Chaos in COTA and The Wild Ride of the Americas GP: MotoGP Pit Talk

In this episode of Pit Talk, Matt Clayton and Renita Vermeulen dive into the wild chaos that unfolded at the 2025 Americas GP!

From Marc Márquez’s unexpected 100m sprint to the unpredictable drama at COTA, this race was one for the history books.

We break down the highs and lows, from Márquez's crash to Ducati's dominance and the riders who rose to the occasion. With the Texas track living up to its reputation for chaos, we analyse what went wrong for the King of COTA, who stepped up to take the reins, and what this means for the rest of the MotoGP season.

Join us for a ride through all the twists, turns, and unexpected moments from the Americas GP!

📺 Watch MotoGP on ch. 506 or via Kayo Sports bit.ly/3wDpMnj

Follow us on social:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foxmotorsport
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/fox_motorsport
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fox_motorsport

Stay up to date on the latest MotoGP News: https://www.foxsports.com.au/motorsport

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Moto GP met the wild West, and while the King
of Coda, Mark Marquez rolled the dice in Texas, Lady
Luck wasn't on his side, making way for a new
cowboy in town. I'm your host, Rinita Vanmullin and writing
Shotgun with me, as always is my co host, the
sheriff of a Moto GP stats himself, mister Matt Clayton.

(00:21):
Matt the drama in Texas. What a wild ride. I
don't even know where to start, but I feel like
we have to start with Mark Marquez, right.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Oh yeah, we need more than a sheriff to unpack
this one and throw the appropriate people in the slammer
or not. But man, what a Monday morning that was
for us here in Australia. And just when you think
you've got MotoGP worked out, Oh we're in Cota. Mark's
on pole, Marks on the sprint. Mark always wins in Kota.
Strange things happen, and it doesn't get a lot stranger

(00:50):
than what happened before the race, did it.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, let's talk about that, because even before the Marquez drama,
I want to take it back to Fabio Cordoraro crashing
on the side lap as well, when I saw that,
I'm thinking, Okay, we're going to be in for some
tricky situations here because he doesn't normally crash on a
sighting lap. What was going on there? Was it just
the wet weather? Was electronics? Was it just because of

(01:13):
what we we got about to go into.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
I mean he doesn't crash full stop, let alone on
sighting laps. But this is the thing with the motor
GP starting procedure, Like that sighting lap is thirty odd
minutes before the race starts. You think how quickly the
weather can change in thirty minutes. They come around, they
sit on the grid, they go through all the ceremonial
stuff and anthems and what have you. Fabio just got
on a white line and chucked it on a pair

(01:37):
of on a set of slicks, and some of the
riders were saying the backstraight was just completely aquiplating in
a straight line. So the senseible option at that point was, yeah,
if this race starts right now, we all need to
be on wets. But the problem is the race didn't
start right now, and it's that gap, that half hour
gap between sighting lap and race start that because it
didn't rain anymore and it dries pretty quickly. There you

(01:59):
could like, oh, this is one of those not quite
like neither answer was correct. It was sort of in
that weird space in the middle. And I think the
Quaharero crash a because it doesn't happen to him very often.
B because it sort of was a bit of a
portent of the madness that was to follow, because no
one seemed to have the right answer, and in a

(02:20):
situation like this, knowing that Marquees is so good around
Cota and knowing also that he's so good in judging
these conditions, whether it's you know, full wets or whether
it's strives or somewhere in between, people were watching to
see what he was going to do. Pedro Acosta said
afterwards that he instructed his crew to do whatever Mark did,
So they were all clearly looking at what Marquez was
going to do. But I'm pretty sure none of us

(02:41):
expected Marquees to do what he actually did.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let's talk about that because we were in a chat.
We always chat while the racing's going on, just find
out what news is happening. And I remember saying to you,
why did Marquez look like he just like fell over
or jumped off the screen right as they went into
the opening credits. Then we get like what one or
two writers into the opening credits, and it's like cutaway
to Marcus rinting off the grid down pit lane and

(03:07):
then you just see half the grid follow What a decision.
Because also you can see in the footage that DAWNA
and MotoGP posted it after, you can see Mark constantly
thinking about it, and now that you look back you
can see it on his face. He was focused on
trying to figure out what the right option is there,
but for him to take that risk and take that gamble,

(03:28):
and then I know you posted an article about it
saying he quoted himself saying I really understood the rules, right,
do you well?

Speaker 3 (03:37):
To an extent.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
So he's sitting there on the grid before they're about
to go out on the warm up lap, and he
clearly knows I'm on the wrong tires here, and you know,
the information would be going up and down a grid,
who's a wet, who's on sleecks, who's on the correct tires,
who's not?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
And there were only.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Three writers on Slicks at that point, Brad Brenda and
a Bastinini and Ayagura. That's an easy gamble. You can
take a if you're Brad Binder and you just ride
around on slicks in the way anyway, we've seen that
story before. But also all three of those guys are
on the sixth row of the grid, So when you're
way back there, you may as well throw the hail Mary,
because frankly, what have you got to lose if you're

(04:13):
all the way back there. But you could see Mark
calculating like, Okay, I've got to get off these I've
got to get off.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
These wet weather tires. This is not the tire to
be on.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
And it was so premeditated. He had completely planned what
he was going to do, how he was going to
do it. Apparently seven minutes prior, he's basically saying to
his chief mechanic, make sure the bike's got the dry
weather tires on in the pit box because I might
decide to go here. And of course, because everyone's watching
what Mark does and he's reading of the conditions. As

(04:47):
soon as Mark decided he was leaving the grid, there
was this fantastic shot of Peckerbanos on row two, a
bit further back than he normally would be, and he's
not looking at anything else as the time, sticking down
before the start of the races, looking directly to he's right,
and he's looking at Mark, and he's like, if Mark goes,
I go. And it was one of those things that
Mark triggered all of the craziness that followed by standing

(05:10):
beside his bike not sitting on it, which is the
biggest tell at the end of the day. When you
look at these replays, you can see he's planning on
doing something and then once he was out of there,
it was just complete chaos. And what Mark in effect
was trying to trigger here was this goes back to
Argentina twenty eighteen. For those of you listening that remember that,

(05:30):
I'm sure you remember it, Rnita, when one of the
weirdest Murtor GP photos I've ever seen with Jack Miller
on the grid on pole position, and then you'd need
a pair of binoculars to see the rest of the
field because they're off the back of the grid, all
lined up where Jack was the one that had gone
to the grid on slicks. Everyone else had gone to
the grid on wets. They realized that it was Slicks.
Everyone piled into the pits. It was clearly unsafe for

(05:51):
them to start all together from twenty three bikes starting
from Pitlan would have been completely crazy. So they basically
sent them all to the back of the grid and
a bought and the start allowed everyone to change. So,
you know, Jack got royally screwed in that instance because
he'd read it correctly. But Marquez knew that if more
than ten bikes leave the grid and I've emphasized the
words more than because there are two key words in

(06:12):
this if more than ten bikes leave the grid, then
it can trigger an a border start. And so once
he went, it was just how many of these guys
are going to follow him? And what was interesting was
that if you look at the riders that did follow
Marquez into the pits and the ones that didn't, the
ones that did were all the ones that were closest
to him on the grid because they could see what
he was doing. It was mostly the riders down the

(06:32):
back that did not. And so there's q this mass
stampede off the grid. And I think what we saw
was Mark knowing more how the rule book worked than
the actual people that enforced the rule book. In that
Mark was trying to trigger this aborted start, and I
mentioned the words more than before. They're exactly ten riders

(06:52):
who left the grid, not more than ten riders. So
the race actually should have gone ahead as planned with
those riders starting from the pit lane and then having
to either join the back of the grid or if
they were going to do a restart, they would have
had to have done a ride through penalty. So in
the end, there was so much chaos as people running
down the grid, there's mechanics everywhere, there's grid girls virtually

(07:15):
getting run over. Maverick Gugnalez is staggering around on the
grid without a bike, which is about the most Maverick
videalest thing ever. It's like, you did realize you have
to ride? What are these things to actually start the race?
So that was all going on. I think race direction
realized that they've been caught out by the craziness of
all of this, and they said we decided to abort

(07:35):
the start and have a new start on safety grounds.
And on safety grounds is kind of the impeachable. You
can't question that if you're a fan or anyone else
that's like, oh, we're doing this for safety reasons. It's
like when you ask a little kid while they did
something and they say, oh, just because they don't actually
give you they don't actually give you an explorations, like
just because you go, okay, I'm going to have to

(07:56):
wear that for safety reasons.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's kind of the Mordor GP.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Race direction equivalent of because because I think they've realized
they've lost control of the situation, and so you ended
up having a restart one lap less everybody else on
slick tires, and we thought, well, this will be a
predictable race then, but we'll get onto that.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
But that's the thing is, like you think, for the
race director Mike Webb, it kind of did fluster him,
and he almost admitted that in the video that we
saw online. He said, you know, Mark thought if he
could get these riders through, then maybe he might only
have to do a start from the back of the
grid or whatnot. But he goes, no, No, the actual
rule is he should have technically had a ride through. Yeah,

(08:33):
but because it flustered them, they had to do that
delayed start and so worked in Mark's favor. But you
could hear in the telecast the whole time them saying,
you know, I agree, or they were saying in the
gridwarp I Agre is on slicks. I think was Brad
Benda was on slicks. There was these writers who went
out there on slicks, and it's kind of like, well,
they made that decision, like Jack Miller made that decision

(08:53):
in Argentina all those years back, so you kind of
do feel for them. I wish there was a bit
more excite. I meant to it in the fact that
maybe we had something, But then obviously we'll talk about
marquees and what happened there during the race.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, there's a slight difference with the Augura thing in
the Miller thing for me, with Argentina twenty eighteen, which
is where this rule came in, because Argentina twenty eighteen
was clearly ridiculous, not this is the first time this
regulation has been tested. Didn't work, let's be honest. So
they're going to have to have a look at that.
But the difference then was that Jack was on pole
and he had read the conditions correctly that it was slicks, whereas,

(09:27):
as I mentioned before, you've got Binda, Bastinini and Agura,
they're sixteen seventeen eighteen on the grid. I was actually
more surprised that more riders from maybe sort of twelve
down didn't just say what the hell and throw some
slicks at it, because when you're back there anyway, what
have you actually got to lose. But the other point
before we move off this start line Shenanigan's nonsense, is
that Mark clearly thought that he was going to have

(09:48):
to start at the back of the grid, and you
can't tell me that other circuits he might not. This
is part of the cunning of Marquerez. He's like, I
am so quick around here. I know how good I
am around here. If I have to start last at
the back of the grid because I'm going to have
to take a penalty, I'm probably going to win anyway,
because we know how good he is at Cota and
so many passing opportunities in such a long race there,

(10:09):
So he would have backed himself from the rear of
the grid to come all the way forward. And that's
just not him saying I could possibly do this. We've
got proof of concept that he can do this because
we had a race at Coda a few years ago
where the bike glitched off the start and he was
last at turn one by one hundred and fifty meters
and he had one and a half working shoulders at

(10:30):
that point. He still finished sixth, So a fully fit
marquees on the best bike on the grid, starting from
the back, he probably would have been in the lead
by half distance. And so that's part of the calculation
of him saying, well, I can get off the grid
and if I do copp a penalty here, then so
be it. But in the end we all got everyone
on the correct ties for the start. It was fifteen
minutes later than we wanted, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
But what looked to be a.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Decision that he was going to get away with didn't
end up happening. And I know we're going to get
into that in a sec, but I reckon a lot
of the controversy about this start probably be a bit
louder this morning had Mark gone ahead and won that race.
The fact that he didn't probably helps to tone things
down a little bit. But yeah, there was a race.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
After all of the silliness at the start, there.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Was a race, and obviously Mark Marquez, like you said,
dominated he got out the front pretty quickly. The races
as we thought, and similar to what we saw in
Saturday's sprint. But then all of a sudden, Mark Marquees
and that crash that happened in the essays, And I
want to touch on that because for me, I didn't
expect it and I thought it was kind of unlike Mark.

(11:34):
So we could see in the previous laps, you know,
Mark was millimeters perfect in those essays. There was a
little bit of water on the edge of the curb,
but you could see the dry line. He didn't go
on the curb, he was still on the asphalt. But
then the following lap you can see clearly runs over
the curb, tucks the front, and there goes his race

(11:55):
and obviously his championship lead. But from you what you
know of Mark Marquez, was it a lapse in judgment
or was it him becoming too confident that his plan
was working in his favor?

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, he described it afterwards that he was too optimistic.
But what was interesting is when you listen to some
of the other writers, they had clearly spotted that that
was a problem because there was a lot of rain
still sitting in that inside curve there at four and
I just think he got a little bit greedy and
what was strange about it was that he had done
the hard work, he'd won the first lap, he'd had
a far more comfortable time of it than he'd had

(12:28):
in the sprint on the first lap the previous day.
This race was his to lose, and lose it he did,
and we've seen this before because he's done it at
Cota twice previously. So twenty nineteen the only race that
season he didn't finish first or second crash from a
pretty commanding lead. Twenty twenty four, extenuating circumstances, he had
a break issue after he'd just taken the lead that

(12:48):
first time he was there on the Grassini Decadie, but
it just seemed a little bit unnecessary and it was
strange for me in that. The one thing that he
has been this year, as we've seen through the first
two rounds and on the sprint, is that he's rarely
been really pushed and he's had margin like we saw
in Thailand where he just sat by Alex Marquez the

(13:08):
two thirds of the race because he was mucking around
with hire pressures and what have you, but he could
have passed him pretty much wherever he wanted. Argentina, he
had that mostly under control. It was a little bit
more of a harder fight. But it just seemed to
be a little bit unnecessary to me. And it was
really funny, like before the race, I was just reading
some of the comments from the riders after Saturday, and

(13:29):
Juan Miir had been speaking to the Spanish press and
set along the lines of the only person that can
bete Mark for this year's title is Mark and you know,
with self inflicted wounds. And that was so interesting because
this is a circuit where he was bidding to win
for the eighth time. He's been unbelievable there, but the
last three times he could have won this race, he's
crashed and it's becoming a bit of an unwanted trend

(13:51):
for him there. But I don't know about you, but
it just to me it seemed a little bit he
had the lead, he had the measure of the field,
it just seemed a little unnecessary, like was he trying
to push too hard just to assert his dominance, like
I can just crush you guys whenever I want, or
did he go for a bit much too soon. It
was a strange one because yeah, like you said, he

(14:11):
threw away race win. He's now not leading the World Championship.
I don't think it's too many people that think he's
not still the favorite for the World Championship. But it
seemed a little unnecessary and sort of old school Mark
and that he didn't need to do it. I don't
think he was under a massive amount of threat, just
a bit too optimistic, too early in the race, still
half the race to go. Just a strange one. Whether

(14:31):
it's the lapse of judgment or whether he's being a
bit optimistic. Only he truly knows that. But he wasn't. Well,
the only person that was going to beat him in
that race was him, and that's what happened.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Looking back at it, now, do you think that, you know, Friday,
we saw him have the first tumble on the red
Black that we have seen this season. Is that kind
of like like twenty twenty vision of hindsight. There's always
what you want, right, But now you think back to
the weekend, Yeah, he was dominant, Buddy did have that
first crash. Was there all these little telltale signs that
maybe Mark is going to ge beaten by himself?

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Perhaps, I mean this is one of those circuits. It's
here in Saxon Ring, isn't it where before we all
turn up to either of those two races, Well, Mark
all either win this or lose it himself, Like he's
not going to get beaten by anywhere anybody else. It's
just one of those tracks. So yeah, perhaps, Look, Friday
was super sketchy and super wet, so perhaps not surprising,
and you know, preseason was mostly dry. We haven't had

(15:22):
a lot of wet running for guys in new teams
on new bikes, which is, you know, something we'll get
to with Jack Miller a little bit down the track.
But you know, perhaps just a bit too much too soon.
But yeah, I just think there was a there was
an impatience to what he did on Sunday in that
he's had Bannay's measure on the sister bike. He knows,
I mean, Alex Marquez has been incredibly good this year,

(15:43):
but he Mark also knows that at the end of
the day he's going to have Alex's measure. It just
seemed a little bit unnecessary. I'm also going to predict
that any sort of overconfidence that might have been creeping
in this is one of those little reality checks that's
not a bad thing to happen this early in the
season because I think Mark, when he has some margin,
he's not going to be the twenty three year old
Mark of ten years ago where he's taking crazy risks

(16:06):
all the time. But this is one of those ones
where it's like, all right, sometimes you just need to
ride at nine and a half tenths and not ten tenths,
and if that's good enough to win the race, not
stress the machinery. If you win by three quarters of
a second and not two point one because you're just
trying to crush everybody, it's still twenty five points, And
to me, that was the thing he just threw needlessly

(16:26):
through twenty five points away. I don't think we're going
to see that from him in a similar situation again,
because I think he might have learned his lesson on
that one.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Well, considering all the drama did come from Mark Marquez,
I feel like we need to talk about our race winner.
The first victory for Peko Vannyaya in twenty twenty five. Gosh,
this must be that booster confidence that he just needs,
especially because he's talked so publicly, publicly sorry about his
struggles that he's had so far this year. In twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, a little bit before we touch on peckout. Isn't
it funny how we talk about Mark when he wins,
and then when he doesn't wear we still talk about
Mark just the way this sport works. But look, Pecko,
Pecko's he's a He's such an interesting character as a
rider in that his whole thing is he needs to
understand everything, and he needs to be everything needs to

(17:17):
be in its right place. Like He strikes me as
the sort of guy that if he went into his house,
like everything it'd be perfectly symmetrical on tables and everything
at right angles. It'd be very neat, Like he's sock
draw would be very neat. He's just a guy who
likes order, and once he understands something and gets it
to a place that he likes, he's got this amazing
ability to repeat what he's doing time after time after time.

(17:38):
So to me, he's he's, if you're going to go
sort of slightly old school the previous generation, he's more
Whohy Lorenzo than he is Casey Stoner in that I
always used to laugh with Wohay back in the day.
If you could race every race in the laboratory where
the conditions were perfect lap by lap and he knew
what was doing. He would basically win every single race.
It was the variables at Tripjohey up and so Pecko's
a little bit like that. But you could you'd see

(18:00):
over the course of the weekend there were a few
tells for me that he was starting to get back
into a sweetest spot with the bike. He was much
more feisty than he has been. Like at the start
of the sprint was he put a couple of serious
moves on Mark in that first lap, and I'm like, oh, okay,
because that's the first time they've really actually disputed anything
in these first three rounds, and Pecko saw a gaps
like I'm putting my bike there now. It took a

(18:22):
couple of absolutely crazy Marquees moves to sort of put
him back in his place, But there was a little
statement of intent there. It's like, all right, I'm kind
of here and I'm going to up my aggression. So
that was really promising for me. And then what he
did on Sunday, Yes, he was the beneficiary of Mark
foleig Off, and he said that after the race, but
as what he had done in the lead up to

(18:43):
that lap nine crash for Mark, he had had a
better start that he'd had probably on Saturday, and he
dismissed Alex Marquez pretty comfortably and was just sitting there
in a nice, fairly untroubled second place bike looked like
it was on rails. He was very, very perfect, as
Peco likes to be, so the body language of him
on the bike and the fact that once he got

(19:03):
to the front is like, Yeah, he's just going to
win this and he's not going to.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Trip himself up.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
He looked far more like Pecko to me this weekend.
Now there's eleven points I think between Mark and Pecko
and the championship statues, which sounds silly given the level
of dominance of one over the other in these first
three rounds. But if Peco learned anything from last year,
it's no point being perfect most of the time and
incredibly fast if you're going to kill yourself in the
championship by making terrible mistakes. I think we're going to

(19:28):
see a reduction of that this year. It's the only
way he can hang in this championship with Mark is
to make fewer mistakes than Mark and absolutely capitalize on
the days where Mark drops the ball and so you've
got a twenty five point swing because of one Marquez
mistake and Pecko's farc lives that have marked the championship.
Then he probably deserves to be on pace so far.
But three rounds in, here we are that's what he's

(19:49):
got to do. It was nice to see him back
up the front and just looking far more confident again
because over the course of the season. I don't about you, you,
but I think the rider that can really challenge Mark
as the season goes on is probably longer term going
to be Peko. I think Alex Marcus has been fantastic.
I still have my doubts whether it's sustainable. Across twenty

(20:11):
two rounds, it's been really good, don't get me wrong.
But to me, Peko's a god that's got the staying
power and so for the sake of the championship, I
think it was good that he won the race.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
I think he kind of hit the nail on the
head there. And when you were talking about Saturday's sprint,
I had flashbacks to Barcelona the season ending last year,
where the flight was happening and he said, I'm going
to send it and he did that and it was
the same thing on Saturday Sprint. I'm going to send
it and try and challenge Mark. But also then what
you're saying is about consistency is key, and I think

(20:40):
he's really learnt the lessons he needed to from twenty
twenty four in that battle with Jorge Martin all throughout
the year to attack this season differently. So yeah, I
think we are seeing a different Peko, but it's still
the professor Professor. It's still someone who's very clinical, analytical,
trying to figure out everything. But he's taking it on

(21:01):
board and that's what's so exciting, and that's why I
think he is going to be the one, like you said,
to challenge Mark the rest of the year because Kate,
the first few circuits we know weren't his strong point.
But now we're heading into Katar he won there last year,
he is quite stronger that. Then we go back to
his home ground and obviously Marks, but the European races,
so that's where I think we're really going to see

(21:21):
the battle commands between the two of them.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, agreed.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
I mean, obviously they had that enormous battle at her
Wrath last year, which Pecko won and really sort of
bloodied Marx nos and that one, which is not something
you see with Mark much in a head to headfire anywhere,
but certainly at her wrath. But I do like the
fact that you've got two guys coming at it from
different approaches, in that Mark isn't as just crazy, live
on you wits as it used to be when he
was young and a bit bouncy here, and he's obviously
had a load of injuries, so that will temper your

(21:47):
aggression a little bit. But Pecko's kind of you're thinking
man's rider, and Pecko like to sort of pulled back
the curtain for people that are listening. Pecko's always him
and Luca Maroni, I reckon, are the two guys that
whenever you have these press opportunities at the end races
where you get a chance to talk to guys, I
like to sort of do at the end of these
things what I sort of call the you know, the
sideline light. You basically wait for them to head back

(22:08):
to the garage or to their next engagement. And Pecko's
the guy that you can have that little loft of
the side chat with about something and if you ask
him a sensible question where he gets to think about
the answer and perhaps, you know, verbalize something that's been
buzzing around in his head. He's very happy to talk
about it because there's an intellectual approach to the way
that he rides. You wouldn't want twenty two riders like that,
nor would you want twenty two riders who are just lunatics.

(22:29):
You know, A nice mixture of the two is good.
But Pecko's a guy that once he feels that he
understands things and things are right, he actually gets quicker
and quicker because he's got the confidence in his head.
It's like, I can trust this, I know the results here,
I know what I can do. So I think it's
a good sign for the championship that he's got the
win drought of three.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Races off his back.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
We know that if you're on a to caddie, you're
probably gonna win a race this year because no one
else seems to be capable of doing it. So he's
the guy who's going to be in the fight with
Mark if we get one.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Well, speaking of other duke caddies, and let's talk about
our championship points leader Alex Marquez. That was another thing
on my bingo card this season. I didn't expect to say, nope,
let's talk about Alex. The key for him here, I
just feel is going to be consistency. Like you said,
it's very rare that I think this year that will

(23:20):
have a non factory du Caddi win the World Championship.
But what's it going to take for Alex Marquez to
stay up there? Because now we're starting to see the
VR forty six is make their way through.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, agreed, And it's funny like you do. It becomes
a process of elimination at this point, right. So to
Caddie's won twenty straight Grand Prix, there's six of them
on the grid this year. Of those six fermin Aldgeza rookie.
So you know, nice to have a good result every
now and then. He's not winning a World championship. I'm
still a more Bidelli skeptic to a degree because you know, yes,
he's up there to a degree, but I reckon there's

(23:51):
a limited ceiling there with how he could do. Degen Antonio,
who I'm sure we'll talk about, is probably still no
where do you fit?

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Well?

Speaker 2 (23:59):
He is no where do you fit? I reckon he's
got a massive amount of upside. To my mind, I
reckon there's a race for third in the Championship and
it's been it's going to be between Alex Marques and
de Janatonio. To me, they're the two guys that could
potentially flip flop between third and fourth, because I think
Digit has got much more potential. Alex is in the
absolute form of his life right now. And you know
when you said that before, World Championship leader Alex Marquez

(24:22):
is like, whoh, it just sounds weird to say. I
wrote it a couple of times yesterday that it did
a double takers, like, yeah, he really is leading this
World Championship in his sixth season. But every single race
we've had this year, he has finished second and he's
not been a threat really to win any of them.
But he's also not been a threat to be beaten
by anyone.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
He's just been this.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Incredible, methodical model of consistency so far. It's impressive that
it's lasted this long. I mean six races, that's a
big sample size now, so you know, best we've ever
seen of Alex Marquez and Motor GP keeping it going
is going to be the hard thing. But let's give
the guys flowers. He's in the leader of the motor
GP World Championship by a point over his brother because
he hasn't made mistakes and he's been second on the

(25:01):
grid every front row of the grid rather every single weekend,
and he's just been incredibly impressive. And I know about you,
but when you get six years into a motor GP career,
I kind of feel like you are who you are
at that point. Like very few people surprise you, you
know what I mean, Like a few people surprise you
once said this deep into their career, they kind of
are what they are. He's the guy who's defying that.
And look, full credit to him because he's been given

(25:23):
obviously a very good bike, but he's risen to the
level of what he's writing, so you know, full power
to him.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
And then speaking of you are who you are, like
Digia my thoughts on that because obviously P three this weekend,
and then I read a quote on I think amotogp
dot com he said, I started to write in a
completely different way. Is it the same sort of thing?

Speaker 2 (25:42):
There?

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Is he changing up now? He's obviously a veteran in
motor GP he's done a few seasons. We're seeing what
we have from him, the injuries everything. Is he changing
his mindset? Is he changing his outlook because I mean
P three and Koda such a demanding track, especially having
that shoulder injury, which is the easiest crash that we
can talk about. Oh man, is this what like starting

(26:04):
to connect together for him?

Speaker 2 (26:06):
I don't think he's the sort of guy, particularly as
he gets fitter as the year goes on. Obviously, you know,
busted his collar boat in pre season testing by doing
it WHEELI at the end of the day, the dumbest
injury of all time. And I don't think he's going
to duck that. But he's super super quick, And I
think a lot of it with him is once his
body starts to play ball. You can see there's a

(26:26):
shift now with him. It's like I'm not just satisfied
to finish in the top five, like that's nice anymore.
It's like, no, No, I'm on a really good bike.
I should be challenging for a podium most weekends. Now
I actually really rate him. I think he's had a
he's had a weird motor GP career that he was
almost out of the sport and then took a podium
at Philip Island in twenty three and then one two

(26:46):
races later in Qatar, and that was the turning point
of his career. But he's still young, he's still super
super fast, and I think as that, you know, like
you said, if you can do nineteen laps at with
all those direction changes. He was absolutely shattered after that race.
You could see it when he got to Park Fermey

(27:07):
in the cool down room before they went on the podium,
he asked someone to hand him a drink because he
could not move his right his left arm rather, because
it was just completely frozen, and he said, yeah. The
last half of the race, he said, he came across
the start finish light at one point and looked at
his pitboard to see how many laps there were to go,
and it said eleven. And he's like, you are kidding me, Like,
I am absolutely cooked already and I've still got to

(27:28):
do eleven laps of this race and my shoulder is
absolutely killing me. So you know, it's amazing what the
lure of a podium does. He's a really, really good rider,
and I think if you can survive that test, he
would have been a very very sore boy for more
reasons than one. He did say he was going to
have two hundred beers after finishing on the podium, so
he might have a sore head as well as a
sore shoulder. But if you can do what he did

(27:50):
at Kota, it's the most demanding track on the calendar,
and you know, you look at what's coming up Katar
herez a bit more time. His shoulder is going to
get better. I think he's this is not the last
time we're seeing him on the podium. I think he's
a genuine threat at most. Grom Bruno, Well, he was on.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
The podium Qatar when it was moved to the end
of the calendar, when.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
That's the one that he was.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, so surely we're going to see him closer to
the front, like you said. But absolutely Aussie Jack Miller
P Five on Sunday, I don't know about you. I'm
actually so impressed this year with Jack in his mindset.
It feels like we've said it every time, and I
think I'll continue to say it. He seems like a

(28:28):
new writer. He seems refreshed, but also best result on
the Yamaha equaling his best result last year on the KTM.
I believe you might have to fact check me on that.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
No, are you correct?

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Okay? What does this do for him? His confidence and
just the momentum moving forward? Because oh, I'm just I'm
so happy for him.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, looking nothing like a bit of research on the fly.
When you were talking before, I was just ripping through
a bunch of bunch of stats. I thought, when was
the last time we had a Yamaha finish in the
top five. It's been a while. Malaysia twenty twenty three
was the last time we had a finish in the
top five in a Grand Prix. So yeah, quite in
Malaysia that year. So it shows you how good Jack's
ride was. And he you mentioned before the mindset, I

(29:12):
think he stared his career mortality completely in the face
last year and that there was twenty one riders have
been signed, there was it didn't really feel like he
was going to stay on the grid. He had no
results that he could look at on the KTM where
you could justify him being on the grid. And it
was this confluence of circumstances where Pramak was moving to Yamaha.

(29:33):
He'd written for Pramak before they knew who he was
and what he would be. He's pretty Jack doesn't surprise
you at this point, like he is what he is.
They know that he's going to be a good, developmental
and hard working rider. He's going to be a good
team player, and Yamaha and needed someone with experience of
other manufacturers, which Jack had with Honda and Dukadi and KTM,
So it was this kind of marriage of convenience and

(29:55):
the fact they only signed him for one year was
a bit of a like, look, we're kind of admitted
to you because you're you know, you're the least worst
option of what there is out there, but you kind
of need to prove it to us. And what he's
done so far this year, like I said, best result
fore y Abaha in twenty six Grand Prix or something.
But it's what he's doing, you know, getting into Q two,

(30:17):
and you know, it was really interesting on Friday at
Cota when it was soaking wet. Everyone's looking at Jack
because they know he's got this kind of supernatural feeling
when do you switch to slicks. He made the rest
of them look utterly ridiculous in that practice session for
half of it because the track was still sketchy. It's like, oh,
I'm fine, I'm out on slicks and everyone else is
plodding around or falling off, and he's just really off

(30:38):
laptops at are two and three seconds faster than everybody else.
And I think we mentioned this on last week's pot.
He gets that project to its sealing really quickly. It's
just something that Jackie is. It's just the natural talent
that shines through. They're wrapped with what he's doing. And
I know we're only three races into a twenty two
round calendar. I will be shocked if they don't resign
him for next year, because you think, okay, so what

(30:59):
are the other options? Do you bring Abellino or Guevara
up from Moto two. It's the last year of this
current rule set in twenty twenty six. All the reasons
to make a change are sort of dissipating by the week.
I'll be shocked if he doesn't get another gig for
next year. And look, it might only be a one
year deal, but that's kind of what he's going to
get at this stage of his career, in his thirties.
But in terms of what Yamahar expected from Jack and

(31:22):
what Jack expected from himself in these first three rounds,
It's hard to see how it could have gone much
better than this. And it was one of those fifth places,
you know, first non duc caddy across the line, which
is something we have to always caveat these days. Who
was the best non duc caddy? It was Jack on
this weekend. We know that he's good around there, but
it just looks so assured, you really really good start.
Really he learned the lessons from the sprint race to

(31:45):
previous day where he'd left a gap on the inside
at turn white up the hill there at Kota, Brad
Bender had stuck his bike in there and smacked into
Jack and lost his momentum, broke some body work and
Jack sort of plummeted back down the field. Jack hugged
the inside line into turn one, let everyone else go
too white, and then slotted in there. Was fighting with
Morbidelli for a little bit, but you're never going to
win that fight on the back straight against the Ducati.

(32:05):
But with what he's riding and where that project is,
I thought it was a massive box tick, and I
know we did. Pramac particularly, they are super happy with
what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Going into this weekend, though for him he seems so confident.
Is this because it's a circuit that just suits him
as a writer in his riding style, compared to Argentina,
where we know that circuit just doesn't even suit the
Yamahas at all. Or was it just the progress he's
made everything's kind of coming into alignment for him.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's funny Koda because it's twenty corners and the majority
of them are places where Jack can make a difference.
But I was watching the speed trap figures because I
get granular about these things, is what I do, and
I was looking at the speed trap figures in the
race betweens turn eleven and twelve. At the end of
the back straight there, the Yamaha was anywhere between eight
to ten k's an hour slower than the other bikes

(32:54):
down that back straight.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Which you could see in the Sucrea.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Just see correct and you can know so Fabi, I
was doing it amazing job in the sprint, but you'd
get to that. I'm not saying it requires no skill
to go down a straight on a motor GP bike,
but it's the least skillful part of the job either
you are pointing the bike out of the corner, and
then it's up to what your machinery can do. You
can only break so late, you can only accelerate so hard.
So given that Jack was shipping time down that back

(33:18):
straight the entire race for nineteen laps and they're making
the difference elsewhere. What the interesting stat for me was
that he was eleven seconds off the win at Cota.
The leading Yamaha twelve months ago at Cocha was Quator
he was twenty two seconds off the win. So in
twelve months, Yamaha's half their margin to the front of

(33:39):
the field at a track that's absolutely not suitable for
their bike. So if you ever wanted a statistical revelation
on it, how much Yamaha's improved, you're on y That's
it to me, because you know, you look at you
can only be judged against what the standard is. Who's
finishing first and in twelve months have half the gap
to the front at a circuit that's not really for them. Yeah,

(34:00):
it does show you that making progress, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
How is that reflecting then for Fabio on the factory Yamaha,
Because like I said, I pointed out that that battle
that he had with the VR forty six is and
where he was losing, and it was so clear. Is
are we seeing this stuff trickle down what Jack's doing
and how he is improving? Is that going to the
factory Yamahas.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah. Look, I think Fabio's race Grand Prix was difficult
to judge because with all the bikes, what madness and
putting sleeks on, and he had a bike that had
the wrong electronic map and it was all a bit crazy.
There were a few guys that got caught out, so
it's kind of hard to judge what Fabio did on
Sunday at Kota. But to my mind, that factory team,
in particular, particularly Fabio side of the garage, is going

(34:39):
to be the biggest beneficiary of what Jack's doing with
Pramac because they're saying this four equal bikes. We know
Prama's had a bit of a few issues with Miguel
Lavera being injured, so he was out on the weekend.
Alex Reads, as we've discussed, is three quarters fit on
a good day, so he's not a great challenge for Fabio.
Within that team, you can just see that what Jack
is doing and is more attitude and approach, and that

(35:03):
Yamaha has almost been a bit apologetic for being at
the races the last few years, like you look down
the order and go, oh, and there's a Yamaha. Like
that's they were kind of an afterthought. They're not an
afterthought anymore because they are making Q two and in
this battle for whoever the second best manufacturer is because
Ja Caaddi's in a class of its own, it's super
open because katm keep tripping over themselves. Honda are making

(35:25):
progress to a degree, but I think their rider lineup
is hampering them a little bit because at the moment
Chantra is just not really at the races. That's one
of their four bikes and not really getting anything out
of and Aprilia has this huge asterisk on it because
we haven't seen Juge Martin yet. So you look at
what Yamaha is doing in this who wants to be
a distant second but second nonetheless to Ducaddi, what Jack

(35:48):
is doing and the way that's feeding back up to
the factory team. I just can't see how you could
have thought this had got any better than it has
these first three rounds.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Do you then think that the way that Jack's attacking it,
and also so how we are seeing Fabio having to
really override the bike, especially into breaking corner entry, to
try and make up for that lack of what we're
seeing down the streets. Is that able? Are they able
to withstand that throughout the season.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
It's going to be one of those things. It's going
to take time. And you know, I mentioned that twenty
twenty six is the last year of this rule set.
Jack mentioned after the race that you know, look, yes, Yamaha,
look we're coming. It's definitely getting better. But he cited Ducadian.
So it kind of took Ducaddi ten years to really
get there, get themselves together because they had the Casey
Stoner era, and then it wasn't until like the mid

(36:37):
twenty tens. It was I think it was that the
Yanoni win in Austria. I reckon it's like fifteen or sixteen,
as long after Casey had left, and then the Ducadi
was only good at particular tracks for a while, like
anything that had a massive log straight not too many quarters,
Ducati fantastic. It really took until what's seventeen eighteen when
Daviciosa started becoming more of a championship contender those ten

(36:58):
years after Casey won that well, y Agibino seven, So
these things do take time. What will be interesting for
me next year? And this is something that all the
manufacturers are going to have to think about. You've got
these sort of two seasons in parallel for twenty six
and seven, because yeah, you want to make the most
of twenty six and try and advance forward, but then
so many of the rules and regulations and the bikes

(37:18):
will go in the bin at the end of twenty
six because you've got this brand new rule set for
twenty seven. So someone like Yamaha, they've got a balance between, yeah,
it's great that we're improving, how much can we challenge
towards the front? But this twenty seven regulation changes like
a hard reset for the entire series. There's no guarantee
Decadi's going to come out and twenty seven and just
wipe the floor of everybody, which they are going to

(37:40):
do this year and more than likely are going to
do for next year. Twenty seven is this level playing
field hard reset And we see this in motorsport all
the time. There'll always be someone that interprets the rules
better than the others. And they'll take the lead in
this new regulatory set and then everyone else will go, oh,
we need to do what they're doing, and then this
sort of imitation becomes the most sincere form of flattery

(38:01):
type thing, and that you basically follow on from what
they're doing. So Yamaha has got this interesting conundrum now
and that there's clearly a pathway for them. It's clearly
getting better. Does that give you optimism that jack can
be involved in what they do twenty seven in the
development of what's going on there. He's such an experienced
right now. We forget because he's thirty years old and
he still acts like he's eighteen.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Half the time.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
He's press debriefs like one of the high comedy moments
of the entire weekend because you need the bleep machine.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Every third word for jackets always a music.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
But he's definitely making an impact there, and I'm pleased
to see it because he's just he seems in a
good space right now, doesn't He seems content, He seems confident,
he knows the impact that he's making. And he said
on the weekend along the lines of when I'm happy,
I'm fast, and I think there's so much of we
talk about things in data and technical terms. In this sport,

(38:51):
sometimes it's what's going on between the writer's ears that
is a determinert of how well they're going to ride.
And Jack's a guy who, at the end of the day,
Jack needs to feel valued and loved and I don't
think he felt that at KTM, and I think he's
definitely feeling it.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Now let's move on to KTM and the best of
the rest. What a mixed bag of results it was
across the board for those guys. Pedro Acosta p seven
in the sprint and then said he was struggling with
brutal vibrations crashing out of also Sunday's Grand Prix. Is
this just a one off problem or is this something

(39:25):
that KATM really need to be concerned about, because it
wasn't just Pedro didn't fish Sunday, it was Brad as well.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yeah, Binda had a technical issue with that. That the
vibration thing on the KTM. I think Jackie Look could
write you twenty five hundred words on that pretty quickly,
because that was Do you remember that round at Motegi
last year where there was that super slow mo shot
of Jack's bike vibrating like a bucking Bronco going into
one of those big breaking zones at Motegi and Jack Slaassey.
I'm not making this up. I've been talking about this
the whole time. This bike just vibrates like hell underbreaking.

(39:57):
So Katm's in a weird position at the moment because
you look at their rider lineup. You've got three guys
who've won Grand Prix in Vignales, Bastiarditi and Binda, and
one guy who's clearly going to win some Grand Prix
in a Costa. Really strong rider lineup. We know they
had their off season difficulties financially and what have you,
but every weekend I and this is maybe, you know,

(40:20):
maybe I should expect less from them, but I always
think that it's going to be better than it is
for them because they've got this great rider lineup. They've
got everything you would need, and it's just not happening.
And we remember how good a Costa was at Cocha
last year. It was kind of his you know, wow,
this guy is going to be a massive force, and
he qualified well because he can ring one lap out

(40:41):
of the bike. Vinales depends on the week bastidity and
binder have never been historically good qualifiers, so Acosta's putting
the bike in a position where it probably shouldn't be
at the start of these races. So you're always going
to look bad if you go backwards, right, So but
at the moment there, like I said before, it pribly
has got this asterisk because we don't know because their
best guy hasn't ridden yet. Katie and I'm always just

(41:01):
a bit, like a bit sort of underwhelmed with what
they're doing because it just feels like it should be better,
and unfortunately for them, this was just a continuation of
what's happened in the previous two rounds.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
What about Honda, I just want to touch on them
briefly because it felt like a positive weekend and the
fact of Marini and Mere qualified what's seventh and eighth
for the grid, which is great and that's what we want.
And then Zarko, I read in a post race debrief,
said that he feels like they made a huge step forward.
That's kind of something they've constantly been saying for such

(41:32):
a long time. As they're making steps forward, making step forward.
Do you think Honda are heading in the right direction?
Or do we need to see some more consistency for
them before I.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Mean, yeah, I mean Argentina they were fantastic. I mean,
Zarko is very good at that track and they were
really really good there. I thought Marini had a good
weekend at Coda. Juan Mere crash writer, Okay, we've got
that box ticked in this podcast. And Zarko just had
a bit of a spotty weekend. He was down a
couple of time, time got stuck in Q one, didn't
really feature Crash towards the end of the race as well,

(42:04):
and managed to remount and finish as a last classified runner.
So a bit of a bit of a blit for
them after Argentina. I don't think it's going to be
as good as Argentina was.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
Every week.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
They're clearly making progress. I felt the last couple of
years that you had this sort of like two tier
Motor GP. It was like the old CRT days and
that you just have the Japanese cup down the back,
and they were so far down the back that you'd
look to see, oh, the leading Japanese like rider finished twelfth. Fantastic,
You've got yourself four points. So it feels like they're
more at the races these days, both Yamaha and Honda,

(42:33):
but I reckon after Argentina, Honda got a little bit
of a reality check at Cota, but it's clear that
they are better than they have been. It's just they're
coming from so far back, aren't they.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
I'm just looking at the results from Sunday's race, and
so once we get to Jack Miller first Yamaha, then
we haven't a Prillia but Zechi Kati and Bashanini HRC
Honda Marini. I grew a trackhouse of Frillier Famio Cordro Yamaha,
so it's I know we're calling him the best of
the rest, but these guys are starting to get into
the top ten. Yep, Well what about a Prillier? Are

(43:07):
they just missing that one percent because they kind of
banked everything on Joge Martin. I know, I just said
we had what do we have? I Agura there at
ninth and then but second sixth? Is that just a
one off?

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:18):
I mean, look, until Martin is a back and be
anywhere near one hundred percent fit, we're not going to
find out where the limit of the bike is. I
think for me, Agura has been really really promising, Like
he's looked he hasn't looked like a rookie at any point.
I mean we saw that in Thailand. He looks like
a guy who belongs and there is a different way
that he goes about it. I think he's been terrific

(43:39):
for these first three grand prior that he could.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Have asked for more.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
But Zeki, for me, he's been a little bit sort
of disappointing slash anonymous in that there's he's experienced enough
now that I was curious as to, Okay, look, Martin's out.
You're in the factory team. Yes you knew because you've
been on a caddy, but this is almost like, are
you able to take the next step in your development
as aarriety or not just a guy who can occasionally

(44:03):
snipe for podiums.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Can you be a figurehead and lead what's going on here?

Speaker 2 (44:08):
And it's been like, okay, like a bit sort of blah,
and I wondered if there was another level in there.
He's another guy who win things are right, is very
very good, but there was a leadership piece there that
I wondered if it was going to merge And the
fact that a priliest leading writer after three rounds. Is
Ayagura now great for Iagura, you know in the championship, fantastic,

(44:29):
much better than we expected. But to me, that's two things.
It's a Aura has been great, Bazeki's just been a
bit so far.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Yeah, you kind of hit the nail on the head,
and it is exciting to see Igua, especially Trackhouse, you know,
taking that big risk on him, all that drama that
it like came out in the off season. But then
we hear on Friday that a Prillier are having all
this technical drama, technical issues again. We see that so
often with a Prillia though it's like I said before,

(44:59):
it it's just that one percent of these those little
boxes that they're not ticking, and that's not not homeless
try again, not one's helping them get to that next step.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, I mean you look at Motor GP. You've got
to be one hundred percent on one hundred percent of
the time, and it feels like they're ninety seven on
ninety six percent of the time, like they're there and
thereabouts most of the time. But that thing on Friday
at Cota where the engine was so cold because it
was raining and it wasn't working.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Like you remember back to a Prillia in.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
The past, like that year we went to India, which
was what twenty twenty three, and Elisia Spargo is basically
getting cooked by his own bike because it was running
so hot. So there's little things like that that they
only ever seem to happen to a Prillier And so
you just wonder like, is that just some coincidence or
is there just like that little you know, one or
two percent that they might be off operationally compared to

(45:52):
everybody else. What we haven't had is an absolute a
lister rider on that bike who will be able to
perhaps transcend what the machinery is capable of. And look
we're hearing jo Hey, Martin should be back for Qatar.
What sort of condition he's in is going to be
the interesting part. You can't expect him just to come
back to Qatar and instantly be on it. I think

(46:14):
we need two or three rounds and he needs to
probably fall off once or twice and not hurt himself
and just you know, get all the cob webs out.
You're operating at such a high level. But once we
get to like round six, seven eight, that midpoint of
the season. We're in Europe for a bit. Then we're
going to find out where a Prilier stands relative to
its own level of performance so far and also relative

(46:35):
to the rest, because I feel that Yamaha's kind of
maxing out what they've got at the moment, Honda's kind.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Of the same.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Katm is just in this underwhelming cycle of whatever it
is that they're doing. We just don't know whether Prillier yet,
and so I really hope for the sake of the
show that we have Martine on some front rows, and
we have Martine scrapping at the front with Mark and
Alex and Peco. We know the guy's good enough. It's
just whether the machinery is going to be capable of
a low give to stay there.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
It was nice for Jorge Martin to make an appearance
in Coder. You can see he is determined, and that's
what I'm excited to see for him to come back.
But like I mentioned earlier, looking at the results from
Sunday's Grand Prix, we are having all the manufacturers now
in the top ten. Whether that's a one off or not,
Like you said, it makes the story. It makes the
sport exciting and going into Coder I think, no, we're

(47:23):
just do credit. Going into guitar is what I think
we need. But let's also quickly touch on our other
Aussies in the other classes. Santa Agius in Moroto two
took a big gamble because there was that rain. He
decided to go on slicks and obviously not the right option,
so he was I think twenty fourth.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Maybe in Understandable.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Yeah, I mean it's one of those ones where he qualified.
He was what sixth row of the Grid's that's the
role that ice you make when you've qualified down there,
because you've kind of got nothing to lose. So Understandable
could have looked like an absolute genius if it had
just dried out a little bit more. But shows you
how weird that weather was at coder Or. It was
almost the reverse weather of MotoGP in that. You know,

(48:04):
if he'd been racing two hours later, it would have
been an absolutely genious move. But you can completely understand
why he did it because it's one of those races
that well, if I can just if I do the
same as everybody else, I'm going to trundle around and
finish you know, eight eighth or twentieth or something. I
may as well roll the dice here, so you know,
understandable in the circumstances. But it didn't feel like anyone
other than Jake Dixon was going to do anything at
Coder anyway. It was like a British weather. He was

(48:25):
just riding around like for fun. He was just smashing everybody.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
It's exciting and I think it's good to see Jake
doing so well, fitting in at home with Mark VIDs
and obviously I think it's it's the bruster confidence he
need if he's going to progress in his career. And
I mean that's like a whole nother podcast on its
own better. Oh yeah, he ends up in mto GP
or ends up following similar to like Sam Low's and
going to Wilson Bikes. But it's nice and it's good

(48:48):
and it's good to have a brit because obviously, like
another honorary Aussie, it's someone else we can root for
here in Australia. But let's talk about Murdo III. Joel
Kelso qualifying third on the grid and then bought it
home for second in Sunday's race. When I think about that,
I think to last year, and I kind of feel
bad for Joel now because we're always like he's just

(49:09):
consistently not there. He starts the race, well, he's qualifying well,
but then if something just happens, Okay, we know Thailand
wasn't the best result for him getting involved in that tangle,
then we are Argentina. But now it's like, Okay, I
feel like things are starting to click for Joel and
he's got big dreams. I heard him openly say he
wants to move up to Moto too. So is this

(49:29):
what he needs to do consistently beat up the front
now fighting and podiuming.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Yeah, it feels like this is a podium that's been
about twelve months in the making. Like it's like, yes,
he's gonna o No he's not. Yes, No, it's not.
There's a lot of those sorts of experiences watching Joel
in Moto three, but there's no doubt.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
The speed's there.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
It's just he hasn't had the hasn't been able to
really complete the results that he speeds indicated through a
lot of these races, and that you would see him
right in the front pack, but he'd be finishing seventh
at the back of the front pack, so there'd be
a lot of those sorts of weekends. So really good
result for him. He's clearly stepped up with a team
and his physical fitness and his attention to detail. He's determination. Realistically,

(50:09):
he does need to get out of Motor three at
the end of this year. You would think, get up
to Moto two and see how he goes there.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
So I'm not.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Surprised that he's up the front. I mean the key
thing now was you know we were saying before how
particular Coder is as a race track, particularly on a
motor three bike that's straight, must feel like it takes
about three hours to get down there on a motor
three bike. But we'll get to Qatar, we'll get to
her Reth. But it's good that he's got that podium
under his belt before we head back to Europe, and
he's with a good team and on a good bike,

(50:35):
so I don't think it'll be the last we see
of him up there.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
And Jacob Rulstone his first race of twenty twenty five
after sustaining that neck injury in the off season. I
know he didn't have the greatest qualifying but what did
he finish p fourteen on some of these races. I
feel like that's a brilliant result for your first race
of the year.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Almost a victory in some respects because it wasn't so
long ago that he had a serious, serious crashing preseason,
really hurt himself to come back for round three, And
it was actually you that told me that he was
going to be back for a round three, and I
thought that seems a little premature given how severe that
injury was. But this was a weekend where he just
needed to be there, get back in the flow, feel

(51:13):
the exhaustion. I'm sure everything hurt a lot on Sunday
afternover him there in Kota, but just great for him
to bank a couple of points, get some laps under
his belt, get through a full weekend. We've now got
two weeks before Katar so he gets a chance to
recuperate a little bit further. That first weekend back was
always going to be hard for him. So the fact
that he's got that done, he hasn't re injured himself.

(51:34):
He scored a couple of points and now he sees
and can actually start. So it was nice to see
him back up there and just the approach that he took.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
I thought was absolutely spot on what you just.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Said there about him hurting after the weekend, the first
weekend back on the bike, and then I think about
Joga Martine, and it's something that I don't know if
a lot of people understand. There's not much you can
do to replicate being what they call bike fitness and
be able to maneuver on the bike, and if you
haven't done it for a while, like Jacob and like
Jorge Martin's going to experience, they're gonna hurt in places

(52:05):
they haven't felt it a long time.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
They're so funny, these guys. I would always go to
the Malaysia preseason test because no one have been on
a Motor GP tea Moto GP bike for several months,
and you would speak to them after day one and
they'd all look at you, the riders, like how do
I do this every second weekend? Like I was six
laps into my first run of preseason testing and I
needed like a massage and to sleep. I was absolutely shattered, because, yeah,

(52:29):
that thing about being bike fit, you can't. Yes, you
can ride superbikes and you can do all the training
that you like, but nothing replicates being on a World
Championship bike than being on a World Championship bike. So
he effectively started his preseason in a race weekend at Cota,
so he'll be certainly better for it, but I reckon
he slept pretty well, so I.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Don't know it. That's what makes METOGP so exciting and
so different to Formula one is I know those guys
have simulators and whatnot and they're replicating it as much
as they can, but with Moto GP, we just don't
have that. So when these guys getting on these bikes,
they're like Jacob getting on the bike for the first
time in twenty twenty five and off you go into
a Motor three Moto three World Championship race. So that's

(53:09):
all we love about MotoGP. But we've said it a
few times. Next race is a guitar in two weekends time.
You guys can keep up to date with all the
latest MotoGP news though on our website at foxports dot
com dot au. For Slash Motorsport, I nearly just had
a mind blake then try to remember the website. But
we've also got all the social media channels at Fox

(53:31):
Motorsport on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Matt, thank you for
the catch up for the America's Grand Prix. We're gonna
be back real soon with more Moto GP pit talk
stop