Latest / Pit Talk / Catalan Chaos, Steiner’s New Garage & F1’s Rumour Mill at Full Throttle: MotoGP Pit Talk

Transcript

Catalan Chaos, Steiner’s New Garage & F1’s Rumour Mill at Full Throttle: MotoGP Pit Talk · Pit Talk

0:01
Speaker 1: On track, it was the Marcus brothers who stole the
0:04
Speaker 1: headlines in Barcelona, a sprint stunner, a Sunday showdown, and
0:08
Speaker 1: a championship crowning that's been put on ice. Deliberate or not,
0:12
Speaker 1: we don't know. But off track, all eyes are locked
0:15
Speaker 1: on Peco Vanyaya with results that leave you shaking your head.
0:19
Speaker 1: At the moment, we had crashes, penalties, the usual suspects
0:22
Speaker 1: stirring the pot, and of course, surprise, surprise, ju Catti
0:25
Speaker 1: walked away with the Constructor's crown Classic right. Plus, we
0:30
Speaker 1: finally got the news we've been waiting for. Jack is
0:32
Speaker 1: staying for twenty twenty six and we cannot wait. This
0:36
Speaker 1: episode of Pit Talker's brought to you by Shannon's Insurance.
0:39
Speaker 1: I'm your host Ronita Vanmullin, and joining me is the
0:42
Speaker 1: man who can name Moto GP facts faster than a
0:44
Speaker 1: Jucati throttle, Mister Matt Clayton, Matt, we've got a lot
0:49
Speaker 1: to unpack from the Catalan Grand Prix, we do.
0:53
Speaker 2: Is there anything faster than a do Catty throttle? You
0:55
Speaker 2: would sugest after six constructors championships in a row, Probably not,
0:58
Speaker 2: but it was funny how you know that barely race
1:02
Speaker 2: to ripple over the course of the weekend, everyone kind
1:04
Speaker 2: of just shrugged a win. Okay, sure, because really nobody
1:08
Speaker 2: else had to look in from the start of the season.
1:09
Speaker 2: But in terms of where that sat in the news
1:12
Speaker 2: cycle for the weekend, like you said, there was rather
1:14
Speaker 2: a bit going on, so we sort of just ticked
1:16
Speaker 2: the box and moved on with that one. But I
1:18
Speaker 2: don't even know where you want to start here, because
1:19
Speaker 2: there's about ten starting boards.
1:22
Speaker 1: Let's go, let's go, let's gore from the mark as
1:24
Speaker 1: Alex Manker's Mark Markers situation, because it feels like it's
1:29
Speaker 1: kind of divided everyone at the moment. There's some people
1:32
Speaker 1: online who are going, you know, Alex clearly was the
1:36
Speaker 1: faster one all weekend. We could see it from FP
1:39
Speaker 1: one and but is stating fact Alex was fast all weekend.
1:42
Speaker 1: But then there's a lot of other people who are saying,
1:45
Speaker 1: you know, Mark has been saying for the last two
1:47
Speaker 1: Grand PRIs, I don't want to win the championship in Mazano.
1:50
Speaker 1: I don't want to win a Messano. And then all
1:53
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Alex wins the race in Barcelona, which
1:57
Speaker 1: means Mark doesn't go into a Mazzano with that match points,
2:00
Speaker 1: so there was a lot of intrigue around that. But
2:05
Speaker 1: Saturday's sprint, Alex Marpez crashing out of the lead, over confidence, right,
2:10
Speaker 1: he just it just the top of the front, as
2:12
Speaker 1: it always happens at that corner in Barcelona, types the
2:16
Speaker 1: front and off he goes, crashing down the circuit.
2:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was done.
2:19
Speaker 2: And it's interesting that you talked before about you know,
2:22
Speaker 2: was this the case of Alex Marquez being better or
2:24
Speaker 2: was this the case of Mark Marquez's letting And I
2:26
Speaker 2: use the word letting it inverted Commas letting his brother win.
2:30
Speaker 2: I don't have letting's quite the right word, but I
2:31
Speaker 2: think both things can be true to an extent. And
2:33
Speaker 2: I think what you just said then about the crash
2:35
Speaker 2: in the sprint dictated so much about how Alex approached
2:39
Speaker 2: the Grand Prix on Sunday, because yeah, he was over
2:42
Speaker 2: confidence and over confident, and he had it one on Saturday.
2:45
Speaker 2: It was done and Mark had kind of given up
2:46
Speaker 2: the fight at that point, and that was a sprint
2:49
Speaker 2: that you know, Mark doesn't need gifts and Alex handed
2:52
Speaker 2: in won by just a moment of lack of concentration.
2:54
Speaker 2: Because that was done, I think that dictated how the
2:57
Speaker 2: race played out on Sunday, and that if Alex was
3:00
Speaker 2: going to lose, he wasn't going to lose because he
3:02
Speaker 2: lost it. He was going to have to be beaten.
3:04
Speaker 2: He wasn't going to throw it away himself. So I
3:06
Speaker 2: think that really dictated a lot of how the second
3:08
Speaker 2: half of that race panned out. I always say that
3:13
Speaker 2: it's good to have different ways to win motor GP races, right,
3:16
Speaker 2: so sometimes have these crazy pack races and these brawls
3:19
Speaker 2: and everyone's overtaking each other every corner for the entire race.
3:22
Speaker 3: They're great.
3:23
Speaker 2: Isn't there something cool about watching a race that's a
3:26
Speaker 2: slow burn, that's super tense? And there were sixteen straight
3:30
Speaker 2: laps there back and looked at the data where the
3:33
Speaker 2: gap was between point two and point six of a
3:35
Speaker 2: second between the Marquez brothers. Mark didn't make a move
3:38
Speaker 2: on Alex in that time, but he was there, and
3:41
Speaker 2: the tension just ratcheted up because you just kept seeing
3:44
Speaker 2: that lap counter counting down, counting down, and you're all right,
3:47
Speaker 2: I know it's coming here. And if you're Alex, you're upfront,
3:51
Speaker 2: the rider behind you you know better than anybody else
3:54
Speaker 2: in the entire world, not just on the motor GP grid,
3:57
Speaker 2: better than anyone you know in the world, and you
3:59
Speaker 2: know what's probably going to happen here. And every time
4:03
Speaker 2: you go into turn ted, you've got this reminder of
4:06
Speaker 2: this win that you threw in the bin the day before.
4:09
Speaker 2: So to my mind, I liked the way that Alex
4:12
Speaker 2: absorbed the pressure. And there was a lap I think
4:15
Speaker 2: it's lap twenty where Alex pushed and Mark went with
4:17
Speaker 2: him and thought, all right, we're now starting to build
4:19
Speaker 2: up to this, and then Alex put about half a
4:22
Speaker 2: second in him in the next lap to show that
4:23
Speaker 2: he'd managed this race perfectly. I look at the championship
4:27
Speaker 2: situation and think, had you know, Mark's got one eye
4:30
Speaker 2: on the title clearly, and he's going to win it.
4:32
Speaker 2: It's just a matter of when he's going to win it.
4:34
Speaker 2: If this was a race earlier in the season, when
4:36
Speaker 2: he wasn't thinking about championship permutations, if this was a
4:39
Speaker 2: race later in the season when the title had been
4:41
Speaker 2: one already, I think he probably would have had a
4:44
Speaker 2: bigger go at Alex. There was too much to lose
4:47
Speaker 2: in that situation. Now Mark doesn't care where he wins
4:49
Speaker 2: a world championship. We cared that we wanted him to
4:52
Speaker 2: win it at Mesado because it was going to be
4:53
Speaker 2: some good narrative for us, But he just wants to win,
4:56
Speaker 2: full stop. He doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter to
4:58
Speaker 2: Mark when it happens. Also, I think that you know
5:01
Speaker 2: Alex is this in Malaysia are the two tracks where
5:05
Speaker 2: Alex is at least as good, if not better than Mark.
5:08
Speaker 2: And it's not because he's a better motor GP right,
5:10
Speaker 2: we know that's not the case, but it's the configuration
5:14
Speaker 2: of the Cattaloonia track in that Mark's never been brilliant
5:17
Speaker 2: at this track because it's a lot of long radius
5:20
Speaker 2: right handed turns, which Mark's never been good at, even
5:23
Speaker 2: pre shoulder injuries, and since then he's definitely not been
5:26
Speaker 2: as good as But you look at where the right
5:28
Speaker 2: handers are, it's at the start of the lap when
5:30
Speaker 2: you're going through well, it's the last four corners of
5:34
Speaker 2: the lap, and then it turns three and four particularly
5:37
Speaker 2: and if you looked at sector one, Alex was fast
5:39
Speaker 2: at the entire weekend, so Mark would make up ground
5:43
Speaker 2: in the rest of the lap that he lost through
5:44
Speaker 2: the first few corners, and then we get to that
5:46
Speaker 2: last sequence of corners, all those right handers coming through
5:49
Speaker 2: the stadium section until you get back on the start,
5:51
Speaker 2: finished straight and Alex was quicker. So was Alex quicker overall?
5:56
Speaker 2: Just maybe? But he was quicker in the right parts
5:59
Speaker 2: of the track where Mark was fast that he wasn't
6:02
Speaker 2: really able to press home that advantage. So I like
6:05
Speaker 2: the fact that it was a tense race between the
6:07
Speaker 2: two of them. Could Mark have pushed a bit? I
6:08
Speaker 2: don't look probably. Also, if you Mark, why would you
6:11
Speaker 2: because quite frankly, you know, if everyone's saying why didn't
6:14
Speaker 2: he push for the victory? No one's sick of him
6:16
Speaker 2: winning fifteen races in a row. Was it not nice
6:18
Speaker 2: to see somebody else win a race? But I think
6:21
Speaker 2: what this does do it means that the championships almost
6:24
Speaker 2: going to certainly be wrapped up in Japan, right. There's
6:27
Speaker 2: something kind of poetic or something about that, because he'll
6:30
Speaker 2: win it on Honda's home turf. And this was not
6:33
Speaker 2: an acrimonious parting between Mark and Honda. Mark did this
6:36
Speaker 2: with a very heavy heart in that he was ready
6:38
Speaker 2: to win again, and Honda weren't, and they'd had so
6:41
Speaker 2: much success together that I don't think this was some
6:43
Speaker 2: sort of you know, I hate you guys, I need
6:45
Speaker 2: to leave. It was with a heavy heart that he
6:47
Speaker 2: did this to close the circle and the decision he
6:49
Speaker 2: made a couple of years ago to move from Honda
6:52
Speaker 2: to Ducati. To do that in Japan is probably a
6:56
Speaker 2: nicer way to finish this narrative rather than just the
6:59
Speaker 2: inevitability year of Rossi fans booing Marquez on the podium
7:02
Speaker 2: at Masada. Whether he wins the World Championship or not,
7:04
Speaker 2: that's just the lowest hanging fruit imaginable, good for a
7:07
Speaker 2: bit of social media traffic for a few days. But
7:09
Speaker 2: maybe the better narrative is that he wins it where
7:12
Speaker 2: he left.
7:13
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you're hitting in the hand, nail on
7:15
Speaker 1: the head, and I feel like we also need to
7:17
Speaker 1: take a look back that it was only last year
7:19
Speaker 1: was the first time that two brothers stood on the
7:21
Speaker 1: metogp crazy right together, and now it's just it's a
7:24
Speaker 1: normal thing. I think I read a fact and you
7:26
Speaker 1: can tell me if this is right. Alex Marcus is
7:29
Speaker 1: the only other writer this season who's won multiple races
7:33
Speaker 1: apart from Mark.
7:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:34
Speaker 2: Correct, And so the stat that I dragged out and
7:37
Speaker 2: I wrote in my post race talking points at two
7:39
Speaker 2: am or something, so maybe a bit hazy on this.
7:42
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety seven was the previous time there'd been two
7:45
Speaker 2: brothers on a Grand Prix podium before Mark and Alex
7:47
Speaker 2: are on the podium at Saxon Ring last year, right,
7:50
Speaker 2: so that broke how many years? That is twenty seven
7:52
Speaker 2: years draught between siblings being on the podium if you
7:55
Speaker 2: had the Sprints and Grand Prix together. This year they
7:58
Speaker 2: shared the podium seventeen times in thirty races, which is
8:03
Speaker 2: absolutely crazy. Now if you're an Alex Marquez fan, look
8:05
Speaker 2: away down because the score is Mark fifteen, Alex two.
8:08
Speaker 2: But the fact that those two have been on the podium,
8:11
Speaker 2: and Alex was talking about this in the post race
8:13
Speaker 2: on Sunday, it's so to think that you're sharing a
8:18
Speaker 2: podium with the person you shared a bedroom with growing
8:21
Speaker 2: up in absolutely elite level sport is kind of crazy
8:26
Speaker 2: that it happens once. It's kind of crazy that they're
8:28
Speaker 2: even on the grid together, let alone sharing all this success.
8:31
Speaker 2: It's a pretty remarkable story. And I mentioned this when
8:34
Speaker 2: I was talking to Michael Lemonatto on Arafin Show and
8:36
Speaker 2: we got down a motor GP rabbit hole. The other day,
8:39
Speaker 2: Matt Oxley made a fantastic point on his podcast post
8:42
Speaker 2: Catalunya where he was trying to think of other siblings
8:45
Speaker 2: who've had this amazing mastery of their sport in a
8:48
Speaker 2: truly global sport. I'm not talking about the Australian football
8:51
Speaker 2: codes or anything else which nobody else in the world
8:53
Speaker 2: cares about. I'm talking about genuine world sport. And he
8:57
Speaker 2: said Serena and Venus Williams, And that was one that
9:00
Speaker 2: hadn't come to mind because I wasn't thinking ball sports necessarily,
9:02
Speaker 2: but I thought, yeah, that's a really good analog for this.
9:05
Speaker 2: And you think of the improbability of Serena and Venus
9:08
Speaker 2: getting to where they got from where they came from,
9:10
Speaker 2: let alone dominating the sport the way they did and
9:13
Speaker 2: playing a Grand Slam finals and what have you. This
9:15
Speaker 2: is the Marquez brothers is the only the Williams sisters
9:18
Speaker 2: is the only thing I can think that's equivalent. And
9:21
Speaker 2: you look at the way that is revered in that
9:22
Speaker 2: particular sport. We're seeing something pretty remarkable here because there's
9:25
Speaker 2: a pretty small percentage chance this should be happening at all.
9:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a species. I listened to the same part
9:33
Speaker 1: with Matt Oxley, Okay, I when I heard that as well,
9:36
Speaker 1: I was sitting there going, yeah, I'm trying to think
9:38
Speaker 1: of any other siblings because quite often it's one, and
9:43
Speaker 1: maybe it's one and is in a lower category than
9:45
Speaker 1: the other, but it's very very rare that there's the
9:47
Speaker 1: two at the peak of their sport.
9:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, or even if they're in the peak of their sport,
9:51
Speaker 2: these are like a genuine hierarchy, like I think of
9:53
Speaker 2: Michael Schumacher and Ralph Schumacher. Like Ralph Schumacher was a
9:56
Speaker 2: Grand Prix race winning driver, his brother won seven World Championships.
10:00
Speaker 2: Huge gap between the two. So the fact that, I mean,
10:03
Speaker 2: Mark's going to be a seven type MotoGP champion in
10:05
Speaker 2: a few weeks, so we're not putting Alex in that category.
10:07
Speaker 1: But Alex is going to be runner up, absolutely.
10:10
Speaker 2: And Alex has won titles in Modo three and my
10:12
Speaker 2: titles in Moto two, and he's going to be a
10:14
Speaker 2: World Championship Motor GP runner up in a season that
10:18
Speaker 2: is going to be won by one of the best
10:19
Speaker 2: riders ever to do it. It's an amazing story.
10:21
Speaker 1: Amazing story. But my question to you on that is,
10:25
Speaker 1: with Mark finishing second on the weekend, does that kind
10:29
Speaker 1: of secure Alex is a second in the world Championship.
10:33
Speaker 1: Is that like another little aspect of the storyline of
10:36
Speaker 1: pushing the crowning back?
10:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit.
10:38
Speaker 2: I mean, Alex has had a bit of wobble since
10:40
Speaker 2: he broke his hand in Asen. It's not been great
10:43
Speaker 2: since then. But I think Alex was going to even
10:45
Speaker 2: before this weekend, was likely to fall backwards into second
10:48
Speaker 2: place anyway, because you look at the chasing pack. Pecobanyaal,
10:50
Speaker 2: which we'll get to, has just been that stories. It
10:53
Speaker 2: gets worse by the week. Marco Pozeki didn't score a
10:56
Speaker 2: point in Kashelunya through no fault of his own, but
10:58
Speaker 2: he'd been on a really good run, left there completely scoreless.
11:02
Speaker 2: And the next guy in the standings is Pedro Acosta,
11:04
Speaker 2: who for the first eight to nine rounds was kind
11:06
Speaker 2: of anonymous, and he's really good now, but he's certainly
11:09
Speaker 2: not a threat to catch Alex at this point. Like
11:12
Speaker 2: you look at Alex's points tally, it's a significant points tally.
11:16
Speaker 2: It just gets dwarfed by the mark points tally. But
11:18
Speaker 2: you look at how many points Alex are scored this year, like,
11:20
Speaker 2: that's a genuinely amazing season. I think over if I
11:23
Speaker 2: may have written this, I forgot what I've written in
11:25
Speaker 2: the last week. I think he's scored twice as many
11:27
Speaker 2: points this season than he scored in any single season previously.
11:30
Speaker 2: And we've still got seven rounds to go. Like, Alex
11:33
Speaker 2: has been genuinely awesome this year, and it's just the
11:36
Speaker 2: fact that it's been overshadowed by has He's been overshadowed
11:38
Speaker 2: all his life by a big bro who.
11:40
Speaker 3: Just happens to be incredibly good at what he does.
11:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean hard relate with that. But let's
11:49
Speaker 1: move on to Peckrock, because you brought that up there,
11:52
Speaker 1: and I think this is the thing at the moment
11:54
Speaker 1: is we're seeing like the highest of highs, and especially
11:57
Speaker 1: in the Ducati Lenova garagees celebrate Mark Marquez and look
12:01
Speaker 1: what he's doing and all this amazing, and then you
12:04
Speaker 1: see the garage door closed, or you see those blinds
12:06
Speaker 1: over the farm where it's like Peco is at the
12:09
Speaker 1: lowest of lows at the moment, and this weekend he
12:12
Speaker 1: qualified twenty first. It was his worst qualification for three years.
12:17
Speaker 2: I believe, yes, in a qualifying that he didn't actually
12:19
Speaker 2: properly take party because he was injured in Portugal in
12:21
Speaker 2: twenty two.
12:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is insane, okay. And then in Saturday's sprint
12:26
Speaker 1: he made seven positions, got fourteen, fourteenth yeah yeah, and
12:31
Speaker 1: then he made up fourteen positions in Sunday's Grand Prix.
12:35
Speaker 1: But I was looking at an article with Jorge Martin,
12:38
Speaker 1: who apparently sat into Peco's debrief on Sunday. He was saying,
12:43
Speaker 1: and Joy said to what the media kind of give
12:47
Speaker 1: my words out because I'm like, oh, what is going on? Peco?
12:50
Speaker 1: He said. Joje Martin said that riding behind Peco is
12:53
Speaker 1: like riding behind someone he's never seen before, and just
12:56
Speaker 1: said he has no confidence. And even us sitting at
12:59
Speaker 1: home on the sofar, we can see that, right. But
13:02
Speaker 1: what happened on Sunday? How did he go from obviously
13:04
Speaker 1: struggle street Saturday to Sunday? What was the changes there?
13:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sunday owed itself to and in fact, we never
13:11
Speaker 2: see it on the coverage because unless you're watching the
13:13
Speaker 2: top three, don't see much on the coverage. He had
13:14
Speaker 2: an awesome first lap, so had a really really good start,
13:18
Speaker 2: took a really really good line into turn one, and
13:20
Speaker 2: then an incident that we still haven't seen. The pack
13:23
Speaker 2: got scattered a little bit at turn four on the
13:25
Speaker 2: first lap where Brad Bender put a really hard move
13:28
Speaker 2: on Jack Miller, who ended up checking up Jorge Martin,
13:31
Speaker 2: and you saw Jack tumble all the way down. The
13:34
Speaker 2: Jack Spitt went the first lap, he was eight seconds
13:36
Speaker 2: off the back of the pack because he'd gone through
13:38
Speaker 2: the turn for gravel trap after he'd been pushed off
13:40
Speaker 2: by Binder, So we never saw Jack for the rest
13:42
Speaker 2: of the race, but Peco gained some spots there as well,
13:44
Speaker 2: so he finished he was It was a good result
13:48
Speaker 2: based on what Banyaya has been doing lately. He was
13:50
Speaker 2: also still beaten by a rookie on an aprillia in Agua,
13:53
Speaker 2: so that's nothing to get too excited about when you
13:55
Speaker 2: think about it. Because Peko won Catalod yet both times
13:58
Speaker 2: we went there last year, should have the sprint and
14:00
Speaker 2: the Catalan Grand Porine crashed on the last lap, and
14:02
Speaker 2: then when we went back there for the last round
14:04
Speaker 2: when Valencia got canceled, he won the sprint and the
14:06
Speaker 2: Grand Prix didn't win the World Championship, as we know.
14:09
Speaker 2: But the thing that we always talk about with Peco
14:11
Speaker 2: in that his greatest strength is that he wants to
14:16
Speaker 2: understand everything before he puts it into action. And right
14:19
Speaker 2: now that's his greatest weakness because Peco always looks for
14:24
Speaker 2: and engineering and technical and data driven way to get
14:28
Speaker 2: himself out of difficulties, and right now he's just he's
14:31
Speaker 2: almost drowning in too much information.
14:34
Speaker 3: You can see it.
14:35
Speaker 2: There's nothing Martin talked about how stiff Pecko was on
14:38
Speaker 2: the bike and how he's not riding the bike naturally.
14:41
Speaker 2: That's the body language of a guy who doesn't quite
14:43
Speaker 2: trust what he's doing and doesn't quite believe what the
14:45
Speaker 2: numbers are saying because he can't translate the numbers and
14:48
Speaker 2: the data and the information to get the feeling.
14:51
Speaker 3: That he needs.
14:52
Speaker 2: And so you can almost be you could almost approach
14:54
Speaker 2: this too intelligently, if you know what I mean, where
14:56
Speaker 2: there's other riders on the grid that will just be
14:58
Speaker 2: more accepting of, well, I don't like this bike, but
15:00
Speaker 2: I'm just going to ride it that little bit harder
15:02
Speaker 2: and try that little bit harder, and you turn it
15:05
Speaker 2: into a physical motivation. I'm going to override this thing
15:08
Speaker 2: that might be a Pilo junk or I don't like
15:10
Speaker 2: and you see it up and down the grid. There's
15:12
Speaker 2: certain riders that are much more brawn than brain, if
15:15
Speaker 2: that makes sense, Like Pecko's a smart rider. Someone like
15:18
Speaker 2: Pedro Acosta is just going to get on the bike
15:19
Speaker 2: and rag it and just bend the thing to a
15:21
Speaker 2: point where he's really really good. Someone like anabashit and
15:25
Speaker 2: he didn't understand how the KTM worked at the start
15:27
Speaker 2: of the season and they were slow to get updates,
15:28
Speaker 2: and he didn't like the way he seek was and
15:30
Speaker 2: everything else. Since they've got that bike ride, he's been
15:33
Speaker 2: just instantly transformed into a guy who's up the front again.
15:36
Speaker 2: So you can see how these different ways to approach this.
15:40
Speaker 2: And I look at this in the context of Mark
15:41
Speaker 2: Marquees and that I've always said that Mark is the
15:44
Speaker 2: best rider of the best bike in motor GP when
15:46
Speaker 2: he has it, But he's absolutely the best rider of
15:49
Speaker 2: the worst bike in motor GP or a not particularly
15:51
Speaker 2: good bike when he has that. And you can see
15:54
Speaker 2: that by when he won those six world titles with Honda,
15:57
Speaker 2: there were probably three or four of those where he
15:58
Speaker 2: didn't have the best bike on the grid. Some of
16:00
Speaker 2: those years he might have had the third best bike.
16:02
Speaker 3: On the grid.
16:02
Speaker 2: He is a great rider of a not so great bike.
16:05
Speaker 2: If you give Peko Vanyaya the greatest bike possible and
16:09
Speaker 2: he understands what he's doing, We've seen what happens. He
16:11
Speaker 2: wins World championships or it becomes runner up in World Championships.
16:15
Speaker 2: And this is the analogy. And I keep coming back
16:17
Speaker 2: to it, and I'm super proud of myself. I don't
16:18
Speaker 2: know if it's original, but I'll claim it. Mark Marquez
16:21
Speaker 2: is Casey Stoner and Pekovanyaya as Jhe Lorenzo. The way
16:25
Speaker 2: that they approach their racing and the way they go
16:27
Speaker 2: about every single thing. I always used to write about
16:30
Speaker 2: Lorenzo that if you could help hold every race in
16:32
Speaker 2: a laboratory where all the conditions were completely benign the
16:35
Speaker 2: entire way through, I don't know how you beat him,
16:37
Speaker 2: because he was just like a metronome, like when things
16:40
Speaker 2: were in the right spot, he was basically unbeatable because
16:44
Speaker 2: he didn't miss lines. I mean, Chris, your brother has
16:46
Speaker 2: talked about this. You ride behind Lorenzo and you think
16:49
Speaker 2: this guy's not real, like he has not made a
16:51
Speaker 2: mistake for forty five minutes. When Peco has everything in
16:54
Speaker 2: the sweet spot that's how he rides. He's so far
16:56
Speaker 2: away from that right now, and he's trying to intellectually
17:00
Speaker 2: his way out of the wilderness and it's not working.
17:03
Speaker 2: And it was interesting to hear Fabio di jan Antonio
17:05
Speaker 2: just before I get off this point. He's also riding
17:07
Speaker 2: a GP twenty five. He's almost intimating that it's a
17:11
Speaker 2: time to do less thinking and more doing at this point, like,
17:14
Speaker 2: don't spend the whole of Friday like stuffing around with setups,
17:17
Speaker 2: trying to find the perfect bike, Get on the bike,
17:20
Speaker 2: understand what you have, finess a little bit round the edges,
17:23
Speaker 2: and then just get the lap time out. And maybe
17:26
Speaker 2: there's a lesson in that, and that if Peco is
17:29
Speaker 2: going to do anything for the remainder of this season,
17:31
Speaker 2: maybe it's think less and ride more, not the other
17:33
Speaker 2: way around. I know that's not the way he rides,
17:36
Speaker 2: but it might be the way to get himself out
17:38
Speaker 2: of the rut that he's in.
17:39
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you bought U Didyo, because that's something
17:41
Speaker 1: I wanted to say, is like, for me, what has
17:44
Speaker 1: kind of been reaffirming with what Peco' struggling with is
17:48
Speaker 1: the fact that, yeah, Digia is on the same bike
17:50
Speaker 1: as Mark and Peco, but dig he is not constantly
17:54
Speaker 1: up the front with Mark ye, so it's showing, Okay, Mark,
17:57
Speaker 1: we know can ride a bike no matter what it is.
18:00
Speaker 1: Peco's obviously struggling did he is somewhere in the middle
18:03
Speaker 1: at the moment, And we know Digi is a decent rider,
18:06
Speaker 1: like he's a race winner everything like that, but he
18:08
Speaker 1: was consistently up the front and podium every weekend and
18:11
Speaker 1: up there with Mark and Peko was down here. You'd
18:13
Speaker 1: kind of be almost pointing more fingers to Pecko, going yeah,
18:16
Speaker 1: is it's more to do with him? But the fact
18:18
Speaker 1: that digit is right there in the middle, it's like, yeah, okay,
18:21
Speaker 1: something's not quite gelling right.
18:23
Speaker 2: I would argue that Digi is closer to Mark than
18:25
Speaker 2: he is to Peco right now. Because Digiti's last two
18:27
Speaker 2: Grand PRIs there was a technical issue that scuffered what
18:29
Speaker 2: he was going to do in Hungary after he qualified
18:32
Speaker 2: to the front row, and then he crashed. To avoid
18:34
Speaker 2: another crash early in the race in Catalouonya. The last
18:37
Speaker 2: two race weekends, in the sprints, he's been on podiums
18:39
Speaker 2: both times, and so I think the high points for
18:42
Speaker 2: dig Ya probably show where the other GP twenty five
18:45
Speaker 2: ie Peco.
18:46
Speaker 3: Should be like right now.
18:48
Speaker 2: Anything like a third place, you know, and not even
18:50
Speaker 2: a super competitive third place in anything right now for
18:53
Speaker 2: Peco would be like a win quite frankly, So I
18:55
Speaker 2: think Digia shows that there's maybe something in that approach
18:58
Speaker 2: to He's been a little unlucky to last two Sundays,
19:00
Speaker 2: but I think what he's done on Saturdays and in
19:02
Speaker 2: qualifying is more representative of where Peko should be. So
19:06
Speaker 2: I think he's not close to Mark, but he's closer
19:09
Speaker 2: to Mark than he is to Peko right now.
19:11
Speaker 1: No, You're right, And I was looking at the results
19:13
Speaker 1: and I'm going, yeah, did you I'm trying to improve
19:15
Speaker 1: on what did You's been on the podium the last
19:17
Speaker 1: few weekends, but I think back to earlier in the
19:19
Speaker 1: year he wasn't there, No, correct, So it's taken that
19:23
Speaker 1: while it's like the diesel train like takes a while
19:25
Speaker 1: to seal it up, and we've seen that. And speaking
19:27
Speaker 1: of diesel trains. I'm on Ayagura because you mentioned him before.
19:32
Speaker 1: That's another writer that I thought of, you know, this
19:34
Speaker 1: weekend who he saw his best results since the season opener,
19:38
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about it, and I was doing
19:40
Speaker 1: a bit of research and obviously listening to other podcasts.
19:43
Speaker 1: Hi Simon. He says that i Agura, you know, he
19:48
Speaker 1: done well here because he's tested here before. He's ridden
19:52
Speaker 1: this circuit on a Moto GP bike. Same in Thailand.
19:56
Speaker 1: We saw him test there earlier in the year, did well.
19:59
Speaker 1: So it's it seems like next year i Agura should
20:02
Speaker 1: be sitting around P six more consistently because he's going
20:06
Speaker 1: to have ridden every circuit on a Moto GP bike
20:09
Speaker 1: completely right. This weekend, what I found really interesting and
20:13
Speaker 1: some inside goss that I got was the fact that
20:15
Speaker 1: i Agua is so good on the rear tire that
20:19
Speaker 1: he can manage it so well. When it was ten
20:22
Speaker 1: laps to go, he was like, oh, I could push now,
20:26
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure how much retire I had left.
20:28
Speaker 1: So he pushed at five laps to go, and but
20:30
Speaker 1: if he pushed earlier, he still would have finished with
20:32
Speaker 1: heaps of retire and even further up the grid.
20:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that experience piece, isn't it In that
20:38
Speaker 2: you know right now you don't want to finish the
20:40
Speaker 2: race and go, oh man, I had more retire I
20:42
Speaker 2: could have used that, whereas there are other guys who, like,
20:44
Speaker 2: you know, a cost I could wait for the thing
20:46
Speaker 2: to be over. He was using the soft obviously, but
20:48
Speaker 2: the Agura thing and you mentioned Simon Patterson there, that's
20:51
Speaker 2: exactly the right point. He's too strongest Grand Prix this
20:53
Speaker 2: week this year and his rookie season have been at
20:55
Speaker 2: tracks that he's got reps on a motor GP bike.
20:57
Speaker 2: You know, there's nothing that beats that level of experience
21:00
Speaker 2: and you're a rookie and you just don't have that.
21:03
Speaker 2: It's interesting to see the approach between Agura and Aldegera's
21:06
Speaker 2: rookies this year. Agura is the classic, is the definition
21:09
Speaker 2: of the diesel trainer. He wants to just chug away
21:12
Speaker 2: and learn and build his knowledge, and that's been the
21:13
Speaker 2: way his entire career has gone. Aldeger will be oh
21:16
Speaker 2: my god, he's on the podium and then you go, oh,
21:18
Speaker 2: he's in sixteenth.
21:19
Speaker 3: What's going on?
21:19
Speaker 2: Like his performance graph is all over the place, where
21:23
Speaker 2: Agura is a lot steady at with the high points
21:25
Speaker 2: of the tracks that he'd been too previously, and you wonder.
21:29
Speaker 2: I don't think his raw speed is necessarily going to
21:32
Speaker 2: be Aldege's level throughout his motor GP career, but there's
21:35
Speaker 2: more than one way to be a really good motor
21:37
Speaker 2: GP writer, right, And to my mind, Agura is the
21:40
Speaker 2: guy who just builds and builds and builds. He gets
21:42
Speaker 2: his knowledge and you'll see this sort of performance graph climb.
21:47
Speaker 2: So the analog for me is that Agura is more
21:51
Speaker 2: your sort of Andrea Devitsioso type in that he's going
21:54
Speaker 2: to build slowly and you know whether he's quite well
21:56
Speaker 2: championship material in MOTORGP, I don't know, but you look
21:59
Speaker 2: at Da Viciosa was in motor GP a really really
22:02
Speaker 2: long time before he started to hit his peak, and
22:06
Speaker 2: Agura is going to be this slow burn and I
22:08
Speaker 2: don't know when he's going to get there, but I'm
22:10
Speaker 2: pretty confident that he will get there because he's all
22:12
Speaker 2: about the right stuff. And Yeah, to see him coming
22:15
Speaker 2: along late in that race and then almost lament the
22:18
Speaker 2: fact like ah Man I could have pushed a little
22:20
Speaker 2: bit earlier. You saw how quick he was at the
22:22
Speaker 2: end of the race, and you know, mighty have got
22:24
Speaker 2: to a cost through fourth. I don't know, but they're
22:26
Speaker 2: all things that they're explainable and they're fixable, and you
22:29
Speaker 2: don't make the same mistake again because the next time
22:31
Speaker 2: he goes back to Catalong, Yeah, he's going to know
22:33
Speaker 2: that now. Obviously you go to Messano now and all
22:35
Speaker 2: of the other circuits and the flyaways and it's all
22:38
Speaker 2: this new experience. His second season, assuming that the Yaprili
22:41
Speaker 2: is decent, and I don't see why it wouldn't be
22:43
Speaker 2: given we've got so much carryover between twenty five and
22:45
Speaker 2: twenty six. His second season is going to be really good,
22:48
Speaker 2: I think next year. And he's certainly a guy to
22:50
Speaker 2: watch and I like the fact that he's he goes
22:52
Speaker 2: about it slightly differently.
22:53
Speaker 3: He's not just your standard motor GP rider, is he.
22:56
Speaker 1: No. I've heard stories that he doesn't train in a
22:58
Speaker 1: gym now. His hobbies fishing, you know, like it's just
23:02
Speaker 1: so on Moto GP writer esque, Like it's just the opposite,
23:06
Speaker 1: and it's so refreshing.
23:08
Speaker 2: And he's also completely unimpressed with anything that he does
23:11
Speaker 2: as well, Like it's quite funny when you see some
23:12
Speaker 2: of his press debriefs and someone be like, oh, that
23:14
Speaker 2: was good. You came fifth to day, that was fantastic.
23:16
Speaker 2: He's like, that's fine. Like he has high expectations of himself,
23:20
Speaker 2: but he's also not going to carry away and get
23:22
Speaker 2: carried away when he has a decent result. And yeah,
23:25
Speaker 2: it's fair to say he doesn't quite ride the emotional
23:27
Speaker 2: rollercoaster that some of these guys do.
23:29
Speaker 3: He's pretty flat lined.
23:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, which makes it a little bit refreshing. I was
23:34
Speaker 1: going to use that one by Yeah, but the emotional
23:37
Speaker 1: roller coaster that we had this weekend, Fabuu Coutorao went
23:40
Speaker 1: from Q on to Q two to front row to
23:43
Speaker 1: sprint podium phenomenal. It's just it's just a Fabio thing.
23:48
Speaker 1: Just to do that. You're like, yeah, it's a Fabio
23:50
Speaker 1: Corderai thing.
23:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, We've said this before. There's something with him where,
23:54
Speaker 2: you know, I live in this world of sort of
23:56
Speaker 2: trying to explain things, or capture the emotion of things,
23:59
Speaker 2: or explain stuff through data or whatever it is that
24:02
Speaker 2: I've readen here. There's something about Fabio Quatura and the
24:05
Speaker 2: energy that he brings at the front of a motor
24:07
Speaker 2: GP grid that there's no analysis needed. You just smile
24:10
Speaker 2: and you just enjoy it, like watching how ferocious he
24:14
Speaker 2: was in the early lapse of that sprint in a
24:15
Speaker 2: bike that he knows and his opponents know, and we
24:18
Speaker 2: know isn't quite up to fighting like that. To my mind,
24:21
Speaker 2: I think this season has only enhanced my view that
24:25
Speaker 2: he's the second best rider in Motor GP, and I
24:26
Speaker 2: don't think it's close. He's accostas the other guy in
24:30
Speaker 2: the conversation. In terms of natural talent. Quatta is just
24:34
Speaker 2: an awesome rider of these bikes, and it's incumbent on
24:39
Speaker 2: Yamaha to give him something with which he can fight
24:43
Speaker 2: or he has to make a decision. Then, in that
24:45
Speaker 2: I'm twenty six years old, I'm still kind of in
24:47
Speaker 2: the middle of my prime at this point. He hasn't
24:49
Speaker 2: won a world title since twenty one, and he hasn't
24:51
Speaker 2: won a race since twenty two. I don't think he
24:53
Speaker 2: is worse at all that he was three years ago.
24:55
Speaker 2: I would actually argue that he's better and seeing these
24:58
Speaker 2: occasional weekends where he gets pole or he's up the
25:00
Speaker 2: front fighting for stuff he shouldn't be fighting for in
25:02
Speaker 2: sprint races. Seriously, seriously impressive and also like to finish
25:06
Speaker 2: fifth in that Grand Prix. That's a hard Grand Prix
25:09
Speaker 2: because of the tire management. We know that bike's got
25:11
Speaker 2: no rear grip. That wasn't a fifth on sort of
25:15
Speaker 2: good fortune or anything else. That was completely earned. A
25:18
Speaker 2: really convincing result for him, and it just shows you
25:21
Speaker 2: if that bike gets anywhere near good, you have a
25:24
Speaker 2: look at what teams don't have or what manufacturers don't have.
25:28
Speaker 2: They've got a guy that can win races and podiums
25:30
Speaker 2: and get into the world championship fight. They just need
25:32
Speaker 2: to give him the bike. The hardest thing to find
25:35
Speaker 2: is the rider they've got that. They've just got it
25:36
Speaker 2: the bike now, they just got to get the bike in.
25:38
Speaker 1: But we know they tested in a private test on
25:40
Speaker 1: Monday at Barcelona the new engine and there was reports
25:44
Speaker 1: coming out that what they were a second slower then
25:47
Speaker 1: or Fabio sorry, was a second slower than his best
25:49
Speaker 1: time at Barcelona during the race where he was on
25:52
Speaker 1: the inline four. For me, he's never ridden an inline
25:56
Speaker 1: for Moto GP bike and he's only our second slower.
26:00
Speaker 1: I think that's phenomenal. It's like he's going to take
26:02
Speaker 1: a long time to have to get to used to
26:05
Speaker 1: how the bike works and it feels and the engine
26:07
Speaker 1: breaking it everything that's going to be so different to
26:10
Speaker 1: be only a second. I mean that was that was rumor.
26:12
Speaker 1: Is we have no official time income out, but we'll
26:15
Speaker 1: see from Mazano.
26:16
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely, And this is why we're you know,
26:19
Speaker 2: we're probably going to segue to the Jack Miller story
26:21
Speaker 2: to sec This is why Miller's V four experience is
26:24
Speaker 2: super important for Yamaha because he's ridden a Hondra and
26:27
Speaker 2: a decade and a KTM in that engine configuration. Alex
26:30
Speaker 2: Rings has very little V four experience and top RK's
26:33
Speaker 2: going to have none next year. So you know, you
26:35
Speaker 2: look at the rest of this year now for Yamaha,
26:38
Speaker 2: and I've read some stuff that you know, Jack has
26:40
Speaker 2: come out and said, quite frankly, stick me on a
26:42
Speaker 2: V four for the rest of the season if you want,
26:44
Speaker 2: like what he's prepared to sacrifice results to try and
26:46
Speaker 2: bring the project forward because it is the only way forward.
26:50
Speaker 2: And Yamaha still has to take some pain to get
26:53
Speaker 2: to a point where their V four can compete with
26:55
Speaker 2: the other four manufacturers. But why prolong the pain, Like
26:58
Speaker 2: why don't we fast track this now and use the
27:01
Speaker 2: second half of a season that you want to hit
27:02
Speaker 2: the ground running in twenty six and then what that
27:04
Speaker 2: means for twenty seven when we go to the eight fifties.
27:08
Speaker 2: There's no point just plodding around now on a bike
27:11
Speaker 2: that's going to have an engine that you're going to
27:12
Speaker 2: turn your back on anyway. You may as well use
27:15
Speaker 2: the back end of this season to get reps on
27:17
Speaker 2: this thing. And yes, some of them will break and
27:19
Speaker 2: they'll have problems here and it won't work there, and
27:21
Speaker 2: it will work at other places.
27:22
Speaker 3: Why not do that now?
27:24
Speaker 2: Get it out of the way, and then you can
27:26
Speaker 2: start twenty twenty six. It's a super important year for
27:28
Speaker 2: Yamahara in twenty six because you need to convince Quaaterero
27:32
Speaker 2: that there's enough performance and promise there that he will
27:35
Speaker 2: stay and be your sort of north star, if you like,
27:38
Speaker 2: through this new Motor GP red set, because if you
27:42
Speaker 2: don't have someone like him, there's very few of these
27:44
Speaker 2: guys that are sort of pseudo aliens on the grid
27:47
Speaker 2: that are massive difference makers. Katim's got theirs in a
27:50
Speaker 2: Costa Aprilia, assuming that he stays and when he's fully
27:53
Speaker 2: fit and has a proper preseason. Martine has proven that
27:55
Speaker 2: he's a world championship quality rider. So they've got theirs.
27:59
Speaker 2: Honda A probably still waiting for their we don't quite
28:02
Speaker 2: know who that is yet, but they're not quite ready
28:04
Speaker 2: to win anyway. But as I said before, like Quaharero,
28:07
Speaker 2: takes away any doubt that Yamaha might have, Like if
28:10
Speaker 2: we build a great bike, have we got the great
28:12
Speaker 2: rider to ride at The answer is one hundred percent yes,
28:15
Speaker 2: And I'm glad you.
28:16
Speaker 1: Moved on to Jack Miller because that was the next
28:18
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to bring up. So thanks to Yamaha
28:22
Speaker 1: and Pramak for letting us record our podcast saying, oh
28:25
Speaker 1: my god, were going to get Jack to announce the
28:26
Speaker 1: news soon and within that same day, So thanks guys,
28:30
Speaker 1: thanks for helping us out this.
28:32
Speaker 2: On the other side of that, I am going to
28:34
Speaker 2: give lu Chair and Pramak a little bit of a
28:36
Speaker 2: hat tip here. When the news broke it was about
28:40
Speaker 2: seven pm Australian time on the Thursday of a race weekend,
28:44
Speaker 2: which if you're covering murdor GP in Europe, as I do,
28:47
Speaker 2: seven o'clock is normally breakfast time. Quite frankly, because it's
28:49
Speaker 2: normally you know your day's nowhere near starting. So I
28:52
Speaker 2: got the heads up about twenty minutes before it was
28:54
Speaker 2: going to happen, like this is happening. I looked at
28:56
Speaker 2: my watcher, went, oh, this is the greatest thing of
28:58
Speaker 2: all time. I'll be able to cover this in said
29:00
Speaker 2: hours for once in Malaye. So they helped me on
29:02
Speaker 2: that front, but they certainly didn't help us with the
29:04
Speaker 2: podcast because I reckon we published that podcast about four
29:07
Speaker 2: hours before saying oh, maybe it'll be kicked the long
29:09
Speaker 2: to Masado, and then we look like a bunch of vidiots,
29:12
Speaker 2: which quite frankly, I don't need any help in doing
29:14
Speaker 2: it the best of times. So yeah, so sometimes you win,
29:17
Speaker 2: sometimes you lose. But yeah I won on Thursday night,
29:20
Speaker 2: but our podcast didn't win last week.
29:22
Speaker 1: No, no, no. But the news that Jack is saying
29:24
Speaker 1: with Pramak Yamaha, Pramaha, take your drink for twenty twenty
29:28
Speaker 1: six is obviously the news we've been waiting for. It
29:31
Speaker 1: was just a shame that this weekend obviously didn't play
29:33
Speaker 1: out to see Jack's strength. And then Miguel Lavera comes
29:36
Speaker 1: along and has his best weekend of the year as well.
29:40
Speaker 1: But like you said earlier, it's something we didn't get
29:42
Speaker 1: to see on the broadcast, which is a shame. But
29:45
Speaker 1: you're hearing about these collisions that were happening further back.
29:48
Speaker 1: So what do you know about Jack's results? So Brad
29:50
Speaker 1: essentially nudge gym was something and he ended up going
29:52
Speaker 1: through the gravel at some point.
29:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you think of the way turn three leads
29:56
Speaker 2: into turn four at Barcelona, it's that big long radius
29:59
Speaker 2: right hand. You know, when you were in the pack there,
30:01
Speaker 2: there's three or four lines that gets pretty crazy through there,
30:05
Speaker 2: and basically Jack found himself pushed into He basically was
30:08
Speaker 2: forced into a position of the track by Binda where
30:11
Speaker 2: he could have taken Jugey Martin down with him if
30:13
Speaker 2: he'd not sort of checked up, and Martine said he'd
30:15
Speaker 2: felt some contact and in the end Jack ended up
30:17
Speaker 2: running off into the gravel at the outside of turn four.
30:21
Speaker 2: So he wasn't just last after one lap. I think
30:24
Speaker 2: he was last by about six seconds after one lap,
30:26
Speaker 2: and we never actually saw him on the broadcast. For Jack, Yeah,
30:29
Speaker 2: there were a few crashes in front of him and
30:30
Speaker 2: what have you for Jack to actually his lap times
30:33
Speaker 2: are actually pretty good. I think he set the eighth
30:35
Speaker 2: or ninth fastest lap of the entire race, fighting all
30:37
Speaker 2: the way back from there and got himself back into
30:39
Speaker 2: the point. So he started fourteenth then finished fourteenth. There's
30:41
Speaker 2: one of those ones that on papers like nothing much
30:44
Speaker 2: happened there, But what happened was he had to do
30:48
Speaker 2: this crazy sort of rescue mission from the back. Actually
30:50
Speaker 2: did pretty well, so it's a shame that, you know,
30:53
Speaker 2: his race was completely compromised by what happened on the
30:56
Speaker 2: first lap. But then I guess the flip side of
30:58
Speaker 2: that is if you qualify in that part of the grid,
31:00
Speaker 2: then some weeks you end up on the as I
31:02
Speaker 2: like to say, some weeks you're the statue. In some
31:04
Speaker 2: weeks you're the pigeon. You know, you're either getting crapped
31:07
Speaker 2: out or you're doing the crapping basically, And that's what
31:09
Speaker 2: happened to Jack on Sunday. So unfortunate, but that's what
31:12
Speaker 2: happens when you caullify back there.
31:14
Speaker 1: I'll tell you who is constantly the pigeon is Frankie Morbidelli.
31:20
Speaker 2: Fantastic segue, by the way, For those.
31:24
Speaker 1: Who don't know, you can check it out on Fox
31:26
Speaker 1: sports dot com du for Slash Motorsport Matt's article, or
31:29
Speaker 1: on socials at Fox Motorsport. Frankie Morbidelli just did a
31:33
Speaker 1: Frankie Morbidelli weekend once again, and the outcome from Sunday
31:37
Speaker 1: was he was handed a two thousand euro fine and
31:40
Speaker 1: has to sit out of the first ten minutes of
31:42
Speaker 1: FP one on Friday this coming weekend in Mezzano. I
31:48
Speaker 1: don't get it now, Matt is at a point where
31:50
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, So once again, thank you to Simon
31:54
Speaker 1: for refreshing my memory. But Jorge Lorenzo had a race
31:56
Speaker 1: band right years and years and years ago. Is it
32:00
Speaker 1: not something that should be like I know they've spoke
32:03
Speaker 1: about it on the race and I don't want to
32:04
Speaker 1: I don't want to repeat that, but I'm going if
32:06
Speaker 1: Frankie Morbidelli's having constant penalties in constant situations like this, really,
32:14
Speaker 1: is it really necessary that something else should come into
32:16
Speaker 1: play now?
32:17
Speaker 2: So something that I've put in this story is that
32:20
Speaker 2: I decided to go and wade through a whole bunch
32:22
Speaker 2: of Motor GP official documents because this is what I
32:24
Speaker 2: do in my spare time. I clearly need to have
32:26
Speaker 2: a life at some point. So the penalties that he
32:29
Speaker 2: received penalties plural a catalogia on the weekend are the
32:33
Speaker 2: eighth and ninth penalties in the last fourteen months.
32:37
Speaker 3: For Franco Morbidelli.
32:38
Speaker 2: So you've got a whole bunch of impeding in practice
32:40
Speaker 2: one of the favorite Frankie Morbidelli. Things just fall asleep
32:43
Speaker 2: on the racing line and someone has to check up.
32:46
Speaker 2: He's had multiple long lap penalties. Do you remember the
32:49
Speaker 2: start of Sylveston twenty twenty four where he just absolutely
32:52
Speaker 2: pinballed Mark Oberzeki at the start of that race. He
32:55
Speaker 2: took out Fabio Quatura in Thailand last year, which Quaturo
32:59
Speaker 2: described as a suicide pass, which was pretty.
33:01
Speaker 3: Strong at the time.
33:03
Speaker 2: And there's just a repeat offender nature now with Morbidelli
33:07
Speaker 2: in that no two incidents are the same, right, so
33:12
Speaker 2: we judged them all individually. So what he did to
33:15
Speaker 2: Jorge Martin in the sprint race in Catalonia where he
33:18
Speaker 2: just completely punted him at turn ten and took them
33:19
Speaker 2: both out of the race, that incident was looked in isolation.
33:23
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you're clearly at fault. You can have
33:24
Speaker 2: a long lap penalty for the Grand Prix, and then
33:27
Speaker 2: you look at the Grand Prix. Almost took his team
33:28
Speaker 2: mate out in the first lap, and then he nudged
33:31
Speaker 2: Marco Bozeki. On lap two, Bozeki crashed, and then Degane
33:34
Speaker 2: Antonio crashed in avoidance of Bozeki. And then you get
33:37
Speaker 2: to lap twenty one and Morbidelli crashes by himself and
33:39
Speaker 2: then has an argument with the marshals because he wants
33:41
Speaker 2: to get the bike back on track and that's why
33:43
Speaker 2: he's going to sit out the first ten minutes of
33:45
Speaker 2: practice at Massano and slap with a hefty five. There's
33:48
Speaker 2: just a pattern of behavior here that I don't know
33:50
Speaker 2: if the Motor GP penalty system now allows you to
33:53
Speaker 2: appropriately adjudicate, because if someone's getting penalized that many times,
33:58
Speaker 2: you know, fourteen month period, the system is the problem,
34:02
Speaker 2: not the rider necessarily.
34:03
Speaker 3: And what a rider's like to do.
34:05
Speaker 2: They like to ride, they like to race, and sometimes
34:08
Speaker 2: maybe the way you stop a pattern of behavior say well,
34:11
Speaker 2: if you keep doing this, we're going to take away
34:13
Speaker 2: the one thing that you love to do the most,
34:15
Speaker 2: and you know you forget like Juye Lorenzo as a
34:18
Speaker 2: young guy coming through two fifties and then early motor GP,
34:21
Speaker 2: he was pretty wild. He spent a lot of that
34:23
Speaker 2: first season being very very fast, having some of the
34:26
Speaker 2: most assive accidents high sights on that Yamaha that we've
34:30
Speaker 2: ever seen. There's a famous photo when they raced in
34:32
Speaker 2: China that year of fo basically upside down going into
34:35
Speaker 2: the court, absolutely incredible, and then you're thinking about how
34:37
Speaker 2: he landed.
34:38
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
34:40
Speaker 2: But he needed to calm down. And the way you
34:43
Speaker 2: get calmed down is that you get to sit and
34:45
Speaker 2: watch doing what you want to do. And so yeah,
34:48
Speaker 2: the Morbidelli thing. It's funny with him too, because I mean,
34:51
Speaker 2: you know what it's like, you've interviewed him, you've been
34:52
Speaker 2: on the other side of it. Off the bike, just
34:54
Speaker 2: the most chill guy of all time. Like he looks
34:57
Speaker 2: like he should be like riding a skateboard or surfing
35:00
Speaker 2: doing something, like he's literally just having that ah yeah,
35:03
Speaker 2: Like in the way he speaks, he's a super interesting guy.
35:07
Speaker 2: Once the Vizor snapshot he turns into the terminator like
35:10
Speaker 2: he's just completely crazy. But there's a pattern of behavior
35:14
Speaker 2: now with him that if you knew he was beside
35:17
Speaker 2: you or behind you in a race, you probably would
35:19
Speaker 2: clinch the bars a little bit tighter because you also
35:22
Speaker 2: know that there's a history with this guy now that
35:25
Speaker 2: he will put his bike in probably an inappropriate place.
35:27
Speaker 2: And yeah, nine penalties in fourteen months. That it's pretty
35:31
Speaker 2: good going, isn't it?
35:32
Speaker 1: Well? Mate? I hope I'm not putting on the spot here,
35:34
Speaker 1: but who's the closest writer who's had like a amount
35:37
Speaker 1: of penalties even just this year?
35:39
Speaker 2: Would you know what had off the top of my head,
35:41
Speaker 2: I would not have to go back and think of
35:43
Speaker 2: people that have got like so. Aldegare is another one
35:45
Speaker 2: who also was in the middle of it in a
35:47
Speaker 2: catalogy as well, because he punted Berzeki in the sprint Pulbucker.
35:49
Speaker 2: Berzeki had a shocker and alder Gare has had incidents
35:53
Speaker 2: earlier on this year, like you remember, he was directly
35:55
Speaker 2: responsible for Miguel Olivera missing three Grand Prix at the
35:58
Speaker 2: start of the year when he punted Olivera in Argentina,
36:01
Speaker 2: and given the way things have worked out for Olivera,
36:03
Speaker 2: I think he was probably on his way out the
36:05
Speaker 2: exit door anyway, But that certainly didn't help.
36:07
Speaker 1: But I think is Aldigarez that's ready to cut you
36:09
Speaker 1: off that he's a rookie.
36:11
Speaker 3: Correct, it's exactly right.
36:12
Speaker 1: You know, it is his first season in MotoGP. Morbidelli
36:15
Speaker 1: has been in Moto GP for multiple years now, twenty
36:18
Speaker 1: nineteen his first season, Yep, exactly, And you go, okay, yeah,
36:21
Speaker 1: he's got the VR forty six crew have his back.
36:24
Speaker 1: You know, he's part of that academy. But I feel
36:27
Speaker 1: like that's can only going to take you so far.
36:29
Speaker 1: You need to also start being held accountable for your
36:32
Speaker 1: actions because it's dangerous.
36:34
Speaker 2: But then the other question, and I'll put this to you,
36:36
Speaker 2: and I think I know what the answer is. The
36:38
Speaker 2: Morbidelli season. And look, he had that horrendous accident in
36:42
Speaker 2: Portramout testing your superbike at the start of last year.
36:44
Speaker 3: He lost his memory. It was horrible.
36:46
Speaker 2: But you think last year he didn't fire a shot
36:49
Speaker 2: on the bike that won the world championship. With Juje
36:51
Speaker 2: Martin on the sister side of the garage, and the
36:54
Speaker 2: fact that Marco Bozeki left VR forty six to go
36:57
Speaker 2: to Aprilia, they had a vacancy to fill. Valentino Rossi
37:01
Speaker 2: as you know, Morbidelli's protege of that academy. He handed
37:05
Speaker 2: him a career lifeline, and then they've just resigned him
37:08
Speaker 2: again for twenty twenty six on the eve of the
37:10
Speaker 2: Catalan Grand Prix, where he spent most of the weekend
37:12
Speaker 2: playing ten binbling. Is anyone else signing Franko Morbidelli at
37:16
Speaker 2: this point?
37:17
Speaker 1: No?
37:18
Speaker 3: Correct?
37:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as much as we love having the drama
37:23
Speaker 1: and the excitement, there's just a line where it becomes dangerous.
37:26
Speaker 1: It's learned from your actions, learn from your mistakes. If okay, yeah,
37:30
Speaker 1: you're the one who probably has the guts right now
37:34
Speaker 1: to try and make these moves. Sure, but not at
37:37
Speaker 1: the cost of injuring other people, or knocking other people off,
37:39
Speaker 1: or constantly getting penalized for it.
37:42
Speaker 2: The one thing we should be thankful for is that
37:43
Speaker 2: Elisia Spargo is still doing wildcarts for Honda, So every
37:46
Speaker 2: sort of three or four races we get a resumption
37:49
Speaker 2: of the one of the most bizarre, long lasting and
37:52
Speaker 2: fractious rivalries in Moto GP. Whoever knew that we needed
37:55
Speaker 2: an Elisias Spargaro Franken Morbidelli rivalry, But.
37:58
Speaker 3: I'm here for it.
38:00
Speaker 1: For sure. It gives us something to talk about. Oh yeah,
38:02
Speaker 1: but let's move on too, off track, because I know
38:04
Speaker 1: we had a lot do unpack on track this weekend.
38:07
Speaker 1: But off track, we're getting some of the little taste
38:10
Speaker 1: now of the Liberty f one world starting to merge
38:13
Speaker 1: into Moto GPS. So hopefully I'm gonna say his name right,
38:16
Speaker 1: I know you know him very well. Matt Gunda Steiner
38:20
Speaker 1: has seen the deal. Yeah, look, I'll take it with
38:23
Speaker 1: Melsey accent, but he sealed the deal as the new
38:25
Speaker 1: owner of tech TWA that I know I got right.
38:28
Speaker 1: So Jave Pontorreal, who is nearing on seventy can you
38:32
Speaker 1: believe it? He's going to finally take that step back.
38:35
Speaker 1: And we saw Gunta Gunta this weekend. Yeah, yeah, we
38:39
Speaker 1: saw him this weekend in Barcelona. There was a big
38:42
Speaker 1: press announcement about that and he was there all weekend.
38:45
Speaker 1: And what a result for a Navashanini to get on
38:47
Speaker 1: the podium. Gunda's there in the crowd. Obviously, Pedro Costa
38:51
Speaker 1: took the risk on the software and that would have
38:53
Speaker 1: been interesting. But what's your take on this, Matt? Is
38:57
Speaker 1: it a Liberty move? Is it a Gunda move because
39:00
Speaker 1: we know what he's like as a businessman and an
39:03
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and a team manager.
39:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's more it's a happy coincidence, shall
39:08
Speaker 2: we say, because if you so, if you listen to
39:11
Speaker 2: or read anything that going said in the past six
39:15
Speaker 2: months or so, he's been looking to do this for
39:18
Speaker 2: a while, so we know that he's been you know,
39:19
Speaker 2: he's not working with hass anymore in Formula one. He's
39:22
Speaker 2: Formula one team managerial days are over. He's written a
39:25
Speaker 2: couple of books, he does a lot of corporate stuff,
39:27
Speaker 2: which is where I've had a lot of involvement with
39:29
Speaker 2: him over the years. He's been looking to get into
39:31
Speaker 2: Motor GP for a while. So this isn't Liberty pushing
39:34
Speaker 2: Steiner into Motor GP. This is Steiner wanting to do
39:37
Speaker 2: something with an investment group that he's the head of
39:39
Speaker 2: to try and get involved in this. I think people
39:42
Speaker 2: coming from Formula one, which is a world that I've
39:44
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time, and obviously they look at
39:46
Speaker 2: Motor GP and they see Formula Formula one. People almost
39:51
Speaker 2: to a person, love Motor GP because they love the
39:53
Speaker 2: purity of the racing and the risk taking and how
39:56
Speaker 2: unfiltered is it? Oh my god, this is unbelievable. This
39:58
Speaker 2: is like the world's best kept see here. They also
40:01
Speaker 2: look at the teams as a product as being massively undervalued,
40:05
Speaker 2: in that you can buy yourself a piece on the
40:08
Speaker 2: motor GP grid for one tenth one hundredth of water
40:13
Speaker 2: Formula one team might cost. And you're looking at what
40:17
Speaker 2: Steiner ran, a pretty lean and mean operation in f one,
40:19
Speaker 2: probably the team that spends the least amount of money
40:21
Speaker 2: in Haas, and you'll look at a motor GP operation
40:24
Speaker 2: and it be like, that's worth that much, and so
40:27
Speaker 2: you look at it in terms of return on investment.
40:31
Speaker 2: The right time to get into motor GP, if you're
40:34
Speaker 2: coming from Fye or for anyone else, would be pretty
40:36
Speaker 2: much right now. Because Liberty Media will enhance the storytelling
40:41
Speaker 2: and the marketing of this series. That's an absolute given.
40:43
Speaker 2: I'd be super surprised if Liberty Media does anything to
40:46
Speaker 2: the sporting product per se, because the sporting products is
40:48
Speaker 2: in a pretty good place right. It's not the story
40:52
Speaker 2: that needs to be changed, it's the story telling that
40:55
Speaker 2: needs to be changed, and that's where Liberty is going
40:58
Speaker 2: to come in. So I think it's more in ansty
41:00
Speaker 2: a question, more a confluence of circumstance that Steiner has
41:03
Speaker 2: come in just after the Liberty thing has all become official.
41:06
Speaker 2: But you can't discount, like how many times over the
41:09
Speaker 2: weekend did we see that story and the press conference
41:12
Speaker 2: and there's Steiner on the pitwall. The visibility that a
41:15
Speaker 2: person like him who brings a totally different audience into
41:20
Speaker 2: Motor GP, the publicity and the exposure that that brings,
41:24
Speaker 2: I reckon everyone wins, right because Steiner's looking at Motor
41:27
Speaker 2: GP being as far less of a stressful thing to
41:31
Speaker 2: do in terms of his day to day than Formula
41:33
Speaker 2: one was. But Motor GP can sort of hitch its
41:35
Speaker 2: wagon to the popularity and the exposure that this guy brings,
41:40
Speaker 2: and he won't be the last. I think that's the
41:41
Speaker 2: other part about all this. And a lot of people
41:43
Speaker 2: in Formula one or look at Motor GP and go,
41:45
Speaker 2: you know what, he's a really really good sporting product.
41:48
Speaker 2: They all love the sporting product, but from a financial
41:51
Speaker 2: investment point of view, it's probably seen as being pretty undervalued.
41:54
Speaker 2: With Liberty being involved, now the values of these teams
41:57
Speaker 2: and these entities are already going up right mentioned Herve
42:01
Speaker 2: is near on seventy years old. God, I hope I
42:04
Speaker 2: have the energy that he does when I get to
42:05
Speaker 2: that point, because he doesn't act like your standard seventy
42:07
Speaker 2: year old, but you look at from you know where
42:09
Speaker 2: he's come from and where he's been. It's absolutely the
42:13
Speaker 2: right time to do something like this because he's not
42:15
Speaker 2: going to be around forever. And handing the team over
42:19
Speaker 2: to a consortium led by a guy who is a racer,
42:23
Speaker 2: is a bit of a maverick at a walking sound bite,
42:26
Speaker 2: and all of those things that we love about Herve.
42:28
Speaker 3: It's almost like.
42:29
Speaker 2: A sort of their kindred spirits in a lot of ways.
42:31
Speaker 2: I think it's a really good match. And their press
42:34
Speaker 2: conference they did on Friday at Catalonia was a hilarious
42:38
Speaker 2: and b it was like two old mates that were
42:40
Speaker 2: just said of sitting having a chat. You know, they
42:42
Speaker 2: obviously don't know each other super super well, but it
42:45
Speaker 2: felt like very there was a lot of synergy between
42:47
Speaker 2: the two of them. Was actually really nice to watch.
42:49
Speaker 1: I think for me though the thing was on the
42:51
Speaker 1: broadcast and I know that they have to promote it
42:54
Speaker 1: by you know, Matt, but was saying a lot you
42:57
Speaker 1: know this is happening, This is happening. Okay, really trying
43:00
Speaker 1: to get it out there, but it was almost like
43:02
Speaker 1: it's a lot that we're hearing of. Good though, I
43:05
Speaker 1: don't want that to be necessarily the case of yeah,
43:09
Speaker 1: he's bringing a lot, he's bringing his platform and his
43:11
Speaker 1: brand and everything like that, but you don't want also
43:13
Speaker 1: take away from the fact that this is Moto GP
43:15
Speaker 1: and theorizer on the bike, so there needs to be
43:18
Speaker 1: that balance.
43:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the thing with Steiner for anyone in this
43:21
Speaker 2: audience that doesn't know because I'm as I reference every
43:24
Speaker 2: podcast old and have been around Formula one for a
43:26
Speaker 2: really really long time, Steiner is like an accidental celebrity,
43:30
Speaker 2: which is quite bizarre because he was in Formula one
43:33
Speaker 2: for so he was going as far back as when
43:36
Speaker 2: Jaguar were in Formula one. Now if anyone doesn't realize,
43:38
Speaker 2: Jaguar became Red Bull Racing, so he goes back to
43:42
Speaker 2: the beginning of the two thousands, has an engineering background,
43:45
Speaker 2: He's done some work with NASCAR. He is a very
43:47
Speaker 2: very accomplished motorsports CV in a number of different series,
43:53
Speaker 2: and then the Drive to Survive thing took off in
43:55
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen or twenty twenty or whatever it was. And
43:58
Speaker 2: he has been as baffled as by how he's just
44:01
Speaker 2: become this sort of celebrity, because the good thing you
44:04
Speaker 2: see in that particular program is the same guy he's
44:07
Speaker 2: been for twenty years. It's just that more people are
44:09
Speaker 2: paying attention to it now. And the way he acts
44:12
Speaker 2: and the way he is with people, and the authenticity
44:15
Speaker 2: with which he presents himself. This is no act for
44:17
Speaker 2: the cameras. Like he is always said, he doesn't understand
44:20
Speaker 2: the whole drive to Survive thing, and he's never watched
44:22
Speaker 2: one episode of it. He couldn't care less because he's
44:25
Speaker 2: just doing what he does. It's just that people are
44:27
Speaker 2: now paying attention. So he's as baffled by all of
44:30
Speaker 2: this as anybody else. Now, obviously there's ways you can
44:34
Speaker 2: make that pay for you financially, but he's completely over himself.
44:38
Speaker 2: He's not doing this for him or for his brand
44:41
Speaker 2: or anything else. He's looking at this is Oh, this
44:43
Speaker 2: is an undervalued investment that I'd like to get involved in.
44:46
Speaker 3: This looks fun.
44:47
Speaker 2: I really like motor GP and if all of the
44:50
Speaker 2: eyeballs and the attention and the marketing spend and the
44:53
Speaker 2: popularity of the sport grows as a consequence. Great, but
44:56
Speaker 2: that's not why he's in it.
44:58
Speaker 1: That is so refreshing to hear because I know that
45:01
Speaker 1: there's rumors also circling around at the moment about Max
45:04
Speaker 1: Verstappen and we know Lowis Hamilton both rumored as looking
45:07
Speaker 1: to buy Moto GP teams. And the thing with me
45:11
Speaker 1: is when you hear that, you go, oh, it's a
45:14
Speaker 1: publicity's sun And this has all come out after the
45:16
Speaker 1: Goodtha news blah blah blah. But I've heard previous interviews
45:20
Speaker 1: where Max Verstappan will say, oh, come in from a session,
45:22
Speaker 1: finish my debrief and then I'll go and watch Moto GP.
45:25
Speaker 1: And Lowis Hamilton has said multiple times how much he
45:28
Speaker 1: loves it. We know he's ridden with Cal Crutchler and
45:30
Speaker 1: Valentino ROSSI. Yeah, so when I hear rumors like this
45:33
Speaker 1: now coming out about Max and Lewis potentially buying it,
45:36
Speaker 1: it does answer. I agree with what you were just saying,
45:39
Speaker 1: is the fact that people are seeing Moto GP and
45:41
Speaker 1: now they're wanting to get it out into that for them,
45:43
Speaker 1: for the world.
45:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Max is, like Max is just a guy
45:47
Speaker 2: who's a racer through and through, like he's not necessarily
45:49
Speaker 2: in a fine for all of the associated stuff, like
45:51
Speaker 2: he hates most of it. He just wants to basically drive,
45:53
Speaker 2: and he's like a bit of an old soul in
45:55
Speaker 2: that respect. And you look at what he does.
45:57
Speaker 3: He does a lot of sim racing.
45:59
Speaker 2: He's racing at the Norch Life for in Neburg agreg
46:02
Speaker 2: and a touring car this weekend. He likes to do
46:04
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. Motor GP is just another form
46:07
Speaker 2: of motorsport that he's interested in. And if you have
46:10
Speaker 2: the financial means to do so and get involved with
46:12
Speaker 2: something that Formula one, people look at motor GP and
46:15
Speaker 2: go it only costs that much to really get involved
46:18
Speaker 2: and have a piece of it, because relative to Formula
46:20
Speaker 2: one everything looks inexpensive, right, So it's a business decision
46:23
Speaker 2: for guys who are really into a particular sport. Now
46:27
Speaker 2: it's conflicting resports with reports with the verstapp and stuff
46:30
Speaker 2: in that SkySports. Italy said that he'd been talking to
46:32
Speaker 2: a prelier in Honda satellite teams and then the race
46:36
Speaker 2: and his management for Stappens management kind of walked that
46:38
Speaker 2: back and said, look, there's a genuine interest, but we're
46:41
Speaker 2: not doing something yet. But I think the keyword in
46:43
Speaker 2: that is yet. I would expect that to escalate and
46:47
Speaker 2: right now. If you've got the means to get involved
46:49
Speaker 2: in motor GP, it's the classic thing about buying the
46:52
Speaker 2: best house in the worst street right now. You want
46:54
Speaker 2: to buy now.
46:55
Speaker 3: This is what you want to do.
46:56
Speaker 2: You want to get in now because this thing's only
46:58
Speaker 2: going to go up. And I think the fact that
47:01
Speaker 2: you've got interested parties coming from a sport that's got
47:04
Speaker 2: the global profile that F one has, I think both
47:06
Speaker 2: sports can be winners out of this, and I'm really
47:08
Speaker 2: looking forward to see where it goes.
47:10
Speaker 1: I do too, And I think, you know, our listener's
47:13
Speaker 1: here old MONOGP fans, and if you don't cross over
47:15
Speaker 1: to F one, I appreciate that and I respect that.
47:18
Speaker 1: But to hear that big names like this, it's like
47:21
Speaker 1: when Valentino went and did the GT racing. Look how
47:24
Speaker 1: muchd that sport? Right? Or think about Michael Jordan when
47:27
Speaker 1: he went to do baseball after basketball. It's the same thing.
47:30
Speaker 1: It's that crossover, and I think it's refreshing in the
47:33
Speaker 1: fact that it brings different eyeballs and it only promotes
47:37
Speaker 1: our sports, so it means we get more access to
47:39
Speaker 1: things and we can see it, and it's not going
47:41
Speaker 1: to fade away into.
47:42
Speaker 3: Nothing, not at all. Everyone eats. It's the best possible
47:45
Speaker 3: outcome for all of this.
47:47
Speaker 1: So if you have stuck around this long, thank you
47:49
Speaker 1: very much. I know we've offfered on about Catalunya a lot,
47:53
Speaker 1: but there was a bloody lot to catch up on
47:55
Speaker 1: for that weekend. Let's look ahead to Mazzanos, which is
47:59
Speaker 1: also known as San Marino or it's officially known as
48:03
Speaker 1: the Rais with the world's longest name. Are you guys ready?
48:06
Speaker 1: Deep rat red Bill, Grandfria San Marino and the Rimini
48:10
Speaker 1: Riviera Mezzano World Circuit. Marco Simon Shelly.
48:14
Speaker 2: Sorry I had I just had a nap while you're
48:16
Speaker 2: doing that. I just be just caught up with all
48:18
Speaker 2: the sleep. But he can get over the catalog in
48:19
Speaker 2: your weekend. It is no wonder we all just used
48:21
Speaker 2: Masada as shorthand. It's the f wide equivalent to this
48:24
Speaker 2: is that the race that Imla has a similarly ridiculous
48:28
Speaker 2: name with a couple of sponsors in there as well
48:30
Speaker 2: as well. That everyone just shrugs and goes imla, so
48:32
Speaker 2: it's kind of the same thing. So mesado is shorthand
48:35
Speaker 2: for I don't want to say thirty seven words to
48:37
Speaker 2: get the name out. But pitty, poor Matt Bert. We're
48:39
Speaker 2: talking about Matt before you know that, he'll be contractually
48:42
Speaker 2: obliged to get the entire name out at some point
48:44
Speaker 2: and we'll be like ten minutes into FPY before he
48:46
Speaker 2: goes it.
48:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, if you are listening to Matt's broadcast,
48:50
Speaker 1: you know, and take a drink from mart when he
48:51
Speaker 1: does have to say the twenty word circuit name. But
48:56
Speaker 1: let's quickly talk about this. If you guys are hanging around,
48:58
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Gris. We know it's one of
49:01
Speaker 1: their home races. Last year they had that iconic falsto
49:04
Speaker 1: the White and the Blue. Livery hopefully to see that
49:07
Speaker 1: again this weekend. Let's refresh our memories to last year
49:11
Speaker 1: because it was dramatic. We had that flag to flag.
49:14
Speaker 1: Joge Martin came in while Peco Manyaya stayed out. Do
49:17
Speaker 1: you remember that iconic shot of Jogey looking as Peco's
49:20
Speaker 1: going down the front straight and you could just see
49:23
Speaker 1: the heartbreak there going what have I done uh huh
49:27
Speaker 1: Mark one last year. Obviously, flag this is his strong point.
49:30
Speaker 1: But the thing is with this circuit, Matt, you know
49:32
Speaker 1: this de Vuilant not far down the road. All of
49:35
Speaker 1: the VR forty six Academy pretty much lived within us
49:39
Speaker 1: I don't know half an hour window of this circuit.
49:41
Speaker 1: So let's call this the VR forty six Academy Writer's
49:44
Speaker 1: Home Grand Prix because this.
49:46
Speaker 3: Is what it is, right, yeah, it is. I mean,
49:48
Speaker 3: this is the track that I mean.
49:50
Speaker 2: I know everyone does a load of track laps at Cashiludia,
49:53
Speaker 2: but that's everyone regardless of nationality, where this is like
49:56
Speaker 2: almost the truest true home race for the Italian on
50:00
Speaker 2: the grid because they've all done ten million laps around there.
50:03
Speaker 2: And that's why when we get to prediction time in
50:06
Speaker 2: a minute, I've got a slightly left field one for you,
50:08
Speaker 2: but I think this is like a proper home court advantage,
50:11
Speaker 2: home field advantage.
50:12
Speaker 3: Whatever you want to call it.
50:14
Speaker 2: So, going back to where we were about half an
50:16
Speaker 2: hour ago, if Peco Vanual is going to do anything
50:18
Speaker 2: for the rest of the season, it might be here
50:21
Speaker 2: because you're not going to be spending a lot of
50:22
Speaker 2: time mucking around on circuit characteristics and layout and what
50:26
Speaker 2: have you. Maybe this is the weekend just to get
50:28
Speaker 2: on the bike, Pecko and just ride the thing and
50:30
Speaker 2: see what happens, because.
50:31
Speaker 3: If you do that, then something good to probably go
50:33
Speaker 3: to happen.
50:34
Speaker 1: Will you look at like the stats? Right, he has
50:36
Speaker 1: most of the records from last year. If I go
50:39
Speaker 1: into the most polls, he's equal to Maverick, Viannalez and
50:42
Speaker 1: juorhe Lorenzo at this circuit. Right, Okay, most wins is
50:47
Speaker 1: Mark Marquez, but Pecos consistently there with all the other stats,
50:51
Speaker 1: so I don't discard that at all. My question to
50:55
Speaker 1: you is what we predicted the last weekends. I'm going
50:58
Speaker 1: to throw me into this because I agree with you.
51:00
Speaker 1: We thought that Joge Martin was going to be closer
51:03
Speaker 1: to the front in catalog.
51:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, Aprillier had a shocker.
51:06
Speaker 1: Aprilli had a shocker, so we won't hold him to that.
51:08
Speaker 1: But is this weekend? Is is this another a circuit
51:11
Speaker 1: where we could see its suit Martine the aprilia and
51:14
Speaker 1: he'd been that little bit closer to the front.
51:16
Speaker 2: Martin's biggest issue right now and he's been saying that himself.
51:20
Speaker 2: Is that the thing that he's been so good at
51:22
Speaker 2: through his motor GP career qualifying just that one lap, Like,
51:25
Speaker 2: my god, where did that lap come from? He doesn't
51:28
Speaker 2: have the reps and the confidence yet on that aprillia
51:31
Speaker 2: to do that. So that's why he's finding himself racing
51:33
Speaker 2: in the pack because he's getting knocked out in Q
51:35
Speaker 2: one and he's just buried down the grid a little bit.
51:37
Speaker 2: The thing about his Ducady time is that once he
51:40
Speaker 2: was comfortable in motor GP, he would routinely do things
51:43
Speaker 2: in qualifying where you do a double take when you
51:46
Speaker 2: looked at the timing, like what on Earth's how and
51:48
Speaker 2: how was he six tenths of a second up to
51:50
Speaker 2: two thirds of the way through the qualifying lap. So
51:53
Speaker 2: he hasn't got that yet, and I think that's just
51:56
Speaker 2: a matter of time and reps and experience. So it's
51:58
Speaker 2: probably two early necessarily to expect him to do that.
52:02
Speaker 3: Now. Do I expect him to be in Q two
52:04
Speaker 3: this weekend? This is a strong circuit for him. YEA.
52:06
Speaker 2: It wouldn't surprise me if he gets into Q two,
52:08
Speaker 2: but I don't think he's quite ready to be qualifying
52:10
Speaker 2: on the front row yet. It'd be nice if he
52:12
Speaker 2: proved me wrong because we know how good he is
52:14
Speaker 2: in a situation like that. But it still strikes me
52:16
Speaker 2: as a being a little bit too early for that.
52:19
Speaker 2: But by the end of the season maybe, but maybe
52:21
Speaker 2: not yet.
52:22
Speaker 1: Okay, So you mentioned I was going to bring out predictions,
52:25
Speaker 1: So that's the perfect segue in, Matt, I'm sure you've
52:28
Speaker 1: got some good options for me. Tell me who's going
52:30
Speaker 1: to win this weekend.
52:31
Speaker 2: And who's going to wouldn't it be funny even though
52:34
Speaker 2: he can't win the championship if Mark Marquez won this
52:36
Speaker 2: weekend in Massano. But I've got someone here that I'm
52:39
Speaker 2: not going to rule out for the victory because he's
52:41
Speaker 2: won here before and he's very very good. He's in
52:43
Speaker 2: good for the bike's going really well. This could be
52:45
Speaker 2: in an AA Bastia any weekend.
52:47
Speaker 1: Oh, that is very nat field.
52:50
Speaker 2: He won the second race there at Mesado last year,
52:53
Speaker 2: the Amelia Romania round, which had an even longer name
52:55
Speaker 2: than the San Marino round, and you may remember that
52:58
Speaker 2: he got himself in the middle of the Bagno Martine,
53:01
Speaker 2: you know, won two fight for that. Bana crashed out
53:03
Speaker 2: of his own accord in that race, and they have
53:05
Speaker 2: put what would be described as a robust move on
53:09
Speaker 2: Juge Martin on the last lap of that race. I
53:11
Speaker 2: don't know whether it should have been penalized or not,
53:12
Speaker 2: but he wasn't going to stick around to find out.
53:14
Speaker 2: He's always really good around here. You remember he was
53:17
Speaker 2: taking podiums on like third string of Vintia Ducatties and
53:21
Speaker 2: things back in the day. He's exceptionally good at this track.
53:25
Speaker 2: Another guy who has cut a million laps around this place,
53:28
Speaker 2: and Aya is very much a confidence rider. And you
53:31
Speaker 2: look at the way he got himself through to third
53:34
Speaker 2: place at Cashalod. You didn't qualify well because he often doesn't.
53:38
Speaker 2: But in races we know when he's in the sweet
53:41
Speaker 2: spot because of a very particular way that he rides
53:43
Speaker 2: the bike. I don't know if it's the best way
53:45
Speaker 2: a lot of the time, but my god, it's good
53:46
Speaker 2: when it's good. And he's been in a really good
53:49
Speaker 2: frame of mind the last few rounds. He was really
53:52
Speaker 2: fast in Hungry and then had that crash, a terrifying
53:55
Speaker 2: crash at the start of that race there, so we
53:56
Speaker 2: never got to see how that played out. But seeing
53:59
Speaker 2: Bashi any on the podium and maybe even splitting a
54:02
Speaker 2: couple of ducaddies would not surprise me in the slightest.
54:05
Speaker 1: I think it's really cool you're talking about splitting the
54:07
Speaker 1: digit caddies. And just to go back to Cataluna, we
54:10
Speaker 1: had every manufacturer in the top ten again that race.
54:13
Speaker 1: We can so this is the cool thing now and
54:15
Speaker 1: you wrote abound it. We said it before. It's not
54:17
Speaker 1: the ju Caddi Cup. It's multiple and manufacturers. Now, okay,
54:20
Speaker 1: it's Mark Marcus is going to win the championship, not
54:22
Speaker 1: this week, get a Misano, but it's going to happen.
54:24
Speaker 1: Marcus brothers one too. But it's every manufacturer is in there,
54:28
Speaker 1: and that's what we love to see in Moto GP.
54:31
Speaker 2: It is Ducati still out front, but the chasing pack
54:34
Speaker 2: is closing. And if that leads us to we often
54:37
Speaker 2: get in World motorsport when you get a rule regulation
54:40
Speaker 2: set that's about to expire, like Motor GP, we'll in
54:43
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six last year of these rigs. You often
54:45
Speaker 2: get everyone sort of basically coming to the same solution
54:49
Speaker 2: to the one problem. And if that makes for a
54:51
Speaker 2: really really competitive twenty twenty six, I mean, yeah, Mark's
54:54
Speaker 2: probably going to win the championship if he doesn't hurt
54:56
Speaker 2: himself or whatever. But I think the fight next year
54:59
Speaker 2: could be really quite fun because you're going to have
55:01
Speaker 2: a lot of people coming from different directions and we're
55:03
Speaker 2: all settling on a similar solution here. So this season
55:06
Speaker 2: shots just a better of when Mark wins it. But
55:09
Speaker 2: super looking forward to twenty six because I like to
55:11
Speaker 2: be optimistic about these things.
55:12
Speaker 1: Well, yes, we're excited for twenty six. Villa's also be
55:15
Speaker 1: excited this weekend for are you ready? Red Bull Grand
55:17
Speaker 1: Prix of sam Marino and the Rimini Riviera Mezzano World Circuit,
55:21
Speaker 1: Marco sim and Shellie Round four hundred and fifty of
55:25
Speaker 1: however many this year, so don't forget guys. You can
55:29
Speaker 1: watch every session live and ad break free on Fox
55:33
Speaker 1: Sports and KO Plus. Keep up to date with all
55:35
Speaker 1: of Matt's articles on our website at foxsports dot com
55:38
Speaker 1: dot Au, Forward Slash at Motorsport, and we are on
55:41
Speaker 1: the social channels at Fox Motorsport or Fox Sports OZ everywhere.
55:47
Speaker 1: But from Matt Clayton and myself, that's enough from us
55:50
Speaker 1: on Pittook. But we're gonna be back real soon with
55:52
Speaker 1: more Moto GP Pittook