this year, isn't he? I mean, there's no way Adrian Fernandez gets back, especially with kilos with the lead he's got over the person who's second, which isn't Adrian Fernandez anyway. And you would have been hard-pressed to know that there was a Honda in the Moto3 race this weekend just gone.

That's true. Because it was all KTMs. Yeah. Weird. Read into that what you will.

Yeah, well, quite. Throw that one out there. Anyway, let's get on to the next part here. Now, these are two things that aren't really news, Rich. There are observations that I had from the weekend, which I think are interesting.

The first one is, has Aero crept into Moto2? If you watch the Hungarian race again, check out the fairings on a lot of the KLXs, particularly that of the Aspar team and of the... Is it Momoven Indigrafoel racing team, which like Zonta van de Gerber... The bright orange ones. Yes, the extreme bright ones.

These are the two bikes that it's the easiest to see this in. If you're looking at them heading at you, the fairings on the side of the bike make a distinct come down from the tank. They make a distinct turn 90 degrees and head out. Then they curve basically like at almost 45 degrees and they come back in. That creates a plane.

I have no idea how wide it is, but my guess is it's somewhere... In the area of about two and a half to maybe four inches wide that is angled upward along the fairing. Now, what happens if you have a plane, you're going through air and air is hitting that plane? Well, that becomes a wing and pushes it down. And they also, I think, taper off as you go from the front of the bike to the back of the bike.

That area of flat reduces as you get to the rider. So it's like, oh, they're playing this trick of this. Now, I did not see these last weekend. I must admit, and you're quite right to point this out, and I haven't mentioned it before, but I think this has been on the bikes for several rounds, if not all year. I remember seeing a couple of the bikes in Moto2, as you say, not in Moto3.

In Moto2, that sort of very distinct step just at the sort of, let's say, where the rider's elbows sort of reach to and they're sort of down crouched on the tank sort of thing. There is a distinct, as you say, right angled step on a lot of these fairings. When I spotted it a few weeks back, I thought, hmm, that looks like a sort of a prilogram. A round effect thing that we saw coming into MotoGP a couple of years ago. The thought went through my mind.

I thought they weren't allowed to do aero in this class. Now, again, this is where we come to interpretation of the rules because they might say, oh, we're creating some clearance for cooling. That'll be the argument or some space for something on the engine. There'll be a reason for it, of course, but it looks like aero to me. And I'm glad you pointed it out because I've spotted it a couple of times.

I thought, oh, that's weird. But I hadn't sort of looked at it on bike after bike because, of course, the sponsorship and stuff often makes the surfaces quite hard to understand. And like you said, that beautiful orange bike. I love the look of that bike, by the way. That is a spectacular looking thing.

Yeah, some surfaces just show it really, really well. And yeah, the Aspire bike's another one. And the, oh, what's the other team? All American Racing has it too, I believe. Yeah, well, I think all the KDX basically do.

Yeah. Again, I can't tell from some of them, you know, because you don't see them all and you're not there. But for whatever reason, I never have noticed this prior to this weekend. This weekend, it seemed very... It's very evident that, hey, this is different.

And I can't explain to you why just this time by I've caught it. I think it's because they spend so much time going through slow corners, Jim. So you get more time to look at the bike. No, no, I'm being honest. I mean, they're not going super quick.

Well, also, there's a lot of 90 degree turns. So that gives you a lot of camera angles that are looking straight down straightaways. So that gives you a chance to see the... It's not the profile of the bike, but you understand what I'm trying to say. I guess you could see the profile of the fairings on the side.

Yeah, they're lingering on the bikes a bit longer than would ordinarily be the case. Right. So there's definitely something going on there. Now, again, is that a cooling issue? Is that, hey, we're trying to bring more cool air in?

Is this something else? Who knows? I don't know. I found it interesting. So I just want to bring it to your guys' attention.

Check it out when they get to Bruneau. See if it's still there. Because now you know what to look for. Because a lot of times you don't think of it until you see it. And you get a chance to look at it for sure there.

So again, who knows why it's there. But yeah, it's like they're really rubbing up against that no air over here. We don't know. We don't know why it's there. Yes.

Yes, we know why. That is true. So another interesting little bit that I saw as well is that Yamaha is now running, or at least it's the first time I've seen it on the new Yamahas, the V4s. They're now running a mass dampener on the right side of the swing arm, a la KTM and Honda. And basically there is a cylinder that is near the rear axle on the right-hand side of the motorcycle.

And it's a vertical cylinder. And I found it interesting that Yamaha has now added that. So apparently they're trying to, you know, again, it's a mass dampener of some sort. So they're trying to dampen out some wiggle, wobble, vibration, something that's there. And I've seen them take those things and change them during the weekend as well.

So some of them are probably maybe, I'm going to say, an inch maybe in old money to maybe even almost three inches in old money. So there's some heft there. So it's kind of interesting to see that the only people who don't have that is Ducati. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

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Right. Right. Right. I'm pretty sure Ducati do run one in the same position on the back of the swing arm. On the swing arm?

Really? Theirs is normally colored black. So it's not so easy to spot. Whereas certainly on the Honda, that thing is massive. It looks like a Coke can.

He does look like a Coke can, yeah. In terms of its shape and size, I mean, it's probably not far off. There's obviously quite a bit of gubbins inside that going on. But yeah, interesting that Yamaha, now that they're running a V4, felt the need to do the same thing. I mean, I was smiling to myself while you were talking about this, because on the TNT coverage, which I know you don't get to watch.

So just talking about the handling of this Yamaha V4, you see Quattroro with his feet off the pegs a lot, don't you? Yes. He's losing the bike a lot, and there's a lot of chatter and vibration going on. You don't see it so much with the other Yamahas and the TNT commentators, perhaps slightly unsympathetically, were kind of pointing out that Quattroro is becoming a little bit like a premiership football player in the sense that, you know, one little tap and he's rolling around on the ground, writhing in agony. And everything is a little bit accentuated with him at the minute, isn't it, in terms of what he doesn't like.

And so there's limbs going off, there's tank spins slapped, there's head shaking. There's lots of gesticulation and not so much going fast at the minute. So whether it's as bad as he's making out, I don't know. But the fact that they've put or felt compelled to put the dampener on the bike does show that there are some inherent issues with the chassis, which is not surprising because it's a brand new bike, effectively. So they're going to be trying to tune all sorts of stuff out and tune all sorts of stuff up as well, aren't they?

Very much with a view towards the 850 now, I think, which probably explains another reason why Quattroro has effectively given up because he knows nothing new has come in this year, I think, at this point, which I suspect is not what he thought was going to be the case when he resigned. But anyway. Yep, I agree. All right. So the last thing here is that there was a crash in Moto3 that involved David Munoz.

He will get into the whole details of it, but he was hit by another rider. He suffered a fractured pelvis and that was operated on Sunday night. I'm not sure if he went back to Spain and had the operation or if it was in Hungary. That I don't know. I don't know if he went to see Dr.

Mir or whoever. I'm not sure. But he has been operated on. That was deemed a successful surgery. And he is now.

Recovering for a kid that had the really bad fracture of his femur. Now this pelvis injury. That's pretty crazy. So just wanted to pass on that. He did have surgery and he is doing pretty good here.

Yeah, that's good news. Yeah, I would imagine that was done locally as quickly as possible because you don't muck about with fractured pelvises because there's all sorts of important things going on in that area, which you don't want to wait around to fix, really. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So last thing, Marc Marquez obviously won the races this week.

Again, everybody knows that. But that was his 100th win across all classes. Agostini has 122 across all classes. And Valentino Rossi has 155 across all classes. So Marquez has to win 55 or 56 more races for him to lay claim that he is truly the GOAT.

And we can, by every statistical measure, he will have been better. Anyway. I'm assuming that they're not including sprints within those. Well, it is a race. So who knows?

Well, I don't know about that. That's something we would need to find out from somebody that knows a bit more than that or somebody like Dr. Martin Raines or somebody would be able to fill in that particular blank. But if you figure if Marc rides for two more years, he'd have a very good shot at doing 155 because you're talking about having 20 races, 24 races a year. So let's call it 25.

So that would get you to 50. I mean, it's possible. I mean, the math is. I wrote that down from a stat that came up again on the TNT coverage. I don't know if they showed it on the world feed as well.

So I guess they probably should have done because I think it's the same. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But I was actually I hope I didn't write it down wrong because I was surprised, actually, by how far in front Rossi is on wins, given how much winning Marquez has done. So might need to double check that or be fact checked by one of the listeners. But I'm pretty sure that's what was written on the screen.

So I quickly scribbled it down. I mean, he's still got quite a long way to go. And on the evidence of the one interesting thing that happened this weekend, which was Marquez versus Acosta, next year is going to be tasty. It's not necessarily going to be the case that Mark has it all his own way. It is going to be wild.

I will tell you that. We'll come to we will we will get to that. Let's get to the racing. So, yeah, we're going to be qualifying. OK, here's my first rant of it.

They once again script the graphic for the bikes that are going to be in the Q1 session. How do you do that twice in a row? I didn't spot that. Yeah, that well, they maybe it wasn't messed up on the TNT coverage because maybe TNT uses their own graphics. But the door to feed was screwed up.

They were not even close to each other. They had Fernandez, Uriata, Rios and Munoz. I'm like, wait a minute. This hold on a second here. It was actually only Rios, Esteban, Danish, Uriata, Buchanan, O'Shea and Crucious.

Those are the guys that are really in there. So they had that graphic completely messed up on the feed, which is all there. There's not much going on here. This first session Buchanan did go down at turn one. The back end came around and which is kind of a weird crash for him on that one.

But basically, as it came through in the end, Danish was outside looking in. He needed it as Buchanan had bumped him. So it was Uriata, Rios, Buchanan, Crucious. They all went on. Danish having not got through.

We kind of are used to Danish being in that second session. So a little bit of an oddball there. So we get to the second qualifying session. Pini was down very early on into that session. That really messed his session up big time because I believe the bike did not did not stay running.

So they had to drag it out of the gravel, had to go to the service road. He eventually got back. And I don't believe he actually ever set a timed lap, if I remember correctly. Yeah, they did finally get the bike back and they started to try it all that or whatever. But as we had said before, Keely's had a problem where he couldn't get a lap because of yellow flags.

Eventually, Keely's did go to the top. As we said before, I said yesterday, we're going to after Mugello, Keely's will be back on top. Everything's going to be fine. Seems as though normal service had been initiated. But on the last go around, Almanza snagged a pole position off of Keely's, which bumped him to second.

Then. Ariate, then Ariate, Peroni, Rios, Somalia, the Finn doing well, then Morelli, Crucis and Pertama on your first three rows. So that was pretty, that was interesting. A little bit of interestingness there in qualifying there. We got to, we got to Moto3 of the race.

Pertama, Bertelli and O'Shea would all get a long lap penalty to start the race with because they were slow during qualifying and impeding other riders. One, this track is so tight. It's going to be hard to get. It's going to be hard to get off the line. Plus it's dirty offline.

So yeah, it was bound to happen. So these guys all got that, that they had to deal with. Oh, at the start, it was Almanza and Keely's. They got going. Pini goes down at turn two.

Esteban gave him a little bit of help. They, they reviewed that and deemed that if I'm correct with this one, Rich, correct me if I'm wrong, that it was a racing incident and there was no further action taken for either rider in that case. I can go along with that. I don't think there was a wrong call there. It was first couple of turns.

It's going to be chaotic. That happens. Well, then Danish wound up getting involved with Moodley and they both went down to five, six. Danish was deemed to be at fault because he literally just sort of took O'Shea out. I hate to say it that way, but I, you know, or Moodley, I'm sorry.

He took Moodley out. Moodley. Yeah. Danish had a rough weekend. He, he didn't qualify well.

And I think he kind of pulled the brain out and set it on a shelf and well, I got to make up the time to get to the front and that's just not going to work here at Balaton. This is Danish's first season. Isn't it? Yes. And so first time at Balaton Park and hopefully the last time for him and everybody else for that matter, not a track layout really that he will be very familiar with as a Moto3 rider.

I mean, it's so Mickey Mouse. So I suspect that really played its part in his below pile weekend. By lap four, Almanza and Keelys are starting to get away from everybody. They're starting to really get on the pace and get going. Samela, the Finn, he actually got by Peroni at turn five as well.

It's Almanza. It's Keelys. It's Samela. Samela, Peroni, Carpe, Ariate. That's your top six running.

Munoz was now in the lead six. By lap six, he had made his way to that. So Munoz was on the charge here and that was going. Keelys finally gets by Almanza on lap seven. Then Pini and Esteban, that vestigation comes through that, hey, there's nothing else that's going to happen.

Those guys are off the hook. By halfway, Keelys has now got a half a second on Almanza, who's got a second on Samela and then Peroni, Munoz and Carpe. Carrero was down at turn one by that point. Things are starting to level out and Keelys has just started to put down lap after lap after lap after lap. He's really just kind of driving the bus here at this point.

Really, there's not a whole lot that goes on. I mean, to give you an idea, Keelys at lap 10 had a half a second lead. By six laps later, he was 4.2 seconds up the road. This was a dominant performance by Keelys for sure. No one was going to be there.

The really great battle was the final spot on the podium, right? At this point, with about seven laps to go, the battle for the last spot becomes really fascinating. Because you had Munoz has worked his way up. He's now with these guys. And so now it becomes an all-out battle here that's really getting wild.

So, hey, Munoz is up somebody one side, down the other side. Somebody's back underneath. If Munoz pushes somebody wide, like Ariade cuts underneath both of them, it takes the place. But then Munoz goes right back onto the attack. It's just absolutely crazy, the racing.

And it's really, really good to watch. Like these last six laps are absolutely phenomenal. But it's the last lap that matters. Because Keelys is gone. Almans is gone with them.

The race here is who gets the final spot on the podium. So Ariade was at fourth. He was trying to get to Munoz because Munoz was holding third place at this time. Carpe and Munoz are going at each other as this goes down. Carpe has now, Carpe had slid himself into the third position.

They were coming out of turn 11. As they came out of 11, Carpe is in front of Munoz. Munoz is trying to slide. Say back into line for the run down to 12. Because that's one of the straights on the back side of the circuit.

It appeared as though Munoz clips the back tire of Carpe with the front tire of his bike. Nothing you can do about that. That throws Munoz on the ground immediately. But he's right in front of Ariade and Samella. Now, Samella just barely misses.

Munoz's head. Like, it is by millimeters that that motorcycle misses him. However, poor Ariade has absolutely nowhere to go. And he tries to stop the bike, which you're not going to at that speed. He crashes into Munoz's pelvis, breaking the pelvis.

And then he goes ejected over the handlebars and skitters and scatters on the go down the back straight or that straightaway. It was absolutely horrifying. Horrifying to watch. Because there is that moment where you hold your breath because you see what's going to happen. And I don't know about you, Rich.

I'll let you answer this. I had flashbacks of Cimacelli a la Sapang. Because it looked like we were headed for that kind of an incident. So, by the grace of the powers above, we did not have that happen. They did throw a red flag immediately at the situation.

It was obvious that. I think it was very obvious that. There was no way Munoz was going to get up off of the circuit. And he was in the middle of the circuit. So, I think some props to the corner workers in that area who were warning the riders who were coming on after these guys.

There was nobody else that got tangled up in it. Nobody else that had an accident with it. Which is a key of good corner working. Good communication of what had happened. And then an immediate red flag by the race stewards.

Which was the right thing to do. They took it back. To lap 19. Yeah. And called the race.

So, it was a 20-lap race. They called it at lap 19. That leaves Keelys with the first place position. Almanza is in second. Carpe, third.

Then Uriate, Simele, Crucis, Morelli, Rios, O'Gorman, Fernandez, Ogden, Kelso, Esteban, Buchanan, and Bertelli. Now, what I don't understand, Rich, and maybe you can help me out here, is how come if they went back to lap 19, why isn't Munoz listed? Because. Finisher. He was the, let's call it the guilty party in causing the accident.

And he didn't get his bike back within five minutes. Okay. I think that's essentially the reason why. The first bit of that is quite harsh. Because obviously he's lying stricken on the ground, quite severely injured.

I mean, that's a nasty incident. But as you said, Jim, it could have been a hell of a lot worse if the bike had hit him a few inches further up. Either way. All things considered. And it didn't go over his leg again.

Although, well, I don't know. Because he's only just recovered from that. And that took a lot of healing, that broken leg from Indonesia. Last year. So, yeah, he's not really had a lot of luck, has he?

And it was such a tiny touch, his front wheel onto the back of the bike in front. Carpe. But, yeah, as you say, it just flung him on the ground. And then, yeah, you're literally kind of thinking, oh, no, what's going to happen now? And it all happened so quickly.

But it kind of, you sort of see it happening in slow motion in a way, don't you? And it's like, oh, dear. I mean, the other two riders that went down the road, to be fair, I mean, they had big accidents themselves, didn't they? Going over the handlebars and getting knocked off and stuff. And, I mean, it was amazing that they were up on their feet so quickly.

And they did sort of show them up on their feet quickly as well. They didn't obviously linger on the scene where Muneo was, other than the fact that you could see there's an ambulance out on track as the riders came down on the slowdown lap. But, yeah, I mean, again, as we often say, and thankfully we do get to say this, a bit of a bullet dodged really there because that could have been a much worse outcome. And it's just one of those accidents. There's nothing you can really do.

I mean, obviously, the airbags and stuff that go off in the suits are a major help. But at that velocity, it's still a big old whack, isn't it, if you get hit by a bike? Going at fairly full chat at that position. So, yeah, poor old Davim Muneo. I mean, he's had such a good year, hasn't he?

He really sort of turned himself around in the way that he went about stuff. Because he was usually the person that was causing accidents like this for other people getting hurt in the past. And he's done so well in that team. And, yeah, he's just had some really bad luck. And they've been sort of tiny things, really, but nasty outcomes for him.

Yeah. Again, you do see it in slow motion. And, you know, Samala gets by. I mean, he eventually does fall, right? But he got around.

He didn't hit. He did not hit Muneo at all. But in that moment, you can see, or I don't know if you could see it, but I felt it. Because I've been through those kind of accidents like that. I just know exactly what was going through Carpe.

Not Carpe. Who was it that actually hit him? It was... Was it Uriati that actually... I think it might have been Uriati who had nowhere to go.

Yeah, it was hard to sort of... Because the other problem there is that all four bikes were either the Tech 3 or the IO Red Bull KTM. So they're very hard to... They're very hard to sort of tell apart as well. So because I didn't re-show it and I didn't go back and watch it over and over, I was a little bit unclear on who hit who and who came off, you know, and so on and so forth.

So I'm glad you sort of described it a bit. Yeah, I think it was Uriati. And I just know, I could just feel Uriati going, oh, bleep. What am I going to do? If you watch, he actually clamps the front brake on.

And the back end's lifted. And that then the impact with Muneo himself just flings him over the high side. You know, there. Airbag comes on, he just hits the ground. And, you know, it is a serious injury to have your pelvis operated on to put it, let's say, stabilize it, I guess.

But that's a pretty big thing to have that happen. And it's just sort of a minor miracle that nothing worse happened out of that. Oh, because it could have been so, so, so much worse. But well, I mean, put it this way. And in a way, that's a very natural reaction to grab a lot of front brake is kind of the worst thing you can do in that scenario.

Because you're kind of forcing the pressure down on what you're about to hit. Nobody can make a split decision like this in such a small amount of time. But you almost want to be trying to lift the front wheel at that point and kind of almost poguing over, don't you? But you're just obviously in the heat at the moment. You can't do it.

But thank God he didn't get hit in the head. Yeah. Otherwise, you would be looking at a Simoncelli type outcome. I think so. Yeah.

Because that's basically what happened in that craft. Yeah, very much so. Oh, let's look at where the championship stands. To no surprise at all, Achilles is on top on 170 points. 59 points ahead of Acarpe.

59 points. That's over two race wins. Yeah, this is going to be domination. Get used to it. Morelli is third.

Almanza, Oriate, Pratama, Peroni, Munoz, Pini, and Danish. That is where they are as we sit with this. I think it's safe to say that Achilles has one hand on that championship trophy. I think so, yeah. Any last things, Rich?

Literally just, well, two things. We did mention it prior. Yeah, where were Honda? This is not a Honda track. No.

Clearly. I don't know why, but, I mean, the KJs, we know they punch off the turns, and there are lots of slow speed turns. I can only assume that's why. And credit to Davide Almanza, actually. Bearing in mind he had an abscess on his tonsil seven days prior, to the extent that he couldn't start the race in Mugello from pole, would have been on hefty doses of antibiotics, I would imagine, and must have been pretty knackered from that experience.

And, okay, he didn't get the win. Nobody was going to beat Achilles this weekend, although Almanza did take the pole. But he's still a very, very strong, and untroubled second place, which, given where he was seven days prior, that was quite an impressive performance, I think. Performance, yeah. I mean, what, he drug himself out of a hospital bed on Wednesday afternoon and went to the races?

Basically, yeah. Yeah, so impressive by the young man. Well, let's move to Moto2, and we'll look at the qualifying here. And the first one was, the name is Zuratuzza. That is the Z name that we were trying to come up with.

I wrote it down phonetically, so I could say it properly this time. I did my homework. And he's a permanent replacement now, so Jorge Navarro is out of that team. Right, it was a mutual parting of the ways. So Navarro is now no longer in Moto2, as far as I know right now.

There's a possibility he could go somewhere else. But now it is Zuratuzza and Escrige on the forwards. Correct. So maybe they'll be able to move forward together. Nicely done.

Thank you. I couldn't miss it the second time. I mean, the first time, sure. But the second time, nah. Okay.

I got to take that one. If it's going to be there, I'm going to take it. Anyway, Canette, Van de Gerberg, Vietti, Piqueras, Luneta, Juarez, Anshu, Garcia, and Lopez are all in that first qualifying session. Now, Piqueras has withdrawn. We learned that in qualifying.

Of course, remember, he had a terrible leg break, which I believe was his femur, at Cota in the third round. And for him to even be close to fit to come back is there. But they said, you know, given the advice of doctors and consultations, it's like, I'm no longer going to take part in this. Well, he had a big crash, actually, in either Saturday morning or Friday afternoon practice. And he went sort of tumbling end over end in the gravel.

And yeah, with a recently healed, not that long ago, badly broken femur, I think, yeah, that was enough of a warning to suggest that there's no point risking it anymore this weekend. Yeah. There is really not a lot that goes on in here. Huertes goes down and he stalls the bike. So he's got to go.

He was wide, fell in the gravel trap. He had to go behind the fence to start the bike, come back in again. But. But Vietti actually crashed trying on a hot lap. So Vietti wasn't going to get out.

But Lopez, Van de Gerberg, Colin Veyer, Kanett get out of that first session, go to the second session. Those are the guys that are there. Or Torla in this second session goes down in turn one. It was a very strange crash. He looked like he was riding a bucking bull.

The front end was off the ground. The back end was on the ground. The net was off the ground. I don't know how he did that. I don't know.

The only thing I can think of is that perhaps maybe he braked really hard, lifted the back off the ground. Back came down, maybe perhaps was a bit out of line to the front, hit, gripped, then twisted it back the other way and picked the bike up. And it was just, yeah, it was weird. It was a very, very tough crash that was there. Halfway through, it was Slach, Gonzalez, Guevara, Colin Veyer, Holgardo, and Alonso.

Alonso having not having come through the first qualifying session for the first time, I think, maybe since COTA, I think. Possibly. I mean, quite some time. It was all going on. It looked as though, with about a minute to go, Slach still held pole position.

Aegis had jumped into second. Then it was Gonzalez, Guevara, Lopez, and Alonso. But Alonso did have a massive mistake in his lap. So he didn't, couldn't really challenge. But on the last go around, Guevara found something to take pole position ahead of Slach, ahead of Aegis.

Gonzalez would then be bumped to the second row. He's like, ooh, okay. For a guy who pretty much dominated most of the practice sessions, for him to be fourth, that's not where he wanted to be. Shout out again to Alex Escriche with the forward racing with a fifth. I mean, the middle of the second row, absolutely impressive.

I mean, he is ahead of both Aspars. That's saying something, you know? Yeah. Cause there was then Holgardo, Veyer, Lopez, and Alonso occupying the first three rows. So that's qualifying over.

I think Jim, given that we know sort of at least three, probably four, even five of the Moto2 current crop are going up to MotoGP next year. I think you'll see Alex Escriche on one of the top. But. I think he's going to be one of the top bikes next year. For sure.

People are going to be hankering for his signature, I would imagine. I would think so. I would think he would be one of the first people that's going to move when we figure out who's going up. Yeah. He could be at Aspar.

That's a possibility. I think he could be at Dynavolt Intact. That's a big, huge possibility to go there. Those are probably the two of the stronger teams in the paddock for Moto2. A little bit of wild speculation, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Moto2, Aspar next year, Quiles, and Escriche in that squad.

That would be. I could see that. That would be a strong, strong team. Could be domination from them, guys. Although it's really hard as a rookie to come to that class.

A win here and there, but to dominate is definitely hard to do. Yeah. So with the race, Guevaras gets a whole shot. Lopez is up the inside way too hot. And somehow, somehow he just missed everyone.

The Red Sea parted and away he went. It was. Alonso Lopez, honestly, he's always entertaining me. But again, that could have been a nasty one if that had turned out a bit different. For sure.

Salah got around Guevaras on this first lap. Gonzalez got past Aegis and then it was Gardo and Escriche. Cannon went down at turn 12. Wow. A lot of action here as we start off this Moto2 race.

Guevaras tucks the front at one, but he saved it. Did you see that save? It was pretty dang impressive. It was, it was like underneath and it's like elbow down, elbow down, elbow down. Okay.

I got it back up. Like, wow. Okay. I, you've ever seen those pictures of the cat and it says, hang in there and he's sort of hanging off of a tree limb or something. I want to never give up one with, you know, Guevara digging his elbow in to get that one back up there.

Uh, it was, he was then fourth because of the save, cuz everybody sort of moved around him with that. Then by lap three, it's Salah ahead of Gonzalez ahead of Aegis again, you know, because Guevaras Guevara goes backwards because of that save. Right. Then, you know, you got then Ortola and Munoz come together at turn three and the bikes and riders just go skittering off into the gravel. Then they wind up giving Guevara a long lap penalty for a start infringement with slatch at the beginning of the race.

So I'm like, hold on a second, wait a minute, top timeout, timeout, we got to back up here. Part of what I never said about the re opening part was that when Guevara took off the line, he was carrying a wheelie and the bike drifted to rider's right. Now it's the start of a race. It's everybody's shuffling to get to the, the line that you need to have there. And.

It went down. Now did Guevara get in there enough to with slatch that slatch had to back off a little bit. So it's like, that wasn't much. It's like, that's normal to me. That's racing.

And you, you pulled that one out of the hat and went, no, we're not doing that. I'm like, okay, what would you have done if, if Lopez would have taken out half the field? Yeah. We've talked about before. I'm not going to belabor the point.

I don't want nanny state racing. That was nanny state. That was nanny state. That was completely uncalled for. I'm sorry.

I liked him. Simon cray far. I liked the way how his team has handled themselves these past couple of years, but that this one I think is completely wrong. You tell me rich. Am I off my rocker?

I've got a one word underlined thing in my notes, which is ridiculous exclamation mark because I mean, okay. He was pointing across the track a little bit in his grid slot. That's true, but that's not unusual. And yeah, I mean, it's not as if he suddenly got two or 300 meters down the track and then violently swerved to the side. As you pointed out, his front wheel did come off the ground, which means it's hard to steer anyway.

In fact, if not impossible to steer the other way at that point, whilst the front wheels not touching. And it was the lightest of touches with the rider to his side. So to get a penalty for that, I just thought, well, ridiculous as I wrote, I mean, I've got nothing more to say on the matter, but that sets an old and slightly troubling precedent for me because I just don't think he did anything wrong. I would imagine he was pretty aggrieved at the penalty as well when he got back to his seat. Anyway, he took his long lap like a good boy within the allotted amount of time and yeah, on we go.

But I just don't understand it. Yeah. I can't justify that one by any stretch of the imagination, but. Unless race control can see some data or some angles that we don't get to see, because obviously they have access to a whole lot more visual footage and data and stuff than we do. But from where I was watching it on telly, yeah, he just sort of drifted over a little bit and there's a mild contact at very low speed.

So, yeah. Yeah. I can't penalize that. There's virtually nothing you can't penalize. Agreed.

Yeah. Where do you stop? If that little minor touch is a penalty, where is this going to stop? Anyway, we go back to the race. By lap five, it's a latch ahead of Gonzalez, ahead of ages, ahead of Guevara and whole guard.

Oh, and Alonzo. This stays stagnant till all the way until lap 12 when Gonzalez slips by select at the 910 set of turns. So by lap 15, it's Gonzalez slash ages whole guard. Oh, Alonzo Guevara. Now that's how they're running.

But Gonzalez now gets a track limits warning. Now whole Alonzo or Alonzo and whole guard are now battling over fourth at this point in the race. By lap 17, Alonzo has finally figured out how to get by his teammate whole guard. Mainly because I'll guard up. Why to turn one?

I, it was a pressure thing. How guard messed up the turn. And that was that four laps to go. How guard got a track limits warning with three Alonzo's closing fast on ages. Does he have a chance to get a podium?

We sort of saw that the first year here where Alonzo just turned good at the end, but he did run out of time and it left us with Manuel Gonzalez winning the race slash took a well deserved second, that Ford machine looking good in his hands, a real good boost heading into Bruno, which, you know, we've seen that bike win at Bruno last year, the hands of Joe Roberts. Right. Uh, so good things may be happening there. Agis gets the podium. Then Alonzo, whole guard, Ogilvara Vietti climbed his way to seventh.

They never really showed us any of that Lopez eighth after having the crazy long lap, uh, a penalty applied then for Randa's Arbolino, Rueda Baltus, Van de Gerberg for a Sato and Joe Roberts earned one point for 15th place. Anything I missed during that, if that part of the race, Richard, you'd like to comment on, sir. Well, and again, they were talking about this on the TNT coverage, but very much, uh, the old guard is fading quick. And you wonder if the likes of connect second. One race in a row, he was out on the first lap with a crash on to Joe Roberts.

I mean, he did score a point, but his teammate came second. Joe needs a strong round at Bruneau, which is traditionally a track that he goes well at. But if he doesn't show well there, I think, you know, you've got to start asking questions about if he can cling on in moto two, forward one, two at Bruneau and moto two. There we go. Look, the only other thing is most surprising.

I can't do it with a straight face. Sorry, Rich. No 2026 moto two podium. Still for David Alonzo. The guy that we all thought was the title finalist.

Yeah. He's my favorite. He hasn't even had a podium this year. Nearly did on Sunday, but I needed a couple more laps really to negotiate his way past center ages. He's had a couple injuries though.

Fair play to that. It appears to be the case that he is still carrying some trouble with that shoulder. But again, it goes back to what I was saying in the last episode, which is you do wonder whether or not you could do with another season in moto two. Yup. The kid's super young.

Why does he need to get on a moto GP bike that quick? Yeah. Cause is he, is he even 20 now? I think he's 20. I think he, I think he is 20 now.

Yeah. I mean, that's a big deal if he's 21 when he next year. I don't know. I don't know. It depends on what the contracts say, right?

Yeah, absolutely. It does. But I'm sure there's a lot of frustration, mostly coming from himself that he hasn't managed to even get a podium yet, let alone a win because he won this race, I think last year, didn't he? Yes, he did. He ran down his teammate to win.

I think. Yeah. I remember correctly. Yeah. So far it's been quite disappointing.

He needs to have a very strong second half of the season. And of course the summer break is not too far away, assuming it doesn't aggravate that shoulder any further. So he needs to come back fit and strong and really cement. His kind of position as a MotoGP rider, as we understand it, either at LCR or HRC, because I suspect there's a bit of concern in Japan. I think so.

On this one at the minute. I agree. When we look at the championship standings, Manuel Gonzalez now seems to be establishing a grip on this championship. He's on 154 and a half, which puts him 49 and a half points clear of Guevara and he's starting to show form. Gonzalez, I think is going to be tough to beat for this championship.

Yeah. Vietti is climbed to third. Agis is fourth, Holgado fifth, Alonso is sixth. And these guys, to give you some reference point, Holgado and Alonso, I think two people that we thought were going to fight for this championship are 60 and a half and 78 or sorry, are 78 and a half and 83 and a half points behind Gonzalez. That's just crazy that he's been that good, but he has the bit between his teeth.

I think he feels like he was done wrong last year. He's put it behind himself. He's put in some great rides. He's making it very hard for the MotoGP teams to ignore him. And you know, I've said many, many, many times, far too many times, so I shouldn't really keep repeating myself.

He's always been that kind of overlooked one because he doesn't really have that X factor to him. Although he certainly is showing X factor on the track this year in a way that he didn't really last year. I mean, he did win a lot of races last year, it's true, but he's dominating races now and dominating weekends. And so that has to get the attention. And he did of course have that somewhat successful test on the Aprilia midway through last year.

So he has that Aragon, I think. Yes, I think that's right. And so you do wonder whether this TrackHouse rumour has got a bit more to it than just rumour. And I was adamant on the last show that Bastianini was a shoe-in at TrackHouse, but that seemed to be refuted somewhat over the course of the weekend. Maybe there is a bit more rumour at the end there than I was thinking, because I had read somewhere that TrackHouse were pushing.

Maybe that was more of a Davide Brivio thing, but obviously Brivio's on his way out of there. So I think Justin Marks is the guy that's probably going to be having the say-so on who goes there. Yep. I think there's going to be room at the end for Gonzalez. And as a strong MotoGP champion, as it looks will be the case, he deserves a shot in MotoGP, in my opinion.

Yeah. I think Gonzalez on the Aprilia at TrackHouse with, let's say, Aegis, right? Because if the native English speaker is a thing, then those two would be... They're already teammates. It'd be interesting to see them at TrackHouse together.

I put on the host WhatsApp during the race day on Sunday, I'd overlooked Brad Binder as the native English speaker. He would be an excellent fit at TrackHouse because he has a lot of MotoGP experience. I agree. Okay. He's had a right old struggle on the KTM, but Costa aside, who hasn't?

Brad is that kind of a rider that just needs a reset and he would be going onto a, sorry KTM, but a much better MotoGP bike as things currently stand. Okay. It's not the 850, so we don't know for sure. But yeah, Binder, Gonzalez, master and pupil sort of thing, or experience and rookie, that could work very nicely. Yeah.

That might work. Yeah. I'd hate to see Aegis shut out, but Aegis' form has disappeared. Well, he got third. I mean, not really.

I mean, I don't think it's disappeared, but his form has slumped. Like, well, is that a better way to say it? No, I still think that's a bit harsh. I think he's had some difficult races, but you see him constantly getting overtaken on the straights. He's far too big for the Moto2 bike.

He needs a MotoGP bike to overcome his physical impediment, if you want to put it in that phrase. I'm starting to sort of see it as a bit of a struggle for him to get into MotoGP next year. There are two slots available at Tech3 by the looks of it, and that wouldn't necessarily be a bad move to jump onto a Tech3 KTM. Probably not. We'll see.

Hopefully, we'll find some of this out after the summer break, because I'm getting a bit fed up with all the waiting. So, are we ready to go to MotoGP? Yeah. All right. So, let's go to the qualifying session, first one.

In that session is Bagnaia, Quattroro, Toprak, Marini, Binder, Morbidelli, and Bastianini, who is not in there, is a man named Jack Miller. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Rins was in there as well in the first session.

So, he had two Yamahas in, which was pretty fantastic, I thought. You can't say that the Yamaha is actually slow. Toprak with an absolutely great save at turn one. I mean, top shelf save, top shelf. That was brilliant.

Quattroro had a huge head shake out of 14. The whole bike was just in the wiggles or whatever. Halfway through, Bastianini and Mir were leading the charge to get out of the session. The question was, does Bagniai have... does Ben Yaya have a left shoulder problem?

Because they showed him with his left arm rotating it around and sort of stretching. Does he have a problem with his shoulder? Who knows, but it was wild and rampant speculation just because he's there. I think it was something in the suit that was bothering him. It could have been.

Perhaps a seam or something in there, or a bug, maybe. That or one of the pads inside have rotated slightly or something. It was just odd because it's like, oh, as soon as he's moving his shoulder, oh, he's got a shoulder problem. I don't think he's got a shoulder problem, people. I think he's got a suit problem.

I found it funny. I just find those things entertaining, how we like to jump to conclusions about different things. Marini winds up going to the top with Mir. Then Ben Yaya finally put it together. He got to the one position.

Binder crashed with yellow flags. That sort of helped Marini out because I think he would have been bumped. There's some guys that had some laps that basically got that, but Ben Yaya and Marini get out of that qualifying session. They get the Q2. 93, man, he was the first guy, out, man.

He was right there. That's how you do it. Go out, assert dominance, and just do it Casey Stoner style, if you will. Ben Yaya was right behind him, so they both went out. Then, shock of all shocks, Marquez dumps the bike in turn one.

Now, that section had been repaved along, I think, with six. They were talking about it all weekend. Very slick. A new payment has been put down. Now, with the heat they had there, I'm sure the oils of the tarmac came up, or from the bitumen, there's oil that came up.

I'm sure it was super slick. Look there. Mark crashes, but did you notice what he does? He has the presence of mind to reach with his left hand and find the clutch lever and not stall that motorcycle. Okay, I can see it now.

There's going to be another rule instituted. It's going to be, because they did classify, they clarified the pit entry rules for this race, and they're going to be the rules that will be followed from now on. Another Mark Marquez rule, because you let a guy who is smart look at a rule book and say, I can do these things, and I am allowed, and I am allowed to do them. So here you go. I'm assuming we're going to have a, hey, if your bike is crashed, you can't reach for the clutch lever rule just to keep Mark from doing that.

It's hilarious. But, you know, I mean, so Mark's down there. He picks it all back up again. It was like Acosta and Aldiger and Martine and Benyai and Digi and Bez. And then, you know, Acosta's looking to be on pole, but Mark turns in a lap.

That's just slightly behind him. Then it's Fernandez. Another Aprilia there. Aldiger by the halfway point. Then Marquez goes to pole position.

Acosta's second. Aldiger is your third person. He looked really good. Like, Aldiger seemed to figure the bike out, and he sort of got what he wanted. But he looked really good at Hungary last year.

Maybe it's a track that just suits him and his style somewhat. I'm not sure. But he looked really good there being in the third position. Then Digi was fourth. Benyai fifth.

Bez was sixth. It's Fernandez seventh. Though the Aprilia is not looking good at all this weekend compared to what we've seen, especially, you know, from last weekend. Again, maybe this is sort of the magic of Mark Marquez, right? A bike that isn't good everywhere is suddenly great everywhere because the guy can ride the bike to a point that no one else can.

Mark hustles the bike, doesn't he? He absolutely hustles it. I think he sort of grabs it by the scruff of the neck and bends it to his will. Like Pedro Acosta does with the KTM. So no surprise as to the way the races went.

Whereas the Aprilia's gym, I think, again, because this is such a slow track with no high speed corners to speak of, it really negates the strength of the Aprilia, which is that overall package with the aero and everything. It just kind of ties one hand behind the Aprilia's back, really. And they just didn't really have a good weekend, full stop this weekend. Again, rather reminiscent of Barcelona, albeit for different reasons, but they just didn't really feature very much, did they? No.

And I think you kind of stumbled into it a little bit. Mark takes a bike by the scruff of the neck and the bike, he bends it to his will. For whatever reason, Bizzecchi, Martini, and the Aprilia in general, it's a finesse bike. It needs to be finessed. It needs to be eased into that corner and leaned over.

And now transition slowly back the other way. Wheels in line, driving forward. Where Mark is, the back end's out, it's up over whatever. I don't care. I'm going to turn this bike at this time.

Where the Aprilia might be planted and it might be a stable bike and it might be quick, but this tight, twisty nature is not to their strength, which means, is Saxon Ring not going to be to their strength? Probably not. Will Motegi be to their strength? Maybe not. That's pretty tight with the turns, you know.

Anything can happen, but, you know, are we seeing a weakness in this year's Aprilia is the bigger question. And I think we do know that I think the tighter, twisty tracks are not to the strength of the Aprilia. I think what Aprilia have managed to do, whether by luck or design, Jim, is to take that bike from being good at a few tracks and making it good at most tracks. They've sort of turned that on its head. There's a certain type of track where it just, well, it doesn't like very, very low grip and it doesn't like these sort of tight, nadger-y tracks.

So, yeah, Saxon Ring will be interesting, actually, won't it? But Marquez is very much like the Etten-Senna of the day. He will make a machine do what it doesn't really want to do and, in some cases, isn't really capable of doing. And, again, I think Acosta is doing exactly the same thing with the KTM and you can see that in where all the other KTMs are. Whereas Bozeki feels a little bit like an Alain Prost guy, really.

Just, I'm not going to say slow and steady because that would be an outrageously stupid thing to say and it wouldn't even... No, I just did say it. But you can see that he has to ride it, the bike, and the bike has to be ridden in a certain way to get the best out of it. You can't just force it to fit. Right.

I think he's like a Prost in the way that Prost was very particular about his setup. He had to have the bike set up properly for him and then it worked. Or the car. Anyway, that's qualifying as that went down. So, not much happening there with that.

Now, the sprint takes place. Notice that when they pulled away at the sprint, Marc Marquez's bike smoked from the exhaust. The lower exhaust. Under the fairing. I saw that in qualifying as well.

I'm like, ooh, this is kind of ominous that the Ducati's got a bit of blow-by around the rings. We shall see what happens here. But, as it takes off, Marquez gets a hole shot up front of Acosta and Bez and Oudiger and Fernandez and whatnot. And then Oudiger wound up slipping up by past Bez. Martine was in there as well.

But, basically, Marc is out front. He pretty much runs off on this one. There's no one who can really... He's got like a two-second lead with like nine laps to go in this event. He's got two seconds.

Acosta's got like one and a three on Bez. Bez is just sort of hanging back there with it. Not much happens in this because it's just Marc doing what Marc does. He makes everybody look slow by comparison. And there's not a whole lot that goes on at all in this one.

Marquez wins the sprint in going-away fashion. Acosta's second. Bozeki is third. Then, Revo Fernandes. Revo Fernandes with the fourth.

Oudiger, Jorge Martine, Diego Marrera. Shout-out there to Marrera. I thought that was a great ride by Marrera to get seventh in this one. Then, Bastianini and poor Ben Yaya completely back in ninth. It's like whatever he had was completely lost from qualifying.

So, you know, not really sure what was going to go on there. But what was going to happen when we get to the race on Sunday? Well, first off, it became about who was going to go with what tire. That was the big thing. I think everybody was pretty much settled on medium front.

The question was, are you going to take the soft or are you going to take the medium? Michelin said there's no difference. They're going to both go the distance. But you had to think, given what we saw in the sprint, that maybe perhaps the medium tire would be better. But the medium tire was going to take five or six laps to bed in.

And it's like, huh. Bez switched from a soft to a medium. Then, Martine went from a medium to a soft. Digia went with a medium. Fernandes went with a soft rear.

And then, sort of at the last minute, Acosta threw in a soft rear. You knew at that moment what Acosta's game plan was. Hole shot, get in front of Mark, pull away from Mark, hold off Mark, win race over Mark. Good plan. Right?

I mean, that was the plan. That was what he was going to do. It was obvious that that's where this is happening. So, well, Mark did get a hole shot again. But, man, Acosta simply just put the move on Mark right away.

Boom. Done. Second lap. I got this. This is all that.

And I wrote in my notes, Acosta needs to get away. And he needs to get about two and a half to three seconds away from Mark. To which Acosta could never actually do. He tried. He tried.

But he couldn't shake Mark. He couldn't get more than about a second to a second and a half away from Mark at that time. Because those first few laps, it is Acosta head down. And plan A, get to the front. Done.

Plan B, pull away. Done. Done. Now the question was, what was going to happen? What was going to happen with Mark?

And, yes, sir? Jim, are you deliberately forgetting what happened at the very first turn? Oh, yes, I have. Yeah. You're getting so carried away with the Mark-Acosta thing.

Quite understandably so. Because it was really good. I am. Yeah. That is my fault.

I am sorry. But we have rather overlooked something that happened at the first turn. We have overlooked the massive thing that happens at the first turn. And, you know, at the beginning, Jorge Martin loses control of his motorcycle and trashes every Aprilia on the grid, save for Ayagura. I mean, okay.

So, we were supposed to ride with respect, but ride hard, and did that just went out the window? Now, at first, I thought Martin may have gotten touched by one of the Hondas, whether that was Marini or whether it was Marera. That was my first thought. Because of the way that, you know, your first thought of how that happens as it took off. My first thought was that.

And then I looked at it again. I thought, no. And then I thought, well, maybe the ride height device didn't disengage, or maybe it disengaged in a way Martin wasn't ready for. Right. Maybe it was the fact that it did disengage, and then the soft tire grabbed a whole lot more than what Jorge Martin was thinking it would.

Now, we all know that the Michelin rear is incredibly grippy. And then that just started the bike wiggling. And, well, then it's all over at that point. And, well, here we go. Bowling for Riders appears, and voila, it's a smashed thing.

There were some seriously damaged Aprilias. I think Martin's bike or Bez's bike was completely trashed. Like, the whole instrument cluster and things were all completely gone. And what's wild about this? Rich, is I literally never put any of that crash in my notes.

Really? I guess I just come to the point where I'm like, yeah, that's Martin. Because I know Martin did not do any of this on purpose. Because you almost have in your mind that given all of his troubles and everything that's gone on, in my mind, I tend to think maybe he's thinking if I'm not going to win the championship, then no Aprilia is going to win this championship. You almost have to think it.

You can draw a line and go. Okay. But between Raul Fernandez and Martin, they are a bit of a wrecking crew of the Aprilias. That is true. But, I mean, I jest.

But everybody got up, which is the most important thing, is that everybody got up. And amazingly, they were able to clear away all of the crash damage, all the bikes, and were able to get everybody to a safe position before the bikes came back around again for the start of the second lap. Which was pretty amazing that they cleared all that lot up within such a short lap as well, because there was a lot of wreckage to get rid of. A lot of people there, more hands make less work, or something to that effect. And, you know, it's just a shout out to the corner workers.

That was a great job by them. They did a fantastic job to keep the race going. They did. And, you know, provided that, you know, nobody was severely injured. Everybody was able to get to their feet, walk away, and then you're just dealing with bikes.

But, you know, they had the pole and the straps, and you have four guys on a bike, and they just carried that sucker through the gravel and the way that they went. And it was really great to see. So, anything you want to add to the accident? It was somewhat reminiscent of the S-1. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a second start at Barcelona, wasn't it, really, in terms of a first-turn melee. I just don't know what to make of Jorge Martín. I mean, on the one hand, I really admire his sort of charging, aggressive spirit. But, on the other hand, I mean, he did exactly the same thing in Qatar, I think, last year.

No, where was it? Oh, was it Motegi? There was a race towards the end of the season last year where he again took out, I think, Bez again in that particular instance, because he sort of qualifies a bit further back. I mean, we've got to remember with Martín, in his sort of glory period, which is starting to recede somewhat, isn't it, he was always on pole or on the front row anyway. So, he wasn't sort of typically qualifying back on sort of second, third row.

And he just seems to have a bit of an issue in this sort of a scenario, going in sort of a bit too hard. Now, this rear ride height device thing is a contributing factor to it. I've no doubt about that. And I think he kind of explained it a way that, yeah, he just kind of the front locked on him. Now, I'm not saying that that wouldn't have happened if he didn't have a ride height device.

But, clearly, it is a component. It's a contributing factor. But then again, there are 21 other bikes on the grid and they didn't do this. So, he just seems to have a bit of a habit of this. And it's, I don't know if you've seen any of the quotes coming from Massimo Rivela after the event.

But I think Patience is, well, I was going to say wearing thin. I think Patience has possibly snapped now. Patience has left the chat. With some of these shenanigans going on. I mean, it's not just Martín, as you say.

It's Fernández too. Fernández has been up to it a bit at times as well. Bez seems to get the dirty end of the stick on. He did take on this more often than not, didn't he? For once, Aguirre's strategy of qualifying really poorly was a masterstroke.

But I don't know what else you can say, really. So Bez was taken out, Aldegu was taken out, Fernández, obviously Martín himself and Didier went down, although Didier did rejoin the race. But Carnage on a first turn again. And, I mean, it was 100% Joao Martín's fault. But again, another reason why we shouldn't be going back to Balaton Park, because turns 1, 2 and 3 there are notoriously bad.

We've seen bad crashes in World Super. We've seen bad bikes there. And it's just a poor track configuration. It's just not suitable, particularly for these bikes. And all of the soundings that I got over the weekend were that they will not be going back there next year.

They might go to the Hungara Ring if some changes are made, or we'll just go somewhere completely different. Could we just go to Turkey instead? Well, yeah, I think that is obviously going to come. But there are contracts in place, I suppose, that can't necessarily be broken. But as a World Championship, I do question why we have a race in Hungary followed by a race in Czechoslovakia.

Or the Czech Republic, sorry. Well, proximity-wise, that just seems a bit odd to me now. But that is a Liberty strategy. If you look at what they did, that is kind of how they have the European Formula One part of the season laid out. They're all literally right next to each other.

I get from a logistics point of view, it kind of makes sense. But those places are sort of pretty close to each other. And given some of the places in the world that we're not going to, I think as time goes by, we'll see a bit of a change or a bit of a further change on this. If Dan isn't going to go 90 minutes to get to Oltun Park, do you think everybody in Hungary is going to drive an hour and a half or two hours to get to Brno? Well, I think the point is that MotoGP- I'm just throwing a funny out.

That's all. ... is not big enough to really encourage enough of a crowd to go to both venues in large numbers. And interestingly, though, no crowd figures were released for this Balaton Park. Because nobody was there.

Because there was nobody there. I mean, nobody. If you think Koda is empty- Yeah. ... there wasn't 60,000 people there.

I can tell you that. I would hazard a guess. There might have been a bigger crowd in for World Superbike. Probably. But I don't know for sure.

I mean, possibly it was even emptier. But yeah, you can't really see much of a sporting or financial commercial justification for sticking with this one. No. And as I say, the track itself is just pretty bland and boring and just not open and wide enough and fast enough to warrant these prototype bikes being there. I completely agree with you.

Anyway, back to the Acosta Marques Love-In. Yeah. Let's go back to the Love Fest that's there. You know, a shout out has to be here as well for Marini, because Marini's now actually in fourth place, because Ben Yaya steals that, right? And then we can go back to the Love Fest that I'm having with Di Marques, Acosta battle.

So basically, we get back to that battle and it's actually magical, because it's that brief thing where like, these are the two guys that you know are going to be teammates. And this is that look inside of like how bad each one wants to beat the other, but while we're sort of doing through that, we had Bastianini wide at turn one, and then he just slams right into Juan Mir. Juan Mir has no luck. I mean, zero. But Bastianini did get a long lap for Bastianini to Mir in that one.

Yeah, because you came from way wide. I look at it this way with this one, Rich. As you're returning to the track, because I'm as far wide as Bastianini was, this wasn't like Bastianini was just slightly wider and he was taking a different line to make a different apex. He was way out by the curbs and the gravel trap. Yeah, true.

But you had time to look to your right to see if anybody was going to be there before you did what you did. Yeah. I think that's a fair point actually. Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, you kind of deserve that one.

It's a little bit harsh, but you know, you really did not come back on safely. Either way, the front, we look at like lap eight and where's Marquez's bike's got that little puff of smoke again. So again, I'm like, oh, is this going to be like a motor going to go here or whatever? But we saw that with Benyai's bike last year. Where it smoked for a long time and it continued to be okay.

Acosta was trying to let Mark get close, but then he picked the pace back up again. It's like, ooh, Acosta's maybe thinking, I got out front, I can't get away. He's watching the board. I can't get away. I'm going to pull this back a little bit, run a pace, cool the tire, get ready for the attack that you know is going to come.

And then here it comes, man. We had a glorious group of racing that I think from laps 13-ish all the way through to like like lap 18, there was five-ish laps of two guys who don't know how to quit when it comes to wanting to win. If Mark went up the inside of Acosta, Acosta was back up the inside again. Acosta would predict the move that Mark was going to do. And it just got to the point where, you know, Acosta just couldn't defend long enough because Mark's not going to give up.

He's just not going to let you have it because you're in front. But Mark also sold him a dummy one time too. Which enabled him to get Acosta. Out of where he needed to be. I think regardless of whatever you think about this, it was absolutely enthralling.

It was a great bit of racing, but Mark had the better tire strategy. The Michelin came good after Mark started after about five laps, Mark got it together and then closed in on Acosta. The KTM is notorious for, I couldn't believe Acosta went for it because the KTM has been notorious this year for burning the rear tire off of the bike and losing grip. I admire the guts and the gusto and whatnot to do it. I admire Acosta.

It was just absolutely positively just banging bars with Mark all the way around and it was absolutely enthralling. And as you said, it's that look into what next year is going to look like. And oh my gosh, it's probably going to be better than we could possibly imagine. We thought when Mark went to be teammates with Ben Yaya, we thought Prost Senna. That's that Titanic struggle.

We might have it with that Titanic struggle with Acosta and Mark. And I can't wait to see Acosta's face when he pulls that helmet off at the Valencia test at the end of the year. It's going to be a big ear to ear grin. It's going to be, I can work with this. I can do this.

It's going to be crazy. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I wrote down in my notes that it was kind of soft versus medium tire as well as good versus bad shoulder because most people were thinking Mark was going to have a struggle. In fact, Mark himself was making it clear that he was going to struggle.

He wasn't really fit, but I think that was a bit of classic Mark Marquez deflection going on there because when it came down to it, nobody could really lay a glove on him. But that little four or five lap period was just sublime. Racing really hard. Very fair. Yes.

Perhaps a little bit on the edge. One or two moments. But that's where you want it, right? That's the fine line where you want to be. And that's where the real entertainment comes in, not to mention the skill of the actual people doing it.

I mean, it was just mind blowing really. Those two are head and shoulders above everybody else in talent. I'm sorry. They just are. Certainly currently.

Yeah. Currently they are. That's right. I mean, you're cross center and agile. I think it's center center in that team next year, isn't it really?

Fair enough. That's what we're looking at. Yeah. And that's going to be very, very fascinating to see how that all unfolds. Yeah.

At the end of the race, as this starts to play out, Mark winds up just sort of tacking on time and pulling away from Acosta. But it's now your attention turns to Iagura, who is now racing towards the front, having struggled to get past the Hondas and Marrera and stuff. He does get through and he does run down. He isn't necessarily probably going to get to Ben Yaya, but you're hoping that he can. You put in that kind of effort.

You'd hope to see him get a podium for it, but he never did. Marquez wins the race. We all know that. Acosta second, then Ben Yaya. Iagura.

Great ride by Iagura. I mean, honestly, if anybody should have got right out of the race, I think Iagura should have. That's where my vote went when I had a chance to cast it. That's what I did. Apparently I'm in the wrong.

I don't know. Well, he just needs to qualify better, doesn't he? That's the trouble. Oh, if you could get him to qualify well, you know, get that anywhere between one to six. Iagura could be really dangerous.

Yeah. Lekawana with a shout out here. He finished seventh on the race. He finished seventh on the sub-end ride. Miller was eighth on the Yamaha.

Really good for him. He beat Bastianini and Bender. Toprak 11th. I think that was fantastic for Toprak. Again, another good ride by the Yamahas.

Then Fabio DiGiantonio there at 12th. Renz was 13th. Then Morbidelli and Matric Vinales. Quattroro parked the bike with like four laps to go, shook his head and was like, nah, I'm not doing this. So, oh well.

Who knows what was wrong this weekend. Somebody just wanted to be pouty. Either way, this- Well- I mean, Miller had a good race on that bike, didn't he? Yes, he did. And once again, Pramac really showed up the works team.

Yes. Both of them. Both riders, really. I mean, Toprak was expected to go well because this is a track he knows very well and he was untouchable on the super bike around Balaton Park. Did the treble last year and I think the year before.

Okay, Toprak didn't beat Jack Miller, but Jack's a sort of wily old hand, didn't he? And for once, managed to keep his rear tire underneath him. So yeah, that Yamaha's not as bad as I think Quattroro is making it out to be. Yeah. I think he's just sort of lost his motivation and has kind of checked out this year.

I don't care how much money you get. At some point, mere motivation will wane if you can't- Yeah. And I'm not criticizing him- When you want to win. Necessarily for that. You can kind of understand it, but he is getting paid a lot of money.

I know the riders are doing much better on the bike, so I mean, it does raise a few question marks for me. Yeah. I agree. Jim, we haven't mentioned him across this coverage so far, but mega job by Lekarona all weekend. I don't think he crashed the bike.

I agree. I didn't see him off the bike. No. I think he ran on a Honda a few seasons ago, and a KTM, because he did a fair bit of subbing on the LCR bike, if you remember, at various stages when he was contracted to HRC and World Superbike. So he must have just had a grin like a Cheshire cat getting on a Ducati.

And boy, did he make it work for himself. I mean, okay, I know a number of riders were taken out courtesy of Mr. Martin, but nevertheless, the Lekarona to finish where he did was just an outstanding ride. And I think we will see him on that bike a good few more times this season until Alex Marquez comes back recovered, which is probably going to be a while, I would think. I hope it's a while, because he needs to be sure he's 100%.

Yeah, absolutely. And the last thing I've got to say is Franco Morbidelli, I mean, what is going on there? He was beaten by DiGiantonio, who was off the bike for a good 30 seconds at the first turn, not having been involved in that crash, and still finished two places ahead of Frankie Morbidelli. So that's really strange, isn't it? Frankie's time is nigh.

It certainly feels that way, doesn't it? Yeah. I don't understand why the likes of Maverick Vinales are still being in the conversation for a ride next year either, because I just can't see why a team would take the risk to be honest with you, given injuries and inconsistencies and stuff. So again, I think there is going to be a bit of a house clearance going on here, because four or five Moto2 riders come up. Doesn't Liberty have a clause in her contract that Vinales has to be there just to tick Gary off?

It could be in the small print somewhere, yeah. I mean, he's been hanging on for a long time. I mean, he's had a long, long career, hasn't he, Vinales, in MotoGP? But it does sort of feel as if injury and various other factors mean that probably he ought to think about doing something different. For sure.

Well, let's look at the championship here. With not scoring any points, Buzzecchi's still leading. He's 20 points ahead of Martín. Then DiGiantonio's 42 back of Buzzecchi. Acosta is fourth, 48 points back.

And then Marquez is now, with taking maximum points on the weekend, is only 72 points behind. If the Aprilias don't get their act together and play nicely, this could implode to the point. And if a guy who had shoulder surgery three weeks prior can do this on a tight and twisty track, although it was anti-clockwise, and he has a 59% winning percentage on anti-clockwise circuits. That's crazy. It's insane.

I don't know. I'm not saying Marquez is going to win the title. I still think Bez is the guy to beat for the title. But you can somehow see this falling apart with the Aprilia guys. You are seeing the cracks.

I think there's cracks. I'm sorry. I think there's cracks. No, but I'm not with you on that one. I think let's...

Well, we haven't got too long to wait for Bruno, have we? Let's see. No. But let's get on this year's form, a nailed on Aprilia track. It should be a nailed on Aprilia podium sweep.

Yeah. So Aprilia need to react quickly. Because I mean, I can say it wasn't really a Aprilia's fault. One of their riders took three quarters of the riders from Aprilia contingent out. So in that sense, it is Aprilia's fault.

But it wasn't a sort of a meltdown by Aprilia, the team, or the structure, or the engineering, or anything like that, as we've seen in past years. So I think they'll get back to winning ways quite quickly. I hope so. The market's going to win a hat full of races. I don't think it's going to happen.

too many question marks over that and that gap is going to reduce him he took 30 points out of bez this weekend yeah that's a big old switch right there yeah uh it's what 37 so it's 12 and 25 right yeah bez finished did finish third in the sprint oh yeah having said that you know he hadn't had a good weekend i mean by his recent standards he didn't have a great weekend but he did finish third in the sprint and he probably would have been there or thereabouts in terms of the podium last podium place on sunday as well had his teammate not wiped him out yeah so i'm not quite there with you yet in terms of a complete sort of aprilia meltdown but certainly they can't afford to have one or two of the riders routinely taking other aprilia riders out which is really goes to the point of what rivola was saying in his uh comments which a lot of people online i saw were kind of getting very uppity about him throwing martin under the bus i'm like well yeah the guy's just wiped out three quarters of the aprilia contingent he's bound to be a bit so not to mention several million dollars worth of scrap damage on the bikes as well all of which is painful for aprilia which is not the biggest of factories so yeah martin probably feeling a bit sheepish at the minute i would think yep so i think the next race is at bruno let's talk about probably what they could do with these i i think that's an aprilia track i think aprilia should be bang on there from there they go to the netherlands i think that's a bang on aprilia track they go to germany hmm mark marquez territory yeah they go to great britain that's a toss-up no i think that's aprilia still you still want aprilia there to call that a tie-up because mark is going to be healed on big time when we get to there so i feel like that's a toss-up i feel like that's tough we didn't go to aragon that could be mark marquez territory it's anti it's anti-clockwise that is a bang on mark marquez there then you go san marino bez did great there last year having won that they go to austria after that austria's stop start does that favor mark on the ducati i don't think it favors ducati yeah whether it favors mark or not i don't know because it's very stop start there you know could be a banya track if he can get his act together japan you've got to say i'm thinking well i mean only going on last year but i mean banya was untouchable though last year wasn't he's having a much better season this season it has to be said banya that is so i say ducati i think eileen ducati eileen ducati indonesia i'd say that's although it's hot and greasy there so no grip so i don't see aprilia there australia is going to be cold and that's a mark track because that thing goes anti-clockwise so done malaysia long straights sharp turns the heat well if alex mark is back fit he'll win there because he always wins malaysia recently true yeah malaysia is a toss-up i i can go either way then they're on to qatar provisionally right and then they go to which that one's i don't know i'm trying to think if somebody like a honda can get a look at any point yeah i don't think so but i don't really think so then you're at portugal you're going up and down the roller coaster that is portomayo toss up there too i think because there's not really a lot of people there so it's not really a long straight it's more handling again that is a real scratches track so i think that lends itself to mark marquez in terms of i think so hustling because that plays as a roller coaster and then valencia it's anti-clockwise yeah i mean he won in valencia last year trying to remember no yeah he escapes me well obviously wasn't mark marquez he was out injured um yeah no i can't recall off the top of my head but again it's a did you did you win no that's not true don't think so i don't think so it's a nothing burger of a track isn't it so i mean it and the weather i mean at that time of the year they seem to get away with it most years in valencia but in november or getting close to december very late november this year it could very easily be cold and wet there in which case it's a total lottery yeah well that's everything right rich from this weekend's events yeah well we do have a week off before we get to bruno you do have a week of recovery time folks yeah but there'll be another motor podcast so don't worry keep up well you've got a tt uh review from danny and carl to look forward to coming at some point hot on the hills of this one so yeah it won't be totally quiet on the moto pod front there is a bit of a gap to the ridge in moto america so yeah it's about a month i think isn't it yeah that's a big hole in the calendar well i you know as you said as you said in the host show there should be a discussion of what happened to american motorcycle road racing and then how it got to where it was and how it collapsed and now how it's coming back yeah i think that would be a genuinely very interesting rundown memory lane and looking at some of the characters and the successes from the past across world super bikes and gp 500 stroke moto gp as it became yeah what kind of caused the absence of any stateside major talent particularly in the moto gp class in recent years and then what the future looks like yeah all right well that's everything that we got for this one yep so as always folks ride safe see you after bruno and i'll see you in the next one Thank you. You're welcome.