May 27, 2025 • 47 mins
Silverstone delivered sunshine, surprises, and some serious shake-ups in the 2025 British GP—and we’re unpacking every moment.
Marco Bezzecchi pulled off a stunning victory. Johann Zarco backed it up with a brilliant podium—yes, in the dry—while Ducati were left scratching their heads.
In Moto2, Australia’s Senna Agius made headlines (and history) with a commanding win on British soil, proving once again why he’s the real deal. But it wasn’t smiles all round—Fabio Quartararo’s heartbreaking crash while fighting for the podium left fans gutted and Yamaha wondering what could’ve been.
Renita Vermeulen and Matt Clayton break down all the big stories, standout performances, and what it all means heading into the next round.
Brought to you by Shannons Insurance—this is MotoGP Pit Talk.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, we swapped Ozzie flat Whites for a proper British
brew this weekend and witness history made heartbreak and a
whole lot of hard racing at the British Grand Prix.
Moto GP Pittook is brought to you by Shannon's Insurance.
I'm your host, Rinita Vmuellen, and adjoining me is Moto
GP's very own walking encyclopedia and a bloke who's probably
(00:22):
still recovering from a shock of sunshine at Silverstone on Sunday,
Matt Clayton.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Matt, we were talking off air and we're like, we have.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
To hit record and get started, because can you believe
the highs and the lows at the British Grand Prix.
What a weekend for the West start of the Heizo
are Prillier Mmm.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Of all the things that we could have been talking
about to lead this podcast after where we left it
last week with turmoil at a Prillier and Joge Martin
wants to leave and are they going to let him leave?
And there's no future in this project, but you know
you had the random element of Silverstone we talked about
this last week. The previous ten installments of this Grand
Prix had ten different winners. Let's just extend that to
(01:05):
eleven Grand Prix and eleven different winners because out of
absolutely nowhere, having finished in the top six once the
entire year, Marco Berseki wins his fourth Grand Prix. But
an amazing culmination of events, which we'll get into through
this podcast. But for a Prillia where you've got the
world champion that you moved heaven and earth to sign
(01:25):
last year, getting cold feet, not even having done one
race in the project, and now you can turn around
and say, by the way, this bike can win a
Grand Prix. So anytime you'd like to throw your leg
over one and not fall off, then be our guest.
But great news for Aprilia, fantastic for Bozeki. But how
we got there? It was a suitably wacky British Grand
Prix with so many variables. But I don't even know
(01:47):
where you're going to start. There's about one hundred different
options year I.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Want to start with.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And I don't want to take anything away from Marco
Bedzeki because you could clearly tell that he was on
fire from the first race start after the red flag
and on the second race start. But The thing that
caught my attention was Masimo Rivela and his comments to
the press after of hey, jo hey Martin, look at this,
(02:14):
our bite can win with all that off track drama
that we've had. And then Marco Bezeki goes and wins
and he's on fire and he had that helmet and
a mullet. On the weekend, it.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Just seemed like all the door opened up.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Lady Luck was on Marco's side, right, But like I said,
he was on fire. I don't know, if you're watching
the lap times, Mark, You're not Mark, you're Matt. But well,
he started tenth on the grid. I think at one
point on the first lap he was back down in
like nineteenth or something. Then next minute you see him,
he's like fifth or sixth, and he's second and he's
(02:48):
leading the Grand Prix. Whatever happened, whatever it was this
shift this weekend, because going into it it did really
look like it was Alex Marquez who was going to
be the favorite after the sprint win on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Something clicked to micro Betzeki and he made it work.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I mean, look, Aprilia has got four around here. We
know that it's been a good track for them in
the past, Faverick Vinille's on the podium, Malesias Spargo won
a race there. So to see a Prillia being stronger
here than maybe anywhere for the rest of the season
so far, that wasn't the thing that surprised me. It
was more that it was Bazeki because he's been kind
of captain anonymous most of the time since he's been
at Aprillier. There's been so much discussion about the guy
(03:26):
who's supposed to be his teammate who hasn't been there.
And then early in the season, you remember the Aprillia
that was getting all the publicity was Agura because of
how awesome he was entire Land in his first race,
And so Marco's kind of existed under the raidar. He's
had a couple of races where he's been in okay
positions and he's run off into breaking zones and trundled
around at the back. But he's one of those guys
that we saw it in twenty twenty three when he
(03:47):
won those three Grand Prix and he was in the
thick of the championship fight till pretty late in the season.
His sweet Spots is sort of quite narrow, I reckon,
but when he gets in it, he is almost unbe
He just goes into this trance where he's just churning
out one lap after another after another. The most telling
sign to me about how good he was at Silverstone
(04:08):
was listening to Jean Zako afterwards he finished second, which
we'll get into, and Zarko's whole point was, I know
when Marco's in this sort of mood that it's almost
pointless fighting with him because you're not going to win
that fight. But so I elected just to try and
sit behind him and copy what he was doing, because
he was so fast, he was probably going to drag
(04:28):
me away from the others if I was able to
lock him behind him and just ride his lines. And
I thought that was really interesting from someone like Zarko,
who doesn't take defeat very easily or very well. But
he recognized, all right, I know when I'm beaten for
a win, but this guy's so good today with this
bike in this package, that he can actually help me
if I just play this smart here. And that's the
biggest sign of respect for a guy who is just
(04:50):
in that really narrow sweet spot but making everything work.
And you mentioned the sprint, like Buzeki was really good
in the sprint as well. He didn't get on the
podium there, but you could see that pace. It's like,
all right, how's this going to translate over a full
Grand Prix distance? Once we eventually got to a full
Grand Prix distance after the aborted start and all the
silliness on the first two laps, which we'll talk about,
(05:11):
the key thing for the whole weekend, and I wrote
a pretty significant piece of Fox Sports what is it
Tuesday morning Australian Time on you were there? It was
cold on Sunday, properly cold. I know it's ten days
before summer in the UK, but it was fifteen degree
ambient temperature. And the key point of the race was
there were eight riders who started on the soft front tire,
(05:34):
which you would never use a soft rount tire at
Silverston normally because the high speed corners had just chew
that thing up. The track temp was so low that
you needed the grip, and you look at the guys
who started on the soft front tire and where they
ended up. Jack Miller was kind of the pioneer and
a lot of guys followed what Jack did. But Zako
was on the soft front tire. He went from the
third row to the podium. Bazeki was on the soft
(05:56):
front tire. He went from the fourth row to win
the race. Quaaterero was on the off front tire and
he led the race until the bike packed up. Jack
obviously did well. There were preda. A Costa came through
from the fifth throw on that same tire, and you
saw the crashes at the start of the first race,
and even the underperformance by the deucaddies in particular, they
couldn't run that soft front because it was graining so badly.
(06:17):
They were kind of stuck with the medium front. Normally,
Silveston is a track where you need a strong front tire,
but it was so cold that there was no real
purchase from that medium tire. Have you ever seen a
scrappier race? For some of those decaddies, They were off
the track all over the place. Marquees was all over
the place, Bano I fell down to, Jane Antonio was nowhere,
Alex Marquez had the big crash at the start of
(06:38):
the first race. They had no grip and it was
just so bizarre seeing we've become so used to seeing
the Jacati carp and how good the ducaddies are in
this series. They look like sort of also ran for
most of the weekend, and it shows you how good
Marques's powers of recovery were that he was able to
finish on the podium. But this was a race for
everybody else, and the best of everybody else was and
(06:58):
Aprilia on this circle and Marco Bozeki in that sweet spot.
I got to say, it was quite nice seeing a
variety up the front because there was a time there
where I thought, huh, we may not even get a
du Catti on the podium, and you know, so that
made me think, how long has it been since we
haven't had a du caddie on the podium. So I
went digging and went digging and went more digging because
(07:19):
it had been so long. It was twenty twenty one,
that was the last time we had a Grand Prix
where there were no ducaddies on the podium. We just
about got it. But yeah, amazing Sunday. I've gone off
in eighty seven different directions there because I had so
much to say. But I don't know for you. Being
on the ground there, there was this this sense with
Bozeki that it kind of felt like it was his
destiny for the whole weekend. He just looked like a
(07:41):
race winner, didn't he From the moment the sprint started,
he looked like a guy who could win a Grand Prix.
And then he went and went and did it.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
He just looked strong.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I don't know any other words to say, just strong
this weekend. And like you mentioned there with du caddies,
and it's something that I did want to bring up,
is Pekovanyaya looked weak this weekend. Marko Bitzeki looked strong.
And even when you was watching him in his pro
session debriefs and whatnot, there was just something there, like
(08:10):
a subtle confidence of maybe everything starting to align. And
I think all the off talk drama, he clearly wasn't
involved in it and was just pushing it to the side.
But going on track, it just felt comfortable. Then when
you, you know, bring up obviously alage having the wind there whatnot,
it seems to be it's a circuit that does obviously
suit the Aprilias. But talking about Sunday in particular, the
(08:34):
wind was really strong on Sunday, so they were actually
traveling a less speed. I did hear the stat and
you probably not, Matt. I'm not sure the exact speed
difference that they were traveling on the Sunday, but that
put everything into play as well, and I think that's
when we're starting to see the weaknesses in g K,
(08:56):
the weaknesses in Peco especially, And I know we want
to come onto that through because I need to talk
about Joan Zarco when you talk about Fabio.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Let's just.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So let's move on to Let's move on to Zako quickly.
Because Joan Zarco back to back prodiums with Honda, first
time since the whole Mark Marquez era, I'm assuming as well.
And then I'm sure you heard this about his post
race debrief, but he said that when they.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Did that first start he felt quite jumbled. I guess,
a bit like on edge.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That racey start allowed him to calm down. And then
I heard what you said about the Zecie I read
as well. He said that Jack Miller he just wanted
to get in with Jack because Jack could create his
own lines. He would stay behind and hopefully get out
to the front. So it seems like Joan Zarko is
really working hard now to be that top Honda rider.
We keep hearing rumors about him potentially going to HLC
(09:49):
and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
What was it about this weekend though?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
For you, Matt, Why is Zarko now all of a
sudden closer to the front it is? Are they bringing
a lot more new development with them?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
It's partly the development.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I think it's partly what he's doing with the motorbike
at the moment, because you see what the other guys
on the Hondas are doing, and you see flashes with Zako.
He's got this sort of very bizarre combination. He's almost
the fiercest guy in elbow to elbow combat, like you
know when you're in a fight with Johann Zako, because
those elbows are up and he's really really standing his ground.
(10:23):
But he's got this calmness about him at the moment
in that he can be quite emotional, and we saw
that earlier in his career when he was at Yamahara
and he was just I'm gooing hell for leather at
the starter races and to hell with the outcome, and
the outcome was usually him falling off, or when he
was with Katim, he got so inside his own head
with that that that thing was over in half a
season because it was such a disaster. Whether it's just
(10:45):
age or stage of his career or you know, you
remember before he won an Australia in twenty twenty three,
it was always like, ah, he's the best rider never
to win a Grand Prix, the best rider never to
win a Grand Prix. So he got that monkey off
his back. He's just riding with a real sense of
calm at the moment. And look, we know that he
wants a factory HRC, right. I mean, now it's become
a seat that everyone wants all of a sudden. It was,
(11:06):
you know, a seat that everyone was running away from
about two years ago. But I think he is at
peace with whatever comes to pass here because he's in
a good place with Luceio on factory equipment at LCR.
And there's something about that smaller outfit and maybe his
voice can be a little bit louder in an outfit
like that because it's not as many people and not
as big, and I think he's quite relishing the role
(11:29):
of being a leader there. He's like the beacon for
them to follow, and you can see the way that
he's reacting to adversity. He's a lot more flatline than
he used to be. He used to be super spiky emotionally.
You know, there's a calm to the way he's going
racing at the moment, so for him to have the
like you said, you know, I'm going to watch what
Jack's doing, and as I was saying before, I'm going
(11:50):
to sit behind Bazeki because he's going to toe me
away from these guys. There's a clarity of thought with
him in battle at the moment that maybe we haven't
seen previously. He was just outstanding and I think on
any other day we would be talking more about him,
but for the fact that, well, he won the previous
race in France, so we spent a lot of time
talking about him last week, and because what Bozeki had
done was so brilliant on that Aprilia. But it's no
(12:14):
less of a ride from Zako, just tremendous all weekend
and up to fifth in the World Championship. A Honda
rider is in the top five of the World Championship.
It's been a while since we said that.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's been a long time since we six nice. How
cool the fact that we've started a majority of this
podcast talking about Aprillia, talking about young Psako on a Honda,
and now I'm going to go to Yamaha and talk
about Fabio Jack because it feels like all of last
year with our Pittok pod, and so far this year
it was Mark and Peco, Mark and Peco, Juohe Martin.
(12:45):
Now we're actually bringing the rest of the field into
the mix, and.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
It's the shaduff that we needed.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
But the shakeup faber Corderraro did not need was that
absolute heartbreak of his rear ride high device getting stuck on.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You could see it.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I was sitting in the media center when the race
was going on. You could see everyone going, why is
he breaking so hard? I think his maggots and beggetts.
Why is he trying to like do like a front
end stoppy? You know, someone even said, I thought I
saw a smoker lap earlier.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
But to have that, I think it's a four point
five second.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Lead ahead of theirs, To be that close to taste
the victory and have to forfeit the win.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I was almost into the whole media center.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Everyone was just going Fabio, Fabio, poor Fabio. And then
he came up and did his post race debrief and
actually started crying in front of the raw emotion because
we know that he is stuck with this manufacturer.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
He believes in them.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Obviously this weekend they brought in some era upgrades that
we could really see was beneficial to both him and Jack.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
But man for that victory to be so close.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Oh, when he can take the emotion out of this
and reflect on it, which you know is obviously going
to take days because it's been nearly three years since
you want a Grand Prix. When you can take the
emotion out of it and you can look at yourself
in the mirror and say I did everything right, and
I think that helps to take some of the sting
out of it, because in the end of the day
(14:18):
he was let down by his equipment with the failure
of the rear ride height device. Everything he could have
controlled he controlled absolutely brilliantly. Another just ridiculous pole position
on Saturday. And I know this is not what I
was going to say I get paid the big Bucks for,
or just so I get paid the Bucks for to
come up with words to describe things when they go. Well,
(14:39):
my reaction to Quaturero and Q two at the moment
is I just laugh a lot because it's just preposterous
some of the stuff that he's doing on that bike
at the moment. There's no words that really describe it.
But we saw in the sprint the previous day. It's like, well,
that's great, you can do that over one lap, but
doing it over a half race distance is not tenable,
and certainly over a full race distance. But I think
there are a couple of things at play on Sunday.
(15:01):
Being convinced to run the soft front was clearly the
right decision. So if Jack Miller was the guy who
convinced Fabio to go for that, then more cute os
to Jack with what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
There with Yamaha.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
But because we're in that second start, and at the
beginning of that race, you had Alex Marquess who'd fallen
off in the first start before it was red flag,
Mark Marquess who'd falled off in the first start before
it was red flag. The other fast guys that came through,
like Betzeki and Zako were several rows behind. You could
understand why maybe the ducaddies were a little bit cautious.
(15:31):
As much as murder GP riders get off the start
of the race, and Fabio's like the Yamaha works really
really well in clean air. These guys might be sick
and guessing themselves just a little bit after what happened
twenty minutes before. I'm going to just get out and
break these guys in the first few laps, and his
first five laps were absolutely astonishing, while the ducaddies were
(15:51):
floundering around and Jack Miller's up in second place. There
were two races going on. There was a couatarero race
by himself at the front, and then four and a
half seconds back there was Miller and everybody else. He
had done all the hard work and he was basically
in cruise control from there. There was a couple of
laps there when Bizeki got up to second and you're going, okay,
like Bozeki's three tenths faster, is he starting to get
(16:12):
back in the mix, And Fabio just got that gap
up by four tenths just to prove that he had
plenty left in his pocket if he needed to deploy it.
So for him to get a DNF after such a
long victory drought in that manner, absolutely gutting for him.
But like you said before, it's amazing we're having this
conversation about Yamaha because ever since the end of twenty two,
(16:35):
when he sort of fought the good fight but he
was fighting a losing battle with Banyay for that year's
title in twenty two, they've pretty much been nowhere in
twenty three and four, and you know, you can start
to not overrate what qua A already before. But there
is the question a lot we haven't seen you upfront
for a while. Are you super dependent on your equipment?
They all are to a degree, but he is one
(16:57):
of the absolute best guys on the grid. I'd go
as far as saying the only rider I would take
in a lottery in a draft over Fabio corceerro Be,
Mark Markez I Reckon.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
He's the second best rider remote GP. Quite frankly, it's.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
A great reminder of his quality and as galling as
that was for him to lose that win, I could
see him winning a race before this season is out
with the right set of circumstances and track and just
that little bit of luck that deserted him. But talk
about enhancing your reputation. He was absolutely brilliant and we've
seen three saturdays.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
In a row where he's been on pole.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
But that was a win he should have had, and
I do hope that twelfth twelfth win comes to him
soon because he certainly deserves it.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
You're the statsman, Matt, so I was just thinking when
you were talking with the lap times that that Zechi
was doing while Fabia was still in the lead. If
Fabio had managed to maintain not had that.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Technical issue, would Betzeki have caught up to Fabio?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Do you think with the laps time he was doing,
only because I asked the extreme close up we saw
of Zako's bike and how much that front tire was graining,
like you mentioned, do you think that would have it
would have stayed Fabio first, Marco then Zako or do
you think that say would have put up to him.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think I think Kuato had so much of a
gap at that point that it was up to four
and a half seconds. I think he could have probably
eased off, and that because there were six laps to
go when he retireds on lap twelve, so he probably
rolls to a two and a half to three second win.
I don't think we would have got down to look
Bazeki's brilliant on old tires. We've seen that before. But
(18:32):
those couple of laps where Kuaturo realized the pace behind
him was hiding up a little bit and it just
instantly took three tenths off what he was doing. He
had time and reserve there, so I don't think we
would have got some amazing last lap showed, and I
think he had them covered because of what he'd done in.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
The first five laps.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I thought he would have had more in his pocket
for the last five when you can start managing tyra
and just not taking as much risk. The first five
laps set him up for what should have been a
pretty emphatic victory and just gutting that you didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Oh. I found really interesting this weekend and thinking about
it so far this season, I really feel like Lady Luck, somehow,
miraculously is on the Marquez brother's side. I think about
the patch that if we didn't have that red flag
with both Marque's brothers crashing out on that first lap
during the original race start, that technically could have been
(19:23):
marked the DNF of the season. But the fact that
he got that red flag this weekend, he had that
red flag encoder. It just seems that so as miraculously
happening for the Marquez brothers.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
But you know what, like I mean, look to cover
the red flag off It was completely appropriate because you
had ad Catti on fire somewhere between the last two
quarters and spewing all over.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
The track, so they had to red flag it.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
And you know, the rule is what it is if
there's a red flag within the first three laps and
everyone gets to restart. The Alex Marquez crash was cold,
medium front tie and a front ride height device that
didn't disengage going to the first corner, which is why
he went down so rapidly. And then Mark's crash on
lap two of the first race was he said he'd
been super cautious through maggots and Becketts in the first lap,
and then when he was in the lead on lap
(20:08):
two he decided to push a little bit more and
was literally blown halfway off the track by the wind
because it was so gusting there and lost control there.
And we're talking about Jucadi. Before you look at what
a Ducaddi looks like relative to all the other motor
GP bikes. There's aerodynamic winglets on winglets on winglets on
those things. It looks like a cheese grater, there's so
many bits in it. But on a really windy day
like it was on Sunday, there's more surfaces for the
(20:30):
winter hit on the doucaddy and it definitely affected the performance.
You could see that was part of why they struggled relatively.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
But you know it was interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Mark was not happy after the race that he was
very annoyed with himself for the mistake that he made
in the first race, but he managed to regroup and
make the best of a bad situation. He was down
in tenth at one point on Sunday in that main
race and just methodically worked his way back through, And
you know, that was a day to that was a
(21:00):
day to consolidate. And he's had his eyes on his
brother Alex for a lot of these last few races.
If I'm having a bad day, that's not great. But
if I'm having a slightly less bad day than my
brother who's behind me, then that's good because I'm accumulating points.
And I'm always a believer that you win these World
Championships on your worst days, not your best ones. If
you can mitigate the pain of your bad days. If
(21:23):
he's not had a good day and he's not happy
with how he's ridden and the decisions he's made, and
he's banked to podium and he's finished two places ahead
of his main rival in the championship standings, that's a
good day and you take that one and you move on.
We know that Silveston's not a great circuit for him,
and an interesting theory. I heard about that over the weekend,
which makes complete sense. I'm not sure why I didn't
(21:44):
think about it before. A lot of the high speed
corners at Silverston are right handers, and we know Mark's
awesome and left hand corners, and Mark slightly struggled more
in these fast right handers ever since the fort shoulder
surgeries on your right side, which quite frankly, you would
struggle more in high speed right hand corners if you
have had your right shoulder operated on four times. It's
(22:04):
just not a track that suits his riding style, which
is amazing to think for a guy as good as
Mark is, so for him to get a podium out
of a weekend where he clearly wasn't quite right. He
got beaten in the sprint for the first time all year,
and rode a bit of luck to get on the
podium on Sunday. These are the days when you win
a World championship, not the days when you're cruising around
smashing everyone by ten seconds. It's making the best of
(22:25):
the least and that was definitely an example of that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Did you hear the off track talk about Peko Vano
and Mike Marquez and I don't know who said what,
but apparently it was along the lines of, you know,
you can't keep blaming the bike at some point, it's
coming down to the writer. I feel like that marquees
to Peco situation because you know, you're talking about making
(22:50):
the best of the worst situations and Peko Vanak is
on struggle Street at the.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Moment, right, Yeah, yeah, he is.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
I mean we've talked about this before and that there's
two really different approaches to try to achieve the same
end here in that Peko's you know, you always call
him the professor, and it's so right because he wants
to understand everything first and then deploy it. And we've
seen in the last couple of years that when he
does understand everything perfectly and everything is just so for
him in the way that he wants it. He can
(23:20):
get himself into a zone where he's just about impossible
to be unless he falls off, which he did last
year and why what lost the World championship. He can
get in those zones where he'll go to Asen or
he'll go to some of these tracks where he's in
his sweet spot and you just don't see him for
the entire weekend. It's like bye bye p one and
he just disappears. There's a bit of Johaler and so
in the way that he goes about it and seat
of you know, that real sort of win every race
(23:41):
and the laboratory perfectly. Whereas Mark, let's be honest, a
lot of those years at Honda, that bike wasn't the
best or second best bike on the grid. But Mark's
one of these guys who would just bend a bike
to its will and it's just like, well, this isn't perfect,
but I'm just going to manhandle this thing into a
position it shouldn't be in. And to my mind, the
biggest legacy of what Mark's done in his motor GP
career not so much what he did at Honda. Look
(24:05):
what happened to Honda when he was either injured or
not there, or once he left, they were absolutely hopeless
for years. Because he was so good. He masked a
lot of the problems that bike had, and Honda could
look at it and say, well, this thing's still winning races,
whereas the probably the question was, well could any other
rider win a race on this thing? So Mark is
the guy who I reckon. Mark would be a terrible
(24:26):
test rider or a terrible development rider, because you could
give him a bike that was no good and you'll
be like, and that's fine, it's fast. I could get
around on this thing, not be just by riding around
the problems or the deficiencies of a machine, whereas someone
else will go, well it doesn't turn, and it doesn't
do this, and it doesn't do that, where Mark's just like,
I'll live with that. So you know, Mark on the
best bike is dangerous. Mark on not the best bike
(24:48):
is possibly even more dangerous, because that's when you see
how good the guy is. So you've got Bagnaro Marquez
approaching the same problem from two very very different directions.
Peco's not the sort of guy who can just say,
but I'm just going to ride this thing harder and
live with the consequences. Peco needs to know why things
happen and how they happen before he commits to doing them,
(25:08):
whereas Mark's prepared to live more on his wits. And
it's so interesting that I love a bit of motor
GP body language. I'm a big fan of it because
when you see it's not so much what people say,
it's what they don't say, right, And you can see
so much in the body language and these pressed dee
briefings and everything else. You watch every little interaction in
and angle, not so much the soundbites, but how they're
(25:30):
saying them. You can learn so much about a way
a writer goes about it by what they're not saying,
which I know sounds a bit counterintuitive, but there's so
much about the approach and the attitude of writers up
and down the grid, and Mark and Pecco are at
very opposite ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
There.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
On that note, I have.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
To bring up the whole alicious Bargero Morbidelli first lap
slash that Morbidelli's blaming Aleish, saying he did it on purpose.
I feel like this is a few day is obviously
dating back years and years and years ago, but why
is this still happening now? Talking about the body language,
you could see these two just wanting to butt heads.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
The two of them walking out of the gravel trap
together when they clearly would have wanted to be next
to anybody else in the world except for the person
they were walking next to, was high comedy because they
covered it for it was so It was so so funny.
And you love a good, long running grudge which you'd't
even know where it has its genesis. This thin Morbidelli
(26:31):
on Sunday brought up the fact that he thought that
Elisia Spargo cost him the twenty twenty World Championship. That's
the first time I've heard that one. We're going back
five years saying that, oh he did something to me
beside oh that year, and everyone's like, wow, you don't
carry a grudge Morbidelli. I don't know whether you were
at his press debrief on Sunday. He's talking about a
Spargo and obviously he's a wild card at the moment,
(26:51):
and Morbidelli said, well, he won't be here for the
next race, so it's all good, and then just walked off.
It was the It was the funniest way to end
a press debrief.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
So those two definitely have some history.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
We remember the slapping incident in Guitar a few years
ago which got Elash into a lot of trouble. They
have formed, they have history, and it was one of
those things on the first lap of that race where
Alesha afterwards said that I actually breaked almost too early
into that second last corner on the end of lap
one because I didn't want to run up the back
of someone or cause a problem, and then it ended
up causing a problem. But those two are like magnets
(27:23):
to each other where they're on the track, like you
know they're going to come together at some point and
get the pop called out and enjoy the fallout because
it's difficult get.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
The popcorn out as well for that last lap. Speaking
of Morbidelli, that battle with him in Mark, if there
was anyone on the grid who was going to send
it to Mark because he has nothing to lose, it
was a Morbidali and you could see that I was
sitting in the media center, like I said, and everyone
was like, come on, Frankie, come on, Frankie, because you.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Just know that he was just going to send it.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, he was another guy who you know that restarted race.
We're talking about the Marquez brothers before and the fact
that Morbidelli he was off the bike and he's actually fractured.
He's left foot I heard today as well in that
accident before the right he's got a fracture in there,
which is going to have to deal with the fact
that he was almost getting a podium about an hour later.
Was a pretty good outcome for him. But yeah, he
(28:13):
certainly wasn't going to die wondering on that last quarter.
He was going to send it and of course everyone
in the media sent to knew, everyone watching on TV
knew it, and Mark Marquez knew it as well. So
I'm just going to slightly run you out onto the
exit curb there and I only need to beat you
by seventeen thousands, but that's fine. I'll take my podium trophy,
thank you exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And obviously, being in an Aussie podcast, we have to
talk about Jack Miller, because, like we mentioned earlier, at
one point there I was messaging the guys at Fox
Australia saying, oh my goodness, we might have an Aussie
across all three podiums. Straight after the Motor two Prodium,
which we'll talk about shortly. But Jack Miller, we spoke
about the error upgrades a little bit, but Temmy because
(28:55):
you wrote a fantastic piece on Jack, because the news
broke about him doing the Suzuka for Yamaha, which is
a prestigious event in its own What was with Jack?
What was that that pace? Why did he drop down
further in the race? Was it the tires in.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
The end a little bit.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I mean, Jack is pretty hard on tires, as we know,
relative to some of the other guys that were running
the soft but he was still fourth with four laps
to go, like he'd gotten shuffled down the pack a
little bit more. Beidelli at Alberti about of the way
he managed to recover from that and get back on
his lines. And there's something about that Yamaha that he.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Was saying afterwards.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
When it can run its lines and you can you're
not having to really stop the bike to block, pass
or defend when it runs its line smoothly, it's a
really really effective bike. We saw that with Quaaterero upfront
just doing the perfect race. I'm not sure that Yamaha
is the greatest sort of bike in combat, if that
makes sense, because it's you interrupt the flow of that
bike and it's no wheredear as effective. But Jack had
(29:52):
got himself back up to P four and then with
about four laps to go he had that came slightly
wide into T nine there at Cops and as he
said afterwards, got out on all the dirty stuff on
the outside, and then you know, Morbidelli got back past him,
and then a cost that came back through while Jack
was recovering from being out in the weeds a little bit.
So that was probably the one that annoyed him the
most because he finished seventh and probably should have finished
(30:13):
fifth or sixth. But you've also got to take the
fact that you know, he had that three full events
without a score, you know, through Qatar and Spain and France,
with some incredibly bad luck in that, and then obviously
the mistake that he made in France had probably cost
himself minimum podium possibly a win on the day that
Zako won that race. So I think for him to
score points in a sprint for the first time this year,
(30:35):
and then to get a decent hall of points in
a Grand Prix, I think that's a pretty good weekend
given where things have been recently. But there were two
things for me, and I wrote about this today. I
think the fact that Yamaha have entrusted him to do
the eight hour, like it's a big, prestigious honor for
racing for a Japanese manufacturer in that event in Japan,
which is such a massive deal. You have to remember
(30:57):
Jack Miller doesn't have a contract with Yamaha for next year.
But if you were ever wondering what Yamaha think of
what he's doing behind the scenes and the impact that
he has made, I would be stunned if he doesn't
get a deal for next year. And I think being
entrusted with something like the eight Hour in August is
only proof of that. But I also I mentioned it
earlier in the podcast, the fact that he'd gone out
and done the sighting lap on the soft front and thought,
(31:19):
I'm noticing something here and immediately went to the factory
Yamaha box and grabbed rins and grab couatarra. You could
see them talking, and I dare say Jack was saying, Look,
with my experience around this place, I think I know
how this is going to play out, and I'm not
going to tell you what front tire to run, but
this is what I'm running, and this is why I'm
running it, And I think that shows you that there's
a real team player aspect to what Jack is doing
(31:40):
at the moment. I think he's doing things for the
greater good of that brand, and he might not be
getting their headlines for it or necessarily the points at
the moment, but we can see what Fabio's doing. Jack's
had a big role behind the scenes testing that bike.
I think his impact there has been pretty significant, and
it look It was nice to see him in the
best positions he'd been in all season. Probably a little
(32:03):
bit disappointed with himself that he probably didn't score a
top five in that race, but it was nice to
see him back up the front and old merit and
it looked really good. So, you know, fingers crossed, that's
the start of an upward trend for him because the
previous few races, Yeah, he committed a few silly mistakes
here and there, but Manny had some weird stuff happened
to him like hereth and some other plot and some
of the other Grand Prix that he had. So nice
(32:23):
to see him back up there. But his impact there
is pretty evident to me.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
He's interesting you pointing that out, and now we're taking
the step back and having a look.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You can really see Yamaha are working together.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
It's not so much like an individual like for example
it was last year with Pramac, Jucaddy and Factory Jucatti.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You see the.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yamaha group are working so strongly together, and I think
that's what is helping them. Like you just said there,
I think between Jack and Fabio, we're not seeing the
necessarily the same stuff with Alex Frinz because we know
Alex has those injuries and whatnot. And then we've got
miguel O Lavera who's also just had a string of
bad luck over it. But I think with what you're
(33:04):
saying about Jack and what I'm hearing it, and I'm
reading what you're writing as well, if Yama don't resign
Jack for fromak Yabaha next year, it's going to be
kind of turning heads. It's going to be a whole Hey, Martine,
not getting the factory ride type of like why are
you not keeping him here?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Because we're seeing what he's doing and obviously.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
What they're bringing in this weekend though, with that new
Arrow update that they had, you think that's what benefited them,
because when I was talking to Jack on Thursday, he
was saying, Oh, this is a track that he's confident at.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Here, he feels comfortable here.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Was that Errow that what what helped them? Or was
it just the fact that you know, he was feeling
strong here? We know Fabrio is coming off like a
strong couple of races as well.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah, bit of bitter Colubu and bitter colar bloo with
all this sort of I think the key part is
you remember the day after her Reath they had the
one day test there where they tried the new engine
and a whole bunch of new Errow stuff. We were
probably going to see what that could really do at Lamon,
but it rained on the Sunday, so you know, all
bets are off a little bit. We didn't really quite
see the dry weather performance, and even Silveston to a
(34:07):
degree because the weather was so weird on Sunday it
was so cold and so blustery. Then you know, once
we go to Aragon for the next round, I think
that's where we're going to get a true representation of
where the Yamaha has improved because you think of Aragon,
it's got that massive long back straight, which in the
past the Yamaha has just got their doors blown off
going down that straight by they do caddies because they
(34:27):
were fifteen twenty k hour slower. I'll be super curious
to see the speed trap figures once we get to Aragon,
because it's much more of a normal in inverted Commas
circuit with the exception of that back straight, which is
where they issued bleed lap time all the time. So
we'll see if the new engine they've put in really
is stronger on a track that really rewards that sort
of thing. But I think you can see the state
(34:48):
of Yamaha's progress by the fact that there were three
of them in Q two, which is something we've not
seen for a really, really long time. Jack was right
up the front as early as Friday practice. He was
third after Friday and Oliver still there's a bit of
an asterisk because he's still not one hundred percent fit,
we know that, but he was closer to those other
guys than he's been.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
For a while.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
So you know, Yamaha have double the bikes of last
year and they're operating really well as one entity rather
than two teams, which you were talking about with Decadi
last year. They feel really together for me, and having
a couple of experienced guys in that second team once
Olivera gets back up to speed helping to.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Push the development along.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
It's a really good rider lineup because the youngest and
most forceful of them is you know, the guy who's
going to lead the project in terms of results, which
is Quaerero. But you've got other guys behind the scenes
that are making a real impact. And the other factor
on Jack before he's had wrapped. The jackpart of this
up is that I think the fact that you've got
one more year of these rules in twenty six before
(35:47):
you move into twenty seven and kind of the great
unknown with the big reset, the fact you've got continuity
and Yamaha's clearly made progress year on year. It would
be stunning if they didn't keep Jack because I feel
that he's doing everything he needs to do in terms
of impact at that manufacturer. I mean, he scored less
points at this time of the year than he'd scored
at KTM last year, but the whole KTM thing last
(36:08):
year felt that he was dead man walking, right. You
kind of knew that he was out there, whereas I
think here he's making a real impact. I don't think
it's any surprise that that bike has been one of
the big improvers of the year because he's doing what
he needs to do.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I can't wait for twenty seven to hurry up, because
you think we were in twenty twenty seven right now,
Fabrico Daura would have won that because there wouldn't have
been the whole rhin eye devisol technology changes everything.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
So, like you said, that sounds like another podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, okay, that's your job to write about all that
text stuff about it.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
But oh man, can't wait to see Jack Miller on
a podium this year, Ossie on a podium in Moto GP.
But we had an Aussie on the podium in Moto
too with his maiden Moto to Grand Prix victory. And
I tell you what being there to witness that, to
see him, to see his dad John O, them tears,
(37:03):
the whole team, Wow, just wow, what it was.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
It was so good.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I mean, I love the fact that it was the
first race of the night as well, obviously because the
program was slightly jumbled with the Motor GP being the
middle race of the three. But to see the way
Centner won that race, this is not you know, I
heard it described as, you know, the Stephen Bradbury way
for everyone to knock each other off and you know
we're a gold medal. It's not how it quite worked
because it was a strange Motor two race and that
(37:31):
you don't often get big packs battling for the lead
in Moto two like this, but at Silverston you do.
It's just a nature of that particular track. And there
were five of them in that pack for the entire race,
and they each gave as good as they got. But
you know, I just never led that race until the
second last quarter. He certainly timed it right. But one
of the things I loved about this was that he
(37:52):
looked at the two guys that were ahead of him
on the final lap. You've got Aaron Connett, and anyone
who's got tattoos up to his jawline, he can probably
tell the way he's going to fight in a last
lab battle. There's a certain tell with a guy's eg
with that situation. He's also an established guy who isn't
going to be pushed around on the last lap, particularly
when he's racing against a young kid that's come up
from Moto III last year and is starting to pull
(38:14):
up trees. And David Alonso, who we talked about Alonso
last year. He's the next big Motor GP staff of mine.
Once he gets himself in there, you knew there were
going to be fireworks on that last lap because Connett
was just not going to sit there and say, well
after you to David Alonzo, it's like, you want to
race at the front end Motor two in the last lap, Well,
this is how this works. And I love the fact
that Ags saw this was coming and positioned himself in
(38:38):
the perfect place if it all went wrong, keyword being
if he was there to sweep up and take the victory.
It was brilliantly executed given what was on the line
for him as a first time Grand Prix winner, and
it happened so fast. And the funniest part about this,
and you can take our listeners behind the curtain a
little bit here because you're.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
On the ground.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
The Stilveston press room is in possibly the silliest place
of any racetrack of the entire world, because it takes
about one hundred years to get anywhere I remember going there.
We couldn't actually see the circuit at one point. I
don't know whether they fix that or not. It's still
pretty hard to work out what's going on. But with
all that excitement going on, there were plenty of Australians
that were watching it happening in real time, but you
weren't one of them.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
No, no, I was running down. I was saying to
Matt that with our whole last lap, I'm thinking, oh
Sin is probably going to get on.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The podium, and I'm filming.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Some vlogs and social content for Fox Motorsports. So let
me head on down and catch center and park Ferme.
And as I'm going down, like you said, you can't
see what's happening in Philip Island, for example, as a
track where you can see the racetrack from the media center,
but Silverstone is not. And I'm running down and I
can hear everyone like screaming and getting really excited.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
I could hear the grand stands off the main street.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And I come on down and I look at the
big screen and I see that Senter's one. So I've
missed all the on track action from Cener getting into
the lead. But all I was thinking the whole time
was obviously Alonzo and Cannett, and we know what Alonso's like.
But I'm also thinking of Marrera against Senna because those
who have exchanged quite a lot, thinking back to Thailand
in round one, and I know that they want to
(40:12):
get their elbows out with each other. Shall we say,
they're not afraid to send it to one another there, so,
but watching just the raw emotion and when I spoke
to Senna in the broadcast is set after for Fox Motorsport,
I said, what was it like when you.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Realized you had won? What was it like? And he
said he just had to stop when he was in tears.
And for those of you who.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Know Sona, and he's quite a serious character, as we've
spoken to him on the pod before, you know, he's
very straightforward and very focused on what he wants. And
for him to say that he's led out a bit
of emotion is wow. Okay, you can see what this
means to him. The whole team where there to celebrate,
even his teammate Manu, who crashed out earlier in the race,
(40:56):
to celebrate with him. So once again it's that camaraderie there.
You can see them all working really together. But the
center he's had, you know, multiple podiums already now we've seen,
but now it's that victory. Okay, here's our hope for
the next Aussie and somroto GP and if we can
keep progressing on this trajectory, he's going to get there well.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
And you can understand why he reacted the way that
he did afterwards because he led the race for about
two and a half seconds, so there's a bit of
process after the race because like, oh, I've just won
by first grold breed. If you're ever got a win
a first Grold prie, that'd be the way to do it.
But I just am really impressed with the way he's
going about it because it's not just this flash in
the pan, like oh, he's on the podium. Like Philip
Biol last year was amazing, but it was a bit
(41:38):
of an outlier, let's be honest, and you know, because
it came from kind of nowhere and he did. You know,
he's very good all weekend there, but it wasn't like
he was on this huge run of competing for podiums.
You're almost surprised now when he's not up the front
because it looks completely legit.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
But one thing I did love.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
I mean, this is one of the things I love
about this championship in that the international nature of Moto GP.
An Australian, a brazil and a Colombian on the podium.
It sounds like the first line of a bad joke,
doesn't it. An Australian, a Colombian and a Brazilian.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Walk into a bar.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
But the three of them, you know, no Spanish Italian riders.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
You know. Jake Dixon wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
He's normally so good at silver, so that it was
just so bizarre to see those three flags going up
behind the podium ceremony. But the best part about it
was that the flag in the middle, the one that
was the highest, was the Australian flag.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
And of course he did this showy on the podium
which we had supposed the.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Fox Motorsports Socials.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
That was a standard Australian little nod there. But I
think routes to stend on his mad Moto IWO victory
and obviously Moto three unfortunate events for our Aussie. Joel
can also with that DNF Joel when I was talking
to him on Thursday as well. He was saying he's
feeling really confident the runs that he's been having so
(42:51):
far this season. You know, he's just feeling out along
with the bike, and this was a track that he
felt really confident going into.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And then we see that on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
You know, like you said, you've got to take the
positives from the vat and when you can. But Joel,
he's on track and he's working hard to potentially get
a higher championship position this year.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, and crashing from the lead as well at the
same quarter where Agis had gotten in front about ninety
minutes before that. So I have all the places to
do it. But you know, we talked about this last
week after he'd led for so long at Lemont. There
is going to be a Grand Prix win.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
For him this year.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
He's just been too good and too consistent and too
fast to not have one before the end of this year.
And it was still quite early in the race at Silverstone.
We know that Motor three can be a complete fist
fight for twenty laps there, so who knows where that
would have ended up for him, But you can just
see it like there's a confidence and a belief there
now he knows he's legit at the front of that championship.
(43:48):
Wouldn't surprise me at all if it happens in the
next two or three rounds. So an unfortunate one. And
what was weird about it too, is you sort of
scratched your head. That's like, huh, when was the last
time he was in a position of advantage and actually
squad did it because it doesn't happen very often with
Joel these days. He's like this super consistent performer. So unfortunate.
I'm sure he was kicking himself because that's not one
(44:09):
of those ones where it was someone else that took
him out or nudged him off the track like it
happened at Lamon at the end of that race.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
But it's coming. You can see that it's coming.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
It's just unfortunate that a track that he was super
confident at that it didn't work out for him on Sunday.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
But I dare say that's not the last of him.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
The time we get to Aragon in a couple of weeks,
he'll be right back where he's been all season.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
I think.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
And Jacob Rolston, he crossed the line in thirteenth. I
believe the same position that he qualified in in Moto three.
But if you assies, if you guys didn't watch the
Moto three race, because I know it wasn't on at
a friendly time zone, shall we say you.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Need to go back and watch it.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Because Ruwaida Rada one the three race from last place
on the grid.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
That was only this, well, tell you someone who did
believe it.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Sitting in the.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Wait to go into the press conference after because Moto
GP was the middle of the three races, Mark Marquez
is watching Moto three in the early laps on the
monitor and says Ruada will win this after he'd started
from last on the grid. So if Mark Marquez doesn't,
you know, this whole motorcycle riding thing doesn't work out
for Mark, we'll get a job as like a fortune
teller or something, because that seems to be pretty good
for him. But the fact the fact that he picked
(45:22):
that so early, Ruaida is just on a different level
in that championship this year, it's very rare to think
of guys who can come from the very back or
pit lane starts and actually winning that cat grig because
it's so cutthroat, I mean, you think I remember Pedro
Costa doing that in Qatar really early in his Moto
three career. Came for the pitlane to win a race,
So only the really good ones do that. We know
he's with a good team there, but man from last
(45:44):
on the grid to win. And this wasn't like Lemon
where if he inherited a win because of some silliness
on the final lap which included Joe kel So awesome performance,
but yeah, Mark Marqus picked at about half an hour
before it happened. So if he liked to send us
this week's lottery numbers, then you might your co host
for next week's podcast, because I'll probably be on a
beach somewhere.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Hey, if you're getting some of those lottery numbers, I
want some as well.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
I'll pass it on.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Just give market As a call and ask the lottery numbers. Well, guys,
that pretty much wraps up Moto GP from Silverstone. If
you want to know a little bit more about what
happens at a European MotoGP race, you can head to
the Fox Sports YouTube channel, where I am working on
a log. Plus I got some cool behind the scenes
coming up with Alpine Stars and Brambo, who took me
(46:33):
behind in their workshops to show me what is happening
on a Moto GP weekend, and it was actually quite
interesting because a little spoiler alert, I got to see
them repair Alex Marquez's favorite suit and how that.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Happens on the go.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
But if you want to also catch up on all
the latest MotoGP news, you can read Math's articles on
foxsport dot com, dot au, Forward Slash Motorsport, and follow
along with me on socials at Fox Motorsport everywhere. I'm
now attending the next F one race, so you guys
will get to hear a little bit from me about
F one and Matt. I'm sure you'll be talking with
Michael Lamonado about the upcoming F one at Barcelona, but
(47:12):
from us here at Moto GP Pit Talk, brought to
you by Shannon's Insurance. We're going to be back real
soon because Aragon is in less than two weeks.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
For more Moto GP Pit Talk
Well, we swapped Ozzie flat Whites for a proper British
brew this weekend and witness history made heartbreak and a
whole lot of hard racing at the British Grand Prix.
Moto GP Pittook is brought to you by Shannon's Insurance.
I'm your host, Rinita Vmuellen, and adjoining me is Moto
GP's very own walking encyclopedia and a bloke who's probably
(00:22):
still recovering from a shock of sunshine at Silverstone on Sunday,
Matt Clayton.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Matt, we were talking off air and we're like, we have.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
To hit record and get started, because can you believe
the highs and the lows at the British Grand Prix.
What a weekend for the West start of the Heizo
are Prillier Mmm.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Of all the things that we could have been talking
about to lead this podcast after where we left it
last week with turmoil at a Prillier and Joge Martin
wants to leave and are they going to let him leave?
And there's no future in this project, but you know
you had the random element of Silverstone we talked about
this last week. The previous ten installments of this Grand
Prix had ten different winners. Let's just extend that to
(01:05):
eleven Grand Prix and eleven different winners because out of
absolutely nowhere, having finished in the top six once the
entire year, Marco Berseki wins his fourth Grand Prix. But
an amazing culmination of events, which we'll get into through
this podcast. But for a Prillia where you've got the
world champion that you moved heaven and earth to sign
(01:25):
last year, getting cold feet, not even having done one
race in the project, and now you can turn around
and say, by the way, this bike can win a
Grand Prix. So anytime you'd like to throw your leg
over one and not fall off, then be our guest.
But great news for Aprilia, fantastic for Bozeki. But how
we got there? It was a suitably wacky British Grand
Prix with so many variables. But I don't even know
(01:47):
where you're going to start. There's about one hundred different
options year I.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Want to start with.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And I don't want to take anything away from Marco
Bedzeki because you could clearly tell that he was on
fire from the first race start after the red flag
and on the second race start. But The thing that
caught my attention was Masimo Rivela and his comments to
the press after of hey, jo hey Martin, look at this,
(02:14):
our bite can win with all that off track drama
that we've had. And then Marco Bezeki goes and wins
and he's on fire and he had that helmet and
a mullet. On the weekend, it.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Just seemed like all the door opened up.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Lady Luck was on Marco's side, right, But like I said,
he was on fire. I don't know, if you're watching
the lap times, Mark, You're not Mark, you're Matt. But well,
he started tenth on the grid. I think at one
point on the first lap he was back down in
like nineteenth or something. Then next minute you see him,
he's like fifth or sixth, and he's second and he's
(02:48):
leading the Grand Prix. Whatever happened, whatever it was this
shift this weekend, because going into it it did really
look like it was Alex Marquez who was going to
be the favorite after the sprint win on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Something clicked to micro Betzeki and he made it work.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I mean, look, Aprilia has got four around here. We
know that it's been a good track for them in
the past, Faverick Vinille's on the podium, Malesias Spargo won
a race there. So to see a Prillia being stronger
here than maybe anywhere for the rest of the season
so far, that wasn't the thing that surprised me. It
was more that it was Bazeki because he's been kind
of captain anonymous most of the time since he's been
at Aprillier. There's been so much discussion about the guy
(03:26):
who's supposed to be his teammate who hasn't been there.
And then early in the season, you remember the Aprillia
that was getting all the publicity was Agura because of
how awesome he was entire Land in his first race,
And so Marco's kind of existed under the raidar. He's
had a couple of races where he's been in okay
positions and he's run off into breaking zones and trundled
around at the back. But he's one of those guys
that we saw it in twenty twenty three when he
(03:47):
won those three Grand Prix and he was in the
thick of the championship fight till pretty late in the season.
His sweet Spots is sort of quite narrow, I reckon,
but when he gets in it, he is almost unbe
He just goes into this trance where he's just churning
out one lap after another after another. The most telling
sign to me about how good he was at Silverstone
(04:08):
was listening to Jean Zako afterwards he finished second, which
we'll get into, and Zarko's whole point was, I know
when Marco's in this sort of mood that it's almost
pointless fighting with him because you're not going to win
that fight. But so I elected just to try and
sit behind him and copy what he was doing, because
he was so fast, he was probably going to drag
(04:28):
me away from the others if I was able to
lock him behind him and just ride his lines. And
I thought that was really interesting from someone like Zarko,
who doesn't take defeat very easily or very well. But
he recognized, all right, I know when I'm beaten for
a win, but this guy's so good today with this
bike in this package, that he can actually help me
if I just play this smart here. And that's the
biggest sign of respect for a guy who is just
(04:50):
in that really narrow sweet spot but making everything work.
And you mentioned the sprint, like Buzeki was really good
in the sprint as well. He didn't get on the
podium there, but you could see that pace. It's like,
all right, how's this going to translate over a full
Grand Prix distance? Once we eventually got to a full
Grand Prix distance after the aborted start and all the
silliness on the first two laps, which we'll talk about,
(05:11):
the key thing for the whole weekend, and I wrote
a pretty significant piece of Fox Sports what is it
Tuesday morning Australian Time on you were there? It was
cold on Sunday, properly cold. I know it's ten days
before summer in the UK, but it was fifteen degree
ambient temperature. And the key point of the race was
there were eight riders who started on the soft front tire,
(05:34):
which you would never use a soft rount tire at
Silverston normally because the high speed corners had just chew
that thing up. The track temp was so low that
you needed the grip, and you look at the guys
who started on the soft front tire and where they
ended up. Jack Miller was kind of the pioneer and
a lot of guys followed what Jack did. But Zako
was on the soft front tire. He went from the
third row to the podium. Bazeki was on the soft
(05:56):
front tire. He went from the fourth row to win
the race. Quaaterero was on the off front tire and
he led the race until the bike packed up. Jack
obviously did well. There were preda. A Costa came through
from the fifth throw on that same tire, and you
saw the crashes at the start of the first race,
and even the underperformance by the deucaddies in particular, they
couldn't run that soft front because it was graining so badly.
(06:17):
They were kind of stuck with the medium front. Normally,
Silveston is a track where you need a strong front tire,
but it was so cold that there was no real
purchase from that medium tire. Have you ever seen a
scrappier race? For some of those decaddies, They were off
the track all over the place. Marquees was all over
the place, Bano I fell down to, Jane Antonio was nowhere,
Alex Marquez had the big crash at the start of
(06:38):
the first race. They had no grip and it was
just so bizarre seeing we've become so used to seeing
the Jacati carp and how good the ducaddies are in
this series. They look like sort of also ran for
most of the weekend, and it shows you how good
Marques's powers of recovery were that he was able to
finish on the podium. But this was a race for
everybody else, and the best of everybody else was and
(06:58):
Aprilia on this circle and Marco Bozeki in that sweet spot.
I got to say, it was quite nice seeing a
variety up the front because there was a time there
where I thought, huh, we may not even get a
du Catti on the podium, and you know, so that
made me think, how long has it been since we
haven't had a du caddie on the podium. So I
went digging and went digging and went more digging because
(07:19):
it had been so long. It was twenty twenty one,
that was the last time we had a Grand Prix
where there were no ducaddies on the podium. We just
about got it. But yeah, amazing Sunday. I've gone off
in eighty seven different directions there because I had so
much to say. But I don't know for you. Being
on the ground there, there was this this sense with
Bozeki that it kind of felt like it was his
destiny for the whole weekend. He just looked like a
(07:41):
race winner, didn't he From the moment the sprint started,
he looked like a guy who could win a Grand Prix.
And then he went and went and did it.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
He just looked strong.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I don't know any other words to say, just strong
this weekend. And like you mentioned there with du caddies,
and it's something that I did want to bring up,
is Pekovanyaya looked weak this weekend. Marko Bitzeki looked strong.
And even when you was watching him in his pro
session debriefs and whatnot, there was just something there, like
(08:10):
a subtle confidence of maybe everything starting to align. And
I think all the off talk drama, he clearly wasn't
involved in it and was just pushing it to the side.
But going on track, it just felt comfortable. Then when
you, you know, bring up obviously alage having the wind there whatnot,
it seems to be it's a circuit that does obviously
suit the Aprilias. But talking about Sunday in particular, the
(08:34):
wind was really strong on Sunday, so they were actually
traveling a less speed. I did hear the stat and
you probably not, Matt. I'm not sure the exact speed
difference that they were traveling on the Sunday, but that
put everything into play as well, and I think that's
when we're starting to see the weaknesses in g K,
(08:56):
the weaknesses in Peco especially, And I know we want
to come onto that through because I need to talk
about Joan Zarco when you talk about Fabio.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Let's just.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So let's move on to Let's move on to Zako quickly.
Because Joan Zarco back to back prodiums with Honda, first
time since the whole Mark Marquez era, I'm assuming as well.
And then I'm sure you heard this about his post
race debrief, but he said that when they.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Did that first start he felt quite jumbled. I guess,
a bit like on edge.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
That racey start allowed him to calm down. And then
I heard what you said about the Zecie I read
as well. He said that Jack Miller he just wanted
to get in with Jack because Jack could create his
own lines. He would stay behind and hopefully get out
to the front. So it seems like Joan Zarko is
really working hard now to be that top Honda rider.
We keep hearing rumors about him potentially going to HLC
(09:49):
and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
What was it about this weekend though?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
For you, Matt, Why is Zarko now all of a
sudden closer to the front it is? Are they bringing
a lot more new development with them?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
It's partly the development.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I think it's partly what he's doing with the motorbike
at the moment, because you see what the other guys
on the Hondas are doing, and you see flashes with Zako.
He's got this sort of very bizarre combination. He's almost
the fiercest guy in elbow to elbow combat, like you
know when you're in a fight with Johann Zako, because
those elbows are up and he's really really standing his ground.
(10:23):
But he's got this calmness about him at the moment
in that he can be quite emotional, and we saw
that earlier in his career when he was at Yamahara
and he was just I'm gooing hell for leather at
the starter races and to hell with the outcome, and
the outcome was usually him falling off, or when he
was with Katim, he got so inside his own head
with that that that thing was over in half a
season because it was such a disaster. Whether it's just
(10:45):
age or stage of his career or you know, you
remember before he won an Australia in twenty twenty three,
it was always like, ah, he's the best rider never
to win a Grand Prix, the best rider never to
win a Grand Prix. So he got that monkey off
his back. He's just riding with a real sense of
calm at the moment. And look, we know that he
wants a factory HRC, right. I mean, now it's become
a seat that everyone wants all of a sudden. It was,
(11:06):
you know, a seat that everyone was running away from
about two years ago. But I think he is at
peace with whatever comes to pass here because he's in
a good place with Luceio on factory equipment at LCR.
And there's something about that smaller outfit and maybe his
voice can be a little bit louder in an outfit
like that because it's not as many people and not
as big, and I think he's quite relishing the role
(11:29):
of being a leader there. He's like the beacon for
them to follow, and you can see the way that
he's reacting to adversity. He's a lot more flatline than
he used to be. He used to be super spiky emotionally.
You know, there's a calm to the way he's going
racing at the moment, so for him to have the
like you said, you know, I'm going to watch what
Jack's doing, and as I was saying before, I'm going
(11:50):
to sit behind Bazeki because he's going to toe me
away from these guys. There's a clarity of thought with
him in battle at the moment that maybe we haven't
seen previously. He was just outstanding and I think on
any other day we would be talking more about him,
but for the fact that, well, he won the previous
race in France, so we spent a lot of time
talking about him last week, and because what Bozeki had
done was so brilliant on that Aprilia. But it's no
(12:14):
less of a ride from Zako, just tremendous all weekend
and up to fifth in the World Championship. A Honda
rider is in the top five of the World Championship.
It's been a while since we said that.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's been a long time since we six nice. How
cool the fact that we've started a majority of this
podcast talking about Aprillia, talking about young Psako on a Honda,
and now I'm going to go to Yamaha and talk
about Fabio Jack because it feels like all of last
year with our Pittok pod, and so far this year
it was Mark and Peco, Mark and Peco, Juohe Martin.
(12:45):
Now we're actually bringing the rest of the field into
the mix, and.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
It's the shaduff that we needed.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
But the shakeup faber Corderraro did not need was that
absolute heartbreak of his rear ride high device getting stuck on.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
You could see it.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I was sitting in the media center when the race
was going on. You could see everyone going, why is
he breaking so hard? I think his maggots and beggetts.
Why is he trying to like do like a front
end stoppy? You know, someone even said, I thought I
saw a smoker lap earlier.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
But to have that, I think it's a four point
five second.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Lead ahead of theirs, To be that close to taste
the victory and have to forfeit the win.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I was almost into the whole media center.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Everyone was just going Fabio, Fabio, poor Fabio. And then
he came up and did his post race debrief and
actually started crying in front of the raw emotion because
we know that he is stuck with this manufacturer.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
He believes in them.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Obviously this weekend they brought in some era upgrades that
we could really see was beneficial to both him and Jack.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
But man for that victory to be so close.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Oh, when he can take the emotion out of this
and reflect on it, which you know is obviously going
to take days because it's been nearly three years since
you want a Grand Prix. When you can take the
emotion out of it and you can look at yourself
in the mirror and say I did everything right, and
I think that helps to take some of the sting
out of it, because in the end of the day
(14:18):
he was let down by his equipment with the failure
of the rear ride height device. Everything he could have
controlled he controlled absolutely brilliantly. Another just ridiculous pole position
on Saturday. And I know this is not what I
was going to say I get paid the big Bucks for,
or just so I get paid the Bucks for to
come up with words to describe things when they go. Well,
(14:39):
my reaction to Quaturero and Q two at the moment
is I just laugh a lot because it's just preposterous
some of the stuff that he's doing on that bike
at the moment. There's no words that really describe it.
But we saw in the sprint the previous day. It's like, well,
that's great, you can do that over one lap, but
doing it over a half race distance is not tenable,
and certainly over a full race distance. But I think
there are a couple of things at play on Sunday.
(15:01):
Being convinced to run the soft front was clearly the
right decision. So if Jack Miller was the guy who
convinced Fabio to go for that, then more cute os
to Jack with what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
There with Yamaha.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
But because we're in that second start, and at the
beginning of that race, you had Alex Marquess who'd fallen
off in the first start before it was red flag,
Mark Marquess who'd falled off in the first start before
it was red flag. The other fast guys that came through,
like Betzeki and Zako were several rows behind. You could
understand why maybe the ducaddies were a little bit cautious.
(15:31):
As much as murder GP riders get off the start
of the race, and Fabio's like the Yamaha works really
really well in clean air. These guys might be sick
and guessing themselves just a little bit after what happened
twenty minutes before. I'm going to just get out and
break these guys in the first few laps, and his
first five laps were absolutely astonishing, while the ducaddies were
(15:51):
floundering around and Jack Miller's up in second place. There
were two races going on. There was a couatarero race
by himself at the front, and then four and a
half seconds back there was Miller and everybody else. He
had done all the hard work and he was basically
in cruise control from there. There was a couple of
laps there when Bizeki got up to second and you're going, okay,
like Bozeki's three tenths faster, is he starting to get
(16:12):
back in the mix, And Fabio just got that gap
up by four tenths just to prove that he had
plenty left in his pocket if he needed to deploy it.
So for him to get a DNF after such a
long victory drought in that manner, absolutely gutting for him.
But like you said before, it's amazing we're having this
conversation about Yamaha because ever since the end of twenty two,
(16:35):
when he sort of fought the good fight but he
was fighting a losing battle with Banyay for that year's
title in twenty two, they've pretty much been nowhere in
twenty three and four, and you know, you can start
to not overrate what qua A already before. But there
is the question a lot we haven't seen you upfront
for a while. Are you super dependent on your equipment?
They all are to a degree, but he is one
(16:57):
of the absolute best guys on the grid. I'd go
as far as saying the only rider I would take
in a lottery in a draft over Fabio corceerro Be,
Mark Markez I Reckon.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
He's the second best rider remote GP. Quite frankly, it's.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
A great reminder of his quality and as galling as
that was for him to lose that win, I could
see him winning a race before this season is out
with the right set of circumstances and track and just
that little bit of luck that deserted him. But talk
about enhancing your reputation. He was absolutely brilliant and we've
seen three saturdays.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
In a row where he's been on pole.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
But that was a win he should have had, and
I do hope that twelfth twelfth win comes to him
soon because he certainly deserves it.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
You're the statsman, Matt, so I was just thinking when
you were talking with the lap times that that Zechi
was doing while Fabia was still in the lead. If
Fabio had managed to maintain not had that.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Technical issue, would Betzeki have caught up to Fabio?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Do you think with the laps time he was doing,
only because I asked the extreme close up we saw
of Zako's bike and how much that front tire was graining,
like you mentioned, do you think that would have it
would have stayed Fabio first, Marco then Zako or do
you think that say would have put up to him.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think I think Kuato had so much of a
gap at that point that it was up to four
and a half seconds. I think he could have probably
eased off, and that because there were six laps to
go when he retireds on lap twelve, so he probably
rolls to a two and a half to three second win.
I don't think we would have got down to look
Bazeki's brilliant on old tires. We've seen that before. But
(18:32):
those couple of laps where Kuaturo realized the pace behind
him was hiding up a little bit and it just
instantly took three tenths off what he was doing. He
had time and reserve there, so I don't think we
would have got some amazing last lap showed, and I
think he had them covered because of what he'd done in.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
The first five laps.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I thought he would have had more in his pocket
for the last five when you can start managing tyra
and just not taking as much risk. The first five
laps set him up for what should have been a
pretty emphatic victory and just gutting that you didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Oh. I found really interesting this weekend and thinking about
it so far this season, I really feel like Lady Luck, somehow,
miraculously is on the Marquez brother's side. I think about
the patch that if we didn't have that red flag
with both Marque's brothers crashing out on that first lap
during the original race start, that technically could have been
(19:23):
marked the DNF of the season. But the fact that
he got that red flag this weekend, he had that
red flag encoder. It just seems that so as miraculously
happening for the Marquez brothers.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
But you know what, like I mean, look to cover
the red flag off It was completely appropriate because you
had ad Catti on fire somewhere between the last two
quarters and spewing all over.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
The track, so they had to red flag it.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
And you know, the rule is what it is if
there's a red flag within the first three laps and
everyone gets to restart. The Alex Marquez crash was cold,
medium front tie and a front ride height device that
didn't disengage going to the first corner, which is why
he went down so rapidly. And then Mark's crash on
lap two of the first race was he said he'd
been super cautious through maggots and Becketts in the first lap,
and then when he was in the lead on lap
(20:08):
two he decided to push a little bit more and
was literally blown halfway off the track by the wind
because it was so gusting there and lost control there.
And we're talking about Jucadi. Before you look at what
a Ducaddi looks like relative to all the other motor
GP bikes. There's aerodynamic winglets on winglets on winglets on
those things. It looks like a cheese grater, there's so
many bits in it. But on a really windy day
like it was on Sunday, there's more surfaces for the
(20:30):
winter hit on the doucaddy and it definitely affected the performance.
You could see that was part of why they struggled relatively.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
But you know it was interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Mark was not happy after the race that he was
very annoyed with himself for the mistake that he made
in the first race, but he managed to regroup and
make the best of a bad situation. He was down
in tenth at one point on Sunday in that main
race and just methodically worked his way back through, And
you know, that was a day to that was a
(21:00):
day to consolidate. And he's had his eyes on his
brother Alex for a lot of these last few races.
If I'm having a bad day, that's not great. But
if I'm having a slightly less bad day than my
brother who's behind me, then that's good because I'm accumulating points.
And I'm always a believer that you win these World
Championships on your worst days, not your best ones. If
you can mitigate the pain of your bad days. If
(21:23):
he's not had a good day and he's not happy
with how he's ridden and the decisions he's made, and
he's banked to podium and he's finished two places ahead
of his main rival in the championship standings, that's a
good day and you take that one and you move on.
We know that Silveston's not a great circuit for him,
and an interesting theory. I heard about that over the weekend,
which makes complete sense. I'm not sure why I didn't
(21:44):
think about it before. A lot of the high speed
corners at Silverston are right handers, and we know Mark's
awesome and left hand corners, and Mark slightly struggled more
in these fast right handers ever since the fort shoulder
surgeries on your right side, which quite frankly, you would
struggle more in high speed right hand corners if you
have had your right shoulder operated on four times. It's
(22:04):
just not a track that suits his riding style, which
is amazing to think for a guy as good as
Mark is, so for him to get a podium out
of a weekend where he clearly wasn't quite right. He
got beaten in the sprint for the first time all year,
and rode a bit of luck to get on the
podium on Sunday. These are the days when you win
a World championship, not the days when you're cruising around
smashing everyone by ten seconds. It's making the best of
(22:25):
the least and that was definitely an example of that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Did you hear the off track talk about Peko Vano
and Mike Marquez and I don't know who said what,
but apparently it was along the lines of, you know,
you can't keep blaming the bike at some point, it's
coming down to the writer. I feel like that marquees
to Peco situation because you know, you're talking about making
(22:50):
the best of the worst situations and Peko Vanak is
on struggle Street at the.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Moment, right, Yeah, yeah, he is.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
I mean we've talked about this before and that there's
two really different approaches to try to achieve the same
end here in that Peko's you know, you always call
him the professor, and it's so right because he wants
to understand everything first and then deploy it. And we've
seen in the last couple of years that when he
does understand everything perfectly and everything is just so for
him in the way that he wants it. He can
(23:20):
get himself into a zone where he's just about impossible
to be unless he falls off, which he did last
year and why what lost the World championship. He can
get in those zones where he'll go to Asen or
he'll go to some of these tracks where he's in
his sweet spot and you just don't see him for
the entire weekend. It's like bye bye p one and
he just disappears. There's a bit of Johaler and so
in the way that he goes about it and seat
of you know, that real sort of win every race
(23:41):
and the laboratory perfectly. Whereas Mark, let's be honest, a
lot of those years at Honda, that bike wasn't the
best or second best bike on the grid. But Mark's
one of these guys who would just bend a bike
to its will and it's just like, well, this isn't perfect,
but I'm just going to manhandle this thing into a
position it shouldn't be in. And to my mind, the
biggest legacy of what Mark's done in his motor GP
career not so much what he did at Honda. Look
(24:05):
what happened to Honda when he was either injured or
not there, or once he left, they were absolutely hopeless
for years. Because he was so good. He masked a
lot of the problems that bike had, and Honda could
look at it and say, well, this thing's still winning races,
whereas the probably the question was, well could any other
rider win a race on this thing? So Mark is
the guy who I reckon. Mark would be a terrible
(24:26):
test rider or a terrible development rider, because you could
give him a bike that was no good and you'll
be like, and that's fine, it's fast. I could get
around on this thing, not be just by riding around
the problems or the deficiencies of a machine, whereas someone
else will go, well it doesn't turn, and it doesn't
do this, and it doesn't do that, where Mark's just like,
I'll live with that. So you know, Mark on the
best bike is dangerous. Mark on not the best bike
(24:48):
is possibly even more dangerous, because that's when you see
how good the guy is. So you've got Bagnaro Marquez
approaching the same problem from two very very different directions.
Peco's not the sort of guy who can just say,
but I'm just going to ride this thing harder and
live with the consequences. Peco needs to know why things
happen and how they happen before he commits to doing them,
(25:08):
whereas Mark's prepared to live more on his wits. And
it's so interesting that I love a bit of motor
GP body language. I'm a big fan of it because
when you see it's not so much what people say,
it's what they don't say, right, And you can see
so much in the body language and these pressed dee
briefings and everything else. You watch every little interaction in
and angle, not so much the soundbites, but how they're
(25:30):
saying them. You can learn so much about a way
a writer goes about it by what they're not saying,
which I know sounds a bit counterintuitive, but there's so
much about the approach and the attitude of writers up
and down the grid, and Mark and Pecco are at
very opposite ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
There.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
On that note, I have.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
To bring up the whole alicious Bargero Morbidelli first lap
slash that Morbidelli's blaming Aleish, saying he did it on purpose.
I feel like this is a few day is obviously
dating back years and years and years ago, but why
is this still happening now? Talking about the body language,
you could see these two just wanting to butt heads.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
The two of them walking out of the gravel trap
together when they clearly would have wanted to be next
to anybody else in the world except for the person
they were walking next to, was high comedy because they
covered it for it was so It was so so funny.
And you love a good, long running grudge which you'd't
even know where it has its genesis. This thin Morbidelli
(26:31):
on Sunday brought up the fact that he thought that
Elisia Spargo cost him the twenty twenty World Championship. That's
the first time I've heard that one. We're going back
five years saying that, oh he did something to me
beside oh that year, and everyone's like, wow, you don't
carry a grudge Morbidelli. I don't know whether you were
at his press debrief on Sunday. He's talking about a
Spargo and obviously he's a wild card at the moment,
(26:51):
and Morbidelli said, well, he won't be here for the
next race, so it's all good, and then just walked off.
It was the It was the funniest way to end
a press debrief.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
So those two definitely have some history.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
We remember the slapping incident in Guitar a few years
ago which got Elash into a lot of trouble. They
have formed, they have history, and it was one of
those things on the first lap of that race where
Alesha afterwards said that I actually breaked almost too early
into that second last corner on the end of lap
one because I didn't want to run up the back
of someone or cause a problem, and then it ended
up causing a problem. But those two are like magnets
(27:23):
to each other where they're on the track, like you
know they're going to come together at some point and
get the pop called out and enjoy the fallout because
it's difficult get.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
The popcorn out as well for that last lap. Speaking
of Morbidelli, that battle with him in Mark, if there
was anyone on the grid who was going to send
it to Mark because he has nothing to lose, it
was a Morbidali and you could see that I was
sitting in the media center, like I said, and everyone
was like, come on, Frankie, come on, Frankie, because you.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Just know that he was just going to send it.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, he was another guy who you know that restarted race.
We're talking about the Marquez brothers before and the fact
that Morbidelli he was off the bike and he's actually fractured.
He's left foot I heard today as well in that
accident before the right he's got a fracture in there,
which is going to have to deal with the fact
that he was almost getting a podium about an hour later.
Was a pretty good outcome for him. But yeah, he
(28:13):
certainly wasn't going to die wondering on that last quarter.
He was going to send it and of course everyone
in the media sent to knew, everyone watching on TV
knew it, and Mark Marquez knew it as well. So
I'm just going to slightly run you out onto the
exit curb there and I only need to beat you
by seventeen thousands, but that's fine. I'll take my podium trophy,
thank you exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And obviously, being in an Aussie podcast, we have to
talk about Jack Miller, because, like we mentioned earlier, at
one point there I was messaging the guys at Fox
Australia saying, oh my goodness, we might have an Aussie
across all three podiums. Straight after the Motor two Prodium,
which we'll talk about shortly. But Jack Miller, we spoke
about the error upgrades a little bit, but Temmy because
(28:55):
you wrote a fantastic piece on Jack, because the news
broke about him doing the Suzuka for Yamaha, which is
a prestigious event in its own What was with Jack?
What was that that pace? Why did he drop down
further in the race? Was it the tires in.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
The end a little bit.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I mean, Jack is pretty hard on tires, as we know,
relative to some of the other guys that were running
the soft but he was still fourth with four laps
to go, like he'd gotten shuffled down the pack a
little bit more. Beidelli at Alberti about of the way
he managed to recover from that and get back on
his lines. And there's something about that Yamaha that he.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Was saying afterwards.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
When it can run its lines and you can you're
not having to really stop the bike to block, pass
or defend when it runs its line smoothly, it's a
really really effective bike. We saw that with Quaaterero upfront
just doing the perfect race. I'm not sure that Yamaha
is the greatest sort of bike in combat, if that
makes sense, because it's you interrupt the flow of that
bike and it's no wheredear as effective. But Jack had
(29:52):
got himself back up to P four and then with
about four laps to go he had that came slightly
wide into T nine there at Cops and as he
said afterwards, got out on all the dirty stuff on
the outside, and then you know, Morbidelli got back past him,
and then a cost that came back through while Jack
was recovering from being out in the weeds a little bit.
So that was probably the one that annoyed him the
most because he finished seventh and probably should have finished
(30:13):
fifth or sixth. But you've also got to take the
fact that you know, he had that three full events
without a score, you know, through Qatar and Spain and France,
with some incredibly bad luck in that, and then obviously
the mistake that he made in France had probably cost
himself minimum podium possibly a win on the day that
Zako won that race. So I think for him to
score points in a sprint for the first time this year,
(30:35):
and then to get a decent hall of points in
a Grand Prix, I think that's a pretty good weekend
given where things have been recently. But there were two
things for me, and I wrote about this today. I
think the fact that Yamaha have entrusted him to do
the eight hour, like it's a big, prestigious honor for
racing for a Japanese manufacturer in that event in Japan,
which is such a massive deal. You have to remember
(30:57):
Jack Miller doesn't have a contract with Yamaha for next year.
But if you were ever wondering what Yamaha think of
what he's doing behind the scenes and the impact that
he has made, I would be stunned if he doesn't
get a deal for next year. And I think being
entrusted with something like the eight Hour in August is
only proof of that. But I also I mentioned it
earlier in the podcast, the fact that he'd gone out
and done the sighting lap on the soft front and thought,
(31:19):
I'm noticing something here and immediately went to the factory
Yamaha box and grabbed rins and grab couatarra. You could
see them talking, and I dare say Jack was saying, Look,
with my experience around this place, I think I know
how this is going to play out, and I'm not
going to tell you what front tire to run, but
this is what I'm running, and this is why I'm
running it, And I think that shows you that there's
a real team player aspect to what Jack is doing
(31:40):
at the moment. I think he's doing things for the
greater good of that brand, and he might not be
getting their headlines for it or necessarily the points at
the moment, but we can see what Fabio's doing. Jack's
had a big role behind the scenes testing that bike.
I think his impact there has been pretty significant, and
it look It was nice to see him in the
best positions he'd been in all season. Probably a little
(32:03):
bit disappointed with himself that he probably didn't score a
top five in that race, but it was nice to
see him back up the front and old merit and
it looked really good. So, you know, fingers crossed, that's
the start of an upward trend for him because the
previous few races, Yeah, he committed a few silly mistakes
here and there, but Manny had some weird stuff happened
to him like hereth and some other plot and some
of the other Grand Prix that he had. So nice
(32:23):
to see him back up there. But his impact there
is pretty evident to me.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
He's interesting you pointing that out, and now we're taking
the step back and having a look.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You can really see Yamaha are working together.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
It's not so much like an individual like for example
it was last year with Pramac, Jucaddy and Factory Jucatti.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You see the.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yamaha group are working so strongly together, and I think
that's what is helping them. Like you just said there,
I think between Jack and Fabio, we're not seeing the
necessarily the same stuff with Alex Frinz because we know
Alex has those injuries and whatnot. And then we've got
miguel O Lavera who's also just had a string of
bad luck over it. But I think with what you're
(33:04):
saying about Jack and what I'm hearing it, and I'm
reading what you're writing as well, if Yama don't resign
Jack for fromak Yabaha next year, it's going to be
kind of turning heads. It's going to be a whole Hey, Martine,
not getting the factory ride type of like why are
you not keeping him here?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Because we're seeing what he's doing and obviously.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
What they're bringing in this weekend though, with that new
Arrow update that they had, you think that's what benefited them,
because when I was talking to Jack on Thursday, he
was saying, Oh, this is a track that he's confident at.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Here, he feels comfortable here.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Was that Errow that what what helped them? Or was
it just the fact that you know, he was feeling
strong here? We know Fabrio is coming off like a
strong couple of races as well.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah, bit of bitter Colubu and bitter colar bloo with
all this sort of I think the key part is
you remember the day after her Reath they had the
one day test there where they tried the new engine
and a whole bunch of new Errow stuff. We were
probably going to see what that could really do at Lamon,
but it rained on the Sunday, so you know, all
bets are off a little bit. We didn't really quite
see the dry weather performance, and even Silveston to a
(34:07):
degree because the weather was so weird on Sunday it
was so cold and so blustery. Then you know, once
we go to Aragon for the next round, I think
that's where we're going to get a true representation of
where the Yamaha has improved because you think of Aragon,
it's got that massive long back straight, which in the
past the Yamaha has just got their doors blown off
going down that straight by they do caddies because they
(34:27):
were fifteen twenty k hour slower. I'll be super curious
to see the speed trap figures once we get to Aragon,
because it's much more of a normal in inverted Commas
circuit with the exception of that back straight, which is
where they issued bleed lap time all the time. So
we'll see if the new engine they've put in really
is stronger on a track that really rewards that sort
of thing. But I think you can see the state
(34:48):
of Yamaha's progress by the fact that there were three
of them in Q two, which is something we've not
seen for a really, really long time. Jack was right
up the front as early as Friday practice. He was
third after Friday and Oliver still there's a bit of
an asterisk because he's still not one hundred percent fit,
we know that, but he was closer to those other
guys than he's been.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
For a while.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
So you know, Yamaha have double the bikes of last
year and they're operating really well as one entity rather
than two teams, which you were talking about with Decadi
last year. They feel really together for me, and having
a couple of experienced guys in that second team once
Olivera gets back up to speed helping to.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Push the development along.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
It's a really good rider lineup because the youngest and
most forceful of them is you know, the guy who's
going to lead the project in terms of results, which
is Quaerero. But you've got other guys behind the scenes
that are making a real impact. And the other factor
on Jack before he's had wrapped. The jackpart of this
up is that I think the fact that you've got
one more year of these rules in twenty six before
(35:47):
you move into twenty seven and kind of the great
unknown with the big reset, the fact you've got continuity
and Yamaha's clearly made progress year on year. It would
be stunning if they didn't keep Jack because I feel
that he's doing everything he needs to do in terms
of impact at that manufacturer. I mean, he scored less
points at this time of the year than he'd scored
at KTM last year, but the whole KTM thing last
(36:08):
year felt that he was dead man walking, right. You
kind of knew that he was out there, whereas I
think here he's making a real impact. I don't think
it's any surprise that that bike has been one of
the big improvers of the year because he's doing what
he needs to do.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I can't wait for twenty seven to hurry up, because
you think we were in twenty twenty seven right now,
Fabrico Daura would have won that because there wouldn't have
been the whole rhin eye devisol technology changes everything.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
So, like you said, that sounds like another podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, okay, that's your job to write about all that
text stuff about it.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
But oh man, can't wait to see Jack Miller on
a podium this year, Ossie on a podium in Moto GP.
But we had an Aussie on the podium in Moto
too with his maiden Moto to Grand Prix victory. And
I tell you what being there to witness that, to
see him, to see his dad John O, them tears,
(37:03):
the whole team, Wow, just wow, what it was.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
It was so good.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I mean, I love the fact that it was the
first race of the night as well, obviously because the
program was slightly jumbled with the Motor GP being the
middle race of the three. But to see the way
Centner won that race, this is not you know, I
heard it described as, you know, the Stephen Bradbury way
for everyone to knock each other off and you know
we're a gold medal. It's not how it quite worked
because it was a strange Motor two race and that
(37:31):
you don't often get big packs battling for the lead
in Moto two like this, but at Silverston you do.
It's just a nature of that particular track. And there
were five of them in that pack for the entire race,
and they each gave as good as they got. But
you know, I just never led that race until the
second last quarter. He certainly timed it right. But one
of the things I loved about this was that he
(37:52):
looked at the two guys that were ahead of him
on the final lap. You've got Aaron Connett, and anyone
who's got tattoos up to his jawline, he can probably
tell the way he's going to fight in a last
lab battle. There's a certain tell with a guy's eg
with that situation. He's also an established guy who isn't
going to be pushed around on the last lap, particularly
when he's racing against a young kid that's come up
from Moto III last year and is starting to pull
(38:14):
up trees. And David Alonso, who we talked about Alonso
last year. He's the next big Motor GP staff of mine.
Once he gets himself in there, you knew there were
going to be fireworks on that last lap because Connett
was just not going to sit there and say, well
after you to David Alonzo, it's like, you want to
race at the front end Motor two in the last lap, Well,
this is how this works. And I love the fact
that Ags saw this was coming and positioned himself in
(38:38):
the perfect place if it all went wrong, keyword being
if he was there to sweep up and take the victory.
It was brilliantly executed given what was on the line
for him as a first time Grand Prix winner, and
it happened so fast. And the funniest part about this,
and you can take our listeners behind the curtain a
little bit here because you're.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
On the ground.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
The Stilveston press room is in possibly the silliest place
of any racetrack of the entire world, because it takes
about one hundred years to get anywhere I remember going there.
We couldn't actually see the circuit at one point. I
don't know whether they fix that or not. It's still
pretty hard to work out what's going on. But with
all that excitement going on, there were plenty of Australians
that were watching it happening in real time, but you
weren't one of them.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
No, no, I was running down. I was saying to
Matt that with our whole last lap, I'm thinking, oh
Sin is probably going to get on.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The podium, and I'm filming.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Some vlogs and social content for Fox Motorsports. So let
me head on down and catch center and park Ferme.
And as I'm going down, like you said, you can't
see what's happening in Philip Island, for example, as a
track where you can see the racetrack from the media center,
but Silverstone is not. And I'm running down and I
can hear everyone like screaming and getting really excited.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
I could hear the grand stands off the main street.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And I come on down and I look at the
big screen and I see that Senter's one. So I've
missed all the on track action from Cener getting into
the lead. But all I was thinking the whole time
was obviously Alonzo and Cannett, and we know what Alonso's like.
But I'm also thinking of Marrera against Senna because those
who have exchanged quite a lot, thinking back to Thailand
in round one, and I know that they want to
(40:12):
get their elbows out with each other. Shall we say,
they're not afraid to send it to one another there, so,
but watching just the raw emotion and when I spoke
to Senna in the broadcast is set after for Fox Motorsport,
I said, what was it like when you.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Realized you had won? What was it like? And he
said he just had to stop when he was in tears.
And for those of you who.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Know Sona, and he's quite a serious character, as we've
spoken to him on the pod before, you know, he's
very straightforward and very focused on what he wants. And
for him to say that he's led out a bit
of emotion is wow. Okay, you can see what this
means to him. The whole team where there to celebrate,
even his teammate Manu, who crashed out earlier in the race,
(40:56):
to celebrate with him. So once again it's that camaraderie there.
You can see them all working really together. But the
center he's had, you know, multiple podiums already now we've seen,
but now it's that victory. Okay, here's our hope for
the next Aussie and somroto GP and if we can
keep progressing on this trajectory, he's going to get there well.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
And you can understand why he reacted the way that
he did afterwards because he led the race for about
two and a half seconds, so there's a bit of
process after the race because like, oh, I've just won
by first grold breed. If you're ever got a win
a first Grold prie, that'd be the way to do it.
But I just am really impressed with the way he's
going about it because it's not just this flash in
the pan, like oh, he's on the podium. Like Philip
Biol last year was amazing, but it was a bit
(41:38):
of an outlier, let's be honest, and you know, because
it came from kind of nowhere and he did. You know,
he's very good all weekend there, but it wasn't like
he was on this huge run of competing for podiums.
You're almost surprised now when he's not up the front
because it looks completely legit.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
But one thing I did love.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
I mean, this is one of the things I love
about this championship in that the international nature of Moto GP.
An Australian, a brazil and a Colombian on the podium.
It sounds like the first line of a bad joke,
doesn't it. An Australian, a Colombian and a Brazilian.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Walk into a bar.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
But the three of them, you know, no Spanish Italian riders.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
You know. Jake Dixon wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
He's normally so good at silver, so that it was
just so bizarre to see those three flags going up
behind the podium ceremony. But the best part about it
was that the flag in the middle, the one that
was the highest, was the Australian flag.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
And of course he did this showy on the podium
which we had supposed the.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Fox Motorsports Socials.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
That was a standard Australian little nod there. But I
think routes to stend on his mad Moto IWO victory
and obviously Moto three unfortunate events for our Aussie. Joel
can also with that DNF Joel when I was talking
to him on Thursday as well. He was saying he's
feeling really confident the runs that he's been having so
(42:51):
far this season. You know, he's just feeling out along
with the bike, and this was a track that he
felt really confident going into.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And then we see that on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
You know, like you said, you've got to take the
positives from the vat and when you can. But Joel,
he's on track and he's working hard to potentially get
a higher championship position this year.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, and crashing from the lead as well at the
same quarter where Agis had gotten in front about ninety
minutes before that. So I have all the places to
do it. But you know, we talked about this last
week after he'd led for so long at Lemont. There
is going to be a Grand Prix win.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
For him this year.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
He's just been too good and too consistent and too
fast to not have one before the end of this year.
And it was still quite early in the race at Silverstone.
We know that Motor three can be a complete fist
fight for twenty laps there, so who knows where that
would have ended up for him, But you can just
see it like there's a confidence and a belief there
now he knows he's legit at the front of that championship.
(43:48):
Wouldn't surprise me at all if it happens in the
next two or three rounds. So an unfortunate one. And
what was weird about it too, is you sort of
scratched your head. That's like, huh, when was the last
time he was in a position of advantage and actually
squad did it because it doesn't happen very often with
Joel these days. He's like this super consistent performer. So unfortunate.
I'm sure he was kicking himself because that's not one
(44:09):
of those ones where it was someone else that took
him out or nudged him off the track like it
happened at Lamon at the end of that race.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
But it's coming. You can see that it's coming.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
It's just unfortunate that a track that he was super
confident at that it didn't work out for him on Sunday.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
But I dare say that's not the last of him.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
The time we get to Aragon in a couple of weeks,
he'll be right back where he's been all season.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
I think.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
And Jacob Rolston, he crossed the line in thirteenth. I
believe the same position that he qualified in in Moto three.
But if you assies, if you guys didn't watch the
Moto three race, because I know it wasn't on at
a friendly time zone, shall we say you.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Need to go back and watch it.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Because Ruwaida Rada one the three race from last place
on the grid.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
That was only this, well, tell you someone who did
believe it.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Sitting in the.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Wait to go into the press conference after because Moto
GP was the middle of the three races, Mark Marquez
is watching Moto three in the early laps on the
monitor and says Ruada will win this after he'd started
from last on the grid. So if Mark Marquez doesn't,
you know, this whole motorcycle riding thing doesn't work out
for Mark, we'll get a job as like a fortune
teller or something, because that seems to be pretty good
for him. But the fact the fact that he picked
(45:22):
that so early, Ruaida is just on a different level
in that championship this year, it's very rare to think
of guys who can come from the very back or
pit lane starts and actually winning that cat grig because
it's so cutthroat, I mean, you think I remember Pedro
Costa doing that in Qatar really early in his Moto
three career. Came for the pitlane to win a race,
So only the really good ones do that. We know
he's with a good team there, but man from last
(45:44):
on the grid to win. And this wasn't like Lemon
where if he inherited a win because of some silliness
on the final lap which included Joe kel So awesome performance,
but yeah, Mark Marqus picked at about half an hour
before it happened. So if he liked to send us
this week's lottery numbers, then you might your co host
for next week's podcast, because I'll probably be on a
beach somewhere.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Hey, if you're getting some of those lottery numbers, I
want some as well.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
I'll pass it on.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Just give market As a call and ask the lottery numbers. Well, guys,
that pretty much wraps up Moto GP from Silverstone. If
you want to know a little bit more about what
happens at a European MotoGP race, you can head to
the Fox Sports YouTube channel, where I am working on
a log. Plus I got some cool behind the scenes
coming up with Alpine Stars and Brambo, who took me
(46:33):
behind in their workshops to show me what is happening
on a Moto GP weekend, and it was actually quite
interesting because a little spoiler alert, I got to see
them repair Alex Marquez's favorite suit and how that.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Happens on the go.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
But if you want to also catch up on all
the latest MotoGP news, you can read Math's articles on
foxsport dot com, dot au, Forward Slash Motorsport, and follow
along with me on socials at Fox Motorsport everywhere. I'm
now attending the next F one race, so you guys
will get to hear a little bit from me about
F one and Matt. I'm sure you'll be talking with
Michael Lamonado about the upcoming F one at Barcelona, but
(47:12):
from us here at Moto GP Pit Talk, brought to
you by Shannon's Insurance. We're going to be back real
soon because Aragon is in less than two weeks.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
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