Jerez Erupts: Alex Márquez's Maiden Victory, Marc's Crash, and Quartararo's Resurgence! MotoGP Pit Talk

Join Matt Clayton and Renita Vermeulen as they break down an unforgettable Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez!

Alex Márquez stuns the world with his first-ever MotoGP win, Marc Márquez's wild weekend ends in heartbreak, and Fabio Quartararo signals his comeback with a huge podium for Yamaha.

We also celebrate a massive weekend for Australia, with podium finishes in both Moto2 and Moto3 showing the next generation is well and truly on the rise!

We dive deep into the chaos, the key moments, the standout performances, and what it all means for the championship moving forward.

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

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Moto GP is back in Europe and the Spanish Grand
Prix was full of surprises. Now I know I say
that every episode, guys, but the Spanish Grand Prix had everything.
Marquees was a name in the headlines. Not for the
reason you may think though, and I cannot believe I'm
saying this, but a Yamaha was on pole and on
the podium, and we had two Aussies also in on

(00:23):
the podium this weekend. We have got so much to
catch up in this episode, and as always, this episode
of Pittalk is brought to you by Shannons. I am
your host, Rinita Vmulan, and joining me is the man
who's got more hot takes than a Moto GP tire
on a Spanish summer afternoon, Mister Matt Clayton. Matt, I
am starting this podcast off with probably my favorite topic,

(00:46):
Fabio Colorado on the Monster Energy Yamaha took Pole after
one hundred and thirty four days, led in both the
Sprint and the rom Prix, and finished on the podium
after five hundred and sixty days. Tell me was that
on your Bingo card for twenty twenty five, No.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Aita, It certainly wasn't It's funny as you were reading
all of those numbers there. This is like terrible audio
content for a podcast, but I'm just grinning because I
always think Motor GP's in a better place when someone
like Fabio is up the front competing for something meaningful.
What was super interesting to me is that that's been
something that Mark Marquees was keen to bring up after

(01:26):
sprint race on Saturday, where Fabio crashed early on in
that race, and Mark basically said, we need someone with
Fabio's talent and the charisma to be up the front
end Motor GP again. And also just to see Yamahar
up there and look, Harath has been a huge circuit
for him in the past, first pole in the World Championship,
first pole in Motor GP, first time he led a

(01:47):
race in his first season, won his first Motor GP
race there in twenty twenty. But to see what he
did on that qualifying lap on Saturday. When you get
as old and cynical as I am, Anita, and you'll
understand this in like twenty five years time, there's not
much that really gets you out of your seat when
you're watching stuff like this. You watch things in the moment,
and as Kuaatero was going red sector red sector on

(02:09):
that qualifying lap, I actually started laughing because it was
so preposterous what he was doing on that bike and
that pole position lap was to my mind, the moment
of the year. It was unbelievable and you can only
see the reaction of his team. They were all looking
at each other saying, can you believe what this guy
just did? And his rival was just shaking their head.
It's like, yeah, we can believe it because this guy

(02:30):
is so so talented. We've probably forgotten a bit about
it because it has been so long because Yamaha's dropped
so far behind the ball. But for one weekend at least,
it was super nice to see someone with that much
talent back up the front of the field and looking
like he belonged again.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
No, honestly, for me the same thing. I was sitting
on the edge of my sofa just going, I cannot
believe that Fabio is doing this, because it's like it's
come out of nowhere. We know, like you said that,
you know, it's a circuit that traditionally has suited the
Yamahas and he has had great success here. I just
want to say, guys, I don't know if you can
hear this in the background, but I think there's someone

(03:05):
doing some work near me right now, so I'm going
to try and talk over this.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
I thought there was about of three race going on
in your back yard. That's what it sounds like.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
To me from my end. But carry on perfect. Yes,
I am at the track, but no like for Fabio,
seeing him on the qualifying see him leading the sprint
for the two laps before you crash, and then in
the Grand Prix for me, Matt, there was a hot
minute there where I was going, can Fabio win this race?
Can Fabio take the win here in HaRav Is this okay?

(03:37):
I always tend to ask you these questions. Is this
because it's a Yamahau suit of track that we saw
Fabio closer to the front or was it Fabria just
pulled something extra out this weekend?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Bit of column a bit of columb and I'll introduce
the column C here in that Yama house clearly making
progress and we can see what they're doing behind the scenes.
But yeah, look a fantastic track for Quashurraro. We know
historically he's really really good here her Wreath is funny
in that you know, it's been on the calendar for
so so long. Now it's one of those tracks Now
that you see modern day motor GP machinery there and

(04:09):
the speeds they're doing and the way they race, it
almost looks a bit sort of outdated. It looks a
bit small for MotoGP now, like it's awesome with the
crowd and the atmosphere and the tradition and the history.
But I was reading something on the weekend. I can't
remember who tweeted this, so apologies to whoever it was,
but they've said Herreth has become a bit like f
One's Monaco for Murdo GP in that it's so narrow
and it's got all the tradition in the history. It's

(04:31):
incredibly difficult to pass there other than a couple of places,
and it kind of feels like the sport has outgrown
it a bit. But it's still so cool that we
get to go back to a place like that. And
you know, I'm never a big fan in the narrative
it oh, this season only starts when we gets Europe
because we've had four rounds and all races have the
same number of points obviously, but there's something special about
that place at that time of year when the sun's

(04:52):
out and it's ram with people and they're going nuts
for the Spanish fans, and people are lighting firecrackers and
all sorts of other oh and s things that probably
wouldn't fly to Australia quite frankly. But no, Look, there
was a time in that race that I did think
considered to myself, like once Squatdurero had got through the
first lap, and then obviously Marquez had fallen, which we'll
talk about a bit later, you're thinking, all right, one
thing we know about Fabia, he doesn't make mistakes, so

(05:14):
he's not going to hand this to someone. Someone's going
to have to beat him. Yes, he threw it down
the road in a sprint. You could see what was
going on there. I don't think he necessarily cared so
much about that. It's like I just enjoyed seeing go
open road in front of me because it's been so long.
But in the Grand Prix, you were going to have
to beat him rather than him beating himself. And it's
testament to and we'll get on too, Alex Marquez. I'm

(05:37):
sure you know Alex Marquez has been this theoretical Grand
Prix race winner for a while, but he hadn't done it,
and so my thought was, all right, he's got to
go in Quadurero, who is really, really difficult to pass.
He's one of the hardest guys to pass in BO
to GP. And if you're Alex Marquez, you're thinking, my
brother's out of the equation. I better win this one
because there might not be too many other opportunities for

(05:57):
me to do it. And it's actually testament Alex Marquez
that he took the first real chance that he had
and did it decisively. He didn't wait. I think that
was pretty pivotal in the way he won that race.
But staying on the Quaaterero theme, I think, to my mind,
it's him, it's Peco, it's Mark obviously, and Jorge Martin.

(06:18):
They're kind of the fourth the modern day aliens for me,
like they are the guys. And we saw what Kuaaterero
did in the first couple of years when he had
the speed and the energy behind him. It not the experience.
Now he's got the experience, hasn't had the machinery. But
our caveat that by saying yet because It really feels
to me like Yamahara starting to get it together, having

(06:39):
Pramac this year, having that second team, two more bikes,
two more bikes worth of data. Jack Miller has played
a really important role there behind the scenes that shouldn't
be underestimated. It feels like the arrow for Yamaha, which
has just been a flat line since he won that
twenty twenty one title. He's finally starting to climb and
I'm here for it because the more variety we can
have out the front of the Ducatti Cup that motorgis

(07:00):
to come lately, I'm all for it. And he's just
absolute class when he's given something good to ride.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
I just want to touch back on what you said
about the circuit there almost being quote unquote outdated. Do
you think that's why we saw that situation with Fabria
when he did get passed by Mark and we saw
that shaking almost like that dirty air because of the error,
because of the size of the track, everything like that.
But then count back to the amount of crashes that

(07:26):
we had this weekend and fast crashes, I think is
it more Beidelli crashing into the air fence causing the
red flag? Alex Rins. Didn't he find a fracture or
a crack in his wrist, even Miller crashing it in
the weekend. Is that because of this circuit and because
of how much the Meto GP bikes are progressing.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, I think where you notice at most it's not
even in the high speed zones. There's only really too
straight to Herreth anyway, and they aren't super long. To me,
it's the runoff at the end, off the side of
the track at fast corners. You see where more Bedelli
went off. Alex Marquez had a pretty decent size shunt
on the Friday. You only realize how fast these things
are going and how deep they are in the breaking

(08:03):
zones when they crash, because when everyone's upright, you just
take it for granted. But man, when someone comes off
one of these things, those air fences are obviously there
for a reason. It's crazy you think there weren't always
air fences there, But it's the cornering speed of these
things now and the effect of the dirty year just
washing the bike out from underneath you before you even
know what's going on. There are no small crashes there,
and that's part of There's a few circuits when they

(08:27):
made the announcement they were going to change to eight
fifties for twenty twenty seven because the sport it felt
that sport was outgrowing some of the circuits. The ones
that came to mind for me were definitely Harrath, that
first corner at Migello with that wall on when you're
watching it on TV to the right hand side of
your TV screen, the one that Mark nearly hit back
in about twenty thirteen twenty fourteen. That's one of those
ones that I always take a step back from the

(08:48):
couch for because you're thinking, oh man, it's not going
to take much for them to be a real problem there.
There's some of these tracks that the bikes have gotten
frankly too fast and too good for. So that's a
problem for another day. Yeah herezom me. Yes, it's harder
to pass. It's a bit one line that's pretty narrow
with these bikes, but yeah, just a little bit small.
And look, if there were ten of these sorts of

(09:10):
circuits on the calendar, I think we'd have a problem.
But it is a bit of a one of one.
I'm glad we're there. You certainly can't fault their passion
in the atmosphere of the place and one of my
favorite moments of the weekend. I'm sure you've noticed this too,
when the first few laps of the Grand Prix were
on and there was that huge brawl at the front
of the front of the race. You could hear the
crowd over the bikes in those first couple of laps,

(09:32):
and that. I love that sort of stuff because you
know how invested everyone is to what's going on. And
that first lap of that Grand Prix on Sunday was
outrageously good. I did rewatch it three or four times
the next day just to make sure I didn't miss
everything because it was so much going on back in
the pack. I was still so focused on the front.
I thought, oh I missed that. I didn't realize that
had happened. So, yeah, there was certainly a lot going

(09:54):
on in that.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
First lap, wasn't There wasn't they even just Mark and
Peco battle, then touching it. They're overtaking, you see Fabio
then getting that little bit of a gap. You see
Alex when he almost ran into his brother early on.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
It reminded me of Peco and Martin end of last year.
Malaysia where it's just that battle, that intensity. But then,
like you said, yeah, there was the battles further back
in the field when it did start to get a
little bit boring at the end of the race where
we could see Alex was clearly going to win. Spoiler
alert there, guys, But yeah, we were seeing all those
battles further back, and I think that's good. I think,

(10:28):
like you're saying, this type of circuit does allow for
a bit closer in the championship and not just be
Aju catty Cup and then the best of the rest.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, agreed. And it's funny too, like you come back
to somewhere like Herreth. You think of some of the
places we've been in the first few rounds. Qatar's one
of these massive modern Tilka dromes, as you know, with
crazy facilities and massively wide straits and access roads. Circuit
of the America's in Austin is Formula one track that
motor GP just goes to. So it's big and open
and the lapse almost a bit too long. Frankly, it

(10:57):
sort of league is a bit it doesn't it strings
the field out too much. And there's something about her
Reth with it being compact and a bit mad in
the first couple of laps. That definitely gets the heart
rode up. So I'm definitely here for that.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
No wonder the fans and the stadium and then the
hillsides which just packed out this weekend. It was sorry
cool to see in the dark.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
At about six am where they all turn up as
well their using their torches out of their iPhones to
see where they hell they're going. That was fantastic to
see that, So so cool, so cool.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
But let's move on to Mark Marquez. Because the man,
the myth, the legend, Mark Marquez. When he crashed this weekend,
I thought about what you've said in previous podcasts where
the only person who can stop Mark Marquez is Mark Marquez.
To me that crash during the race, I'm probably gonna

(11:47):
get plaster sent. This kind of felt really silly. It
kind of felt like because Mark knew how he knows
the track, he knows himself, he knows the bike, it
kind of felt like it was just where he was
pushing too much but maybe also put a bit too
much pressure on himself to succeed here. I know it's
the circuit where it could also be on his mind

(12:09):
because that's the corner that he crashed on. Was the
corner where he did damage his arm back in twenty twenty.
I think it was where it nearly ended his career.
But is it because Okay, is it because Mark doesn't
know the limit yet on the Duke Caddy because that
Jewcaddy is just so good? Or was it Mark feeling
pressure of having to succeed here in her earth.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah? I don't know about the pressure. I think there's
he still have to remember he's only five Grand Prix
and two recent season tests into riding this particular bike
and he hasn't it sounds like a silly thing to
say he hasn't crashed it enough yet to know where
the libits are because every Saturday he goes out and
generally takes poland always takes a sprint winlets. That's what's
happened this year, so he doesn't necessarily know where the

(12:52):
libits are. We know what happened in Austin and he
ran too much across the curb was still wet from
the rain before the race. That was explainable, so perhaps
he's still poll needs to sort of build the data
bang up of where the limits of this thing are
on different types of quarters, the sort of thing he
never used to think about with the Honda because he
knew that bike inside out and you as you remember,
he would always crash his Honder but it always be

(13:13):
in practice. He'd never actually do it in a qualifying
or in a race. It was always in practice. He'd
find the limits and then stay just this, you know,
sendime to wide side of the right side of that limit.
So perhaps it's a bit of an experience necessarily with
that bike. Maybe a little over confidence quite frankly, because
you saw what he had done. I mean, qualifying, he

(13:34):
got beaten by an otherworldly lap by a fantastic rider,
but he was right there. Sprint race, just cleared off
and won that once Fabio was out of the way.
So perhaps a little over confidence. But saying spoiler alert
before and you don't know this, I'm going to spring
this on you now because I am a maniac with
this sort of stuff. I decided I was going to
go through every lap righter, every lap time of every

(13:56):
rider in the race to see where Mark's stacked up,
because I I needed new hobby, clearly. But what I
wanted to know was once Mike Market fished the bike
out of the gravel trap on lap three, and given
how broken that thing was, that was the thing I
couldn't believe. The side of it looked like it had
just been ripped apart by Freddy Krueger, and it was
missing all the aerodynamic devices down the left hand side,

(14:17):
which is a huge thing with the way these bikes
handled these days. And I thought, all right, with a
bike that you could have possibly parked it, given how
broken it was, how did his lap times stack up?
And here's the stat for you for the rest of
the race. He only lost eight tenths of a second
to the race leader over the last twenty one laps
while passing ten other riders with a bike that was

(14:39):
probably broken. So if you ever wanted to know how
good Mark Marquez was, and we don't, we've seen this
story a million times. Eight tenths of a second in
twenty one laps with a broken bike and advancing from
twenty second to twelve. That was just testament to how
much he has in reserve over the rest of these guys.
But you might have seen these comments. They sort of
came out a bit afterwards. He said his fastest lap

(15:01):
of the race on lap seventeen. Everyone else in that
front group set their fastest laps of the race in
the first three or four laps when their tires were
brand new, So Mark had that much in reserve with
a broken bike and old tires. But what was interesting
is afterwards he said he got to a certain point
with about five laps to go, and he started thinking
about twenty twenty at the same track as you alluded
to before, and if you look at his lap times,

(15:23):
he immediately drops out of the thirty sevens and goes
back into the thirty eighths. He said, there was a
group ahead of me, but I thought about twenty twenty
and I thought, okay, I will not exaggerate was his term,
I will not crash. So in old Mark would have
tried to go from twelfth to eighth in the last
three or four laps and possibly crashed. Twenty twenty five

(15:43):
spec Mark is like, no, I've got back to twelfth,
I've shown my pace. I've at least got some points
out of this, and I will live to fight another day.
And that, to me is the evolution of Mark, because
the old Mark wouldn't have been able to resist his
instincts to go and do something perhaps a bit crazy,
and if there's anywhere that is a painful remind of
what happens when you have a stepped the market's wrath.
And I can imagine he's having that internal conflict. It's like, yeah,

(16:05):
but these guys are just up the road, I can
do that, and his right shoulder is going I wouldn't
have thought, so, no chance. You've had four operations because
of what you did to me five years ago. We're
not doing this again. So he's probably got this internal
conflict going on, and in the end he kept his
powder dry and lift to fight another day.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Isn't it funny though, because like the old Marquees, like
you're saying, would almost go through and use the other
riders as the marker get to get to push out
of the way, like I'm going to just ram into
you or whatever. But yeah, this new Marquez is a
little bit older and wiser, shall we say, but talking
a stat so I'm going to shout out our friend

(16:42):
Simon Patterson here. I was listening to him. He was
saying that he showed Luke Marini a photo of Marquez's
bike on the side and Luke Marini goes, oh, that
would cause him to be about five kilometers now slower,
and Simon went back and checked the speeds and it
was right, Marquees with that was five kilometers an hour slower,

(17:02):
and then you see him go from twenty second to twelve.
The man is phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
With a bike that's got no performance on the strait,
so he's having to make it all up in the quarters,
and he's having to make it all up under breaking
because down the straight you've got like a wind blowing
through the middle of the bike where half the side
of the thing's been torn off and left in a
gravel trap. So, yeah, I did hear those comments from Simon.
I went back and looked at the speed trap and yeah,
he was in the low to mid two nineties for
most of the race and the other decadeyes, like de

(17:28):
jan Antonio was at three hundred. So he's shipping time
down the straits. That's free time having to make it
up elsewhere. But ye as you said, the man's a genius.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
The man's a genius. So let me ask you this then, Now,
two DNFs in five Grand prixs, we know he's the
sprint king, so far this season. Is this hindering his
championship or is this just another bump in the road
for Marquez.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
It's funny, like my first thought was to go back
to twenty fifteen, the title that he didn't win, the
only one he didn't win in those first seven seasons fifteen.
We don't need to discuss what happened to the end
of twenty fifteen. We've probably dicussed Malayia twenty fifteen about
one hundred and fifty times on this podcast. But you
go back and look at that season. He lost that
championship not because he was slower, It's because he crashed
away too much. And there were four guys, you know,

(18:13):
that was the two factory Honda and the two factory
Amaha guys that season. Marquez by himself crashed more than
Lorenzo Rossi and Danny Pedrosa combined that season. So that
was a championship that he threw away by not being
able to pull it up at the limits. And so
the difference between twenty fifteen and twenty twenty five is
if you have a non scoring weekend in a Grand
Prix in twenty fifteen, you end up with zero at

(18:34):
the moment. There's twelve extra points on offer for Mark
every Saturday in a sprint, and so far in twenty
twenty five there's a maximum of sixty points in sprints,
and he's won sixty points. So you can water down
the effects of a crappy Grand Prix or you know
Austin where he was leading and then crashed, only took
four points out of her earth and the Grand Prix.
The reason he's still where he is in the championship
is because he's unbeatable on Saturdays, and that's the card

(18:56):
he's got to play this time that he didn't have
ten years ago. So the sprints, now he's finally got
his groove. You mad to think he hadn't won a
sprint before this year and now he can't lose one.
But that's the thing that he's now got in his
back pocket in that you can still leave her and go, well, look,
i still won the sprint, and I still qualified second
on the grid, and I've still got some points out
of the Grand Prix. So yes, he's not leading the

(19:18):
World championship. That's the story. After five rounds. It's pretty
crazy to think that a guy who's won eight out
of the ten starts this year is not leading the
World Championship. But this is how it's going to be
for Mark this year. This won't be the last time
that he throws it down the road in a race
or does something silly, but he's so fast when he's
actually upright on the bike, and particularly qualifying that. Getting

(19:38):
back to the earlier point, who can beat him for
the World Championship, I think only he came because none
of these other guys either have the machinery or the
pace or both to be able to be on terms
with him.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
So, as you said, the Mark is no longer leading
the points tally in the championship fight. And I mentioned
in the preview that it was another Marquez in the headlines,
and that's because Alex Marquez has finally won a Grand
Prix race. History was made with the Marquez brothers being
the first brothers to have won a Grand Prix, which
I think is pretty cool for MotoGP. And like I said,

(20:10):
Alex is back leading the championship's standings. Now for me
not to take anything away from Alex because he's won
a Grand Prix, but even he said when I was
reading on MotoGP dot com, that okay, when Mark's crashed out,
now it's my opportunity to be the stronger writer. Do
you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Oh? Completely? I think you can see the way he
rode that race and he said afterwardss like, I've got
everybody else's measure here this weekend except for the guy
who I share the same surname as. And he's out
of the picture now. Whether he climbs out of the
gravel trap and comes home, he's not a factor for
the victory now. And so this was his day. And
you look at what Alex has done this year. That

(20:50):
GP twenty four is clearly very very sortied. The twenty five.
I don't think we've seen it anywhere near at ceiling year,
and it'll get there at some point. But Alex knows
he's on a good bike. He's in really, really good form.
I think his consistency has been outstanding the whole year.
In a straight head to head fight, nine and a
half times out of ten, he's probably not beating Mark,
But Mark's out of the equation. He had to win

(21:11):
that Grand Prix, not because you'll never get another chance,
but he's never going to get a better chance than that.
Now that that box has ticked, and it's a box
has been unchecked for so so long now since he
came in in twenty twenty. The next thing he needs
to do and he'll want to do, is he'll want
to try and beat Mark in a head to head.
And you know we've seen them have a couple of
you know, Grand Prix this year where thy land Mark

(21:33):
was kind of playing with everybody because he needed to
drop behind and get the tire pressure up and could
just pass Alex at will. Argentina wasn't as cruzy as that,
Like you could see our hard Mark was pushing in
Argentina to get back on terms with Alex in that race.
So there will be more races like Argentina down the track,
I think where Alex will have a chance to really
sort of plant his flag against his brother. What's super

(21:56):
interesting for me, and I'm sure you've thought this too.
We know in a fight how ferocious Mark is. You
can't tell me that in that situation, Mark's just going
to go, oh, yeah, that's just another guy. Like there's
got to be something in the back of your mind.
It's like, this is my little brother. You know. Mark's
always been like one of Alex's biggest supporters in terms
of his credibility and needing to be a motor GP.

(22:18):
We haven't seen that completely gloves off between the two
of them where you feel it's an equal fight yet,
But that's one of the things I'm looking forward to
for the rest of this season, and probably sooner rather
than later, before that GP twenty five gets sorted. It's
going to happen at some point because Alex is writing
the best he's ever ridden, and we know how good
Mark is when he's staying up right, So I think
that's one that we'll see sooner rather than later. I'm

(22:40):
so interested to see the dynamic between the two of
them in that situation, because I don't know. If you're
Alex marqueerres like, nobody expects you to win that head
to head, right, everyone expects that big Bro is going
to put you in your place. It's an awesome position
for Alex to be in because if you lose, everyone's
going to say, oh, well, we expected you to lose.
You were supposed to lose. But if you win, that's

(23:00):
a victory that is worth way more than just one
win and twenty five points because you stared down one
of the greatest to ever do it, and certainly the
best guy on this year's Grit. And if you managed
to beat him in a straight fight, that's massive credibility
for Alex, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
I think Mark being Mark and being how competitive he is,
And this is from experience of having a competitive brother
who never let me win anything. Ever, I think that
Mark won't back down, but it will deal it with
a smile on his face. I think Mark will be like, no, no,
like we're doing this. We're doing this, but the whole
time he is going to relish and love every minute

(23:36):
of it. And I also think for Alex, if he
does win and get that head to head and it
goes his favor, I think it'll be Alex stamping his
foot here and going, no, I do deserve to be here.
I'm not just Mark's brother, I am my own.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
And isn't it funny, Like you said before that the
first pair of brothers who win Grand Prix, it's so
interesting because there's not you can't look back at this
and go, oh, yeah, this was just like when X
and Y were going against each other in nineteen ninety
two or nineteen eighty four or whatever. This is an
unprecedented situation where, yes, we've had siblings in Boda GP before,
they've never both been on the best bike at the

(24:11):
same time, and they certainly haven't been sharing podiums all
the time. And you think of that podium last year
at Saxon Ring when they were both on the podium.
That was the first time we'd had brothers on the
podium since I think it was the Ioki brothers, like
way way back in the day, like twenty thirty years ago.
Now seeing the two of them on the podium just
looks normal. It's not an outlier at all. So you know,
the next the elevator step of that is like what

(24:32):
happens if they start fighting one another for wins? Now
you expect there's going to be some other guys getting
in the way of that, like you know, Pecovnaira and
Couaaterero if it's more than just a one weekend thing.
But pretty interesting narrative, isn't it One we didn't see coming.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
I don't think I definitely didn't see it. I honestly
thought this year was going to be Mark and Peco,
Mark and Peco the whole time, and now it's a
good seguay for us to get onto Peco because this weekend,
for me, it felt like Pecko was very vocal. I
don't know if you felt the same with this map,
but watching in park Firma after qualifying quick to point

(25:04):
out on the broadcast, Oh, the Marquers brothers. They exited
pit lane under a red flag. You know, straight after
the race. It was like, oh, I'm not happy with
this performance. I had never seen this side of Peco
before where he is so vocal. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Pecko to me, and we've sort of you know, you
you called him the professor of many podcasts ago and
I always think of that when you talk about this.
Pecko's the sort of guy. He kind of mentioned it
a bit in the post race on Sunday, where Mark
will just get on something and write it. He said,
like Mark can ride everything. Pecko's got this wire between
his brain and he's right wrist where unless he completely

(25:41):
understands what's going on with the bike and he can
get everything just so like just how he likes it,
there's like a disconnect with the level of trust and belief,
like Pecko wants to understand what's going to happen, and
then go out and try and make it happen. And
I've always said that if every race was held in
the laboratory, Pecko probably never lose because once you remove
all of the variables, we've seen how incredibly good he is.

(26:05):
We saw it all of last year in the year before,
and that he had this methodical way of working through
a Grand Prix weekend, and that you look at first
practice on Friday and go, Pecko's fourteenth. It's like, that's
a bit rubbish, Like you do that every Friday. And
then he'd get into Q two and he'd be like
seventh or eighth, that was a bit underwhelming. And then
he'd come out on Saturday and you go, oh, okay,
because he'd taken all the data from Friday night and

(26:26):
he poured over that, and I can break a bit
deeper into this corner, and I can get on the
throttle a bit earlier. In this corner. He builds his
understanding and then he executes the understanding. Whereas Marko ride
around with a bike missing half of its arrow and
shredded like a cheese great as attack the thing, and
he would still do what he did on Sunday. I
love the way that both these guys are coming at
the same conclusion from totally different angles. And I think

(26:48):
the thing for Peco at the moment, he's frustrated in
that it's not a matter that he understands what the
issues are with the bike and he's just not fixing them.
I don't think he's got an understanding of what it
is that's bothering him on this particular bike relative to
last year, and it's the not knowing that's bothering him,
and it's the not knowing that's causing him to maybe
not second guess himself. But he doesn't completely believe yet

(27:12):
in what the bike is doing because he's got a
lot of questions about it. Now, will the bike get
better and will they gain more knowledge on that? Yes,
But at the moment it just encapsulates the way he
goes racing. He's a guy who uses his brain, you know,
and I mean this in an endearing way. He uses
his brain in a way that he wants to understand
what he's got at his disposal, and then once he

(27:32):
gets that. We've seen race weekends where he is completely untouchable.
We saw it last year. A couple of race weekends
where it looked like the others were in a different class,
where he'll be on pole, he'll win the first lap
and then you don't see him and he makes no
mistakes and you almost forget he's in the race, and go, oh,
Pecko won by four seconds, because that's the way Pecko
likes to go racing. At the moment, he doesn't have

(27:54):
the confidence in what he has underneath him to be
able to go and do that. So I think it's
just a bit of frustration, bit of touchiness. I mean,
it's got to be playing on his mind that a
guy has come into his team and I'll use that
in air quotes and won all of these races early on.
But I think the key thing for me, and this
is an underrated part of his season so far, it's
the best actual start to a season he's ever had

(28:16):
in terms of consistent results. He's only twenty points off
the championship lead. It feels like he's sixty points off
the championship lead. He's right there because Mark squandered some points.
Peco hasn't left too much on the table at the moment.
So in terms of your championship position, he's in a
really good position points wise, it just doesn't feel like
it because we haven't had the high points this year
so far.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
No, you're right there, it doesn't feel like it. I
think coming back to what I was kind of asking,
was it just feels like because he is so down
that you forget. Yeah, he is fighting for that top
step in the points tally right now. I was looking
at the post test because they had a test there
on Monday in Herrath and it said that he's found
a couple of improvements. So maybe this alludes to what

(28:57):
you're saying there. It's that he's not entirely comfortable, not
feeling a hundred cent on the bike, but like you said,
struggling to find those improvements because we know this year
they're on like a GP twenty four point one, Like
they're not on a GP twenty five at all?

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Are they twenty four points? Subthing? They get changes over
the course of the race weekend. But you hit on
an important point there. There's so little testing in Moto
GP through the season, right there's only three in season tests.
The twenty four that Alex is on are doing so
well on. I wouldn't say that's completely frozen. But there's
not going to be a whole even new stuff going
to that bike. The twenty four point eight nine twenty five,

(29:34):
whatever the hell it is cool the twenty five. The
twenty five is going to get better over the course
of the season because they're going to keep bringing developments
to it to make it faster, and it's going to
be up to Alex Marquez to The gap between the
twenty four and the twenty five in terms of machinery
is only going to increase, So Alex is going to
and Franka Morberdelli they're going to have to really step
up what they're doing on a bike that's kind of

(29:55):
reached the end of its development cycle. The twenty five
is going to get better, and I think as it
gets it's better. I think you'll see Pecko start to rise.
I still think it's a championship to be fought out
between the two factory Decady teammates the fact that Peko's
been a bit sort of bar so far and he's
only nineteen points behind Mark. That's like a massive win
for these first five rounds for me.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, that makes clear sense. Like I think the next
test is Aragon, so it's only three or four races away,
and then they're having another test, another test, another test again.
So I do agree we're going to start to see
that difference. Is this kind of where we're going to
see Alex Marquez maybe not necessarily having that chance to
fight with his brother or be he's going to be

(30:36):
on the podiums at some of these events, like we
know that, but also so as ferminality gay because we're
seeing him fight closer to the front, we're seeing the
VR forty six machines. There is this where we're going
to see that jump and Pecko is going to be
definitively up the top more often.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, I think. I think once the bike gets better
and he begins to understand it more. I mean we're
still super early in the season, right, still seventeen rounds
to go, Like you forget about that. Seventeen rounds used
to be the entire Motor GP season back in the day.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
But it feels like we're like four hundred races in already.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Oh yeah, because every weekend's got to No, I know
what you mean. It does feel like that. It's like
all the lights are going out again, but the other
guy to keep an eye on for me in that
same boat as Degen Antonio because he's also ot A
twenty five and he has been a bit He's been okay.
We know that he was super compromised after the preseason
and hurting himself again and everything else. He's a guy
that I expect to move forwards, and not that I'm

(31:29):
peering into the crystal ball too much. I reckon he
wins a Grand Prix or two before the end of
this year, because he's going to be to me in
the back half of the season. He'll be the guy
that's there like Alex has been at the moment on
the days where Mark drops the ball or Pecko's a
bit off or whatever it is. To Jen, Antonio is
going to have the machinery. He's getting better physically week
by week. I expect that he will rise as the

(31:51):
season goes on, because let's be honest, if you're going
to win a Motor GP race, you want to be
on a decaddy. There's only six of them this year,
and he's got one of the better ones, so I
do think he'll be coming forwards.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Let's talk on the other writer who's kind of just
been there these last two races. Maverick Vinalas leading the
way for KTM this weekend, finished fourth in Sunday's Grand Prix. Obviously,
Brad Binder and Pedro Acosta not far behind. I think
they were sixth and seventh. Maverick said he found a
balance in the KTM this weekend. And obviously we spoke

(32:24):
about this in the previous part. It's bat mav that
we're talking about here, but it seems like Maverick's the
only writer who's really saying the positive things about the
RC sixteen this season.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't that? Like Brad Binder like to
take our listeners behind the curtain here. Brad Binder is
lovely guy, you know, good English speaker, friendly and what
have you. Never gives you too much as far as
the press stuff goes like. He's very sort of straight
up and down, which is the way he is, whether
he wins all losers. I appreciate the consistency with Brad,
but he's never going to really wear his heart on
his sleeve with these sorts of things. Pedro Acosta and

(32:58):
now that's an interesting story because you're wondering how keen
he is to be there and there's offers from elsewhere,
and so on and so forth. Maverick Vinale is it's
not that the fact that the glasses half full. For
Maverick at the moment, the glass is so full that
it's spilling over the sides and he's got to go
and get another one because he's just so optimistic about
everything at the moment. Because we know that when things
are good for Maverick, he tends to ride the emotional

(33:19):
rollercoaster a little bit, super confident, super happy to be there.
And so the question after Katar Qatar is one of
those race weekends where we go, well, here's one of
our two weekends a year where Maverick Vanillas looks like
the greatest Bodo GP rider of all time. I fully
expected him to go, oh yeah, Maverick Vinalez was in
the race. When I look down the classification at the
end of the race and oh, he's thirteenth or something,

(33:40):
and you expected that to be there. He was really
really good all weekend and the line that you just
said before that I kind of grinned at when you
said it. He was the best KTM over the course
of the weekend. And what was so funny at the
start of the year is that you're thinking, all right,
a Costas in the main team. He's the young he's
the young guy. He's got all the talent. We know,
he's got all the belief. He's got a great benchmark
in binder because we'll find out how good a Costa

(34:02):
is because Binda is such a proven commodity. And then
you had Bastini and Vignales at Tech three, who both
aren't shall we say renowned for being able to be
that versatile in the way they go racing. Like Bastianini's
got his one trick, which is to be rubbish at
qualifying and there'd be amazing with entire life in the
race and overtake everybody in the last few laps. It's
how he's won pretty much every race he's won. And

(34:23):
Vignales is a guy that it took him so long
to do anything on an Aprillia, then he got to Aprilia,
finally had some good results and then left because he's
Maverick Vinalees. So the fact that he has emerged is
the sort of shining light for KTM. It's been a
weird six months or for KTM with on a lot
of counts but the fact that you said, oh, yeah,

(34:44):
Maverick Vinalez is the most convincing ktm rid right now.
It's okay, sure, because I'm prepared to believe anything with
Maverick because when it's good, it's very very good.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, there's Mapic, that's Batman in a nutshell. That is him.
But you mentioned Pedro Acossa there. The news came out
post Monday's test that he had They're calling it a
surprising surgery to treat chronic compartment syndrome in his right forum.
And is him pump Yeah, yeah, that's why I was
just like it is arm Palm saying that he's expected

(35:14):
to return for the French Grand Prix, which we know
is in not this weekend, the following weekend in May, mom,
and that we in May already. Do you think that
him struggling with his arm pub Is this the reason
why Pedro hasn't been where we've thought he has been
so far this season? Or is it because of the

(35:34):
drama going on katm and the other offers, et cetera,
et cetera.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, I mean, look, one of the best things about
Pedro Acosta is that he's very impatient for success and
One of the worst things about Pedro Acosta is that
he's very impatient for success. And he's five races into
racing for katm's full factory team. He's got the big promotion,
he's been with them forever, and he's not super happy
right now. He's very, very, very frustrated, and because he

(36:00):
had this crazy sort of performance curve to get into
Motor GP in the first place, like one motor three
really quickly, one motor two really quickly. The impatience is
what makes him great, but the impatience is what is
probably hurting him right now because every press debrief that
he does, and if Bike's had body language, you could
see this as well. You could feel the frustration because

(36:23):
he wants to be up the front right now and
I don't want to talk about this like this just
needs to happen, and so look the arm pumped thing.
These guys go through this all the time. Anyways. I'm
not sure it's a huge drama in that respect, but
there's a soup. There's just a really heightened level of
frustration with him because how rapid his rise has been

(36:43):
through the junior classes, and the impatience is what makes
him great. But right now, that's not a bike that
it's not a race winning or race contending victory contending
bike because it's not a Ducati. So if you're him,
you've been with KTM all the time, there's all this discussion.
Do you try and get out of that contract? Do

(37:05):
you try and get on a satellite? Satellite? Do you Catti?
It's going to cost a lot to buy and out
of that contract. The only place he could probably go
with BVR forty six. Do VR forty six have the
money to buy out a KTM factory contract? Spoiler, No,
they don't. If they were to move for a cost,
that would mean Valentino Rossi, you'd have to get rid
of Franko morber Delhi because he's the one on the

(37:26):
shorter contract and he's a Rossi protege all of that.
So that's another factor. And then the other question is
you've seen his name linked with Honda, which is interesting
to me because again it's not going to solve Pedro's
impatience next week, but Honda with a new rule set
coming in, and you know they'll throw every available resource

(37:49):
at that thing. If there was a factory that was
going to get twenty twenty seven, right, that's not right
at the front. Right now, I'd put a fair bit
of money on Honda because you know they're not going
to die wondering with this thing. The problem is Acosta
is impatient because something's not happening now. Having to sell
him on a vision, it's like, oh, can you just
ride around in circles until twenty twenty seven when we
might be good. I'm not sure that's going to make

(38:09):
him feel any better either. So yeah, he is a
very very frustrated young man at the moment, and we
know how good he is. But it's just the fact
of modern day motor gp that unless you get Fabio
Couaderrara on a Yabaha at Herreth, which is a perfect
marriage of a lot of things, it's hard to see
how this gets any better for anyone not riding a
ducaddi for the short term.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
When Marquez made the change from Honda to ju Caddie,
I was god smacks because I didn't think he would
ever leave Honda because it felt like he was so
loyal to them. This is my question then, to you
with Pedro a Costa, because like you mentioned that, it
was KTMKTM KTM through everything. Does he feel like he's

(38:49):
tied to them? Do you think? Or is he is?
He just wants to win no matter what.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Look, there's probably there's probably some element of loyalty to
a degree because they've brought him through and a Heio
has been prominent with that. It would be a hard
thing for him to do to say, look, I can't
wait for this, but he's what twenty twenty one or whatever.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
It was.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
The difference between the difference between Mark leaving Honda was
that Mark had had an incredible amount of success there
and he had finally got himself back to a point
physically where he was of the opinion that it's not
my body that's holding me back anymore. I think it's
my machinery that's holding me back. And the only way
I'm going to be able to answer that question is
to leave. And it's an easier decision for Mark to

(39:33):
make when he's in his thirties and he's won six
MOTORGP World titles and has a lot of money, and
so you know, I appreciate the fact that Mark has
said I'm prepared to take a massive paker and go
and ride for a satellite team to see if I've
still got it, and the answer is unequivocally yes. After
these last couple of seasons. It's hard for you and
I are to tell a twenty year old who's got

(39:53):
ambitions of winning multiple Motor GP World Championships to be
patient the KTM thing. There's some stuff going on behind
the scene, which we've talked about and I've written about
on Fox sports dot com dot A you about the
financial situation there in At the moment, it doesn't necessarily
look like it's going to be getting better quickly, like
it might be one where you have to write it
out and be a little bit patient. So he's got

(40:13):
to decide to stay with what he has and go
through the end of this rule cycle until twenty seven,
or to try and get out, probably at some sort
of financial cost. And then you're taking like it's not
a total shot in the dark, if you know what
I mean, But it is a bit of a gamble,
because what if you hit your wagon too Honda for
twenty seven and they go, oh, look, we've got an
ok bike for twenty seven, but it's going to be

(40:33):
two more years until we get back there. Right now,
A cost is frustrated after five races, He's not going
to want to be frustrated for four years, so it's
a really interesting one for him. I like the fact
that he cares enough that he's frustrated about the results.
But there's a longer lens that probably needs to be
looked at here, because you don't want to jump too
early at something and then regret it. Because motor GP's

(40:54):
history is full of guys that have done that well, speaking.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
On like jumping to things and regretting. I want to
talk about Yamaha with their engine because over the weekend
we heard a lot from Augusto Fernandez, who's filling in
for Miguel Olivera. And while we know that the Yamaha
boys are pretty much told not to talk about the
V four or where that, Augusto was just like, yeah,
I'm just going to share everything that I know. So

(41:19):
we know that they tested on Monday a new version
of the Inline four, which I heard both Fabio and
Jack Miller because Jack didn't have the best weekend this weekend,
but we heard on Monday that there's new updated Inline Force.
Seems to be heading in the right direction. Jack even
said something like they're giving us what we've asked for.

(41:39):
But then I heard the talks about the V four
and there's that rumor that it could be debuting this
year at one of the races. I think Mattegi maybe
Augusto said. Then I heard Fabio saying, yeah, but I
might not even like it, or it might not even
suit me, and then even said I might not even
be there. Then watch your take on that is is

(42:01):
this updated version of the inline for what Yamaha need,
but also this whole V four thing. Thinking about it, Fabio,
who's only ridden for the Yamaha's Emoto GP, He's going
to have to go and change his whole writing style everything.
We know that Maverick struggled when he went from Yamaha across.
How's that going to work? Because there's so much with

(42:25):
an engine. It's not just changing one thing, right, yeah,
everything with that bike.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
That point you made then about Fabio only having experience
with riding a Yamaha for his entire Motor GP career,
and we forget twenty nineteen eight. He came in, He
came in as a super super young guy. There's a
bit with Fabio with this V four thing. It's not
an obsession with his But it's one of those things
that if everyone else has got something different to you
and it seems to be good, then these guys are like, well,

(42:51):
I want that because that seems to be working. The
problem is you've got all these other manufacturers that are
super experienced with V four's. It's unrealistic to think that
Yamaha will produce a V four that they're willing to
race that's instantly going to be able to compete with
Ducati and KTM, And it's not a realistic thing. So
is it one of those two steps back to take

(43:13):
one step forwards? Things? Eventually in the long run it
might be better. But if you're Fabio and you have
to go and unlearn a lot of stuff that you've
done with Yamaha for the potential of a greater upside
a long way down the track, that's a tough one
to swallow because we know how good the guys twenty
twenty one World champion had a huge lead halfway through
twenty two before you Yamaha just got out developed really

(43:34):
by Ducati, and we know what's happened since. What was interesting?
I also read those comments after the Hareth test and
it sounds like the bike's quicker in a straight line,
gets out of the corners faster would if you're Fabio,
do you want smaller incremental improvements with a sort of
proven commodity of an engine like they've been running and
you know you're starting from a base of whatever that

(43:55):
basis and you're moving forward or you prepared to go, well,
let's throw all that in the bin for this mythical
V four that might come on and be absolutely fantastic.
And you mentioned before there's a key part in all
of this in the Augusto Fernandez, who I'm sure was
given a bit of addressing down by the Yamaha Comm's
department afterwards, like could you just stop being so honest please,
A gustou In these press briefings, the thing that I

(44:17):
had read you've probably read the same is that he
will wildcut that at Motigi. That's going to be so
interesting in terms of Motiki. Is a weird track. Let's
be honest. There's nowhere like it on the calendar. But
they'll be looking at things like speed trap figures, how
the thing gets out of the corner, is what the
balance is like? Because Tho's in a good place I
reckon in terms of he's not super like young and inexperience.

(44:41):
He's a guy who's been around himTo two champion. He's
got a really important role there in terms of what
he says and thinks and develops with that particular engine
is going to have a huge say what happens going forward.
And if you're Yamaha, I think last weekend, if it
proved anything that you've got to ride a good enough
to win things, you can give him the machinery to

(45:01):
do it. Because Fabio, you know, like I said before,
is one of to my mind, one of the best
four guys in it. If you can give him a
machine that he can fight with, He's proven that he
can do it in the past and he still has that.
So yeah, it's definitely an interesting one. I think it
sounds like both Quatro and Rims are going to raise
the new engine at Lamont in two weeks time now.
Whether Jack Miller gets one or not, I don't know.

(45:22):
I really hope they do give one to Jack because
Jack's so good on this developmental side. You can already
see the impact he's making it Yamaha, just from being
there for this half a season. The more data they
can get on that engine, bring it forward to that
next test that you mentioned at Aragon. Seems like that's
the way forward. But if you're Yamaha, one thing you
can't accuse Yamaha of doing. They are not sitting on

(45:43):
their hands and willing to take this line down. They
are throwing everything at this thing to try and get
back to where they've been in the past. And a
motor GP with a strong Yamaha is a good motor
GP in my opinion, so let's hope it continues well.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
Also, Honda this weekend because they had Alisia Spagro there
test rider return and was interesting to see Aleish kind
of saying how on bike fit he was, and we
saw him shake in his hands there in the earlier sessions.
But then I read that on Monday Luca Marini actually
tested on the bike that Aleish had there, So it
seems like Honda are also trying to be that bit

(46:18):
more proactive. I think Yamaha did lead the way, but
Honda they're trying to get back up there as well. Well.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
It's interesting they've both gone with non Japanese tech directors,
which is a massive thing for those two companies. They
don't generally outsource those really senior management positions to Europeans.
It's not really happened. And they've recruited from Deucadian from
Apulia because they know there's a proven way of success there.
So that was the first step to turning something around

(46:45):
is putting your hand up and saying we've been doing
it wrong. There's a lot of places that don't do that.
There's a lot of corporate pride and history in ways
of working, particularly in the Japanese sort of corporate culture,
that don't necessarily translate to murdor GP. So they've made
the admission and hired the correct people. I think that's
probably the first step to coming back. But we're not

(47:06):
talking about Motor GP this year like we were last
year where you had the Japanese Cup down the back
and they were just hopeless, like you just never saw
them unless they were crashing. They were nowhere in terms
of featuring anywhere properly in results. Now it feels like
every weekend there is a Yamaha or a Honda in
the mixed. Jean Zako has had a really good year.
Kuaatearero was fantastic this weekend in Spain. Jack Miller finished

(47:28):
fifth in Austin on Merrit and was really really good there.
So it's not just oh, there's no Japanese bikes up
in the top five or six. There's always one on
them up there now. And the fact that you've got
a variety with these manufacturers, I think super positive for
the overall product.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
I reckon oh, one hundred percent. I think what was
interesting as well on the Monday test is, you know,
we saw a lot of the manufacturers testing a new
arrow packages or swing arms or et cetera, et cetera.
But agv as Haest sing a new arrow winglet on
the side of the helmet.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Did you see No, I haven't seen this.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Oh HRC reps repsol. I'm god, every there's one HRC
Castro Honda Yeah, posted a funny caption of the chrome
dome they called it, and on the chin on the
side there's like a little winglet there. So that's why four.
It was really quite interesting that this arrow style is

(48:23):
transgressioning from just the bike to actually on the riders. Now.
I don't know if it's something they're going to use
or see or we'll see even this year, but interesting.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
The Yeah, the the can's been will and truly opened
their aero. Okay, in these days you can't force stuff.
They can do it. Now there's so much going we're
gonna start hiring riders based on whether they have, you know,
the right shoulder widths or something, because it helps with
the arrow profile and the bike. And that's going to
be it's going to be the next step the way
these things go.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
No, no, no, let's go. Let's go. I'm already looking
for twenty twenty seven and wait to see the reduction
and see because we mentioned earlier that dirty air that
we saw with Fabio in the sprint and everything. It's
just getting too much. But that's Moto GP and we
still love it for what it is now. But I
mentioned earlier we had some Aussies on the podium, So Matt,

(49:11):
we have to talk about Moto two. We have to
talk about Sena. Age is crossing the line p three.
That's his second podium this year, if Itt his first
front row is well, qualifying on third on the grid
for the Grand Prix on Sunday. Senna said in post
race that he was struggling with the bike a little bit.
He had some troubled where he didn't feel it earlier

(49:31):
in the weekend. But I think we're seeing more consistent Senna,
and I don't know how much of it is coming
from his teammate Manu, who is getting the data and
learning a lot of or if we're just seeing an
older and wiser senate in his nineteen years of age
on this line.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yeah, the old ages before his twenty, but there is
a degree of It's one of those things that you
get to a world championship level and you think, oh, yeah,
I can be on the podium, I can compete with
these guys, but until you've actually done it, and then
you've done it more than once. Obviously, Philippi on last
year was pretty special. That was an amazing day for him,
but it felt at the time that it was not

(50:11):
just quite and it wasn't an unrepeatable outlier, but it
definitely didn't feel legitimate or sustainable at that point. What
we've seen this year is he's got a different teammate
who's clearly writing really really well. Bike's good, and he's competitive.
It's not just all that's a surprise that Center AGS
is going well this weekend. Now we're almost surprised when

(50:31):
he's not. And that's been the biggest change. Now, I
think the perception of what people think he can do
in that category, and I think the belief of what
he thinks he can do in this category. It's not
surprising at all to see him up there now. It
looks super legit and well a I enjoyed the It's funny,
like the three m Motor two races were both pretty
similar at Herreth and you had a nailed on winner

(50:52):
up the front, and then the podium spots were really
contentious behind. How good is it when we've got Motor
GP in Europe, in family in viewing, friendly times for
Ossie's and and you've got ozsies actually in contention in
the two lower classes. It was a super fun night
Sunday night.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
That battle that Senna had with Diogo Morrera where he
was like on the grass. At one point on the
Fox Socials, we put are you racing Moto two? Are
you cutting the grass there? Center? Because he was literally
millimeters from him running off the track. It was wild. Yeah,
great fight, great five epic battle. And then let's talk

(51:29):
about Joel and Jacob in Moto iie so Joel got
another podium this weekend, so we started on the front
row and he crossed the line in third and then
wet that funny thing in Park fer Me where he said,
if he gets on the podium this weekend at Arez,
where he said it was a track that he doesn't
necessarily enjoy or doesn't suit him, he's getting a dog.
So welcome to the family, Joel Kelso poppy. But yeah, Joel,

(51:54):
I think we said this in previous pods, and I
think it's coming to fruition now he's found that missing
one besoon last year, whatever that change was for him,
He's gone from fading through the second half of the
race to now he's up the front and he is
battling for the entire time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah, it's part of the evolution. The amount of times
last year there'd be a breakaway group of seven at
the front of a Motor GP Moto III race and
Joel would be seventh out of the seven or fifth
out of five. He'd always be at the back of it,
so he'd be fast enough to be in the mix,
but not quite fast enough to convert it. That's where
he's made the step, and he's described it as a
small percentage. Think it's such a tiny percentage of the

(52:30):
overall arsenal, but it's so crucial. He would be really
good for eighty five percent of the race, and then
you just see the fades start to happen in those
last few laps. He's got that staying power now, a
lot of it's between his ears because he's got the
belief he can do it.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Now.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
He feels very on top of what he's doing. He's
moved to a better team this year, having just a
really really consistently solid year. We know he's always been
good in qualifying, he's been able to probably transcend the
performance of what he's been writing on at a couple
of his previous stops. But this looks the most optimisty
thing for me is it looks totally legit. There's nothing
sort of out larra sh or random about the whole thing.

(53:04):
He looks like a guy who should be there every weekend.
And then how nice was it to see Jacob Rolston
qualify well, race strongly, get a good result. But more
importantly it was at this same circuit where it really
hurt himself not so long ago. And you, I mean
you've spoken to him enough. You can't tell me that
as you drive in to her reath for that weekend
that the first thing that comes to me. You can't

(53:25):
help but to think about something like that. So to
go back there, park that in the back of your mind,
have a really strong qualifying and a really good race
result where you're clearly a bit underdone. You missed the
first few rounds. You're not quite there yet. Super promising
for all the Aussies in the feeder classes. And yeah,
the fact we're in Europe for the next eleven rounds
means that Sunday nights are going to be appointment viewing

(53:47):
from now and in all three classes.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
I think, well, the thing is Motoree and Motor twur
on at prime time, So get your friends, to get
your family over, make a night of it and watch
some of the epic racing. Yes, we love Moto GP,
but Moto three specially shows some of the best racing.
We've preached this on this podcast so many times. The
battles they're changing, the passing, the overtaking. Oh, it's the best.

(54:10):
And I think what is so exciting is we have okay,
we're round five, but Senna and Joel both on the
podium this weekend, Jacob coming back from that injury, top
ten result. This is the future of Moto GP, and
we're seeing it's not just the Italian and the Spanish shows.
We've got the Aussi's, We've got Cormack from New Zealand,

(54:31):
there's more South Africans, there's more nationalities now coming in.
But the Aussie kids, I shouldn't say kids, the Aussie writers.
They're paving the way and if they can continue this
consistency now throughout the year, then I think we're going
to be in for the future of Moto GP looking
really really bright.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
No, yeah, I mean, look, you're allowed to call them kids.
I'm definitely allowed to call them kids. My goodness, these guys.
I love how young these guys are because they haven't
had the media citizensm but out of them yet. But
the best thing about them coming on strong and looking
like it's really consistent is where Australia and Philip Island
sits on the calendar. Because we're towards the back end
of the season and you know, there's a very strong

(55:07):
chance Joe Kelso is going to be in a very
very good championship position by the time we get to
Philip Island and possibly Center if this keeps up as well.
So these guys riding at home with real steaks in
October rather than it's just nice to be there and
perhaps jag a good result. That's it's going to add
something for the island, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Oh? Definitely. That's why we love MotoGP, and that's why
we love Motorcycle research. Absolutely, But Matt, I think we've
pretty much covered everything from the Spanish Grand Prix. If
you guys want any more info though, you can read
some MAT's articles on Fox sports dot com, do au Forward,
Slash Motorsport, or you can follow us on socials. We
are at Fox Motorsport on all the platforms. As always,

(55:46):
big thank you to Shannon's for helping bring the Pittok
podcast to life. And we're going to have a little
break from ROTOGP because this weekend is via fami f
one Miami f one, which Matt I'm sure you guys
are you Michael Lamonado will chat about and then we'll
be back real soon with the Lemon French Grand Prix.

(56:06):
For more Moto GP Pittok