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Will Motorland become Marquezland once again? MotoGP Pit Talk · Pit Talk

0:02
Speaker 1: Medo gip heads to Mark Hesland waits not sorry, MEDERGI
0:05
Speaker 1: we had some motor land Aragon. Let me get that right.
0:08
Speaker 1: And with every crucial point in this NonStop run to
0:11
Speaker 1: the end of the season, the title fight is about
0:13
Speaker 1: to get as hot at the Spanish desert sun. Welcome
0:17
Speaker 1: back to a bit Talk. This episode is brought to
0:19
Speaker 1: you by Shannon's Insurance. I'm your host, Rinita Vanmullen, and
0:22
Speaker 1: of course joining me is the man who's been covering
0:24
Speaker 1: Redo GP for so long. I'm pretty sure he remembers
0:27
Speaker 1: when Aragon was just a field. Matt Clayton, how you
0:33
Speaker 1: ready to go back racing on two wheels?
0:35
Speaker 2: Yeah? I am. It's kind of weird, isn't it.
0:36
Speaker 3: We had this sort of Silverstone thing which felt like
0:39
Speaker 3: the interruption to the first part of the mid season break,
0:41
Speaker 3: and then we've had another mid season break, so it
0:43
Speaker 3: feels like there's been so little.
0:44
Speaker 2: Racing for a while.
0:45
Speaker 3: But as we were talking about before we hit record
0:48
Speaker 3: on this, it's about to get a whole lot busier.
0:50
Speaker 3: We still don't know how many rounds there are left.
0:52
Speaker 3: It's still the guitar question, I guess, but here we are.
0:55
Speaker 3: It's nearly the end of August and the rest of
0:56
Speaker 3: this season is happening very very quickly, And yeah, I
1:00
Speaker 3: did enjoy Marquez Land motor Land, same thing really, but yeah,
1:04
Speaker 3: that's why.
1:04
Speaker 1: I brought it up is because he is so strong here.
1:07
Speaker 1: Everyone's been saying it for so long. It's like, this
1:10
Speaker 1: is going to be Mark's track, and previously we know
1:13
Speaker 1: that Alex has also been so strong here. So it's like,
1:15
Speaker 1: if history suggests what it suggests, forty points from Mark,
1:20
Speaker 1: is I definitely in the taking and it's going to
1:22
Speaker 1: look like nothing.
1:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of those ones where, you know, one
1:25
Speaker 3: of my sort of many cliche statements for anyone listening
1:28
Speaker 3: to this podcast, thank you for your continued listenership, is
1:31
Speaker 3: that you win a championship on your worst days. And
1:34
Speaker 3: the other side of the winning your championship on your
1:35
Speaker 3: worst day's coin is that you absolutely have to maximize
1:40
Speaker 3: your good tracks. And this is Mark's recipe for the
1:43
Speaker 3: season now because it's clearly not right physically. We know
1:47
Speaker 3: what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. He's just
1:49
Speaker 3: trying to survive and get as many points as he
1:51
Speaker 3: can at tracks where he's not good. But the tracks
1:54
Speaker 3: where he knows he's going to be good. You look
1:56
Speaker 3: at what's happened since he came back from Migello. We
1:58
Speaker 3: went to Hungary, one spread won the Grand Prix. We
2:01
Speaker 3: went to Saxon Ring, one sprint won the Grand Prix.
2:04
Speaker 3: That has to be the recipe for him at Aragon
2:06
Speaker 3: this weekend, and then the other two circuits you could
2:08
Speaker 3: probably say that about would be Philip Island and Valencia
2:11
Speaker 3: at the end of the season. But the crazy thing
2:13
Speaker 3: with Mark since he got on a Ducati, since he's
2:16
Speaker 3: been to Agon honored du Cati, he's not been headed
2:18
Speaker 3: for a single lap. He's basically one took pole, one sprint,
2:21
Speaker 3: won the Grand Prix, let every single lap. Did it
2:23
Speaker 3: again in twenty twenty five. And so this is a
2:26
Speaker 3: weekend where he knows he has an advantage, everyone else
2:30
Speaker 3: knows he has an advantage. He has to grind everyone
2:33
Speaker 3: to dust this weekend, not because it's crucial for his championship,
2:36
Speaker 3: but because there's going to be days for the rest
2:38
Speaker 3: of the season where he can't do this, and so
2:40
Speaker 3: this is the weekend where he has to just absolutely
2:43
Speaker 3: hammer home that advantage, narrow the points gap, keep himself
2:46
Speaker 3: in the conversation, and you know, there's three more circuits
2:49
Speaker 3: out of the remaining nine slash ten that we've got
2:51
Speaker 3: left where he could do this. This is one of them,
2:53
Speaker 3: and it would be a shock, quite frankly, if he
2:55
Speaker 3: did not win here this weekend, because, as you said,
2:58
Speaker 3: his record here is un believable. And I remember Jack
3:01
Speaker 3: Miller was saying this last year that midway through the race,
3:04
Speaker 3: he was going through one of the corners where he
3:06
Speaker 3: could see one of the big screens and he saw
3:08
Speaker 3: that Mark was like halfway down the back straight at
3:10
Speaker 3: the time, and Jack's like, I am trying so hard
3:13
Speaker 3: here and it's like this guy started like forty five
3:15
Speaker 3: seconds ahead of the rest of It's is basically unfair,
3:17
Speaker 3: he said.
3:18
Speaker 2: I just laughed because it was so ridiculous.
3:21
Speaker 1: Honestly, that's such a jack thing to do, though, right
3:23
Speaker 1: like during a race, just be like, oh, let me
3:25
Speaker 1: just have a look to see what's on the screens.
3:26
Speaker 1: But I mean what you just said there about the
3:29
Speaker 1: fact of the limiting damage, right, is that what Jorge
3:36
Speaker 1: Martin needs to do this weekend, considering he has got
3:39
Speaker 1: that points lead in the championship fight.
3:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting, it's one of the things on my
3:43
Speaker 3: list of things to write at some point in the future.
3:46
Speaker 3: Over the next few rounds, Jorge Martin sort of following
3:49
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty four Jogey Martin playbook right now because
3:53
Speaker 3: he's got the championship lead. I don't think he is
3:56
Speaker 3: the fastest rider right now. I mean, I think he'd
3:58
Speaker 3: say that himself. But you remember back a couple of
4:01
Speaker 3: years ago, it was Bagnai who was the faster of
4:03
Speaker 3: the two in the championship fight, but Martin was just
4:05
Speaker 3: always there. And so Bagnai had bigger peaks, but he
4:08
Speaker 3: had sleep of troughs as well. Martin was just this
4:10
Speaker 3: metronome just going along. And so the way for Martin
4:15
Speaker 3: to win this year's World Championship is to kind of
4:16
Speaker 3: do a rinse and repeat of twenty four. There's going
4:19
Speaker 3: to be weekends where he is absolutely not the fastest
4:21
Speaker 3: of any of them. He's not even the fastest to
4:23
Speaker 3: Prillier sometimes, but he's got this championship advantage now, so
4:27
Speaker 3: this is a damage limitation.
4:28
Speaker 2: Exercise to a degree.
4:31
Speaker 3: There might come a point later in the season where
4:33
Speaker 3: he may have to change tactics, but right now he
4:36
Speaker 3: has a thirty one point lead over everybody else. So
4:39
Speaker 3: the possibility of him leaving Aragon with a world championship
4:42
Speaker 3: lead is still really really high unless it goes into
4:45
Speaker 3: a complete catastrophic mode for him. So this is one
4:48
Speaker 3: of those weekends that you don't want to overreach when
4:50
Speaker 3: you're in fourth place and push for something more bank
4:53
Speaker 3: the points move on to somewhere where you might be
4:56
Speaker 3: stronger or maybe more relevant for this conversation, where Mark
4:59
Speaker 3: isn't a wrong and that way you sort of just
5:02
Speaker 3: take your points, go home. There's one less round to go.
5:04
Speaker 3: You've still got to lead. That's the way I feel
5:07
Speaker 3: he's got to play this, But we keep saying this
5:09
Speaker 3: with Martin. The weird thing about the rest of this
5:12
Speaker 3: season for me, I'm going off on a tangent here,
5:13
Speaker 3: which is not the first time, is that he's on
5:16
Speaker 3: an apprilla at these tracks, a lot of them for
5:18
Speaker 3: the first time, because he missed so much of last year.
5:20
Speaker 3: So it's not even like we can do the oh yeah,
5:23
Speaker 3: last year he was quite good here or not so
5:25
Speaker 3: good here. We've got no data to base this on,
5:28
Speaker 3: and so a lot of these tracks in the back
5:30
Speaker 3: half of the year he has not been to for
5:31
Speaker 3: two years and he has not been too on an Aprillia,
5:34
Speaker 3: And that's kind of a wildcard in all of this
5:36
Speaker 3: because with everyone else you can say good circuit, medium circuit,
5:40
Speaker 3: bad circuit. With Juge Martin, it's just like the shrug emoji.
5:43
Speaker 3: Right now, you just don't know what he's going to
5:45
Speaker 3: deliver because he's not been there on an Aprillia, So
5:47
Speaker 3: it's very much a step into the unknown. But yeah,
5:50
Speaker 3: you're right, this is one of those weekends where bank
5:53
Speaker 3: the points that you can bank, don't overreach, and just
5:56
Speaker 3: get out of there and get to Messano.
5:58
Speaker 1: And I think that kind of relays across all the
6:02
Speaker 1: writers who are ahead of Mark in the championship, Marco
6:04
Speaker 1: Batzeki who's thirty one points behind, Martin Igur thirty seven
6:08
Speaker 1: points behind, and then there's Mark and Fourth. I think
6:11
Speaker 1: for all three of them it's exactly what you just
6:14
Speaker 1: said there. It's a case of, you know, banking the
6:15
Speaker 1: points and limiting your losses. But the writer who I'm
6:19
Speaker 1: really interested in, and I mentioned it briefly earlier, is
6:22
Speaker 1: Alex Marquez because we know previously he's finished P two
6:25
Speaker 1: behind Mark, and we knew Silverstone was a circuit that
6:29
Speaker 1: he was strong at one of the ones. Okay, he's
6:31
Speaker 1: not in the title fight. He's back down in ninth place,
6:34
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty four points off. But I mean
6:37
Speaker 1: if he comes into the mix and he's podium and
6:39
Speaker 1: he is P two, well then there's more points away
6:42
Speaker 1: from Martin but Zeki and Igora.
6:44
Speaker 2: Yeah completely.
6:45
Speaker 3: Alex obviously had that amazing year last year as runner
6:48
Speaker 3: up in the World Championship.
6:49
Speaker 2: He's been injured this year. He hasn't been as strong.
6:51
Speaker 3: There's a few tracks left in the season where I
6:53
Speaker 3: think he's going to play a significant factor. Not anything
6:56
Speaker 3: to do with the championship, but as you just said,
6:58
Speaker 3: he's taking points off Mark rivals on Mark's strong tracks
7:02
Speaker 3: like this. I mean this was a decadi lockout in
7:04
Speaker 3: both the Sprint and the Grand Prix. Last year, Ferminaldegare
7:07
Speaker 3: was up there. Alex is really good here. I expect
7:09
Speaker 3: that jan Antonio is going to be really strong this
7:11
Speaker 3: weekend and he kind of needs a good solid like
7:14
Speaker 3: if he was to finish on the podium this weekend,
7:16
Speaker 3: that sort of keeps him in that championship hunt, just
7:19
Speaker 3: you know, chipping away, chipping away. But yeah, you're right.
7:22
Speaker 3: I mean this track and the other one later in
7:24
Speaker 3: the season. I think for me would be Malaysia because
7:26
Speaker 3: that's almost Alex's best track, right and that where that
7:29
Speaker 3: comes later in the season. It's not even the points
7:31
Speaker 3: that he scores. He's clearly not going to win the
7:33
Speaker 3: championship this year, but man, he can shape what happens
7:36
Speaker 3: from here because he's able to take points off other riders,
7:39
Speaker 3: and so you'd be really surprised if Alex isn't strong
7:42
Speaker 3: here this weekend and getting as many do Catties as
7:45
Speaker 3: possible in between Mark and the Aprillias would be mark
7:47
Speaker 3: stream scenario this weekend.
7:49
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, what about Peco Bannaya than in this situation,
7:54
Speaker 1: do you think this is going to be somewhere that
7:56
Speaker 1: he were going to see him shine again or do
7:58
Speaker 1: you think it's just still these like ghosts that he
8:01
Speaker 1: seems to be finding at the moment.
8:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:04
Speaker 3: I mean, look, if you were to put your money
8:05
Speaker 3: on it, and I'd be putting your money on it,
8:07
Speaker 3: not mine, because I'm not very confident about all of this.
8:09
Speaker 3: But he's been really good at Aragon in the past,
8:12
Speaker 3: but that's judging Peko by the peak version. Of Peco,
8:16
Speaker 3: I think, and we haven't really seen the peak version
8:19
Speaker 3: of Peko for the past two years. Last year he
8:22
Speaker 3: was still searching for it. He was putting them, you know,
8:25
Speaker 3: the biggest possible break discs on to try and get
8:27
Speaker 3: some more front end feel and get his confidence back.
8:30
Speaker 3: He strikes me right now as a guy that you know,
8:33
Speaker 3: we've all worked with people like this, you know, when
8:35
Speaker 3: you have to give like three months notice to finish
8:37
Speaker 3: your job and you're just sort of serving out time. Really,
8:39
Speaker 3: he's like the guy parking the desk in the corner,
8:41
Speaker 3: just sort of looking at the clock.
8:42
Speaker 2: It's a time to go home.
8:43
Speaker 3: Yet it kind of feels a little bit like Peco
8:45
Speaker 3: at the moment in that you know, Dakati have clearly
8:47
Speaker 3: decided to move on. He has made the big mental
8:50
Speaker 3: shift that he's out of Dakati, which is the only
8:52
Speaker 3: motor GP manufacturer he's ever written for.
8:55
Speaker 2: So for any of the.
8:57
Speaker 3: Other riders, like Kuaaterara is the other one in the
8:59
Speaker 3: same boat, they're guys that are just serving out their
9:01
Speaker 3: time with their current employers. So I don't think we're
9:04
Speaker 3: going to get the peak version of Peco. He strikes
9:06
Speaker 3: me as a guy who's just riding around finishing out
9:09
Speaker 3: the rest of the season. The last thing you want
9:11
Speaker 3: to do when you go to a new manufacturer next
9:13
Speaker 3: year with a new rule set is to turn up
9:14
Speaker 3: half injured for that first test at Valencia after the
9:17
Speaker 3: last Grand PERI so he's a guy who's just he's
9:20
Speaker 3: a nine to five er right now. Peco, I reckon.
9:22
Speaker 3: I don't think he's going out there to not try,
9:24
Speaker 3: but he's certainly not going out there to push absolutely
9:27
Speaker 3: past his libits like the Peco of old might have,
9:30
Speaker 3: Like the Pecco of old news coming into this weekend,
9:34
Speaker 3: let's touch on you, and Zako is making a comeback,
9:37
Speaker 3: and a lot earlier than I thought.
9:38
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not a lot. I knew it was going
9:40
Speaker 1: to be around the Mazzano time, but I was really
9:42
Speaker 1: curious about Aragon. It was funny. We were at Silverstone
9:45
Speaker 1: and there was messages being sent out of Zuko riding.
9:50
Speaker 1: I think he was doing flat track on a bike
9:52
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, don't tell anyone, don't tell anyone, And
9:54
Speaker 1: all of a sudden the news came out and he
9:56
Speaker 1: was on socials and everything. But I mean, good to
9:58
Speaker 1: see the LCR rid back on track this weekend, and
10:00
Speaker 1: bearing in mind that he passed his medical because obviously
10:03
Speaker 1: that nasty crash in Catalonia that we've spoken about so long,
10:06
Speaker 1: and a knee rehab takes so long too.
10:10
Speaker 3: I'm still astonished, like knowing that he was coming back.
10:13
Speaker 3: It's been so long, he's missed the last six Grand Prix,
10:15
Speaker 3: and I wanted to go back and sort of refresh
10:17
Speaker 3: myself with the incident as such. And there's only one
10:21
Speaker 3: real good photo of the incident where he's got his
10:24
Speaker 3: left leg trapped between the rear wheel and the seat
10:28
Speaker 3: unit of Banyai's To Catti, it is unbelievable that he
10:32
Speaker 3: didn't suffer more catastrophic injuries, and it's also more unbelievable
10:35
Speaker 3: that he hasn't had surgery. He's just waited this thing out.
10:38
Speaker 3: I mean, you forget that. The reason they couldn't really
10:40
Speaker 3: examine him at the start was his leg was burnt
10:43
Speaker 3: because it was against the exhaust of Banyai's bike and
10:45
Speaker 3: trapped as that bike was summer silding through the gravel track.
10:48
Speaker 3: It was one of the most horrific accidents we've seen
10:50
Speaker 3: for a long while. That was like the fifth crazy
10:52
Speaker 3: thing that happened on that Catalogia GP weekend, so we
10:55
Speaker 3: kind of just got numb to it. So I initially
10:57
Speaker 3: thought when I heard about that diagnosis and we talked
11:00
Speaker 3: about it on the pod here, that because he was
11:02
Speaker 3: one of the few riders at the time that had
11:04
Speaker 3: a deal for twenty seven I was thinking, like, why
11:06
Speaker 3: are you even coming back, Like, there's no point you
11:08
Speaker 3: hustling back to ride one of these thousand cc bikes.
11:10
Speaker 3: They're out of business at the end of the year. Anyway,
11:12
Speaker 3: you've got a contract, you're the oldest guy in the field.
11:14
Speaker 3: You need to rehab, like stay home. But you know
11:17
Speaker 3: what he's like, He's a guy who equally the fact
11:20
Speaker 3: that he's come back early doesn't surprise me because that's
11:22
Speaker 3: just kind of how he's wired. There's going to be
11:26
Speaker 3: a degree of I would say trepidation, but you know,
11:29
Speaker 3: he's definitely there's a mental hurdle that he has to
11:32
Speaker 3: get over this weekend as much as anything else. Yes,
11:34
Speaker 3: that was just the freakest of all freak occurrences that
11:37
Speaker 3: happened to him in Barcelona, but that's a serious one
11:40
Speaker 3: to come back from. And yeah, look full credit to
11:42
Speaker 3: him for getting back early. Like you said, I mean,
11:44
Speaker 3: I think initially they were talking about him getting back
11:46
Speaker 3: from Mesado. So the fact that he's two weeks ahead
11:48
Speaker 3: of schedule, probably mentally, that's really good for.
11:51
Speaker 2: Him to get back.
11:52
Speaker 3: And you know, we understand that Cal Crutchlow is going
11:54
Speaker 3: to be there and on standby if Jean doesn't pass
11:58
Speaker 3: the medical check on the Thursday. But yeah, earlier than expected,
12:01
Speaker 3: and it's always good to see him in the paddic
12:03
Speaker 3: because he is a point of difference. I guarantee you
12:05
Speaker 3: it's I think you said before, it's going to be
12:06
Speaker 3: mid thirties or whatever degrees. He'll still be wearing a
12:09
Speaker 3: neck scarf though.
12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, a man of fashion, let's call it. Let's talk
12:18
Speaker 1: about Anya Bashanini, who is signed with Superfile track House
12:22
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty seven. Now, I loved the marketing employee
12:26
Speaker 1: that the track House did for trying to find their
12:29
Speaker 1: other writer with the LinkedIn article. Oh, it was brilliant.
12:32
Speaker 1: It was so good. I wonder how many normal I
12:35
Speaker 1: considered it. I really considered it. Yeah, sure, I'm not
12:40
Speaker 1: very fast with a muelin, but I'm you know, I'm
12:42
Speaker 1: sure there's something there, but I think it's really exciting
12:45
Speaker 1: now that we know that that's happened. We know that
12:47
Speaker 1: Okay is obviously leaving Tech TWI, we know the rumors
12:51
Speaker 1: that are happening, but Tech TWA. But the fact that Okay
12:53
Speaker 1: those two seats are taken, that's another puzzle piece. Now
12:55
Speaker 1: we just need to know those final final seats that
12:58
Speaker 1: are going to happen in twenty twenty seven.
13:01
Speaker 3: You know what's interesting to me? And this is something
13:02
Speaker 3: again that's on my lengthy to do list of things
13:05
Speaker 3: to write about. Isn't it interesting how you've got a
13:07
Speaker 3: prillier in Ducati. Clearly there's two standout factories right now.
13:11
Speaker 3: They're trying to shore up their future. Aprili has gone
13:14
Speaker 3: very Italian, Ducati's gone virtually none. So next year, of
13:18
Speaker 3: the six du Catties, there's probably going to be one
13:20
Speaker 3: Italian rider on the sixty caddies, which isn't even confirmed yet.
13:23
Speaker 3: That's Nicolo Bulliger, whereas Aprilia is going to have Banyaya
13:26
Speaker 3: Bozeki and Bastiarnini the three bees all Italians on their
13:30
Speaker 3: bikes for next year.
13:31
Speaker 2: Really interesting. I think it's a good.
13:33
Speaker 3: Move for Bastianini because he's kind of how can say,
13:38
Speaker 3: we've forgotten about him. You know, we keep talking about
13:40
Speaker 3: how good Ayaguri is at tire preservation, right and you know,
13:44
Speaker 3: being so good strong at the end of races because
13:46
Speaker 3: he saves more tig than anybody else. To me, he's
13:48
Speaker 3: just operating out of the Bastienni playbook, because you remember
13:51
Speaker 3: when Naa had that really good year for Grassini when
13:53
Speaker 3: he was winning Grand Prix. That was his mo o
13:55
Speaker 3: that season that he would qualify poorly. He's never been
13:58
Speaker 3: a good qualifier. And then towards the end of the races,
14:01
Speaker 3: you're like, how has this guy who got this much
14:02
Speaker 3: tire left? And I think the way the Aprilia consumes
14:05
Speaker 3: its tires, the KTM is really hard on its tires,
14:08
Speaker 3: and so he's not able to sort of use that
14:11
Speaker 3: advantage of his laid in races on that bike. But
14:13
Speaker 3: you put him on a bike that is probably not
14:15
Speaker 3: just chewing its tires early in the race, he would
14:18
Speaker 3: not surprise me at all if he has a really,
14:21
Speaker 3: really good season on that bike, assuming the DNA of
14:23
Speaker 3: the Aprillia carries through the eight fifties, because it's much
14:26
Speaker 3: more the way he likes to ride. And look, he's
14:29
Speaker 3: it sounds like I'm sort of disrespecting him a little
14:32
Speaker 3: bit here. He is a bit of a one trick
14:33
Speaker 3: pody and it's a hell of a trick though, and
14:35
Speaker 3: if he can get it to work, we've seen what
14:37
Speaker 3: happens in the past he wins Grand Prix. So yeah,
14:39
Speaker 3: I think it's a really good signing for them.
14:42
Speaker 1: I think what you mentioned there, you know, Grissini is
14:45
Speaker 1: a very family friendly environment, and he did really well there.
14:48
Speaker 1: We didn't necessarily see it too much Inju Caddy KATM
14:52
Speaker 1: the same. We know that there's just been a lot
14:54
Speaker 1: of drama there. But I think going to track us
14:56
Speaker 1: once again, it's that family friendly environment. I think that
14:59
Speaker 1: just seems to really work well with some writers, you know.
15:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, he's quite an uncomplicated sort of a guy.
15:06
Speaker 3: And some of the bigger places that he's written for,
15:08
Speaker 3: like Ducaddi and like the KTM Factory team, they're almost
15:12
Speaker 3: a bit what's the word, they a bit corporate, you know,
15:14
Speaker 3: like they're a bit sort of structured and hierarchical and
15:17
Speaker 3: a bit sort of white collar stiff. For him, he
15:19
Speaker 3: needs to be in the place where the owner's name
15:22
Speaker 3: is above the door and everyone's got grease into under
15:24
Speaker 3: their fingernails, and it's just like an old school racing team.
15:26
Speaker 3: Like he's a bit of a throwback in that regard.
15:28
Speaker 3: He's a very uncomplicated sort of a guy. So yeah,
15:32
Speaker 3: I mean we saw him he was at his best
15:33
Speaker 3: at Grassini, where it was a small team and he
15:36
Speaker 3: was super close to his crew chief and everyone sort
15:38
Speaker 3: of got their hands dirty. And the track house side
15:42
Speaker 3: of the Aprellier operation feels a lot more like that
15:44
Speaker 3: to me. So, I mean, there's been a lot of
15:46
Speaker 3: talk that no, is he passed his best? Why are
15:47
Speaker 3: they signing him. I don't think he's passed his best
15:49
Speaker 3: at all. He's I don't think he's world champion material,
15:51
Speaker 3: but he's he a guy that you could see winning
15:53
Speaker 3: races next year.
15:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent.
15:56
Speaker 1: I'm just going to slide quest here for a hot minute,
15:58
Speaker 1: because I don't know if you're him on socials or
16:01
Speaker 1: the listeners if they saw him on socials. He goes
16:03
Speaker 1: to a Renaissance Fairs.
16:05
Speaker 2: He is so funny, n a.
16:07
Speaker 1: Ambition anything like to do like collect Pokemon, go to
16:10
Speaker 1: Renaissance Fairs and race moto GPS.
16:13
Speaker 3: He is still the architecture of my favorite interview when
16:16
Speaker 3: he won a kota for Grassini's All That would have
16:18
Speaker 3: been twenty three, twenty four, twenty three. I think his
16:22
Speaker 3: post race speech with Simon Krafar, who was then doing
16:24
Speaker 3: the part for my interviews, was I pushed like a bastard.
16:28
Speaker 3: Now it's time to eat hamburger. And that's still my
16:31
Speaker 3: just this. The first thing he thought was that he
16:34
Speaker 3: pushed what he's race and that he's in in Texas
16:36
Speaker 3: and he's going to go and eat the world's largest
16:37
Speaker 3: burger in celebration. I thought, that's just the most nam
16:40
Speaker 3: bastiduity quote of all time.
16:42
Speaker 1: That's brilliant. Oh I love it. I love it. And
16:45
Speaker 1: the final piece of news going in to Aragon. Surprise, surprise,
16:49
Speaker 1: Maverick Ranalas is sitting this one out, so Paul Espargaro
16:53
Speaker 1: will be replacing him. So along continues the KTM Mavick
16:59
Speaker 1: vinale As drama. Shall we just call it politely like
17:04
Speaker 1: it's like high school, isn't it?
17:06
Speaker 3: Well, we're almost breaking news here on this podcast, because
17:08
Speaker 3: about two minutes into the podcast, if anyone hard my
17:10
Speaker 3: email in box go off. It literally was the press
17:12
Speaker 3: release saying that paulus Bargro is going to be replacing
17:14
Speaker 3: Maverick videals for Aragod after we had talked about it
17:17
Speaker 3: in the lead up to the POD. So I don't
17:19
Speaker 3: think anyone's surprise this Maverick thing. It's just I mean, look,
17:23
Speaker 3: there's an inevitability to the way this ends. Now, it's
17:25
Speaker 3: just a matter of how messy it gets. I think
17:27
Speaker 3: this injury. You remember he hurts himself at the Saxon
17:31
Speaker 3: Ring last year. So it's been fourteen months of this now,
17:35
Speaker 3: on and off, and I think I don't think he's
17:37
Speaker 3: finished inside the top ten in a race for like
17:39
Speaker 3: twenty rounds or whatever, but he's missed half of them.
17:41
Speaker 2: So you do wonder.
17:43
Speaker 3: You do wonder every time it's like he's coming back
17:45
Speaker 3: for the next round.
17:45
Speaker 2: No he's not.
17:46
Speaker 3: He's coming back for the next round, No he's not.
17:48
Speaker 3: So look, I mean we know pretty much he's on
17:51
Speaker 3: the OUTERPHOMOTOGP for next year. But it is a shame
17:55
Speaker 3: in a way because of as sort of random as
17:58
Speaker 3: Maverick can be. When he's good, he's incredibly good and
18:02
Speaker 3: we've seen that. But it could have feels like we
18:04
Speaker 3: could have been having this conversation in like twenty seventeen,
18:06
Speaker 3: we'd be saying the same thing. So you know, he's
18:08
Speaker 3: amazing when he's amazing, and then you wonder where he's
18:10
Speaker 3: been for six months, and that's kind of the Maverick
18:12
Speaker 3: videalist story. But yeah, Paula Spargo, the world's fastest TV pundit,
18:16
Speaker 3: is back on the bike this weekend.
18:18
Speaker 1: Okay, Matt. So normally, obviously we do a oh my god,
18:24
Speaker 1: what is the word? Oh, what is the word? The
18:29
Speaker 1: person who you think is going to win? What's the word?
18:31
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of adctions predictions. That's it, Thank you so much.
18:35
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get a prediction for first. I'm
18:37
Speaker 1: not going to do a prediction for second. Who's going
18:40
Speaker 1: to get third this weekend?
18:41
Speaker 2: Oh so you're putting Alex marks in it? Second day?
18:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, interesting, Yeah, genuinely, I'm yeah, all right. I'm
18:50
Speaker 3: going with the all Decatti podium theme for a second
18:52
Speaker 3: straight year. And I mentioned him earlier. I think this
18:54
Speaker 3: is a de jen Antonio weekend. He it feels like
18:58
Speaker 3: he's not desperate a good weekend, but he kind of
19:01
Speaker 3: needs one. And this is a bike where I think
19:03
Speaker 3: a circuit where I think that bike the Decady is
19:05
Speaker 3: going to be really strong here, and so he needs
19:09
Speaker 3: a good weekend. Not that I'm counting him out of
19:11
Speaker 3: the title fight, but he's the guy in that top
19:14
Speaker 3: five that I find it easiest to discount, maybe because
19:19
Speaker 3: I don't think he's just going to go out there
19:20
Speaker 3: and rattle off three race wins in a row. He
19:22
Speaker 3: seems like the least likely of that group to possibly
19:24
Speaker 3: do that. Where you could see Mark doing that, you
19:26
Speaker 3: could I mean, Bizek, He's already done it this year.
19:28
Speaker 3: Juge Martin might not have to do it. He can
19:30
Speaker 3: just Jujey Martini his way to a title perhaps, But
19:33
Speaker 3: this strikes me as a big one for degen Antonio.
19:35
Speaker 3: The big thing for me with him is that he's
19:38
Speaker 3: an incredibly good qualifier and his first laps are no good,
19:41
Speaker 3: and we've seen that this year where very often he
19:44
Speaker 3: loses two or three places on the first lap. He
19:47
Speaker 3: starts on the front row, and then he gets to
19:48
Speaker 3: the end of lap one he's sixth, fifth something like that.
19:51
Speaker 3: He gets elbowed around a little bit in the opening laps,
19:54
Speaker 3: and so I don't think the speed's in question with him,
19:56
Speaker 3: it's just how can he navigate the mayhem of the
19:58
Speaker 3: first one or two lapse. He's another guy who's better
20:02
Speaker 3: the longer the race goes. And if it is going
20:03
Speaker 3: to be as hot as you seem to think it's
20:05
Speaker 3: going to be this weekend, he'll come home really strong
20:08
Speaker 3: in these races. But if you're coming home strong in
20:11
Speaker 3: a race where you've dropped to seventh, that kind of
20:13
Speaker 3: isn't as exciting as if you could just hold your
20:15
Speaker 3: spot the top four, then maybe you'd be fighting for
20:17
Speaker 3: something bigger. But if he was on the podium, I
20:19
Speaker 3: wouldn't be surprised at all. The other one I'm curious about,
20:22
Speaker 3: and I don't know about his fitness. So it's a
20:23
Speaker 3: bit of an asterisk on this is that we think
20:25
Speaker 3: that Fermin Aldigare is going to be back this weekend,
20:28
Speaker 3: and he's been when he's been healthy this year, he's
20:30
Speaker 3: been pretty fast. He's on podium there last year too,
20:32
Speaker 3: So this strikes me as, like you said before, a
20:36
Speaker 3: race where the decadeys can sort of ruffle the apryllias
20:38
Speaker 3: a little bit curious to see how fit aldergear is.
20:41
Speaker 3: I mean, we're going to find out pretty quick if
20:42
Speaker 3: it's thirty five degrees and he's pounding around Aragon on Friday. Well,
20:46
Speaker 3: if he looks wrecked after Friday, then maybe we have
20:48
Speaker 3: to lower our expectations a little bit. But the long
20:51
Speaker 3: answer to your very short question is that I'm picking
20:53
Speaker 3: Fabio de jan Antonio to finish on the podium.
20:56
Speaker 1: It's funny because I was thinking while you were talking.
20:58
Speaker 1: I was going, I wonder what Furman will be like
21:00
Speaker 1: this weekend. But then the thing that I keep coming
21:03
Speaker 1: back to is if it is going to be quite hot.
21:06
Speaker 1: I mean, we saw Agura just relish in those conditions earlier. Yees,
21:10
Speaker 1: So I go, do you You can't rule him out
21:12
Speaker 1: when he's as cool as a cucumber. After twenty whatever lapse.
21:16
Speaker 3: He looks like everyone else gets off the race and
21:19
Speaker 3: looks like they need an ice bath, and he looks
21:20
Speaker 3: like the race hasn't started yet. And it's the underrated
21:23
Speaker 3: thing about the Japanese writers a lot of the time
21:25
Speaker 3: in that you know it. I mean, anyone that speaks
21:27
Speaker 3: to Japan will know this. It is so humid there.
21:29
Speaker 3: So for him getting around and doing twenty three laps
21:31
Speaker 3: in a set of leathers on a motor gple be like, eh,
21:33
Speaker 3: it's fine.
21:34
Speaker 2: No problem.
21:35
Speaker 3: Everyone else is ready to expire and he's.
21:37
Speaker 2: Just he's just warming up. So yeah, you might be
21:39
Speaker 2: right there.
21:39
Speaker 3: He of all the Aprilia guys, he strikes me as
21:42
Speaker 3: the one that might have the highest ceiling here because
21:45
Speaker 3: you know, Mark Oberzek's going to be two weeks further
21:47
Speaker 3: on into his recovery from he was at Silverstone. But man,
21:51
Speaker 3: at Silverston he looked like he was absolutely wrecked after
21:55
Speaker 3: that Grand Parig couple of weeks ago, so he'll clearly
21:57
Speaker 3: be better than he was then. But in the heat
21:59
Speaker 3: of Arab with all those really parnishing left handers, that's
22:02
Speaker 3: going to be rough.
22:03
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing like this circuit. You know, there's
22:05
Speaker 1: massive changes of direction. There's the reverse harkscrew, so you've
22:08
Speaker 1: got the elevation changes and so many different corners at
22:12
Speaker 1: this track. So the ones who aren't one hundred percent
22:15
Speaker 1: fit or one hundred percent confident in their bank, they're
22:18
Speaker 1: going to struggle or like you said, they're not going
22:20
Speaker 1: to push it because this is where you can really
22:21
Speaker 1: do some damage.
22:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, you get found out at a track like this
22:24
Speaker 3: and it's one of those ones. It's funny, like it's
22:26
Speaker 3: been on the calendar longer than you think. It's not
22:28
Speaker 3: like a new and inverted commerce track, but it's still
22:31
Speaker 3: one of those ones where you don't look at it
22:33
Speaker 3: like it's got the history of Cashalounur or Herreth or
22:35
Speaker 3: any of those places. It's been around for a while now.
22:37
Speaker 3: It is a cool track, like it literally is in
22:39
Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere. You know this is it may
22:41
Speaker 3: as well be on the moon quite frankly, it's in
22:42
Speaker 3: the middle of absolutely anywhere.
22:44
Speaker 2: It's a cool track.
22:45
Speaker 3: It's got a lot of really nice corners, that reverse
22:47
Speaker 3: corkscrew section and that big long left handed that comes
22:52
Speaker 3: out of there where Marquez just puts so many meters
22:54
Speaker 3: into people because he's just leaned over on the left
22:56
Speaker 3: the whole time.
22:57
Speaker 2: It's a very very cool track.
22:59
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean it is in the middle of nowhere,
23:01
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's full on Marco's territory. And yeah, let's
23:05
Speaker 3: see what sort of celebrations they have with the fan
23:07
Speaker 3: club planned for afterwards, because you know they will be
23:09
Speaker 3: something exactly.
23:10
Speaker 1: So make sure you guys tune in because this weekend
23:12
Speaker 1: is the Aragon Grand Prix and you can catch every practice, qualifying,
23:17
Speaker 1: sprint and Grand Prix live and ad break free on
23:20
Speaker 1: Fox Sports and KO. If you want to stay up
23:22
Speaker 1: to the date with all the latest MotoGP news, you
23:24
Speaker 1: guys can do so and read MAT's articles over on
23:27
Speaker 1: our website at foxsports dot com dot au, Forward Slash Motorsport,
23:31
Speaker 1: Plus you can follow us on socials. We are at
23:33
Speaker 1: Fox Motorsport, at Fox Sports OS and at Kosports on
23:37
Speaker 1: all of the platforms. But that's about enough for our
23:41
Speaker 1: preview of Aragon. I can't wait to get it underway
23:43
Speaker 1: and see those bikes on track later this week. So
23:47
Speaker 1: from Matt Clayton and myself Ronita Vermuelin, we're gonna be
23:50
Speaker 1: back real soon with more motor gppit talk