July 2, 2025 • 48 mins
Buckle up, because it’s Pit Talk time—powered by Shannons Insurance
Assen gave us fast bikes, fierce fights, and full-blown factory drama. Marc Marquez is running away with the championship, Aprilia is giving the MotoGP paddock whiplash, and Assen once again proved it’s the place for the chaos we live for.
Renita Vermeulen and Matt Clayton break down everything that happened at the Cathedral of Speed... Oh and correction: It was Round 10… but let’s be honest, the drama felt like double that.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the land of windmills, waffles and wheel to
wheel warfare, because the Cathedral of speed well and truly
delivered in Acden for around eleven of the twenty twenty
five Motor GP World Championship, Mark Marquez is marching towards
the title like a man on a mission. But it's
a prillier stealing the headlines for two very different reasons.
(00:22):
As always, this episode of Pittalk is proudly brought to
you by Shannon's Insurance. I'm your host, Ronita vmullen, and
joining me is the man who is as reliable as
a Dutch bike and equationally just as squeaky, the one
and only mister Matt Clayton. Matt had to get a
few little dutchisms in there, but we have to start
this podcast by talking about Joge Martin and a prillier,
(00:45):
because once again Jai Martin's in the headlines and not
for racing on track. No.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I did get a little distracted with waffles halfway through
the intro there because I thought, oh, I haven't had
one of those for while. Let it go quite nicely,
but yeah, isn't it funny? We're what ten rounds into
Motor GP season and Jorge Martin has done thirteen racing
laps in a Grand Prix and here we are leading
a podcast talking about him again and it's for the
same story that won't go away, but for a completely
(01:11):
different reason, because things escalated over the course of the
as and weekend. And before I go too deep on this,
you were in that paddock over the weekend and it
just seemed like the story just kept escalating and escalating
to a point where you were almost prepared to believe
anything the longer the race weekend went. Take our listeners
on the inside for that, because you were privy to
(01:31):
all of these conversations that were going on behind the scenes,
and it just felt like it really ramped up from
attention point of view, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, So obviously on track, you know, we had a
lot of crashes this weekend and which we'll dive into
with track temperature and everything. But sitting in the media
center working, all of a sudden, you see something that's
popped up on social media from Jogeey, Martin's manager saying,
how you know, we're looking at other options for next year.
Next minute, all the journalists are running around to each
other when the writers are in for media scrums, you know,
(02:01):
they're asking them on their opinions or what's going on.
Then we have Albeldo Puge from Honda because there was
a mention of possibility of Honda coming into Joge Martin's sphere.
Next minute, everything's going on from there. And then as
it's starting to really escalate, really escalate, I'm hearing talks
from Matt Burjack Appleyard, these guys saying about you know
(02:22):
what they're going to speak to them on air about
are they getting questions? Then it's Carlos Espeletta, the CEO
of Moto GP. He's then put out a statement as well.
The drama that happened off track in aison was just
as exciting as the drama that was happening on track.
And I don't know about you, Matt, My biggest takeaway
(02:46):
from all of this is Joge Martin's reputation right now.
I think for him, he's having to put his trust
into his manager and he's believing his manager's doing the
right thing. For those who have been in following Retogipi
for a long time, you would know that his manager
does have quite a reputation for doing stuff like that.
We know Jgey Martin doesn't have a good relationship with
(03:08):
other manufacturers in the paddock, but I think that for
now Joege Martin, people are starting to not look at
him so well portrayed. We know he suffered with those
injuries and what happened in guitar you wouldn't wish on anyone.
But now it's starting to get to that next point
where it's like you're kind of starting to burn your bridges,
(03:30):
like you're not gonna have any more options. And we
know the type of writer Jogey Martin is, and I
truly believe if he was there on the Apilia now
fit and healthy, I think that would be he wouldn't
be fighting for the championship, but I think he'd be
challenging for podiums and really putting up a good fight
so far this season. But now it's none of that,
that's all out the window. You almost forget that he
(03:52):
is the world champion for former world championship and put
up that fight to Pego Banyaya, and now you're just
seeing all these headlines and showing side of Jujae Martin.
I don't think is going to help him in the future.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
No, we were talking about this off here before and
I wrote this for Fox Sports dot com dot Au
today Wednesday here in Australia, I think at the start
of the year, with all of the injuries that he
had had from two accidents on the apillia and then
that one accident you had when he was training on
the supermotobike back in Andorra, there was a lot of
sympathy for what he was going through because he clearly
(04:25):
had a lot of horrible injuries. He was legitimately beaten up.
It was a great shame that we didn't get to
see that great theater of the number one on an
aprillia that he had earned with another manufacturer going against
the manufacturer that he had left. We didn't really get
to see that obviously until Katar and then a horrendous
accident there the incredibly bad luck being hit by the
jan Antonio stuck in the hospital for two weeks because
(04:47):
he couldn't fly with the lung injury and the broken ribs.
There was a lot of sympathy for everything that he
was going to going through rather but then you get
to this situation after well, just around the time the
French Grand Prix, where he he made it clear to
a Prillier that he wasn't willing to stay because there
was a clause in the contract that said he was
free to go elsewhere if he was not in the
top three the championship at a certain point of the season.
(05:09):
And you can look at it and go, well, yes,
that's true by the letter of the law. The reason
you're not anywhere near the top three in the World
Championship is because you haven't raced. And we've seen this
using clauses with context before, where he's got it out
of situations that he didn't want to be in. And
we talked about this in a podcast a while ago,
but a lot of people may not know this. He
(05:29):
was supposed to come to Motor GP with KTM in
twenty twenty one, and there was a clause in that
contract in twenty twenty when he was still in Moto
two if there was not a KTM rider in the
top ten of the championship by July one of that season,
then he was free to look elsewhere. Now, what didn't
happen until well after July one in twenty twenty There
was no racing because there was a pandemic, and so
(05:50):
the season didn't even start until Spain until towards the
end of July. We forget how late that was. While
that's a round, will always remember for other reasons. I
Mark Marquez falling off and started udding this run of
years where he was either injured or recovering from injuries.
That was the clause that he used to break a
KTM contract. So again, by the letter of the law,
(06:10):
fine in terms of is that the right moral play
to rely on a one in one hundred year pandemic
to get yourself out of something you don't want to do.
It didn't pass the smell test, and so by that situation.
Because of that situation, he's burned KTM. We know that
after things didn't go the way he wanted it to Catty,
he pretty much rage quit them and signed with a
Prillier in about twenty four hours, which you know, the
(06:32):
more we go into this, now that looks like a
contract that was signed in twenty four hours, because there's
clearly a lot of conjecture about what it should be said.
So he's escaped going to KTM. He's rage quick to Catti.
Now he's looking to leave a Prillier. There's only five
manufacturers in MotoGP and I'm not brilliant at Mathaditta, but
that only leaves two. And Yamaha has already got the
situation where they've got five riders of four bikes. They
(06:53):
don't need anybody else in the mix. They've already got
too many riders for the bikes that they have. So,
to my mind, when he came out and said that
he wanted to escape this a Prillier contract, he clearly
had Honda in mindus a destination he wanted to go to.
We know that Luca Marini's out of contract with the
factory team there. But what was really interesting for me
and why personally I reckon this blew up at Asen.
(07:15):
After he had made that statement that he wanted to
leave a Prillier, Aprillia came out with this press release
Silverston you may remember, and it was basically, like the
writer's under contract. It would be wrong for other manufacturers
to talk to a contract and writer while he's under contract.
We've got nothing else to say. And I looked back
when that was released, that was a twenty second of
may so going back a fair while right, And so
(07:36):
that's how long ago this was and there'd been crickets
from a prelier since then, they had said nothing, and
I think because the story had stalled out and Martine
still you know, he's getting closer to returning, but he's
still not back. I think that was pretty deliberate by
management over the weekend to let's get this thing back
out there and look, Honda's an option we're considering. And
Albert Valaria did an interview with Jack Appleyard on the
(07:58):
Motor GP Live Fee, which you probably were there while
it was going on, and I certainly heard it, and
that was the stone that got thrown in the pond
that started this ripple effect of all of these other
reactions to that particular interview. What was interesting for me
was that Carmello espeletter from Dawner came out and said, look,
you know, we're not going to allow unless this is resolved.
(08:19):
We're not going to allow this for him to compete
for a manufacturer when there's not been an appropriate severance
of contract with a prillier in this case. And off
the back of that, Masama Rivella from a Prillier got
quite punchy on Sunday at Asen and basically said, look,
there's two options here. We can either sit around the
table and have a sensible discussion as to what's an
amicable parting if that's going to be the way it goes,
(08:40):
or we can go to court. It's up to you.
And I don't know about you, but I can't see
I find it bizarre to think that Martin's attempted to
come back to race for a Prillier at some point,
you know, perhaps as early as Czech Republic in two
rounds of time. That seems bizarre to me that they
could even go and work together while this contract is
still active. I have no doubt that Jem's going to
(09:00):
be on a Honda next year. The only question now
is how much is it going to cost? Because all
of these contracts can be settled, there'll be and as
they like to call it, a for an undisclosed sum,
or there'll be some sort of fine print where they
can't reveal it. How much is he going to have
to pay to get himself out of a contract where
he's got a clear case of buyer's remorse. But you know, look,
(09:22):
he's probably got lots of money he can afford these
sorts of things. The lawyers will get rich because that's
what lawyers do. But the point that you made at
the beginning of this, the damage reputationally to a writer
that had all of the sympathy in his quarter because
of how broken he was because of all these accidents,
I reckon that's completely shifted now, and there's a lot
of people that are saying, well, he's not actually given
(09:43):
a Prillier a chance here. And as you said at
the start of this, isn't it bizarre He came out
before Silverstone and made the comment that he wanted to
break and then Berzeki wins at Silverstone. All this blows
up at Assen on the weekend, and then Berzeki finished
the second in the Grand Prix, and you know, if
it wasn't Mark Marquez ahead of it, probably would have
won it because I think he would have beaten any
other rider. Just when Aprilia is getting dragged into these
(10:05):
really uncomfortable situations, up pops Marco Bozeki, who's also new
to Aprillia this year and gets a fantastic result. So
I can't help but think Bozeki is a very good
motor GP rider. He's not a world champion he's not
a fully fit Jogey Martin. The Aprillia right now, you
could argue the second best bike in motor GP. What
could a fully fit Jogey Martin do if he's motivated
(10:27):
on an Aprillier I reckon that would add another fantastic
element into the World Championship fight, But sadly we're probably
never gonna know AOI.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, that leads me to think, why would Jorge Martin,
who is a World Championship champion and we know the
caliber of writer that he is, want to go to Honda?
Why we know Honda at the moments not the best manufacturer. Okay,
the new rules are coming in twenty twenty seven, but
there's still no guarantee that Honda are going to make
this huge jump in twenty twenty seven. So why Lind,
(10:59):
like you said, the potentially second best manufacturer of right now.
Obviously we don't know what's happening with KTM, but why
leave them right now to go to a IF button? Maybe?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I can see the logic in that if you're
looking at twenty twenty seven as a blank sheet of paper,
which it is to a degree, because these bikes are
going to be so different eight fifties, none of the
right height devices, none of the arrow on them. You
would put more faith in Honda being able to design
a better bike from a clean sheet of paper than
a Prillier. And that's no slight on a Prillier. But
(11:31):
it comes down to racing pedigree. We know that Honda
has huge pedigree in this sport hasn't been what it
was in the recent past, but you go back longer
than that, and it's just this. You know who's who
of motor GP, of one's titles on Hondas, and you
also have to imagine the resource both in terms of
manpower and budget at Honda is going to be ten, fifteen,
(11:51):
twenty five times what a Prillier can throw it at.
It's a completely different kettle of fish in that regard.
So you can see the logic in that if we're
all starting from the same start point here, then perhaps
the Honda is a better bet. And that's part of it.
I think if this rule set that we're in right
now is continuing for another three to five years, then
you would argue that Honda is not the better bet
because ever since Mark Marquez left Honda, it's been pretty
(12:14):
bleak if had the odd win here and there. Obviously
Zarco this year at Lamont. But so I think the
timing of it is part of it, Like can you
get in there in twenty six and then be around
for twenty seven If and that's a small word with
big consequences. If if Honda can actually get it right,
you'd probably see the logic in that. But in the
short term you just have to wonder how many more
(12:37):
bridges could you burn? As you said before, And look,
maybe he doesn't care less about the reputation, and you
know what people think about the way he's going about this,
there's going to be a sporting reason for him to
want to go that he's prepared to take a risk on.
Maybe that's an easier decision you can make. If you've
already won a world championship, you can sort of say, well,
who cares, I've already won one of these things, so
(12:59):
maybe I can take it of a gamble. But you
just have to look at the way. I think a
Prilliad is almost the best emotor GP at doing the
most with the least, and that's I'm not dissing a
Prilliam in that sense, but in terms of the resource
and the budget. You know, they are a small using
air quotes, small manufacturer relative to something as big as
Yabaha or as big as Hondo or even Ducati It
(13:20):
Prilli does a really great job with what they have.
But man, it's tough, isn't it. Like you said, you
are putting so much reputationally, You're betting so much on
something that is still an unknown and yet it might
have more of a chance from twenty twenty seven onwards.
But there's no guarantees in all of this, And you
only have to look at some of the writers that
have been on Hondas in the last few years, Like
(13:41):
I'm sure if you ask Juan Mira, like, well, how
do you fancy writing you know, a Repsol Honda or
a factory Honda, he would have said, fantastic, let's do that.
Look at what's happened to him since he went there
after Suzuki folded. He's basically broken himself into a million
pieces and doesn't even finish on podiums anymore and just
looks a shadow of what he was. And he's world
champion five years ago. So you can put a lot
(14:03):
in these moves based on the reputation of a company
and it can fall over for you. He's living proof
of that. There's proof of other guys that have gone
you know, the right way at the right time as well.
But it's a serious gamble my Martine at this point.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But it's not only Martin who's potentially looking for the
next place, you know, thinking about it as Pedro Acosta,
the guy that we thought was going to out before
Mark Marquez straightaway. Then we have that whole KTM debacle,
and I hear rumors about Valentino Rossi's still looking at Pedro.
But then in the back of my mind, I'm going, Okay, well,
do you Cadi's set? They're pretty good. Obviously we have
(14:38):
the old Prilier thing, Katm's folding, yamaha. We know we've
got multiple writers. Where's Pedro going to go next? So
that's when I'm starting to think all this silly Season
four next year in twenty twenty seven. I don't think
it's as clear as what I think Joge Martin's managers
hoping for well.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And also the other thing here is that what about
the precedent that if Martine's able to riggle his way
out of this contract that he doesn't want to be in.
What does that do for future contracts with other riders.
It's like if a contract is literally worthless and it
can just be broken at the whim of one of
the two parties, like fine, we don't want you to
be here anymore, of I don't want to be here anymore.
(15:16):
Then what's the point of having a contract in the
first place if you're just going to have your head
turned by the next, you know, the next thing that
comes along. It is like, oh, look at this, I
think I'd like to have a crack at this. But
all that sounds like to me is that you mentioned
all of these other manufacturers that there's chaos going on
here or underresourced here, or writers that don't want to
be there. And meanwhile, do Katty just keep rolling along
and doing dcatty things? And yeah, they had a rider
(15:40):
win at Asen on a weekend where I don't think
at any point he was actually the fastest rider, Mark Marquez,
but thirty seven points. Again, we've said this a few times, haven't.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
We, honestly, So the off track was kind of taking
away from the on track, But it was the occasions
where you look up at the screen or you hear
someone in the media center. Oh, and we just had
crashes and crashes and crashes this weekend, all throughout all
the crotches sessions qualifying, which I was talking to Senna
and I'm going, what is going on with this? And
(16:11):
he said, oh, you know track temperature that tires like,
he goes, we're struggling. Well the parrellis, he goes, The
fronts on the Perellis are really good. But in Moto
GP they're definitely struggling with the fronts on the the Michelins.
But Mark marquees okay, phenomenal weekend if you looked at it,
like from the podium positions for him. But then early
in that weekend, that high side that he had in
(16:33):
that practice session and watching him and it was funny
because I wasn't gonna say this, Matt, but you bought
it up earlier. You said, watching Mark Marquez get up
is like watching me try and get out of bed.
Now we know you're only like twenty one, Matt, so
it's not too bad. But Mark Marquez, you mentioned this,
he is the aller of the oldest writers on the
grid now and he's not bouncing like he used to write.
(16:57):
I heard on the TNT broadcast he said to them,
adrenaline is my painkiller, but honestly, I don't know if
I can race. He said, he's destroyed. And for Mark
Marqus to say that, you think he never lets anyone
know when he's down, or he's out, or he's weak.
But how does Mark markus This is my question is
(17:19):
how does Mark Marquez then go from from that that
mentality saying those words struggling to just go and dominate
once again?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, I mean he's a guy who he loves an
external force to motivate him. Right, So you don't go
into these weekends going well, if I get hurt, I'll
show everybody how good I am and how strong mentally
I am. And there was a second accident for me
when he slid along his front at the end of
FP two, and every male watching him get up from
(17:49):
that accident just winced because that was only that was
a pain. Only half of the listeners he can probably understand.
But you mentioned before, and it's true, like he's thirty
two years old now and one of the things about
him when he was younger is that he would always
go past the limit. Do all these crazy saves and
save the front end and everything else. But when he crashed,
they were generally pretty big, and he generally has got
(18:09):
up because he was young and bouncy. He's you know what,
I think he's the second oldest rider behind Zaco now,
so you know, there's only so many times you can
fall with these things. And he gets up like an
older man out of these accidents these days, and he
looks pretty beaten up and pretty sore. But to my mind,
you look at the two margins over the weekend he
won that. He won the Grand Prix by six tenths
of a second, he won the sprint by about two
(18:30):
tens so there's nothing in it, really, And I just
thought it was so interesting that since he's had all
the right arm operations, he has always been better in
left handed corners and antiqulockwise tracks anyway, but on right
handed corners it was never a massive strength and now
it definitely is it a strength. He can definitely see
him suffering through there. And in the sprint he had
Alex Marquez right behind him, He had Bozeki behind him
(18:52):
for pretty much the last two thirds of the Grand Prix.
There was that section as you come out of the
last hap him with that, there's a succession of right
hand quarters before you come back to the chicag there
at Assen, and you could have probably drawn two chalk
lines on the track about ten centimeters apart, and I
reckon he hit the same piece of track for thirty
nine straight laps over the course of two straight days.
(19:13):
He knew that was the only place that someone could
get a run on him to pass him, and he
got those four corners right lap after lap after lap.
And no, I don't think he was the fastest, but yes,
I do think he was the smartest. And that's a
different level of rider when with that amount of pressure
on you, you do not make one mistake. If you
make one mistake, that becomes one place, becomes two places,
(19:34):
becomes three places. He was so metronomically perfect and it's
so interesting to see him win races in different ways. Now. Yes,
he goes to Aragon and just absolutely blust everybody because
we expect that. But he's had a couple of rounds
this year where he's had to do things like entire
Land when they miscalculated the entire pressure he had to
on the fly. Go oh, I need to change tactics
(19:57):
here and sit behind my my brother for the part
of the race, get the tire pressure up, and then
I'll pass him in the last three laps and win.
So that's Mark thinking on his feet. But what he
did on the weekend, given the physical juriss that he
was under, and he knew he wasn't the fastest rider,
and this has not been a Mark track in the past,
hugely hugely impressive. And you couple that with the misfortune
(20:19):
for his brother and the Grand Prix, and all of
a sudden we're looking at a sixty eight point championship lead.
But to my mind, that's kind of what it feels
like in terms of what the margin should be between
him and whoever it is that's coming second, because he's
been that much better than everybody in this first half
of the season. I reckon you.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Mentioned then knowing this is not a Mark track. I
don't know about you, Matt, but for me going into
this weekend, always the hype around Usen is Ppeco Brannyaya
like he has it tattooed on him. We know he
loves this place. But then you're going, also, Mark wasn't
the fastestless weekend. No, who was a lot faster than
him in Saturday's sprint. His brother, Alex Marquez. And there's
(20:58):
all this talk that's happening now. I'm sure you've heard
it and listeners. I don't know if you're reading the
articles and what that's coming out, but people that are saying, oh,
Alex isn't challenging Mark because it's his brother. Now, I
feel like if I know anything about races, having grown
up with one a lot, YEP, they're gonna challenge each other.
(21:20):
But I think for me, I think Mark just has
that little edge over Alex. And we've said this before.
You know, Alex is like a diesel truck and Mark's
like a supercar. There's just that little differences in them.
I think Alex is trying to challenge Mark as much
as he can, and he's pushing him in the way
that he can. But it's Mark Marquez. He's gonna find
(21:42):
those little one percenters that you don't even know exist,
and that's how I think he's getting the better of him.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, it's a bit different when you say he's not
challenging his brother. The content needs to be he's maybe
not challenging his brother the way you would like, Oh,
by the way, who just happens to be one of
the best writers in the history of the World Championship.
It's not just any old sibling that you're challenging here.
But you know, it was interesting about this because this
sort of came up at Magello quite a bit, because
obviously they were run one two in the sprint there
and in the Grand Prix, and Peco actually had an
(22:10):
interesting comment about this where he said, well, you know,
it's kind of natural to a degree, because maybe I
race the academy guys a little bit differently than i'd
raise some of the other guys, because you know, for
all intents and purposes, Morbidelli and Buzeki and Luca Marini
they're kind of brothers in inverted commas because they hang
out so much. It's kind of natural to a degree.
But I always look at the role reversal in this,
(22:30):
and we'll probably see this at some point this year.
You look at all these times the Marquez brothers have
finished one and two, and it's been Mark first and
Alex second, with the exception of the sprint at Silveston,
where we know Alex is really good at Silveston, a
lot of right handed courters. Not a great Mark track,
I guess, But I do wonder if you're going to
have a situation where you're going to have a fair
fight between the two of them on a track where
(22:51):
Mark feels pretty comfortable and Mark's coming second in that race.
I don't think there's going to be any questions as
to how hard Mark will race Alex, because I think
Mark will race everybody very, very hard, because that's how
Mark races so super interesting in that regard, I think
the disappointing part for Alex over the course of the
ass and weekend he's been he's actually really pleasantly surprised
(23:14):
me this year because like he's in his sixth Motor
GP season. You would think after five years, there's enough
of a body of work, we go, all right, this
guy's pretty quick. He has certain circuits that he's good at.
He'll get one or two podiums a year, and he's
probably going to finish somewhere between sixth and tenth and
the World Championship. And that's who this guy is. And
he's one Motor three and Motor two on the way through,
And if he had a different surname, we'd probably think
(23:35):
of him a bit differently. But I've always felt that
the Alex Marquez sort of story was kind of written.
It's really unusual for a guy who's twenty nine years
old to completely change the perception of how good you
think he's been. He has been really, really good this year. Yes,
he's got a really good bike, but he's achieved a
level of consistency that I didn't think that he had
in him to have this championship deficit balloon through an
(23:58):
accident that I don't know about you. I thought he
was very lucky to only get away with the injury
that he did, because that thing went so fast and
he basically fell on his face. He was lucky to
escape with a broken finger that looked bad in the moment,
and you know, so he's lucky to escape with that,
and it's you know, he'll try and come back and
do Germany, although given how good Mark is in Germany,
he probably should take that one off and stay home,
(24:20):
to be honest. But it's just a shame that this
amazing run of consistency was brought to an end through
something that was like a fifty to fifty you know,
just Unfortunately two riders into one place didn't really work out.
It's a shame that that amazing run that that was
sort of brought down by something like that, as opposed
to him genuinely making an error.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So my question to you is do you think he
is well and truly out of the title fight. I'm
saying that in inverted commas because of we can see
unless something happens again to Mark, I feel like he's
going to run away with this title. Whether you're a
Mark Fannier or not, you have to admit it. But
out of the title fight, are we going to start
(25:01):
to see if Peco Bna can get his little issues
fixed because he's still on about these issues and the
feeling and whatnot. With this injury for Alex, do you
think he's now out of it and Peco's going to
eventually jump back up to second.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I'm not actually sure that Alex was even in it
at any point. Mathematically he was in it. It was made
to look a lot closer with Mark than it was
because Mark had thrown away win at Kota, and he
crashed early at Harath and he'd given away some points there.
We've said this a few times the only person that
can beat Mark for the championship is Mark. I think
the more likely fight you're going to see as the
season progresses from here is the gap between Alex Marquez
(25:37):
and Bagnoay, it's probably going to narrow, and I know
there's still quite a big deficit there. But if I
had to put money on who was going to finish
second in the World Championship this year, I think it's
going to be Pecko just finishing second in the World Championship.
But as far as first goes, I just think Mark's
in a position now the points actually reflect the level
of dominance now where I don't reckon they did before.
(25:57):
He's been so unbelievable. Mean, he's won nine hour of
ten sprints. You know that in itself is crazy. I
think I worked it out the other day. Is one
ninety seven percent of the points you could actually win
in sprints like that. It's pretty hard to beat someone when
they're doing something like that. And like you said, like
him or dislike him, you have to admire the way
he has gone about this sort of late career chance
(26:18):
to rewrite his story because it's been so long and
you know it's you think about, yes, he's won those
six world titles. It's six years ago since he won
a world title. Six years you know, in anyone's life
is a long time in the life of a motorcycle rate,
so that's almost a career for a lot of guys.
So to see him doing this at this age and
given what he's gone through, it's massively, massively impressive. It's
(26:42):
made me rethink how I feel about Banyaia in that
I think Peco, in the right situation, with the right
bike and everything the way he wants it, is an
incredibly good motor GP rider. But maybe this is exposed
him for not being maybe as sort of versatile or
improvisation or of the other really good guys. And I
(27:02):
made the analogy. I think I made it. I think
I made it on this podcast. I've definitely written it.
If Mark is this generation's Casey Stoner, then Peko is
this generation Sauhala Nzo in that if everything's absolutely right
at the right time. To my mind, Pecko can be
absolutely unbeatable, as Jorge was when you'd have those weekends
(27:22):
where he'd qualify on pole and need you'd forget he
was in the race until they showed him crossing the
finishing line six seconds ahead of everybody. He would demoralize
everybody when everything was right. But we remember Casey. Casey
took a Jucati that no one could even ride to
a world championship in two thousand and seven, and he
was the master at just ragging bikes around and getting
(27:43):
wins where you know, guy's on the equivalent machinery probably couldn't.
And that's the analogy.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
To me.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It's almost like we've seen this story before, but we've
just got two different people coming at it from different
angles this time.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It actually reminded me of a quote Peco Banyaya said
of when I think he won his first title with
Chikadi and he goes, yeah, I won the title, but
Mark Marquez isn't like chasing me. If Mark Marquez was
on the same bike, and I'm fully butchering this this quote,
but if Mark Marquez was on the same bike and
then I won the title, then I'd be much happier. Yeah,
(28:16):
I think we're kind of seeing that now. Well.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I mean, I think if you are able to be
That's why I think, in retrospect I massively rate what
Andre de Vizioso did against Mark for many years, because
there were some of those years where Mark was on
the Hounter that was the best bike, and there were
some years where it wasn't. But the fact that Davizioso,
who we never really thought of being someone who was
a real title contender until late Inny's career, he went
(28:38):
toe to toe with Mark for a number of years
and it was super close, and it was super tense,
and he didn't back out of fights, and he beat
him in the last battles quite a lot. And I
think Davizioso reached a level that at the time was impressive,
but I think you look back at it now, it's like, man,
that guy had a really really good career up against
a force of nature like Mark is. And you know,
(28:59):
in terms of Pecky think this is not the final
sort of story or destination for Pecko. I still think that,
you know, writers can still grow. We're seeing that with
some of these older guys now they keep adding things.
But I don't know, even in his worst nightmares, that
he would have expected to have had Mark come into
his team and do to him what he has done
to him over the first half of this season. And yes,
(29:20):
we know that Acaddy has a major advantage, but I
think reputationally, what banit does for these last what are
we looking at now? Twelve rounds is going to be
pretty significant, not just for this year but twenty six.
I sort of see twenty five and twenty six being
like one gigantic season with a Christmas break in the
middle of it, because there's not a hell of a
lot of change technically going on year on year. I
(29:40):
think Pecko can start his twenty twenty six season sort
of now, and he can really put some building blocks
in place to try and make twenty twenty six the
fight that we hoped that twenty five would be.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It's funny that you said that when you're just talking
about how thinking for the future. I went into a
Prilliers garage over the weekend. A darter guy used to
work with my brother now works for a Prillier. So
I went in there and he actually was meant to
work with Wallhe Martin this year. It now works with
Lorenzo Savagori, and I was asking, Okay, so Lorenzo's kind
(30:13):
of now a full time Moroto GP writer, which wasn't
expecting this year. I said, what does his weekends look
like because he is still a test writer and he goes,
you know what, he is still testing all the time.
He's coming into these race weekends just testing. The cool
thing is what they're doing. And this was this was
Saturday afternoon that I went in there, right before the sprint.
(30:35):
He goes, oh, this morning, Lorenzo was trying these new
side winglets and he really liked them. Now we're going
to put them on Marco's bike and let's see how
he goes this afternoon. What does he do? Goes and
gets on the podium, right, So I think that is
constantly you're constantly trying to approve improve Sorry, maybe this
(30:57):
is where Aprilia is starting to benefit from it because
they are testing all weekend. It's not like they've got
two factory riders in there who are having to go
out straight away. They've got Lorenzo there who can test
parts and grew. Yeah, this is working out this track.
Chuck that on hopefully try and get some point in
a podium place.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah. Yeah, as like the ultimate test laboratory. If you
want to find out if something really works, take it
out in Q one and write it as hard as
you possibly can, or put yourself in a sprint on
a Saturday or do a twenty six lap Grand Prix
on a Sunday. In some respects, as much as I'm
sure this is not what Savadori signed up for it,
I hope he's been compensated for it. Give it all
the extra work that he's doing. It might have accelerated
(31:34):
their improvement a little bit because you've got a guy
who's very technically adept, trying things in the heat of
a race weekend, and we know he's not out there
to finish top tens and try and get podiums and
what have you. But what he brings to the project
and sort of kicks it up the line to Bizeki
and you know, you look at what I mean. Ralph
Anders has had a couple of really strong Grand Prix
(31:54):
in a row, which is not something you've ever heard
me say on this podcast. But he's been really good
the last couple of weekends at Magello and at Assen,
so that a Priori a project as a whole seems
to be growing and it's impressive. And yeah, you'd have
to say internally, I'm sure Savadori's impact on this is
being recognized, but it comes back to where we started
this podcast. I would just love to see a fully
(32:16):
fit and fully motivated Jorge Martin on a pretty good
aprillia that's improving, because that would just give us something
something different, something something different that we haven't seen this
year at the front of some of these Grand Prix
where it does become can anyone split the de Catties
in the answers? Usually no. I would have loved to
have seen Martin on that, but I guess we'll just
have to wait for Honda to get good. Huh.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I love that you just said something different there, and
I thought that's the best segue I can go into
the next part of something different. That wasn't on my
twenty twenty five bingo card for Moto GP was the
fact of Pedro Acosta Alex Marquez collidning. We know Alex
crashing out, we understand that. But was the fact of
Pedro Acosta getting rushed to hospital directly after the races
he got sung by a bee and turns out his
(32:59):
highly allergic to beastings. MM.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Now I'm gonna slightly correct you here. I'm going to
slightly correct you on your insects. I heard it was
a wasp, these wasps. I don't know what they call
him in Holland, who knows, but regardless, that thing hurts.
And you think of the way these riders are so
covered up with all of the safety equipment. There's always
I find it bizarre, there's always that little gap between
the top of the leather suit and the bottom of
(33:23):
the helmet. And I remember, God, where was I think
it might have been Malaysia. I had to crush Low
many years ago, and he actually stopped and because this
thing was just stinging him every time he turned into
a corner, and he actually stopped and unzipped the suit,
and you saw this thing just fly out. And as
someone who is allergic to that sort of thing myself,
(33:43):
when I heard what had happened to a Costra on
the weekend, imagine riding one of these things around in
the heat of battle of a Grand Prix and getting
stung by something you're allergic to. He did better than me.
I wouldn't have got to the checker flag. I'd be
out of there, quite frankly. But that was horrible. But
you had the bizarre situation on Sunday where I'm sure
all the media we're talking about this in the press room.
(34:04):
Everyone wanted to talk to Alex Marquez to find out
what had happened in the incident with a Costa. He
was off to Madrid to get his finger fixed after
eating me had broken that finger, and then a Costa
was off in the hospital getting shot up with antihistamines
because he was allergic to wasps. So no one actually
got to speak to the two protagonists in this accident.
That's kind of changed the shape at the front of
the World Chairbyship. So I guess we'll have to wait
till Saxon rigged to hear from both of them.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
It's funny that that happened. Everyone's talking about it because
I actually saw Jake Dixon before Magello and they were
testing Momoto too in Catalogna directly after where were we
before Aragon? And so he goes look at my back
and there's just Weltz, like what happened? Same thing. A
(34:46):
beer or a mosc or whatever got down his leather
suit as well, and I don't know, you guys can
see it at home when you're watching, like these suits
are tight, they've got inners on underneath, like there's not
much in there. So you know how pesky. There's all
insects be somehow they're making their way into riders suits
as well, which is not what you want when you're
out on track doing god knows what speed. But the
(35:08):
other news, let's talk about Fabera Cordorraro also taking pole,
which I saw a Marco Bezzeki celebrating, going, yeah, give
it to the jew caddies. We don't want to know
the jew caddi pole. So but then hearing what Jack
was saying post race and looking at Fabio Fabruao, he's
mastering this one lap random pulling something out of a hat.
(35:30):
But then the Yamahas are just struggling still.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Right, Yeah, it's two things with the Yamaha. It doesn't
get off the line fantastically and it struggles to pass
other bikes still. So you know, unless you're on a
circuit where you can get a half decent getaway and
block for the best part of a lap, which you
definitely can't do it acc't. His Q two laps are
almost the most fun thing in motor GP right now,
because you know he's so far over the limit. You
(35:54):
look at where all the other other Yamahas are. But
then you're almost not surprised anymore what he pulls one
of these out, because if it was anyone else, you'd say,
that's remarkable, what an absolutely ridiculous lap. And when he
does it, we will just look at each other and say, well,
that's just Fabio Couaturero, because to my mind he is
the second best rider in Murder GP. We just don't
get to see it because of what he's actually riding.
But it's a good one lap qualifying bike in the
(36:17):
right hands, but it still can't race, and that's the
issue with that bike at the moment. It was pretty telling.
I thought that Miguel Olivera was out early in the
Grand Prix because he had some accident damage from the
first lap. But the Amahas basically Quaturo fell out of
the top ten and then they just ran around in line.
At the back end of the top ten, they're all
together and they could sort of scrap with each other.
(36:37):
They couldn't pas anybody else, and they just ran around
and finished a sort of sad tenth, twelve and thirteen
or whatever it was. In the end they were kind
of nowhere. So it was a bit of a track
that exposed the race pace and overtaking problems that they have,
but in as a one lap bike in Quataurero's hands,
it's pretty electrifying. The only sad part about it for me,
(36:58):
I got to say when they were trunkling around at
the back into the top ten and so we didn't
get too many TV shots at that awesome livery that
they ran at essence, because that thing was absolutely beautiful.
We just had to rely on still photos or social
media to look at it.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Oh Honestly, that was one thing I was going to
bring up next. I'm glad you did. Is you know
we saw the livery that a lot of the Italian
teams had in Michello and it's like, okay, I see
the thought like especially do Caddie with the renaissance and
all that. Then you see the retro, the retro Yamahas
and everyone was just going, no one does it like
(37:30):
Yamaha with that retro white and red the color scheme. Oh.
I got to go and see the bike up close,
and I took some quick social video for Fox Motorsport
on their socials and seeing it in person. Then when
you see the boys come out in their leather suits
and even Fabio had like the old school, like early
two thousand sunnies, like they were really trying to throw
(37:52):
it back. This weekend it was Yamaha do it well
with their retro liveries. I'm thinking back Silverstone last year
at the Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
That's exactly I was about to say, Yeah, they've got
the history, They've got a successful history. There's something about
just the purity of that white livery like these some
of these liveries are so cluttered and convoluted these days.
Some of the ones in Italy by the Italian teams
were honestly like nice idea, but there was the execution thing,
and you've got Picko Mark playing chess and I don't
(38:21):
know there was I don't know what was going on.
It was a bit of a mess, quite frankly. And
the VR forty six ones looked like someone had just
tipped a bunch of paint cans over and rolled the
bikes in it. They were pretty revolting. But yeah, the
classy classic Yamaha livery. If if only it was as
fast as it as it looks good But anyway, beautiful
livery just not very fast.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
At assen No, they're trying to make headlines elsewhere at
the moment, which I think is good on them. They're trying.
But Jack is also now off to Japan for the
Suzuka eight Hour that is coming up soon. I know
all your listeners if you're interested, that that is going
to be on Fox Sports and KO. So I'll keep
you up today with all the news that comes from
the Suzuka eight Hours. Now. I mentioned earlier this weekend
(39:03):
the amount of crashes at Assen and how was that
crash in Moto three. I think it was for a start,
I got run over in the end or how he
walked away from that. If you haven't seen it, I
highly recommend going watching it because Okay, we don't want
to promote crashes, but this this was like Jack Miller
Malaysia last year style crash.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yeah, major and anytime, I mean Moto three, you could
throw a blanket over the top ten most races, at
most tracks. There's something about that last sequence, the last
sector at Acid and that chicane, the GT chicane at
the end of the lap. It's just a magnet for
things happening like this. And the thing that was I
was surprised about was they eventually red flag that race,
but not until the field was almost in the chicade
(39:44):
on the last lap. Like that was a little bit
on that questionable side. But I think Luca Lenetto, if
I remember rightly, is broken a tibia, so he's going
to clearly be out for a while. But that was
a nasty, nasty accident. But Moto three and Assen it's
almost to be expected.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
I think, well, that's the thing. I did a track
walk with Snags our Aussie and Moto two just to
take me through a lap of acid because this circuit
is so interesting in the fact that it's old school.
There's a lot of on and off camber, which he
called one of the corners like NASCAR now, it's not
quite on the same lean angle, but he goes it
feels like it. So if you're wondering why this track
(40:19):
is like that and often provides some of the best racing,
it's because of the track layout and how it is
and now it's it's definitely changed a lot over the years.
But if you're interested in that track walk that is
on our YouTube channel, you can head to YouTube dot
com slash Fox Sports Australia and you'll be able to
find that but yeah, let's look about the Moto III
results for our Aussie's. We know that Jack Miller on Sunday,
(40:42):
he was p. Fourteen in the end, so not the
results that he was after. But like I said, Jack's
on his way to Suzuka anyway for the Suzuka eight Hours,
which is an endurance race, totally different style of racing.
But in Moto two we had Diego Morrera take his
is a first win, so that's like the first Brazilian
(41:03):
I think, to take a Moto two win in Emma
in the history. Soa ag is not the top ten
performance for Center. Now we caught up with him as well, Matt,
You've written an article that's gonna come out by the
time this is ed on Center and where he's going.
What's your thoughts on the Aussie youngster this year. It
seems like he's made a big jump from his rookie
(41:24):
year now in his second year.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, definitely. I mean he's already scored more points this
season than he scored the whole of his rookie season,
which we're not even at the halfway point. So that's
impressive enough in itself, and obviously the headliner of that
is the mad last couple of quarters at Silverston that
I think you were at a stairwell had missed, but
Obvio certainly at the TV back here. But he's he's
maturing pretty quickly, and a lot of the sort of
(41:49):
standard rookie things, inconsistency and you know, not being able
to put together entire weekends. He's so much better than
that now. I think the key thing for me, I
was crunching some numbers before. He's only had one race
this season where he has a scored points, so he's
always there and for him to be sixth in the
championship at the moment looking he's obviously got the world
championship leader as his teammate. This is Mado Gonzalez's fourth
(42:10):
year in Moto two, so he's got double the experience,
and that team's clearly got a good bike and they're
operating well. But I think as that team has got
better in the bike has got better, Senn has risen
with that. I think that's a really good sign. If
you look at the potential of what he's got underneath him,
he's living up to that potential. He's doing really really well.
I think there's a lot of optimism as to I
(42:31):
don't think he's anywhere near as good as he's going
to be. I think that's the interesting part for the
Australian fans in that, Yeah, there's a lot of promise there,
but it feels like his Sea leagu's quite high. So yeah,
having a really really solid season. And yes, when I
get round to finishing this story, everyone else could actually
read it as well.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
And let's go to our Aussies in Moto through. We've
got Joel Kelso who crossed the line in p nine
and Jacob Rilestone in at twelfth as well. So I
didn't get much of a chance to catch up with
Joel this weekend. But if you haven't watched that Moto
three race, I highly recommend it purely just because it's
normally we see that big group of Moto three writers
(43:07):
like that top ten, top fifteen, but for whatever reason, Asen,
it just gives the whole pack together the whole entire time,
and it's just like a little swarm of bees. What
is it with bees?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
As we can But yeah, I know it's funny, isn't it,
Like Moto three at Asen, like they're all in the
same TV shot in the last five laps, which is
completely insane when you think of the field spread, like
they're basically all in the same frame on the TV.
But it's funny, isn't it. Like as chaotic and as
mad cap as those Moto three races are, and then
the same guy ends up winning most of them in
Jose Antonio Rueda, who's just putting together this awesome season
(43:38):
of winning races. When you look at it and think, oh,
he's seventh, he might be in a bit of trouble here.
He just works this way through. There's a bit of
a David Alonzo going on there with him this year,
isn't there? There?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Definitely is. I think we're going to see a lot
from Rueida in the future. But another writer who I
hope that we get to see a bit more of
in the future is our Aussie Carter Thompson, who Matt
you wrote an article about on Fox sports dot com
or a four slash Motorsport, And I caught up with
him in Migello because we haven't caught up since Michello
either as well. And let's talk about Carter real quick.
(44:11):
So if those who haven't heard Carter, I think you
should definitely keep an eye on him because the o
a youngster competing in at the Red Bull Rookies Cup,
but at the same time he's doing the World Supersport
three hundred. So this kid's riding in two different championships
on two different, completely different bikes, and he's a race
winner in both, which I think is just phenomenal for
(44:31):
this young teenager who just seems to be When I
spoke to him, he's just happy, friendly, just just loving it.
And talking to the head of the Red Bull Rookies
there he goes, Oh, Carter is just making waves this year.
He's really getting that consistency and putting his way through.
But what's your thoughts on Carter so far this year, Matt.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
I think there's the word to use with him is uncomplicated,
and that's that's that's actually a really high I think
you mentioned that he's riding two really different vibes in
two really different series. Obviously, the goal is to get
into the World Championship, and we've seen that Redbel Rookies
is this pathway to get into Moto three and then
we go from there. But you know, it's a pretty
full plate that he's got with these different different bikes
(45:13):
in different parts.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Every single weekend he's doing something different, but he's very
sort of matter of fact and methodical about it, and
there's like a maturity to him that you have to remember,
you're listening to a seventeen year old, You're not listening
to a twenty three year old. So maybe that just
comes from being so far away from home and out
of your comfort zone and all those sorts of things.
But he's just really well put together. He know what
he wants. He's very uncomplicated about everything, and you'd have
(45:36):
to say, I mean, look, Red Bull rookies can be
rebel rookies, makes Moto three look tame sometimes because those
races are absolutely mental half the time. No better place
to showcase what you've got than under the nose of
the World Championship. Paddick as a support race category at
some of these weekends in Europe, So you've got to say,
given how far he's come from and what it is
(45:57):
that he's riding, and you would have got a sense
of this when you spoke to him, just a sense
of sort of calm about the way that he does it,
which I think is super impressive.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yes, what I mean, he seems really put together. Yeah,
but he is an ozzie teenager at the same time,
which is so cool to see. His mum was there
as well. She's traveling with him. Dad's back home and
I was working, you know, to help support his racing career,
and it's cool to see you forget you know, you
see Jack, and you see Senna and these guys who
are in the World Championship and they're on the big screen.
(46:27):
Then you see Carter and what his family are doing.
And Red Bull Rookies O. We definitely don't give it
enough talk because there's obviously so much always happening in
the Moto GP paddock. But if you guys haven't watched
a Red Bull Rookies race, you can watch it. It's
on KO I believe it's on Fox Sports as well,
so do check it out and keep your eye on
Carter Thompson because I think he's going to be our
(46:47):
next Moto three, hopefully race winner and world champion in
the future. But Matt, I think that pretty much wraps
up our big catch up from post Magello and obviously
the as in Grand Prix, we have a little weekend
off where we have the Silverstone f one or your
four wheel fans. You have more racing, then we will
(47:08):
be back with the Saxon Ring. And I am just
going to call it now the King of the Ring.
Mark Marquez is for sure going to return to Saxon Ring.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Right as soon as you said Saxon Ring, I just
started leaning left because I think I'm just going to
be turning left and more left and more left. For
what is it, ten out of the thirteen corners turn left.
It is a really ridiculous racetrack for Motor GP and
I'm glad there's not more than one of them, but
as an outlier in a twenty two round season, I
do quite enjoy it because it's something very very different.
(47:37):
But something's very very different will be anyone other than
Mark Marquez winning there because a track that's got undulation
and turns left a lot that's almost like He's absolute Nirvana,
isn't it?
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Mark Marquez is a form of Heaven, I guess. But guys,
you can catch all the Motor GP action and if
you want to watch Formula One you can do so
on Fox Sports and KO. This podcast, as always, is
brought to you by Shannon's Insurance and I know we've
mentioned a lot of Matt's articles. If you want to
read those, they are on foxsports dot com dot au, Forward,
Slash Motorsport, and you can keep up to date with
(48:10):
all the latest on our socials as well at Fox
Motorsport on all the platforms. I've taken you guys behind
the scenes as much as I can during this European adventure.
But Matt, thank you so much for chatting with me
about MotoGP and guys, we're going to be back real
soon with more Moto GP pit talk.
Welcome to the land of windmills, waffles and wheel to
wheel warfare, because the Cathedral of speed well and truly
delivered in Acden for around eleven of the twenty twenty
five Motor GP World Championship, Mark Marquez is marching towards
the title like a man on a mission. But it's
a prillier stealing the headlines for two very different reasons.
(00:22):
As always, this episode of Pittalk is proudly brought to
you by Shannon's Insurance. I'm your host, Ronita vmullen, and
joining me is the man who is as reliable as
a Dutch bike and equationally just as squeaky, the one
and only mister Matt Clayton. Matt had to get a
few little dutchisms in there, but we have to start
this podcast by talking about Joge Martin and a prillier,
(00:45):
because once again Jai Martin's in the headlines and not
for racing on track. No.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I did get a little distracted with waffles halfway through
the intro there because I thought, oh, I haven't had
one of those for while. Let it go quite nicely,
but yeah, isn't it funny? We're what ten rounds into
Motor GP season and Jorge Martin has done thirteen racing
laps in a Grand Prix and here we are leading
a podcast talking about him again and it's for the
same story that won't go away, but for a completely
(01:11):
different reason, because things escalated over the course of the
as and weekend. And before I go too deep on this,
you were in that paddock over the weekend and it
just seemed like the story just kept escalating and escalating
to a point where you were almost prepared to believe
anything the longer the race weekend went. Take our listeners
on the inside for that, because you were privy to
(01:31):
all of these conversations that were going on behind the scenes,
and it just felt like it really ramped up from
attention point of view, didn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, So obviously on track, you know, we had a
lot of crashes this weekend and which we'll dive into
with track temperature and everything. But sitting in the media
center working, all of a sudden, you see something that's
popped up on social media from Jogeey, Martin's manager saying,
how you know, we're looking at other options for next year.
Next minute, all the journalists are running around to each
other when the writers are in for media scrums, you know,
(02:01):
they're asking them on their opinions or what's going on.
Then we have Albeldo Puge from Honda because there was
a mention of possibility of Honda coming into Joge Martin's sphere.
Next minute, everything's going on from there. And then as
it's starting to really escalate, really escalate, I'm hearing talks
from Matt Burjack Appleyard, these guys saying about you know
(02:22):
what they're going to speak to them on air about
are they getting questions? Then it's Carlos Espeletta, the CEO
of Moto GP. He's then put out a statement as well.
The drama that happened off track in aison was just
as exciting as the drama that was happening on track.
And I don't know about you, Matt, My biggest takeaway
(02:46):
from all of this is Joge Martin's reputation right now.
I think for him, he's having to put his trust
into his manager and he's believing his manager's doing the
right thing. For those who have been in following Retogipi
for a long time, you would know that his manager
does have quite a reputation for doing stuff like that.
We know Jgey Martin doesn't have a good relationship with
(03:08):
other manufacturers in the paddock, but I think that for
now Joege Martin, people are starting to not look at
him so well portrayed. We know he suffered with those
injuries and what happened in guitar you wouldn't wish on anyone.
But now it's starting to get to that next point
where it's like you're kind of starting to burn your bridges,
(03:30):
like you're not gonna have any more options. And we
know the type of writer Jogey Martin is, and I
truly believe if he was there on the Apilia now
fit and healthy, I think that would be he wouldn't
be fighting for the championship, but I think he'd be
challenging for podiums and really putting up a good fight
so far this season. But now it's none of that,
that's all out the window. You almost forget that he
(03:52):
is the world champion for former world championship and put
up that fight to Pego Banyaya, and now you're just
seeing all these headlines and showing side of Jujae Martin.
I don't think is going to help him in the future.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
No, we were talking about this off here before and
I wrote this for Fox Sports dot com dot Au
today Wednesday here in Australia, I think at the start
of the year, with all of the injuries that he
had had from two accidents on the apillia and then
that one accident you had when he was training on
the supermotobike back in Andorra, there was a lot of
sympathy for what he was going through because he clearly
(04:25):
had a lot of horrible injuries. He was legitimately beaten up.
It was a great shame that we didn't get to
see that great theater of the number one on an
aprillia that he had earned with another manufacturer going against
the manufacturer that he had left. We didn't really get
to see that obviously until Katar and then a horrendous
accident there the incredibly bad luck being hit by the
jan Antonio stuck in the hospital for two weeks because
(04:47):
he couldn't fly with the lung injury and the broken ribs.
There was a lot of sympathy for everything that he
was going to going through rather but then you get
to this situation after well, just around the time the
French Grand Prix, where he he made it clear to
a Prillier that he wasn't willing to stay because there
was a clause in the contract that said he was
free to go elsewhere if he was not in the
top three the championship at a certain point of the season.
(05:09):
And you can look at it and go, well, yes,
that's true by the letter of the law. The reason
you're not anywhere near the top three in the World
Championship is because you haven't raced. And we've seen this
using clauses with context before, where he's got it out
of situations that he didn't want to be in. And
we talked about this in a podcast a while ago,
but a lot of people may not know this. He
(05:29):
was supposed to come to Motor GP with KTM in
twenty twenty one, and there was a clause in that
contract in twenty twenty when he was still in Moto
two if there was not a KTM rider in the
top ten of the championship by July one of that season,
then he was free to look elsewhere. Now, what didn't
happen until well after July one in twenty twenty There
was no racing because there was a pandemic, and so
(05:50):
the season didn't even start until Spain until towards the
end of July. We forget how late that was. While
that's a round, will always remember for other reasons. I
Mark Marquez falling off and started udding this run of
years where he was either injured or recovering from injuries.
That was the clause that he used to break a
KTM contract. So again, by the letter of the law,
(06:10):
fine in terms of is that the right moral play
to rely on a one in one hundred year pandemic
to get yourself out of something you don't want to do.
It didn't pass the smell test, and so by that situation.
Because of that situation, he's burned KTM. We know that
after things didn't go the way he wanted it to Catty,
he pretty much rage quit them and signed with a
Prillier in about twenty four hours, which you know, the
(06:32):
more we go into this, now that looks like a
contract that was signed in twenty four hours, because there's
clearly a lot of conjecture about what it should be said.
So he's escaped going to KTM. He's rage quick to Catti.
Now he's looking to leave a Prillier. There's only five
manufacturers in MotoGP and I'm not brilliant at Mathaditta, but
that only leaves two. And Yamaha has already got the
situation where they've got five riders of four bikes. They
(06:53):
don't need anybody else in the mix. They've already got
too many riders for the bikes that they have. So,
to my mind, when he came out and said that
he wanted to escape this a Prillier contract, he clearly
had Honda in mindus a destination he wanted to go to.
We know that Luca Marini's out of contract with the
factory team there. But what was really interesting for me
and why personally I reckon this blew up at Asen.
(07:15):
After he had made that statement that he wanted to
leave a Prillier, Aprillia came out with this press release
Silverston you may remember, and it was basically, like the
writer's under contract. It would be wrong for other manufacturers
to talk to a contract and writer while he's under contract.
We've got nothing else to say. And I looked back
when that was released, that was a twenty second of
may so going back a fair while right, And so
(07:36):
that's how long ago this was and there'd been crickets
from a prelier since then, they had said nothing, and
I think because the story had stalled out and Martine
still you know, he's getting closer to returning, but he's
still not back. I think that was pretty deliberate by
management over the weekend to let's get this thing back
out there and look, Honda's an option we're considering. And
Albert Valaria did an interview with Jack Appleyard on the
(07:58):
Motor GP Live Fee, which you probably were there while
it was going on, and I certainly heard it, and
that was the stone that got thrown in the pond
that started this ripple effect of all of these other
reactions to that particular interview. What was interesting for me
was that Carmello espeletter from Dawner came out and said, look,
you know, we're not going to allow unless this is resolved.
(08:19):
We're not going to allow this for him to compete
for a manufacturer when there's not been an appropriate severance
of contract with a prillier in this case. And off
the back of that, Masama Rivella from a Prillier got
quite punchy on Sunday at Asen and basically said, look,
there's two options here. We can either sit around the
table and have a sensible discussion as to what's an
amicable parting if that's going to be the way it goes,
(08:40):
or we can go to court. It's up to you.
And I don't know about you, but I can't see
I find it bizarre to think that Martin's attempted to
come back to race for a Prillier at some point,
you know, perhaps as early as Czech Republic in two
rounds of time. That seems bizarre to me that they
could even go and work together while this contract is
still active. I have no doubt that Jem's going to
(09:00):
be on a Honda next year. The only question now
is how much is it going to cost? Because all
of these contracts can be settled, there'll be and as
they like to call it, a for an undisclosed sum,
or there'll be some sort of fine print where they
can't reveal it. How much is he going to have
to pay to get himself out of a contract where
he's got a clear case of buyer's remorse. But you know, look,
(09:22):
he's probably got lots of money he can afford these
sorts of things. The lawyers will get rich because that's
what lawyers do. But the point that you made at
the beginning of this, the damage reputationally to a writer
that had all of the sympathy in his quarter because
of how broken he was because of all these accidents,
I reckon that's completely shifted now, and there's a lot
of people that are saying, well, he's not actually given
(09:43):
a Prillier a chance here. And as you said at
the start of this, isn't it bizarre He came out
before Silverstone and made the comment that he wanted to
break and then Berzeki wins at Silverstone. All this blows
up at Assen on the weekend, and then Berzeki finished
the second in the Grand Prix, and you know, if
it wasn't Mark Marquez ahead of it, probably would have
won it because I think he would have beaten any
other rider. Just when Aprilia is getting dragged into these
(10:05):
really uncomfortable situations, up pops Marco Bozeki, who's also new
to Aprillia this year and gets a fantastic result. So
I can't help but think Bozeki is a very good
motor GP rider. He's not a world champion he's not
a fully fit Jogey Martin. The Aprillia right now, you
could argue the second best bike in motor GP. What
could a fully fit Jogey Martin do if he's motivated
(10:27):
on an Aprillier I reckon that would add another fantastic
element into the World Championship fight, But sadly we're probably
never gonna know AOI.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, that leads me to think, why would Jorge Martin,
who is a World Championship champion and we know the
caliber of writer that he is, want to go to Honda?
Why we know Honda at the moments not the best manufacturer. Okay,
the new rules are coming in twenty twenty seven, but
there's still no guarantee that Honda are going to make
this huge jump in twenty twenty seven. So why Lind,
(10:59):
like you said, the potentially second best manufacturer of right now.
Obviously we don't know what's happening with KTM, but why
leave them right now to go to a IF button? Maybe?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I can see the logic in that if you're
looking at twenty twenty seven as a blank sheet of paper,
which it is to a degree, because these bikes are
going to be so different eight fifties, none of the
right height devices, none of the arrow on them. You
would put more faith in Honda being able to design
a better bike from a clean sheet of paper than
a Prillier. And that's no slight on a Prillier. But
(11:31):
it comes down to racing pedigree. We know that Honda
has huge pedigree in this sport hasn't been what it
was in the recent past, but you go back longer
than that, and it's just this. You know who's who
of motor GP, of one's titles on Hondas, and you
also have to imagine the resource both in terms of
manpower and budget at Honda is going to be ten, fifteen,
(11:51):
twenty five times what a Prillier can throw it at.
It's a completely different kettle of fish in that regard.
So you can see the logic in that if we're
all starting from the same start point here, then perhaps
the Honda is a better bet. And that's part of it.
I think if this rule set that we're in right
now is continuing for another three to five years, then
you would argue that Honda is not the better bet
because ever since Mark Marquez left Honda, it's been pretty
(12:14):
bleak if had the odd win here and there. Obviously
Zarco this year at Lamont. But so I think the
timing of it is part of it, Like can you
get in there in twenty six and then be around
for twenty seven If and that's a small word with
big consequences. If if Honda can actually get it right,
you'd probably see the logic in that. But in the
short term you just have to wonder how many more
(12:37):
bridges could you burn? As you said before, And look,
maybe he doesn't care less about the reputation, and you
know what people think about the way he's going about this,
there's going to be a sporting reason for him to
want to go that he's prepared to take a risk on.
Maybe that's an easier decision you can make. If you've
already won a world championship, you can sort of say, well,
who cares, I've already won one of these things, so
(12:59):
maybe I can take it of a gamble. But you
just have to look at the way. I think a
Prilliad is almost the best emotor GP at doing the
most with the least, and that's I'm not dissing a
Prilliam in that sense, but in terms of the resource
and the budget. You know, they are a small using
air quotes, small manufacturer relative to something as big as
Yabaha or as big as Hondo or even Ducati It
(13:20):
Prilli does a really great job with what they have.
But man, it's tough, isn't it. Like you said, you
are putting so much reputationally, You're betting so much on
something that is still an unknown and yet it might
have more of a chance from twenty twenty seven onwards.
But there's no guarantees in all of this, And you
only have to look at some of the writers that
have been on Hondas in the last few years, Like
(13:41):
I'm sure if you ask Juan Mira, like, well, how
do you fancy writing you know, a Repsol Honda or
a factory Honda, he would have said, fantastic, let's do that.
Look at what's happened to him since he went there
after Suzuki folded. He's basically broken himself into a million
pieces and doesn't even finish on podiums anymore and just
looks a shadow of what he was. And he's world
champion five years ago. So you can put a lot
(14:03):
in these moves based on the reputation of a company
and it can fall over for you. He's living proof
of that. There's proof of other guys that have gone
you know, the right way at the right time as well.
But it's a serious gamble my Martine at this point.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But it's not only Martin who's potentially looking for the
next place, you know, thinking about it as Pedro Acosta,
the guy that we thought was going to out before
Mark Marquez straightaway. Then we have that whole KTM debacle,
and I hear rumors about Valentino Rossi's still looking at Pedro.
But then in the back of my mind, I'm going, Okay, well,
do you Cadi's set? They're pretty good. Obviously we have
(14:38):
the old Prilier thing, Katm's folding, yamaha. We know we've
got multiple writers. Where's Pedro going to go next? So
that's when I'm starting to think all this silly Season
four next year in twenty twenty seven. I don't think
it's as clear as what I think Joge Martin's managers
hoping for well.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
And also the other thing here is that what about
the precedent that if Martine's able to riggle his way
out of this contract that he doesn't want to be in.
What does that do for future contracts with other riders.
It's like if a contract is literally worthless and it
can just be broken at the whim of one of
the two parties, like fine, we don't want you to
be here anymore, of I don't want to be here anymore.
(15:16):
Then what's the point of having a contract in the
first place if you're just going to have your head
turned by the next, you know, the next thing that
comes along. It is like, oh, look at this, I
think I'd like to have a crack at this. But
all that sounds like to me is that you mentioned
all of these other manufacturers that there's chaos going on
here or underresourced here, or writers that don't want to
be there. And meanwhile, do Katty just keep rolling along
and doing dcatty things? And yeah, they had a rider
(15:40):
win at Asen on a weekend where I don't think
at any point he was actually the fastest rider, Mark Marquez,
but thirty seven points. Again, we've said this a few times, haven't.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
We, honestly, So the off track was kind of taking
away from the on track, But it was the occasions
where you look up at the screen or you hear
someone in the media center. Oh, and we just had
crashes and crashes and crashes this weekend, all throughout all
the crotches sessions qualifying, which I was talking to Senna
and I'm going, what is going on with this? And
(16:11):
he said, oh, you know track temperature that tires like,
he goes, we're struggling. Well the parrellis, he goes, The
fronts on the Perellis are really good. But in Moto
GP they're definitely struggling with the fronts on the the Michelins.
But Mark marquees okay, phenomenal weekend if you looked at it,
like from the podium positions for him. But then early
in that weekend, that high side that he had in
(16:33):
that practice session and watching him and it was funny
because I wasn't gonna say this, Matt, but you bought
it up earlier. You said, watching Mark Marquez get up
is like watching me try and get out of bed.
Now we know you're only like twenty one, Matt, so
it's not too bad. But Mark Marquez, you mentioned this,
he is the aller of the oldest writers on the
grid now and he's not bouncing like he used to write.
(16:57):
I heard on the TNT broadcast he said to them,
adrenaline is my painkiller, but honestly, I don't know if
I can race. He said, he's destroyed. And for Mark
Marqus to say that, you think he never lets anyone
know when he's down, or he's out, or he's weak.
But how does Mark markus This is my question is
(17:19):
how does Mark Marquez then go from from that that
mentality saying those words struggling to just go and dominate
once again?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, I mean he's a guy who he loves an
external force to motivate him. Right, So you don't go
into these weekends going well, if I get hurt, I'll
show everybody how good I am and how strong mentally
I am. And there was a second accident for me
when he slid along his front at the end of
FP two, and every male watching him get up from
(17:49):
that accident just winced because that was only that was
a pain. Only half of the listeners he can probably understand.
But you mentioned before, and it's true, like he's thirty
two years old now and one of the things about
him when he was younger is that he would always
go past the limit. Do all these crazy saves and
save the front end and everything else. But when he crashed,
they were generally pretty big, and he generally has got
(18:09):
up because he was young and bouncy. He's you know what,
I think he's the second oldest rider behind Zaco now,
so you know, there's only so many times you can
fall with these things. And he gets up like an
older man out of these accidents these days, and he
looks pretty beaten up and pretty sore. But to my mind,
you look at the two margins over the weekend he
won that. He won the Grand Prix by six tenths
of a second, he won the sprint by about two
(18:30):
tens so there's nothing in it, really, And I just
thought it was so interesting that since he's had all
the right arm operations, he has always been better in
left handed corners and antiqulockwise tracks anyway, but on right
handed corners it was never a massive strength and now
it definitely is it a strength. He can definitely see
him suffering through there. And in the sprint he had
Alex Marquez right behind him, He had Bozeki behind him
(18:52):
for pretty much the last two thirds of the Grand Prix.
There was that section as you come out of the
last hap him with that, there's a succession of right
hand quarters before you come back to the chicag there
at Assen, and you could have probably drawn two chalk
lines on the track about ten centimeters apart, and I
reckon he hit the same piece of track for thirty
nine straight laps over the course of two straight days.
(19:13):
He knew that was the only place that someone could
get a run on him to pass him, and he
got those four corners right lap after lap after lap.
And no, I don't think he was the fastest, but yes,
I do think he was the smartest. And that's a
different level of rider when with that amount of pressure
on you, you do not make one mistake. If you
make one mistake, that becomes one place, becomes two places,
(19:34):
becomes three places. He was so metronomically perfect and it's
so interesting to see him win races in different ways. Now. Yes,
he goes to Aragon and just absolutely blust everybody because
we expect that. But he's had a couple of rounds
this year where he's had to do things like entire
Land when they miscalculated the entire pressure he had to
on the fly. Go oh, I need to change tactics
(19:57):
here and sit behind my my brother for the part
of the race, get the tire pressure up, and then
I'll pass him in the last three laps and win.
So that's Mark thinking on his feet. But what he
did on the weekend, given the physical juriss that he
was under, and he knew he wasn't the fastest rider,
and this has not been a Mark track in the past,
hugely hugely impressive. And you couple that with the misfortune
(20:19):
for his brother and the Grand Prix, and all of
a sudden we're looking at a sixty eight point championship lead.
But to my mind, that's kind of what it feels
like in terms of what the margin should be between
him and whoever it is that's coming second, because he's
been that much better than everybody in this first half
of the season. I reckon you.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Mentioned then knowing this is not a Mark track. I
don't know about you, Matt, but for me going into
this weekend, always the hype around Usen is Ppeco Brannyaya
like he has it tattooed on him. We know he
loves this place. But then you're going, also, Mark wasn't
the fastestless weekend. No, who was a lot faster than
him in Saturday's sprint. His brother, Alex Marquez. And there's
(20:58):
all this talk that's happening now. I'm sure you've heard
it and listeners. I don't know if you're reading the
articles and what that's coming out, but people that are saying, oh,
Alex isn't challenging Mark because it's his brother. Now, I
feel like if I know anything about races, having grown
up with one a lot, YEP, they're gonna challenge each other.
(21:20):
But I think for me, I think Mark just has
that little edge over Alex. And we've said this before.
You know, Alex is like a diesel truck and Mark's
like a supercar. There's just that little differences in them.
I think Alex is trying to challenge Mark as much
as he can, and he's pushing him in the way
that he can. But it's Mark Marquez. He's gonna find
(21:42):
those little one percenters that you don't even know exist,
and that's how I think he's getting the better of him.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, it's a bit different when you say he's not
challenging his brother. The content needs to be he's maybe
not challenging his brother the way you would like, Oh,
by the way, who just happens to be one of
the best writers in the history of the World Championship.
It's not just any old sibling that you're challenging here.
But you know, it was interesting about this because this
sort of came up at Magello quite a bit, because
obviously they were run one two in the sprint there
and in the Grand Prix, and Peco actually had an
(22:10):
interesting comment about this where he said, well, you know,
it's kind of natural to a degree, because maybe I
race the academy guys a little bit differently than i'd
raise some of the other guys, because you know, for
all intents and purposes, Morbidelli and Buzeki and Luca Marini
they're kind of brothers in inverted commas because they hang
out so much. It's kind of natural to a degree.
But I always look at the role reversal in this,
(22:30):
and we'll probably see this at some point this year.
You look at all these times the Marquez brothers have
finished one and two, and it's been Mark first and
Alex second, with the exception of the sprint at Silveston,
where we know Alex is really good at Silveston, a
lot of right handed courters. Not a great Mark track,
I guess, But I do wonder if you're going to
have a situation where you're going to have a fair
fight between the two of them on a track where
(22:51):
Mark feels pretty comfortable and Mark's coming second in that race.
I don't think there's going to be any questions as
to how hard Mark will race Alex, because I think
Mark will race everybody very, very hard, because that's how
Mark races so super interesting in that regard, I think
the disappointing part for Alex over the course of the
ass and weekend he's been he's actually really pleasantly surprised
(23:14):
me this year because like he's in his sixth Motor
GP season. You would think after five years, there's enough
of a body of work, we go, all right, this
guy's pretty quick. He has certain circuits that he's good at.
He'll get one or two podiums a year, and he's
probably going to finish somewhere between sixth and tenth and
the World Championship. And that's who this guy is. And
he's one Motor three and Motor two on the way through,
And if he had a different surname, we'd probably think
(23:35):
of him a bit differently. But I've always felt that
the Alex Marquez sort of story was kind of written.
It's really unusual for a guy who's twenty nine years
old to completely change the perception of how good you
think he's been. He has been really, really good this year. Yes,
he's got a really good bike, but he's achieved a
level of consistency that I didn't think that he had
in him to have this championship deficit balloon through an
(23:58):
accident that I don't know about you. I thought he
was very lucky to only get away with the injury
that he did, because that thing went so fast and
he basically fell on his face. He was lucky to
escape with a broken finger that looked bad in the moment,
and you know, so he's lucky to escape with that,
and it's you know, he'll try and come back and
do Germany, although given how good Mark is in Germany,
he probably should take that one off and stay home,
(24:20):
to be honest. But it's just a shame that this
amazing run of consistency was brought to an end through
something that was like a fifty to fifty you know,
just Unfortunately two riders into one place didn't really work out.
It's a shame that that amazing run that that was
sort of brought down by something like that, as opposed
to him genuinely making an error.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So my question to you is do you think he
is well and truly out of the title fight. I'm
saying that in inverted commas because of we can see
unless something happens again to Mark, I feel like he's
going to run away with this title. Whether you're a
Mark Fannier or not, you have to admit it. But
out of the title fight, are we going to start
(25:01):
to see if Peco Bna can get his little issues
fixed because he's still on about these issues and the
feeling and whatnot. With this injury for Alex, do you
think he's now out of it and Peco's going to
eventually jump back up to second.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I'm not actually sure that Alex was even in it
at any point. Mathematically he was in it. It was made
to look a lot closer with Mark than it was
because Mark had thrown away win at Kota, and he
crashed early at Harath and he'd given away some points there.
We've said this a few times the only person that
can beat Mark for the championship is Mark. I think
the more likely fight you're going to see as the
season progresses from here is the gap between Alex Marquez
(25:37):
and Bagnoay, it's probably going to narrow, and I know
there's still quite a big deficit there. But if I
had to put money on who was going to finish
second in the World Championship this year, I think it's
going to be Pecko just finishing second in the World Championship.
But as far as first goes, I just think Mark's
in a position now the points actually reflect the level
of dominance now where I don't reckon they did before.
(25:57):
He's been so unbelievable. Mean, he's won nine hour of
ten sprints. You know that in itself is crazy. I
think I worked it out the other day. Is one
ninety seven percent of the points you could actually win
in sprints like that. It's pretty hard to beat someone when
they're doing something like that. And like you said, like
him or dislike him, you have to admire the way
he has gone about this sort of late career chance
(26:18):
to rewrite his story because it's been so long and
you know it's you think about, yes, he's won those
six world titles. It's six years ago since he won
a world title. Six years you know, in anyone's life
is a long time in the life of a motorcycle rate,
so that's almost a career for a lot of guys.
So to see him doing this at this age and
given what he's gone through, it's massively, massively impressive. It's
(26:42):
made me rethink how I feel about Banyaia in that
I think Peco, in the right situation, with the right
bike and everything the way he wants it, is an
incredibly good motor GP rider. But maybe this is exposed
him for not being maybe as sort of versatile or
improvisation or of the other really good guys. And I
(27:02):
made the analogy. I think I made it. I think
I made it on this podcast. I've definitely written it.
If Mark is this generation's Casey Stoner, then Peko is
this generation Sauhala Nzo in that if everything's absolutely right
at the right time. To my mind, Pecko can be
absolutely unbeatable, as Jorge was when you'd have those weekends
(27:22):
where he'd qualify on pole and need you'd forget he
was in the race until they showed him crossing the
finishing line six seconds ahead of everybody. He would demoralize
everybody when everything was right. But we remember Casey. Casey
took a Jucati that no one could even ride to
a world championship in two thousand and seven, and he
was the master at just ragging bikes around and getting
(27:43):
wins where you know, guy's on the equivalent machinery probably couldn't.
And that's the analogy.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
To me.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It's almost like we've seen this story before, but we've
just got two different people coming at it from different
angles this time.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It actually reminded me of a quote Peco Banyaya said
of when I think he won his first title with
Chikadi and he goes, yeah, I won the title, but
Mark Marquez isn't like chasing me. If Mark Marquez was
on the same bike, and I'm fully butchering this this quote,
but if Mark Marquez was on the same bike and
then I won the title, then I'd be much happier. Yeah,
(28:16):
I think we're kind of seeing that now. Well.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I mean, I think if you are able to be
That's why I think, in retrospect I massively rate what
Andre de Vizioso did against Mark for many years, because
there were some of those years where Mark was on
the Hounter that was the best bike, and there were
some years where it wasn't. But the fact that Davizioso,
who we never really thought of being someone who was
a real title contender until late Inny's career, he went
(28:38):
toe to toe with Mark for a number of years
and it was super close, and it was super tense,
and he didn't back out of fights, and he beat
him in the last battles quite a lot. And I
think Davizioso reached a level that at the time was impressive,
but I think you look back at it now, it's like, man,
that guy had a really really good career up against
a force of nature like Mark is. And you know,
(28:59):
in terms of Pecky think this is not the final
sort of story or destination for Pecko. I still think that,
you know, writers can still grow. We're seeing that with
some of these older guys now they keep adding things.
But I don't know, even in his worst nightmares, that
he would have expected to have had Mark come into
his team and do to him what he has done
to him over the first half of this season. And yes,
(29:20):
we know that Acaddy has a major advantage, but I
think reputationally, what banit does for these last what are
we looking at now? Twelve rounds is going to be
pretty significant, not just for this year but twenty six.
I sort of see twenty five and twenty six being
like one gigantic season with a Christmas break in the
middle of it, because there's not a hell of a
lot of change technically going on year on year. I
(29:40):
think Pecko can start his twenty twenty six season sort
of now, and he can really put some building blocks
in place to try and make twenty twenty six the
fight that we hoped that twenty five would be.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It's funny that you said that when you're just talking
about how thinking for the future. I went into a
Prilliers garage over the weekend. A darter guy used to
work with my brother now works for a Prillier. So
I went in there and he actually was meant to
work with Wallhe Martin this year. It now works with
Lorenzo Savagori, and I was asking, Okay, so Lorenzo's kind
(30:13):
of now a full time Moroto GP writer, which wasn't
expecting this year. I said, what does his weekends look
like because he is still a test writer and he goes,
you know what, he is still testing all the time.
He's coming into these race weekends just testing. The cool
thing is what they're doing. And this was this was
Saturday afternoon that I went in there, right before the sprint.
(30:35):
He goes, oh, this morning, Lorenzo was trying these new
side winglets and he really liked them. Now we're going
to put them on Marco's bike and let's see how
he goes this afternoon. What does he do? Goes and
gets on the podium, right, So I think that is
constantly you're constantly trying to approve improve Sorry, maybe this
(30:57):
is where Aprilia is starting to benefit from it because
they are testing all weekend. It's not like they've got
two factory riders in there who are having to go
out straight away. They've got Lorenzo there who can test
parts and grew. Yeah, this is working out this track.
Chuck that on hopefully try and get some point in
a podium place.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah. Yeah, as like the ultimate test laboratory. If you
want to find out if something really works, take it
out in Q one and write it as hard as
you possibly can, or put yourself in a sprint on
a Saturday or do a twenty six lap Grand Prix
on a Sunday. In some respects, as much as I'm
sure this is not what Savadori signed up for it,
I hope he's been compensated for it. Give it all
the extra work that he's doing. It might have accelerated
(31:34):
their improvement a little bit because you've got a guy
who's very technically adept, trying things in the heat of
a race weekend, and we know he's not out there
to finish top tens and try and get podiums and
what have you. But what he brings to the project
and sort of kicks it up the line to Bizeki
and you know, you look at what I mean. Ralph
Anders has had a couple of really strong Grand Prix
(31:54):
in a row, which is not something you've ever heard
me say on this podcast. But he's been really good
the last couple of weekends at Magello and at Assen,
so that a Priori a project as a whole seems
to be growing and it's impressive. And yeah, you'd have
to say internally, I'm sure Savadori's impact on this is
being recognized, but it comes back to where we started
this podcast. I would just love to see a fully
(32:16):
fit and fully motivated Jorge Martin on a pretty good
aprillia that's improving, because that would just give us something
something different, something something different that we haven't seen this
year at the front of some of these Grand Prix
where it does become can anyone split the de Catties
in the answers? Usually no. I would have loved to
have seen Martin on that, but I guess we'll just
have to wait for Honda to get good. Huh.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I love that you just said something different there, and
I thought that's the best segue I can go into
the next part of something different. That wasn't on my
twenty twenty five bingo card for Moto GP was the
fact of Pedro Acosta Alex Marquez collidning. We know Alex
crashing out, we understand that. But was the fact of
Pedro Acosta getting rushed to hospital directly after the races
he got sung by a bee and turns out his
(32:59):
highly allergic to beastings. MM.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Now I'm gonna slightly correct you here. I'm going to
slightly correct you on your insects. I heard it was
a wasp, these wasps. I don't know what they call
him in Holland, who knows, but regardless, that thing hurts.
And you think of the way these riders are so
covered up with all of the safety equipment. There's always
I find it bizarre, there's always that little gap between
the top of the leather suit and the bottom of
(33:23):
the helmet. And I remember, God, where was I think
it might have been Malaysia. I had to crush Low
many years ago, and he actually stopped and because this
thing was just stinging him every time he turned into
a corner, and he actually stopped and unzipped the suit,
and you saw this thing just fly out. And as
someone who is allergic to that sort of thing myself,
(33:43):
when I heard what had happened to a Costra on
the weekend, imagine riding one of these things around in
the heat of battle of a Grand Prix and getting
stung by something you're allergic to. He did better than me.
I wouldn't have got to the checker flag. I'd be
out of there, quite frankly. But that was horrible. But
you had the bizarre situation on Sunday where I'm sure
all the media we're talking about this in the press room.
(34:04):
Everyone wanted to talk to Alex Marquez to find out
what had happened in the incident with a Costa. He
was off to Madrid to get his finger fixed after
eating me had broken that finger, and then a Costa
was off in the hospital getting shot up with antihistamines
because he was allergic to wasps. So no one actually
got to speak to the two protagonists in this accident.
That's kind of changed the shape at the front of
the World Chairbyship. So I guess we'll have to wait
till Saxon rigged to hear from both of them.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
It's funny that that happened. Everyone's talking about it because
I actually saw Jake Dixon before Magello and they were
testing Momoto too in Catalogna directly after where were we
before Aragon? And so he goes look at my back
and there's just Weltz, like what happened? Same thing. A
(34:46):
beer or a mosc or whatever got down his leather
suit as well, and I don't know, you guys can
see it at home when you're watching, like these suits
are tight, they've got inners on underneath, like there's not
much in there. So you know how pesky. There's all
insects be somehow they're making their way into riders suits
as well, which is not what you want when you're
out on track doing god knows what speed. But the
(35:08):
other news, let's talk about Fabera Cordorraro also taking pole,
which I saw a Marco Bezzeki celebrating, going, yeah, give
it to the jew caddies. We don't want to know
the jew caddi pole. So but then hearing what Jack
was saying post race and looking at Fabio Fabruao, he's
mastering this one lap random pulling something out of a hat.
(35:30):
But then the Yamahas are just struggling still.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Right, Yeah, it's two things with the Yamaha. It doesn't
get off the line fantastically and it struggles to pass
other bikes still. So you know, unless you're on a
circuit where you can get a half decent getaway and
block for the best part of a lap, which you
definitely can't do it acc't. His Q two laps are
almost the most fun thing in motor GP right now,
because you know he's so far over the limit. You
(35:54):
look at where all the other other Yamahas are. But
then you're almost not surprised anymore what he pulls one
of these out, because if it was anyone else, you'd say,
that's remarkable, what an absolutely ridiculous lap. And when he
does it, we will just look at each other and say, well,
that's just Fabio Couaturero, because to my mind he is
the second best rider in Murder GP. We just don't
get to see it because of what he's actually riding.
But it's a good one lap qualifying bike in the
(36:17):
right hands, but it still can't race, and that's the
issue with that bike at the moment. It was pretty telling.
I thought that Miguel Olivera was out early in the
Grand Prix because he had some accident damage from the
first lap. But the Amahas basically Quaturo fell out of
the top ten and then they just ran around in line.
At the back end of the top ten, they're all
together and they could sort of scrap with each other.
(36:37):
They couldn't pas anybody else, and they just ran around
and finished a sort of sad tenth, twelve and thirteen
or whatever it was. In the end they were kind
of nowhere. So it was a bit of a track
that exposed the race pace and overtaking problems that they have,
but in as a one lap bike in Quataurero's hands,
it's pretty electrifying. The only sad part about it for me,
(36:58):
I got to say when they were trunkling around at
the back into the top ten and so we didn't
get too many TV shots at that awesome livery that
they ran at essence, because that thing was absolutely beautiful.
We just had to rely on still photos or social
media to look at it.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Oh Honestly, that was one thing I was going to
bring up next. I'm glad you did. Is you know
we saw the livery that a lot of the Italian
teams had in Michello and it's like, okay, I see
the thought like especially do Caddie with the renaissance and
all that. Then you see the retro, the retro Yamahas
and everyone was just going, no one does it like
(37:30):
Yamaha with that retro white and red the color scheme. Oh.
I got to go and see the bike up close,
and I took some quick social video for Fox Motorsport
on their socials and seeing it in person. Then when
you see the boys come out in their leather suits
and even Fabio had like the old school, like early
two thousand sunnies, like they were really trying to throw
(37:52):
it back. This weekend it was Yamaha do it well
with their retro liveries. I'm thinking back Silverstone last year
at the Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
That's exactly I was about to say, Yeah, they've got
the history, They've got a successful history. There's something about
just the purity of that white livery like these some
of these liveries are so cluttered and convoluted these days.
Some of the ones in Italy by the Italian teams
were honestly like nice idea, but there was the execution thing,
and you've got Picko Mark playing chess and I don't
(38:21):
know there was I don't know what was going on.
It was a bit of a mess, quite frankly. And
the VR forty six ones looked like someone had just
tipped a bunch of paint cans over and rolled the
bikes in it. They were pretty revolting. But yeah, the
classy classic Yamaha livery. If if only it was as
fast as it as it looks good But anyway, beautiful
livery just not very fast.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
At assen No, they're trying to make headlines elsewhere at
the moment, which I think is good on them. They're trying.
But Jack is also now off to Japan for the
Suzuka eight Hour that is coming up soon. I know
all your listeners if you're interested, that that is going
to be on Fox Sports and KO. So I'll keep
you up today with all the news that comes from
the Suzuka eight Hours. Now. I mentioned earlier this weekend
(39:03):
the amount of crashes at Assen and how was that
crash in Moto three. I think it was for a start,
I got run over in the end or how he
walked away from that. If you haven't seen it, I
highly recommend going watching it because Okay, we don't want
to promote crashes, but this this was like Jack Miller
Malaysia last year style crash.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yeah, major and anytime, I mean Moto three, you could
throw a blanket over the top ten most races, at
most tracks. There's something about that last sequence, the last
sector at Acid and that chicane, the GT chicane at
the end of the lap. It's just a magnet for
things happening like this. And the thing that was I
was surprised about was they eventually red flag that race,
but not until the field was almost in the chicade
(39:44):
on the last lap. Like that was a little bit
on that questionable side. But I think Luca Lenetto, if
I remember rightly, is broken a tibia, so he's going
to clearly be out for a while. But that was
a nasty, nasty accident. But Moto three and Assen it's
almost to be expected.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
I think, well, that's the thing. I did a track
walk with Snags our Aussie and Moto two just to
take me through a lap of acid because this circuit
is so interesting in the fact that it's old school.
There's a lot of on and off camber, which he
called one of the corners like NASCAR now, it's not
quite on the same lean angle, but he goes it
feels like it. So if you're wondering why this track
(40:19):
is like that and often provides some of the best racing,
it's because of the track layout and how it is
and now it's it's definitely changed a lot over the years.
But if you're interested in that track walk that is
on our YouTube channel, you can head to YouTube dot
com slash Fox Sports Australia and you'll be able to
find that but yeah, let's look about the Moto III
results for our Aussie's. We know that Jack Miller on Sunday,
(40:42):
he was p. Fourteen in the end, so not the
results that he was after. But like I said, Jack's
on his way to Suzuka anyway for the Suzuka eight Hours,
which is an endurance race, totally different style of racing.
But in Moto two we had Diego Morrera take his
is a first win, so that's like the first Brazilian
(41:03):
I think, to take a Moto two win in Emma
in the history. Soa ag is not the top ten
performance for Center. Now we caught up with him as well, Matt,
You've written an article that's gonna come out by the
time this is ed on Center and where he's going.
What's your thoughts on the Aussie youngster this year. It
seems like he's made a big jump from his rookie
(41:24):
year now in his second year.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, definitely. I mean he's already scored more points this
season than he scored the whole of his rookie season,
which we're not even at the halfway point. So that's
impressive enough in itself, and obviously the headliner of that
is the mad last couple of quarters at Silverston that
I think you were at a stairwell had missed, but
Obvio certainly at the TV back here. But he's he's
maturing pretty quickly, and a lot of the sort of
(41:49):
standard rookie things, inconsistency and you know, not being able
to put together entire weekends. He's so much better than
that now. I think the key thing for me, I
was crunching some numbers before. He's only had one race
this season where he has a scored points, so he's
always there and for him to be sixth in the
championship at the moment looking he's obviously got the world
championship leader as his teammate. This is Mado Gonzalez's fourth
(42:10):
year in Moto two, so he's got double the experience,
and that team's clearly got a good bike and they're
operating well. But I think as that team has got
better in the bike has got better, Senn has risen
with that. I think that's a really good sign. If
you look at the potential of what he's got underneath him,
he's living up to that potential. He's doing really really well.
I think there's a lot of optimism as to I
(42:31):
don't think he's anywhere near as good as he's going
to be. I think that's the interesting part for the
Australian fans in that, Yeah, there's a lot of promise there,
but it feels like his Sea leagu's quite high. So yeah,
having a really really solid season. And yes, when I
get round to finishing this story, everyone else could actually
read it as well.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
And let's go to our Aussies in Moto through. We've
got Joel Kelso who crossed the line in p nine
and Jacob Rilestone in at twelfth as well. So I
didn't get much of a chance to catch up with
Joel this weekend. But if you haven't watched that Moto
three race, I highly recommend it purely just because it's
normally we see that big group of Moto three writers
(43:07):
like that top ten, top fifteen, but for whatever reason, Asen,
it just gives the whole pack together the whole entire time,
and it's just like a little swarm of bees. What
is it with bees?
Speaker 2 (43:16):
As we can But yeah, I know it's funny, isn't it,
Like Moto three at Asen, like they're all in the
same TV shot in the last five laps, which is
completely insane when you think of the field spread, like
they're basically all in the same frame on the TV.
But it's funny, isn't it. Like as chaotic and as
mad cap as those Moto three races are, and then
the same guy ends up winning most of them in
Jose Antonio Rueda, who's just putting together this awesome season
(43:38):
of winning races. When you look at it and think, oh,
he's seventh, he might be in a bit of trouble here.
He just works this way through. There's a bit of
a David Alonzo going on there with him this year,
isn't there? There?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Definitely is. I think we're going to see a lot
from Rueida in the future. But another writer who I
hope that we get to see a bit more of
in the future is our Aussie Carter Thompson, who Matt
you wrote an article about on Fox sports dot com
or a four slash Motorsport, And I caught up with
him in Migello because we haven't caught up since Michello
either as well. And let's talk about Carter real quick.
(44:11):
So if those who haven't heard Carter, I think you
should definitely keep an eye on him because the o
a youngster competing in at the Red Bull Rookies Cup,
but at the same time he's doing the World Supersport
three hundred. So this kid's riding in two different championships
on two different, completely different bikes, and he's a race
winner in both, which I think is just phenomenal for
(44:31):
this young teenager who just seems to be When I
spoke to him, he's just happy, friendly, just just loving it.
And talking to the head of the Red Bull Rookies
there he goes, Oh, Carter is just making waves this year.
He's really getting that consistency and putting his way through.
But what's your thoughts on Carter so far this year, Matt.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
I think there's the word to use with him is uncomplicated,
and that's that's that's actually a really high I think
you mentioned that he's riding two really different vibes in
two really different series. Obviously, the goal is to get
into the World Championship, and we've seen that Redbel Rookies
is this pathway to get into Moto three and then
we go from there. But you know, it's a pretty
full plate that he's got with these different different bikes
(45:13):
in different parts.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Every single weekend he's doing something different, but he's very
sort of matter of fact and methodical about it, and
there's like a maturity to him that you have to remember,
you're listening to a seventeen year old, You're not listening
to a twenty three year old. So maybe that just
comes from being so far away from home and out
of your comfort zone and all those sorts of things.
But he's just really well put together. He know what
he wants. He's very uncomplicated about everything, and you'd have
(45:36):
to say, I mean, look, Red Bull rookies can be
rebel rookies, makes Moto three look tame sometimes because those
races are absolutely mental half the time. No better place
to showcase what you've got than under the nose of
the World Championship. Paddick as a support race category at
some of these weekends in Europe, So you've got to say,
given how far he's come from and what it is
(45:57):
that he's riding, and you would have got a sense
of this when you spoke to him, just a sense
of sort of calm about the way that he does it,
which I think is super impressive.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yes, what I mean, he seems really put together. Yeah,
but he is an ozzie teenager at the same time,
which is so cool to see. His mum was there
as well. She's traveling with him. Dad's back home and
I was working, you know, to help support his racing career,
and it's cool to see you forget you know, you
see Jack, and you see Senna and these guys who
are in the World Championship and they're on the big screen.
(46:27):
Then you see Carter and what his family are doing.
And Red Bull Rookies O. We definitely don't give it
enough talk because there's obviously so much always happening in
the Moto GP paddock. But if you guys haven't watched
a Red Bull Rookies race, you can watch it. It's
on KO I believe it's on Fox Sports as well,
so do check it out and keep your eye on
Carter Thompson because I think he's going to be our
(46:47):
next Moto three, hopefully race winner and world champion in
the future. But Matt, I think that pretty much wraps
up our big catch up from post Magello and obviously
the as in Grand Prix, we have a little weekend
off where we have the Silverstone f one or your
four wheel fans. You have more racing, then we will
(47:08):
be back with the Saxon Ring. And I am just
going to call it now the King of the Ring.
Mark Marquez is for sure going to return to Saxon Ring.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Right as soon as you said Saxon Ring, I just
started leaning left because I think I'm just going to
be turning left and more left and more left. For
what is it, ten out of the thirteen corners turn left.
It is a really ridiculous racetrack for Motor GP and
I'm glad there's not more than one of them, but
as an outlier in a twenty two round season, I
do quite enjoy it because it's something very very different.
(47:37):
But something's very very different will be anyone other than
Mark Marquez winning there because a track that's got undulation
and turns left a lot that's almost like He's absolute Nirvana,
isn't it?
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Mark Marquez is a form of Heaven, I guess. But guys,
you can catch all the Motor GP action and if
you want to watch Formula One you can do so
on Fox Sports and KO. This podcast, as always, is
brought to you by Shannon's Insurance and I know we've
mentioned a lot of Matt's articles. If you want to
read those, they are on foxsports dot com dot au, Forward,
Slash Motorsport, and you can keep up to date with
(48:10):
all the latest on our socials as well at Fox
Motorsport on all the platforms. I've taken you guys behind
the scenes as much as I can during this European adventure.
But Matt, thank you so much for chatting with me
about MotoGP and guys, we're going to be back real
soon with more Moto GP pit talk.
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