August 6, 2025 • 51 mins
Liberty Media changed the face of Formula 1 and now, they’ve set their sights on MotoGP
In this episode of Pit Talk, we break down the 4.3 billion Euro takeover of Dorna and what it could mean for MotoGP’s future, on and off the track
Is a Drive to Survive style boom coming? Will MotoGP lean into the glitz and storytelling that transformed F1? And what parts of the sport should never be touched?
Joining Renita Vermeulen is Simon Patterson from The Race, who’s seen it all from inside the MotoGP paddock, plus our very own Matt Clayton, who’s experienced both the before and after of Liberty’s influence in F1
Whether you're an F1 fan curious about MotoGP, or a long-time two-wheel devotee wondering what's next, this episode is your starting grid for understanding the sport’s bold new era
📺 Watch MotoGP on ch. 506 or via Kayo Sports bit.ly/3wDpMnj
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Liberty Media, the same powerhouse befind behind Sorry, Formula Ones
Global Transformation has officially acquired MotoGP from Dawna for a
whopping three point two billion euros. So what did this
really mean for the sport that we love. Well, we're
gonna unpack what Liberty could bring to the table, what
moto GP desperately needs, What should we be excited about
(00:23):
and what should we be cautious of. This episode of
Pittalk is sponsored by Shannon's Insurance. I'm your host Rinita
Vanmuelin alongside Moto GP, Jurno and statman veteran Matt Clayton.
And joining us today is a man who's been in
the trenches all round every round this season. Oh, I'm
already off to a good start because I'm so excited.
(00:45):
Simon Patterson from the Races joining us. Simon, welcome to
pit Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be with you, guys.
It's about tayme. We all finally actually sat down together
and did this, isn't it? Because we've it for long enough,
we've spent looks time together in it and you've been
over in Europe and so it's good to actually fainally
be you know, opinion edited together.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
This is the official podcast before the unofficial podcast that
happens in some desk and the Philip Island Press roo
a bit about two months time, which is probably not
for publication for anyone long.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I know, it's crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Right before we get stuck in, though, Matt, I think
we need to give like a bit of context to
our listeners, a bit background, because we know you here
as a stats man the journal, like I said on
pit Talk, but you've actually been around f one before
it was even on Netflix, So you are.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Not that old amazing that Netflix didn't invent formula? What
is it.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I'm not going to ask you how old they didn't, apparently, Roonita,
I'm not going to ask you how old slash young
you were when I did my very first Grand Prix.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
But it was in.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Nineteen ninety eight, so I'm not sure you would have
made it through the gates with the press pass back
in those days. But it's been super interesting, you know,
all jokes asider because I feel like I'm living at
this liberty story for a second time, because it was
eight years ago that they first became involved in formula.
If anyone knows anything about F one. In the years
prior to that, it was, as Mark Weber used to say,
(02:05):
it's Bernie Eckleston's train set.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
We're just playing with it.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And that was the way Mark always used to describe
Formula one, and it was very much. It was run
in such a different way, an unrecognizable way, than it
is now. You look at what's happened to F one
just in the last eight years since Liberty's been involved,
there's a lot of good that's come out of that.
There's a lot of things that rusted on fans turned
media people that are of a certain vintage, shall we say,
(02:30):
probably don't like about the way that Liberty's gone about it.
I'll be super curious to see knowing Motor GP as
I do, but seeing the Liberty experience from the F
one side as I have, I'll be super curious to
see what translates, what doesn't work, what they'll do the same,
what they'll learn from with what they did with F one,
and what they'll do differently. The next few years is
going to be super interesting. I feel like I'm watching
(02:52):
a movie that I've already watched once before, but I'm
not quite sure. I remember how it ends, so that's
going to be the interesting part about it for me.
Yes there is some content ext and yes you made
the old joke Guilty has charged. Someone's got to be
the Sadia figure on this podcast, and it most will
be made.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I love the fact that, like you just said, the movie,
and the first thing I thought about was the fact
that Happy Gilmore two has just been released on them.
That's obviously on my mind. But let's not talk about
Adam Sandler and Gold. Let's talk about Moto GP. So Simon,
I want to hear from you, because obviously you're in
the paddy. What's their general mood among teams and writers
(03:28):
since the whole Liberty takee I've always confirmed.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So first of all, no one really knows what's going
to come yet, right, that's the thing. We've seen what
they've done with that one, but we know that the
model is maybe not necessarily just copy and piste. So
people are expecting definitely things that have been done in
F one to be done, but not all of them.
So it's not going to be just oh, look, this
is exactly what they did. This is exactly what we're
(03:52):
going to do now as a.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Result, so there's going to be you know, people are
still curious about what actual ship it's going to take.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
There hasn't been any Liberty people in the paddock yet
since the takeover. We think that's probably because the round
after the takeover was like Saxon Ring and Bruneau, which
are two of the least glamorous paddocks.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
In the championship, and we think they've.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Probably held off on telling Liberty to turn up until
we go to the Red Bull Ring at the next round,
which is like the greatest facility that we have, and
it's the fau Bels and Whistles experience. So we think
that we're probably going to see some Americans rock up
in the paddock at the next round, the first one
back after the summer break. But the general consensus seems
to be that this can only be good because, you know, fundamentally,
(04:37):
we have an amazing product.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Motegip is.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, Okay, there's a bit of a lull at the
minute as we wait for the new rules to come
in with the on track action, but by and large,
it is an excellent product. What you see whenever you
watch it is super entertaining. It hooks people in it
draws people in, but don't know have been really bad at.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
The bit where they get new people to watch it.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
There has been a you know, not very good marketing
strategy built around the sport, and I think that is
where Liberty really changed things in F one. And it's
the kind of the low hanging fruit for whenever they
come into motor GP. Someone told me recently that whenever
they took over Formula one, the marketing department in FOM,
(05:20):
the company that runs F one was four people and
the first thing they did was hire another one hundred
and sixty. And that's the kind of attitude that the
motor GP. I think that the murdor GP paddock thinks
that MURDUGP needs it needs.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
That kick up.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
The asset needs to be shown to more people because,
you know, without turning this into motorbike journalist bash is
car racing. When you watch an F one car go
around a track, it's all right, it's cool, but you
can't really see the driver. They're very enclosed, even more
so with the halo these days. Then you watch a
motorbike go around a track and the guy's hanging off
(05:59):
at knee down, elbow done. You know, everything is more
visually spectacular. It should be an easy cell, especially with
the short you know, the short eRASS and the attention
span of you know, our current screen addle generation of yours.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
It should work. All the pieces are there and we
just need Liberty to work their magic. Hopefully.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, it should actually work better in some respects of
the FI model for a couple of things that you
just said there, there is that there is something quite
visceral about being able to translate the on track action
live from a Motor GP event that Formula One will
never replicate, and that is because you see the human
element of it there there in the bikes occupy a
smaller space of tarmac. The stage is bigger for them
(06:43):
to show what it is that they can do and
you can actually see the people. Now the flip side
to that is a performance element to it. If we
go to some of the similar circuits that the two
series go, so you think of Catalonia or I can
tell you Simon, there's nothing quite like standing on the
outside of turn three at Barcelona watching a Formula one
card just completely lit going through there with barely a
lift of the throttle. It doesn't look like a human
(07:05):
should be able to control. That is quite staggering when
you see that. But there are certain tracks and the
way these races are played out over such a short
intense time frame that translates brilliantly to a story, A
great story being told better is the way I always
like to describe it. And to my mind, you know,
it's hard for us because we're in it and we
(07:26):
live it and we breathe it. But Motor GP is
kind of world sport's best kept secret in a lot
of ways because it's got every element you would want,
but perhaps not the storytelling that you need to get
that out to that wider audience. But Redtter, I'm actually
going to ask you a question. I want to go
slightly off script here. We want to ask into questions.
I'm going to ask you one for a change, because
this is your domain. We are simon how it's been
(07:48):
felt in the paddock with the news of liberty coming in.
So you know, you live in this social media space,
this is what you do. What is the reaction from
the rusted on bike fans because I would suggest that
they're probably a little wary, maybe a little skeptical, And
I wouldn't say gatekeeping is quite the right term, but
it's like, we don't want some of the elements that
(08:09):
Formula one has become to come into our inverted Kova's sport.
What's the general sort of reaction in the social space
being like, because it's not a space that I tend
to occupy too much because I'm too old that can't
be bothered, and Simon drops in and out of it,
mostly when he's sparring with people who are probably calling
him names on social media. So, given you all the
most neutral of the three of us in this conversation,
(08:29):
what is it actually like? Like, what are we hearing
from the fans?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I think MODOGIP fans are so serious about the sport.
It's not necessarily about the hype and the glamour like
what we've experienced with F one, So I feel like
what a lot of the content that translates from F
one is a lot of the who witch drivers dating
this person? Then what's happening off track? It's all of
(08:54):
the tabloids and the gossipy type stuff. MotoGP seems to
still just be about the racing or the manufacturer or
the technology that's coming in now. I don't necessarily know
if it's going to correlate across because I feel like
most of the demographic who are fans of Moto GP
either a because they ride a bike so they're interested
(09:14):
in it, or they're the older generation. And I'm not
trying to say anything about age. I feel really bad
now because it just seems to keep coming up in
our conversation. But I think of people like my dad
and my uncles are those sorts of guys who rode
bikes with their kids and then followed along through the
eighties and nineties, and now it's kind of continued the
ROSSI fans have come in. So I'm really going to
(09:35):
be interested to see if that whole glitzy glamour a
sort of content translates across. But what I do think
would be really cool to see is the personalities and
the characters come through, like what we do see in
F one and what Drives Survived did brilliantly. I know
you worked with Daniel Ricardo a lot of Matt, so
(09:55):
you know Daniel as a person, and then you see
Daniel who's on the TV show, it's his character. It's
this goofiness. Jack Miller's kind of done it. I feel
like my brother did a little bit back in the
day with the bucket hats, trying to create that like
personal branding. So I think if we can see a
little bit more of that style of staff come through,
then I think it'll be cool. But then this is
(10:17):
where I'm going to kind of pivots assignmon because I
have this opinion. But you know, all the VR forty
six guys, they're all like friends, right, so there's we're
not going to see too much of that head budding.
But then there's Pedro Poster who wants to create this, right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, there's definitely there's people in monigp Crowno for a
platform for ravalies.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
There is, and I.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Mean the other thing, not even the raiders though before
we even look at them. You know, I think part
of what mid Drive to survived so interesting was the
ravelry between the teams.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yes, you know, if you were to.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Say who is the biggest raveler, who was until recently
the biggest ravelry in F one, it probably wasn't Lewis
Hamilton versus Max fist Up, and it was total war
versus Christian owner. And that's something that Drive to Survive
really magnified. One thing that's super interesting about this whole
like tvsque situation that they've created and f one is
(11:11):
that it's looking more and more likely that sort of
one of the breakout stars of Drive to Survive is
already on his way to the Motorjip Baddock because former
HAS team boss gunther Steiner has been linked to taking
over the Tech three Motorji beating because Hervey Pontrell is
ready to retire and sell up. So like, there's your
immediate way to hook these fans across, isn't it. You
(11:34):
Just you don't even pretend you're trying to do something different.
You make a Motorgip documentary and you call it Right
to Survive. You don't have to pretend that you're doing
anything else, and you you launch this kind of spiky,
outspoken character into the middle of the team bosses, and
that's going to create something, because we already see little
flickers of that with you know, Honda and Kate Hamer
(11:55):
always taking shots at each other subtly, and they you know,
Caddy Gigi sitting and his pedestal attacking everyone below him
with his rule changes, and there's lots of drama in
murugp and that side of things. And then you've got
writers who you know, there's certainly writers who want to
create a bit of drama or who aren't afraid of
creating a bit of drama. Mark Marquez would punch his
(12:19):
grandmother to win a championship, let alone one of his.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Rivals, because that's just who he is, and we will
see more of that.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
There's people like Pedro Acosta, who is very outspoken and
opinionated and not afraid to say, you know, what he
feels about his rivals.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
But I also think that.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
There's there's guys in MUDUGIP like Jack Miller who are
smart enough to also understand the opportunity that this presents
to maybe lay it on a bit thicker than they
would normally. And I'm not saying that Jack's character is
an act, because we all here and know what Jack
is like, and he is exactly like he comes across.
But there, you know, there are opportunities to maybe just
(12:59):
be a bit.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Stronger with some of the things that they see.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
And do I know multiple people in modern GP who
don't really like each.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Other, Tim Metz Ravels.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
You know people who come up against each other on track,
but It almost feels like there's not a platform for
them to dislike each other publicly at the minute, and
that's something that Liberty will, I am certain, build for them.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, I think that's where the difference is to me, Simon,
and I think that Drive to Survive created the platform
for some of these rivalries that may have been rivalries
in lower case to step forward into the spotlight. I
mean the Christian Horner Toto Wolfing. You've got two alpha
males that are very successful in their business lives. They're
probably going to look at each other with a fair
amount of suspicion interrepidation.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
But we didn't have the.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Forum to know about that in the past, Whereas I
feel a similar series for bikes, there are these things
that simmer, but perhaps there's not the platform to push
them out. But I'm curious with this for me and
that I think a lot of people on the bike side,
they see Liberty met and they almost see that as
shorthand for Ride to Survive or whatever we're going to
(14:04):
call this fictious series we're talking about. Do you think
it's not as simple as that? Is it like we
don't necessarily have to have one and we have to
have one now. But do you think that's an inevitable
byproduct of liberty taking over here, or perhaps is there
a different playbook given the sports and their audiences are
so different that Liberty need to follow at the moment.
(14:24):
I don't think it's just a matter of getting a
few boom mics in the paddock for a year and
filming everybody's offhand conversations, creating a few faux conversations, and
then badging it as something else. I think bikes people
on principle would probably bristle against that.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I think that there will have to be a documentary series, okay,
in some shape or form, simply because it is it's
the standard iron sports. Because of drafts of ave you know,
sex Nations, Ugly, a turd of France's America's Cup.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
They have all got these documentary series.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Built our own, you know, kind of behind the scenes
access because of what Liberty is dead. So I think
that there will be there's an inevitability that the mortigp
will have to do something similar. I mean, ever, for
no other reason than to repair the damage did by
their previous attempt. Oh my god, it was going to
go for a documentary series ever met, so it has.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
To be done.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I went looking for some old clips of Motor GP Unlimited,
and I gave up after the second one I found
where they had spelt Mark Marquez's first name incorrectly, But
that's another story in the actual caption. So that was
that wasn't a great start. But what do you think, Simon,
in terms of you know, we know what liberty has done,
but if they if they phoned you and said, look, Simon,
(15:40):
we'd like you to come, and you know, we'd like
to sit around a table and really pick your brain
and everything we want to do. We're going to take
your guidance on this to your mind. Where is it
they make the big, biggest impact? And maybe a second
question to that, what's the priority here? Because you can't
do everything tomorrow. This needs to be a slow burn
over a long period of years. And you mentioned twenty
(16:00):
seven as being this sort of inflection point maybe for
the sporting part of all of this, because let's be honest,
the rest of twenty five and twenty six looks like
a decade benefit and probably a number ninety three benefit
until we get to the rule changes. So there's this
natural You've got your feet under the table for eighteen months.
You now know what this sport is. The sporting narrative
might change twenty seven. It might not, but it is
the possibility that it will. What's the priority do you
(16:23):
think that what's the lowest of the low hanging fruit
as you described it, and then what should they be
looking at doing longer term?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
The thing for me, and this is something that Renida
has already picked up on. The thing for me that
Murujip has always done that I don't think is necessarily
the right approach is with the possible exception to golf,
I think we're the only other sport in the world
that markets almost exclusively to the people who take part.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
In that sport.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Does it wear absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Sell motiv regressing to bakers, And that's as we've seen
that as a diminishing audience because less people are ratings,
especially as people are riding sports bikes, and the kind
of the previous captive audience of the guys who will
buy what you race.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
On us on a Monday aren't there anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So that to me means we have to look at
open in the audience and that is something that Liberty.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
Has done really really well. On F one. You know, the.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
If you enrage the teenage girl fan base of any
F one driver, you quickly realize how much they've changed
that audience.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
And it's for the better.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Don't get me wrong, I'm using that example because it's
the way that you see them in their visible But
it's really cool that there's now a huge broad demographic
watching motorsport. That's good and I think that that's something
that we can transfer over fairly easily because we've got
all the same elements.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
One thing that I think really stands.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Out for me in the short term is you year's
circuits talking about.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
How F one is.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Is there big cash kind of how you know, like
Silveston this year five hundred and eighty thousand people across
four days compared to like ninety thousand for Motor GP.
Circuit of the Americas are bringing in less than forty
thousand people in race day for MUDORGP. They're bringing in
one hundred and thirty one hundred and forty thousand for
F one. So the circuits in some places are already
(18:28):
have already been positioning Motor GP as a kind of
a oh you can't afford to buy an F one
ticket at one thousand dollars. Would you like a MODORGP
ticket at one hundred and fifty dollars yep. And we're
kind of we're really well positioned in the short term
to be the overflow for the fans who can't afford
or can't find a way to go and see f
(18:48):
one live. And that seems like a really easy opportunity.
That seems like a really simple thing for them to
build on as part of a longer term strategy that
you know, really have to be taken MODERGP to North
America because that's where the money is, that's where the audience,
where there's a huge audience who loves sports. The problem
(19:10):
is right now that they can't do anything about that
in the short term because there is the sum total
of one circle in North America that can host modogyp.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Well and the other part to me and this is
something I was going to get on too later, but
we've kind of arrived at it now. There is a
diversity of nationality in Formula one that makes the sport
more global. You look at the current twenty two rider
MotoGP Gridge, You've got fifteen riders from Spain or Italy,
and some of them are absolutely awesome. Some of them
I'm not sure they should be a motor GP. That's
(19:40):
another conversation. But there is a sort of homogeneity to
the driver the rider line up at the moment, and
I don't want people to be promoted just for the
sake of the fact that you have, Oh, we need
this passport and we need this passport and the better
riders aren't going in it. I've always argued that if
you get to MotoGP as a Spanish writer, there's none
of this Oh it's the Spanish World Championship. Ausly, you
better be bloody good because there's a lot of good
(20:01):
Spanish guys that are lining up ready to get in there.
But you know, at the moment, we've got the sub
total of no Brits, no Americans, and white Australian who
occasionally speaks English, and Jack Miller and any agree with that.
And so you've got an American media company coming in
trying to sell the sport where you've got one and
a half native English speakers on the grid. Will give
(20:22):
Brad Binder the Haarf Brother's say much on the best
of times, but you've got a lot of guys who
aren't dealing in their native language here, And I'm wondering
if a more diverse grid is something that, you know,
longer term, the sport is going to need, if it's
really going to crack this American market. Because I'm Renda
is putting her hand up here, I'm going to finish
this point. The Americans love their professional sport, but they're
(20:44):
not necessarily only loving the American athletes. Because you look,
the best baseball players in the world, there'll be some
Japanese players in there, the best basketball players in the world.
There's nearly triple figures of guys in the NBA that
don't and lots of Australians quite frankly, lot of guys
from all over the place. So it doesn't necessarily matter
about in their sports if you're the best at what
you do. But I do wonder if a more diverse
(21:04):
grid is a way of unlocking some of that new audience.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Well, yeah, diverse grid, but just the fact that everyone
in F one actually speaks English, So every radio calls English.
Every the green room by they're waiting for the podium
is in English. Moroto GP are trying to copy it,
and all of a sudden you have Matt Bert trying
to translate, Like for us here in Australia, he's trying
to translate what they're saying in his limited amount of
(21:27):
Spanish that he knows. And no offense to Matt and Lewis,
but it's like, I want to hear. I want to
hear the emotion of what they're saying, and at least
the F one drivers they are relaying that because I'm
guessing they're speaking English in the garages as well. You know,
most of these teams here not, so I feel like
that's like the first thing that they need to do.
If they're going to bring in these radios and stuff
that they're testing as well, why not have them speak
(21:48):
in English so that the whole planet can understand and
hear what these guys are saying. Do you guys agree
with me on that?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I follow with people regularly on social media, But the
Spanish people are about this is such a But the
reality is that English is the most widely spoken second
language in the world. It is It is the language
that if you're in Indonesia or if you're in Argentina,
you probably speak English is your second language. So it
makes sense to force them into speaking in English across
(22:16):
the board, and you know that there are factory Moto
GP writers whose English.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Isn't that good and that's like, oh, guys, like.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
That seems like a really you know, that's a low
hanging for it to pick.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
And to be fair to Dorna, they have been working
on that.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I know that, like the minute that they realized Pedro
Costa was the next big thing, he was basically forced
into Dorna organized and paid for English lessons that paid off.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
So they are aware of that, and it's.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
You know, it's an obvious one because the Spanish grid
that we have is frustrating and I have to say,
I have to say it is more frustrating to Dorna
than anyone else and it is annuinely.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
I know there's a.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Perception about it's a Spanish championship and it's easier to
be to get promoted if you're Spanish, but that is
despite their best efforts to fix it. You know that
you look at the amount of money that they've spent
that they spend from Mini GP Championship to Asia Talent
Cup to running the Junior GP series and Spain, you
know this system to bring up kids some countries that
(23:23):
are not Spain Italy, and we're starting to see the
effects of it. You know, Iagura arriving Amotor GP is
the first kind of Asia Town Cup star to come through.
There are other kids we've seen who I'm watching coming
through the pipeline. You know, there's a couple of a
couple of quick Aussies in Red Bull Rookies, for example,
(23:44):
Carter Thompson, who's who's come up through the ranks of
Asia Talent Cup. And I think the problem that we
have right now maybe is that Dorner realized about five
or six years ago that they really needed to do
something to fix this. We're only now starting to see
the first payoffs of that, but it's going to take
another favorite six years to really change the structure of
(24:05):
the grid.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah, if this was twenty twenty right now and we're
having this same discussion, then that we'd actually been a
good place. It needs to catch up. I completely agree.
But the sentiment is there and they have acknowledged it.
It was just maybe a little bit too late. But Simon,
I did want to ask you in terms of you
mentioned the size of the crowds where we go to
the same circuit like Silverston and Kota. And the one
that always comes to me is there is one motor
(24:28):
GP event that basically runs like a Formula One event
in terms of what it has on the side. It's
not just you turn up and watch bikes go around
in circles for three days. There's a festival with a
bike race in the middle of it. And I'm talking
about Lemon. And you see the crowds at the French
GP every year, that's matter what the weather is, and
the weather's usually crap, let's be honest, but you see
the way they turn up and they show out and
(24:50):
they make that event unlike anything else for our Australian
viewers that may not know the full story of that event.
Give us a bit of background as to how that's
organized and the promoter it does an amazing job, as
we know. But do you think that is the template
that Liberty will look at and go, oh, this is
what we need to do because this is repeatable across
most of our other circuits if we get this right.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
First of all, I should probably say this is not
the podcast to bash the Lemon where they're given the
rimulant family history at Lamon and the Ruin Well very true. Yes,
Lamine is run by a crazy little Frenchman called Claude
Michet who has like fingers and lots of sports pays,
(25:32):
owns a professional football team, runs a couple of endurance races.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Ron's Lamon and you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Know, Liberty should probably just offer him a blank check
to come and work for them because of the job
that he does in promoting the sport. They you know,
the Lemon Weekend starts now on a Monday because they
open the campusites in a Monday and they start to
fill them from Monday and then there's something on stage.
(26:00):
Basically all weekend there is always entertainment happening. There is
these mad parties in the camp sites. There are you
know the this year. For the last few years actually
they've done a live broadcast from pitt Lane and the
Start Finished Grid on French National TV on a Thursday night,
and I think this year they said they had twelve
(26:22):
thousand people in the grand stands for it.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Okay, so you know, and that because I think that
goes out free to air. So imagine whenever you put
you on Zarco and Fabio Corduao on the Start finished
grid with twelve thousand people on the grandstand and you're
able to interview them and have them ride bikes and
normally Fabio does a special home livery that he unveils
as part of it, and you know, it's it's an
(26:45):
awesome event. But it's really worth noting that Lemon has
been like this since long before they had two fast
frenchmen on the grid.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
This, you know, it's not linked to the Zarko Corduadro effect.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Because it goes back before that to just a really
good event where you know, I am absolutely certain there
are people who go to the French Grand Prio and
never see a motorbike contract because you can go for
the weekend and be a part of this crazy kind
of almost music festival and just enjoy yourself without actually
(27:21):
even caring about the racing or having to go and
see the racing. The only place in Europe I've ever
been that's anything like it is the eleman Tt in
terms of this big festival atmosphere. It's completely unique in
motor GP and it has to be at least part
of the model because then you look at other events
like I'm coming back to buy Silverstone again, but Silverstone
(27:44):
this year accidentally, without realizing, scheduled the race during the
TT and the number one impact that it had was
that all the sort of cool live stuff that Monster
Energy in particular have done in the past, all the
stunt shows in the drift car and all we're on
the aid of Man and suddenly there was no fan entertainment.
And you know it when you only have three championships
(28:09):
and when you come from you know, like a lot
of British fans do come from British Super Break Championship,
but there's maybe fourteen races in a day, and then
there's three races in a day at the British Grand Prix.
You need to buff that out. You need to fill
in around it. You need to entertain people with more
than just bike racing. You need to give them value
for their money. Lamon is very good at that.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
I'd say they're the best in the business of that.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
It looks like some of the F one races are
doing a good job of that as well, and that
to me is kind of a model to build on well.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
And Renata from your point of view, I mean, you've
only recently sort of been in the F one space
over the past couple of years with Fox and you've
come down to Albert Park, which let's remember it is
a semi permanent street circuit in a public park, so
it's not even a permanent facility. You cannot believe what
that event has turned into. It is absolutely wild with
the stage and the bands and all the other activities
(29:05):
and never mind what's going on track. It's sort of
turned into the equivalent of the horse racing spring racing
Carnival here in Australia, Simon, and there's lots of people
that turn up and they will not see a live
car for three days, but they don't care because they
having the time of their lives because there's so much
that's going on. But Ronita, from your point of view,
I mean you've seen what Albert Park has become. I mean,
it's the templates there, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
The template is there for sure? For sure. The first
thing though, that when Simon was talking about Silverstone, so
I witnessed Silverstone for the British Motorcycle Grand Prix.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Of course, yes, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
So I was there to work for both events. Silverstone
Moto GP fantastic for me from a working point of view,
I had some friends out in the fan area, so
I got to see them. They were telling me how
cool it was to be able to watch the bikes
and Bloody Bluff and then went back for the Formula
One went to arrive and I had to pay for
(30:00):
for car parking, which is fine, like I'm happy to do,
but the fact that over the whole weekend it was
nearly going to cost me four hundred pounds in car
parking and I'm parking with the spectators, so they're having
to pay that. So considering the fact that these F
one fans are spending pretty much their whole entire year's
savings for a holiday to go watch F one at
(30:21):
Silverstone is mind blowing that they're doing that. But it's
not translating over to F one. So if we can
get that vibe and that build up of people there,
not saying that people to charge four hundred pounds for parking,
I'm saying get the people there because yeah, Albert Park,
I was in the general fans or own area and
(30:42):
we had Lune Croisson, so famous Melbourne croissant restaurant. She
had a pop up stand, Daniel Ricardo had his wine there.
There was so much going on, there's vibes. Imagine if
Mark Marquez and Insto three P sixty who I know,
Simon you work with, they had a pop up stand
there and they were doing activations and or not. And
that's probably the biggest take that I took this year
(31:02):
from attending F one and MotoGP is. I really feel
like Moto GP could learn from F one with their
activations for their fans, because, like you said, it's this experience.
And I thought of Bathurst, because Simon, you're at Bathurst
last year.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I'm thinking, you know, the guys there, they have their
tents setup and their costumes and their party and the
time they're not watching the cars on track either, because
they're just there for the vibes. So how do we
bring that to motorcycle racing and Moto GP without losing
the complexity of the fact that these guys are mustling
around prototype bikes in near death experiences, in literally sliding
(31:43):
on asphalt, traveling at stupid speeds. How do we keep
that seriousness and the complexity and just the rawness of
the sport but bring in everything else at the same time.
And Matt, like you said, you witnessed this through F one,
So how do we do that? How do we do that?
From your standpoint and my standpoint.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
You've kind of hit upon a bit of the catch
twenty two, I think.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
So I was talking last year at one point.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
We did a podcast together with David Brivio, the track
house team boss, obviously veteran MDORGP team boss who also
spent a bit of time at Alpine and F one,
and he was telling me that we were talking about
the subject actually, and he was telling me that Austria,
maybe last year, Fernando Alonso came just to spectate a
(32:28):
motor GP for the day and they were standing in
the middle of the product together, him and Brevio talking
and kind of Mark Marquez had came past and had
stopped to say hello, and you know, Jack Millard compassed
and stopped to say hello. And because they all know
who Alonso isn't he He's a BUGP fan, so.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
We know it's all they are.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And after kind of four or five MOTORGP writers had
stopped to say hello on their way past, he turned
to Brivio and he said, like, these guys do not
know how easy their lives are, because there is no
time in my schedule on a F one weekend up
in the padic can say hello to someone because they
have this crazy schedule of activations and events and promos
(33:06):
and all this stuff that you know they're doing with
their sponsors on stage with their team and the MUDIGP
writers do have an easier time of it. But at
the same time, no one in F one is getting
off a free practice session and needing to go immediately
to a physio session because they've fallen off twice one hundred.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Mans an hour.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, and there's always you know, we're going to have
to find a balance point between the expectations that is
going to be placed on on MODIGP writers to do
more of the marketing and pr side of their jobs,
while also remembering the fact that they're doing something.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Really dangerous and that the you know, it.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Is a physically tougher weekend than it is being an
F one driver. And no, that's not to get anything
away from F one. I'm just talking about the you know,
the sheer impact of crashes.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yeah, that's the truth. I mean, there are there are consequences.
You can absolutely tear all four corners off a Formula
one car and take the hands device out and go
back and you'll be fine. There are consequences to MotoGP
guys coming off, and you look at weekends. You look
at Mark's weekend in Asen this year. He was very
very close multiple times to severely hurting himself in accidents
(34:17):
that would have had major consequences not just for that
weekend but for others. And he used three of his
nine lives that weekend. He was a very very lucky boy.
Now at the end of the day you look at
it and say, well, he's got one hundred and twenty
odd point championship lead.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
It's all fired. It could have been very, very different.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
So there are consequences with that sort of stuff. But
I'm curious, Simon, you mentioned before about that extra workload.
Now everyone sees Liberty coming in, and you know, it's
like the old the old cashier with the dollar sides
flickering around because everyone can see what it can do
based on what Formula one has done.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
How much do you think motor GP.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Is prepared to change the way it works and the
way it goes racing to get access to that pot
of gold that is clearly there at the end of
the rain.
Speaker 5 (34:56):
Some of them are very prepared.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Some of the raiders are not because they're greedy, but
just because I think that there's there's a sense at
the minute in motor GP, especially in some of the
traditionally really strong markets, of almost they're they're what's the
word I'm looking for, they're almost disappointed that they're not
who they wanted to be when they were kids.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
And Juan Meir's manager told me once that that is.
You know, the thing that makes him the most angry
about Dorna is the fact that Juan Mehir can walk
down the street in Madrid and no.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
One stops him for a selfie.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
The guys in MODIGP weren't champion and in what should
be modigp's biggest market. But you know, that is something
that has really suffered through the kind of universal.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Move to pay per VTV.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
You know, we've seen audiences go way down and with
that they've lost some of that brand image recognition and
they want it back.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Definitely. Lots of writers want to be.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, they want to be the guy who's who's
you know, dating beautiful supermodels and Monaco and his Lamborghini
and getting pictured in the tabloid magazines doing it because
that's you know.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
Everyone wants to be not everyone wants to be that.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
You know, there's certainly I can think of motor GP
writers who would have absolutely detested that casey stoner, But
there's certainly some of them that want to be bigger,
want to be earning more, want to be more famous,
want to be more successful, and the leader exactly. You know,
(36:39):
there are guys that will lean into it, and there
will be guys I think, like we saw initially with
Drive to Survive, there will be guys who got left behind,
who choose to be left behind, like kind of Lewis
Hamilton Wells to an extent, I think in the beginning
of Drivet to Survive. But once once they're teams, once
their employers and their sponsors see that you kind of
(36:59):
have to doing it, there'll.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Be a push where they won't get a choice.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Well, this is where the Driver to Survive thing for me,
they got it was it was a well made series
because it was groundbreaking because no other sport had done
it at that point. We've had a lot of imitators
that have done it since, to various degrees of success
or not where they got super lucky. Formula one was
the first season of Drive to Survive was twenty nineteen.
On the twenty eighteen season, and it was kind of like,
(37:25):
you know, there's a bit of Netflix content.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
That's fine.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Ferrari and Mercedes weren't even involved in it. They did
not want any part of the first series of Drive
to Survive. And then, of course the start of twenty
twenty happens and everyone's I can tell you this, Simon,
because we were there. Everyone's lined up outside the entry
gates at Albert Park for the first race of the
Formula one season and everything goes to shit and we
don't have a Grand Prix and we don't have a
Formula One season and everyone stays home for six months.
(37:49):
But there's twenty episodes of this reality TV. And I
used that term loosely series called Drive to Survive. Everyone's
sitting at home, everyone's bored. Let's watch this. Oh this
is interesting, isn't it. Because we've got no live sport
and you had a captive audience and no live sport.
It was content. It was the perfect content at the
perfect time short of there being another one in one
(38:10):
hundred year pandemic. I think I've lived through the one
in my lifetime, thank you, So I don't want another
one of those motors. REVP is not going to get
that perfect confluence of circumstances to start to build this
brand if that's the Liberty playbook in terms of having
a reality TV series. So you do wonder what it's
going to take if they go down that path to
have this thing kick off and succeed where some of
(38:31):
these other imitators perhaps have not.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I think the thing the opportunity that they have in
that situation, in the situation where Ino is maybe to ignore,
and I hope that Liberty are going to do this.
There's a few things where I hope that they ignore
what kind of seems like the immediate money mech and
opportunities because its long term is maybe more about official
(38:56):
There was a news story comote this week.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
In the UK that.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
The you know, we've always had BBC and then ITV
is the two big broadcast networks here and for the
first time ever in the last kind of month, ITV
has been knocked back to third place by YouTube in terms.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
Of content and where people are watching their content.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
So, you know, make the series, put it on YouTube
for free and USU your f one brands to co
promote it. Be able, be kind of willing to take
the risk of doing something that you can push out
for free and use that to engage people, because that's
the way to do it if you can't replicate the
(39:39):
success of Drive to Survive and that, like you say, Matt,
those amazingly beneficial circumstances that they landed in.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I remember watching one.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Of the seasons, must have been season two, season three,
the start of twenty one, whenever we had those two
Motive GP races back to back in Qatar, and we
were locked in a hotel where we literally went alad
to leave the corner of the hotel that they built
a wall around for us. And I remember watching the
first episode of draft of that season, that new season,
(40:10):
which had just come out, in the gym one night
while on an exercise bake. I'm going to tap in
the shoulder from Valentino Rossi to say, oh, this is
the new season.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
Is it good? And then like three days.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Later he was watching it in the gym because we
had nothing else to do. And then they benefited from
that massively, and we're not going to get it, So
do this do the thing where you can sell the
sport and the drama, but do it in a different way.
Look at YouTube, look at social media, push it onto
people's forms.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
The YouTube idea is brilliant. I love it.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I'm going to play Devil's advocate advocate for a second here.
What if you're one of these long standing TV partners
that's gotten over the top product and it's like, well,
we've paid X dollars for this and you're giving this
thing away on YouTube that's going to potentially cannibalize our audience.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
How does that conversation go.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
They have to be going to the broadcasters and saying, look,
we are going to make changes that are going to
increase the amount of people watching the sport in your
channel in five years time.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Bear with us.
Speaker 5 (41:07):
Just bear with us then.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And we have seen a few of the broadcasters, to
be fair, taking a few risks along the same lines. Recently,
the day that Murujip announced sprint races, I wrote a
column saying sprint racers should all be free to air,
regardless of the pay per view package. The Sprint race
should be free to air every week in every country
(41:31):
to hook people in. And it's been interesting watching more
and more broadcasters get on board with that. It's free
in it, it's free in Spain, it's free in the UK.
So people are.
Speaker 5 (41:40):
Willing, I think to They're realizing that they're going to have.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
To take some hits in order to go to this
sport as a whole, because the long term effect, when
you look at what F one has done, the long
term benefits have to outweigh any short term losses.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I agree, and I think exactly what you're saying. I think,
even from a content creator point of view, is okay
with Fox Sports. We can use the broadcast content because
we have the Fox logo on it. It's fine. So
then we can go on post mark markets crashing for example,
me on the other side of the camera, and I'm
a content creator personally, I can't use any of the
(42:19):
on track footage. My content will get blocked straight away.
So how the content creators like myself and like other
people out there on socials, how can we keep building
the sport and having more people talk about it if
we can't use the content. So that's why I see
your point the sprint having it free to air, Why
not exactly?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
And the one thing that I'm hoping comes into play
exactly what you said, Nida, because this is a constant criticism.
The Donut basically garret their footage like the Crone Jaws,
and no one's ever allowed to use it to do
anything with it.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Only shipping them a lot of money to do it.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
MBA launched a program a few years back where they
have a system where you can I think there's probably
a similar system in MODOGIP where the broadcasters can like
kind of pull highlight clips out of what they're doing
for socials and stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (43:12):
In NBA, they opened that up to fans. They did
and allowed.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Fans to create short short form content, little clips, not
big things that they could edit turn into.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Means, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and it proved
to be really successful.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
The guy who launched that program at MBA is a
guy called down Rosimondo who's now the chief commercial officer
at MODEGIP.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
And I'm hoping that.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
As he kind of wrestles some of the control away
from some of the maybe more old fashioned mindsets within Dorna,
that that's something that's going to come to you, because
it's not just about the broadcasters and the series making content.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
It's about all of us making content completely.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
You create, you make a bigger pie and that everyone
gets to eat, right. That's the way it works when
the Rossamondo things so Simon. For your background, I was
an NBA journalist before I was a motorsport journalist, so
I've been around old.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
I'm so old.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I was in the NBA when it was in black
and white and they didn't even have inflatable basketballs now.
But the way they have it's been so interesting to
watch the way they have opened up their product over
a long period of time. They were one of the
first sports leagues I ever remember that were really quick
in getting their own highlights from a game that were
going viral on social media and doing it themselves because
(44:31):
they were sick of you know, old mates sitting at
home with his phone recording his TV. Oh, here's a
guy who did an amazing three point and it looks
terrible these cats in the background, and you know, there's
like someone vacuuming the floor, and let's sound as rubbish.
The NBA will be here's that highlight, and here's six
different angles of it, and here it is on every
single platform that we have within fifteen seconds of it happening,
and it'll be better than anything you guys can do.
(44:51):
So they took ownership of it, so there's a quality
control element, but they're also pushing it out and so
you would get these murmurings. I remember in the early
days of them doing this without boring our bikes audience
completely stupid. Steph Curry, who plays to the Golden State Warriors,
he would have these flurries of three point shots in
games only he could do and you would hear this thing.
It's like Curry's going crazy. Curry's going crazy, Like you
(45:14):
hear this, and you be on social media and here
is a forty five second clip of the nine to
three pointers that Steph Curry's just made in the first
half for a game that's still going. And it was
there and it was up. They were so on it
so early. The quality of what they were doing was good.
You just went to them whenever they had something that
needed to be told because you knew they were going to.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
Do it right.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
And that would be something that if modor GP could
adopt one tenth of that model would be a fantastic
addition to the sport.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I reckon I feel like Fellas we pretty much kind
of touch on all the subjects of Lebty. So I
want to we've just fixed all the problems. Let's round
it all are Simon. I'm going to come to you first.
Liberty Media taking over Donner? Is this a good thing?
Is this not going to ski away our existing fans.
We're going to get a new fan base and we're
(46:03):
going to see Moto GP get all the credit it deserves.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I think Liberty Media are smart enough to know that
they do not need to touch the sporting product.
Speaker 5 (46:14):
They just need to build it out. They need to
build stuff around it.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
The benefit of that should be that if you're an
existing motor GP fan, you know what.
Speaker 5 (46:23):
No one's making you watch the documentary series. No one's
making you watch.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
The social media. You don't have to watch Drive to Survive.
If you're an F one fan, you can just churn
in on Sunday and watch the race. And that remains
the case with MODORGP and whatever Liberty do.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
I mean even more than.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
F one, because they're not going to make any of
the changes that people dislike a bit F one the
most that Liberty have made, like street circuits, that's not
going to happen.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
We're not going to Miami with a modigp bike.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
So the core product will always remain the core product,
because the core product.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
Is not the problem.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
It's all the stuff around the product that we need
to change if we're going to expand the fan base
and bringing new people, and that can only be good.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's not a case
of attracting different fans. You're not trying to water down
or cannibalize the fan base you've got. You're trying to
attract new fans to increase the size of the fan base.
And so to my mind, the sporting product, the on
track product, quite frankly, is better than Formula one. It
has been for a long time. It's just a story
that needs to be better told. They're a media company.
(47:28):
Their business is telling stories and telling stories well to
the widest possible audience. And that's why I'm super optimistic
based on what they have done to a sport that
they probably picked up with more issues with Formula one
when they had it, I'm super optimistic that longer term,
this is going to be a really good thing for
the sport.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
And at the end of the day, I want to
be in a position where we're.
Speaker 5 (47:50):
Seeing raiders get unto the mold of two grid without
having the mortgage. Mom's host did, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
That's part of it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yes, Yes, that's a whole other podcast and a whole
other conversation. We need to go down one more question
and then I feel like our listeners, if they're stuck around,
they're going to get a full understanding. But Simon, there's
rumors about a potential F one motor GP race on
the same weekend. Hey, what's your thoughts on this is
(48:16):
not going to happen or is that just crazy?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
The problem is, I think there's one circuit in the
world where it's doable, and that's Silverstone. Yes, because Silverstone
has two pit complexes yep, And I think that's probably
the only place where you could really pull it off.
There's nowhere else that has the space, that has the
size and the space apart from well, maybe it's a
(48:40):
good excuse for Formula want to go back to sipaying,
which I think a lot of people would love because
they have that they're Simons and the Pharasy as well.
But there's not a lot of places where you can
actually physically do it. For me, the actual actually the
secret to it is maybe not just jumping in and
doing a joint F one what did GP rice? Why
(49:00):
not do like a Red Bull Rookies rounded F one race.
Why not move the Women's World Championship over for a
rounded F one rice where they've got a smaller padduct footprint.
And I mean, who doesn't love watching Red Bull Rookies
because it's the most manic sport on Earth. So there's
there's a way to do it, at least to test
the waters that doesn't just involve full steam ahead into
(49:23):
a joint F one motor GP weekend that I think
would still do a pretty good job of the concept
of selling our sport to that audience.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
The only other circuit I reckon that you could if
you're going to go down that path Simon, because it's
not as big of a paddock footprint as you said,
is if you could do Castaloonia, simply because I think
the rebel Rookies would probably resonate a little bit better
there perhaps than Atma Silverstone.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
I mean, these places like Austria where you could fit
in the rookies. They don't have a big foot, But yes,
there's lots of places where you could.
Speaker 5 (49:53):
Make it work.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
They would have to be one of the circuits that
we both go to, right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Exactly, Just imagine. I'm even thinking like if it could
happen magically like F one at Coda because obviously the
American fan base Formula one they do like that big
show and then have Bodo GP and Mark Markers. Oh,
that would be cool.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
One thing that wouldn't surprise me at all in twenty
twenty six, the new Bago Championship, the new how To
did with some Bago Championship that's coming to Murder GP.
I would not at all be surprised if one of
their roons are at F one Koda.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
On the undercard. Yeah absolutely, because they are at totally
different times of the calendar as well.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, March in March at October, so you can absolutely
do that.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, believe the bags are going to be at Barcelona,
and obviously we're getting off track here. We have our
Aussie Choy herfous in there as well in that championship,
so hopefully that might be ed as well. We'll keep
you guys on that. But guys, I feel like we
could just keep talking and talking and talking about how
are we gonna fix Moto GP. I just have this
feeling it's the beginning of something much, much bigger. But Simon,
(50:52):
thank you so much for joining us here on pit Talk,
and we're gonna see you in a few months, like
Matt said at Philip Violence, so we'll hatch up then,
And Matt, as always the statman, it is a pleasure
having you on board here with me. Moto GP is
back in Austria for around thirteen at the Red Bull
Ring and you guys can catch all the action live
(51:13):
on Fox Sports and KO. If you want to keep
up to date with all of Matt's articles, though, you
guys can do at foxsports dot com, dot AU, Forward,
Slash Motorsport, don't forget to follow us on socials at
Fox Motorsport everywhere, and subscribe to Pittalk so you never
miss an episode. But from Sliven Patterson, Matt Clayton and
myself Rinita Vermulin, we're going to be back real soon
(51:36):
with more Moto GP Pit Talk
Liberty Media, the same powerhouse befind behind Sorry, Formula Ones
Global Transformation has officially acquired MotoGP from Dawna for a
whopping three point two billion euros. So what did this
really mean for the sport that we love. Well, we're
gonna unpack what Liberty could bring to the table, what
moto GP desperately needs, What should we be excited about
(00:23):
and what should we be cautious of. This episode of
Pittalk is sponsored by Shannon's Insurance. I'm your host Rinita
Vanmuelin alongside Moto GP, Jurno and statman veteran Matt Clayton.
And joining us today is a man who's been in
the trenches all round every round this season. Oh, I'm
already off to a good start because I'm so excited.
(00:45):
Simon Patterson from the Races joining us. Simon, welcome to
pit Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be with you, guys.
It's about tayme. We all finally actually sat down together
and did this, isn't it? Because we've it for long enough,
we've spent looks time together in it and you've been
over in Europe and so it's good to actually fainally
be you know, opinion edited together.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
This is the official podcast before the unofficial podcast that
happens in some desk and the Philip Island Press roo
a bit about two months time, which is probably not
for publication for anyone long.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I know, it's crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Right before we get stuck in, though, Matt, I think
we need to give like a bit of context to
our listeners, a bit background, because we know you here
as a stats man the journal, like I said on
pit Talk, but you've actually been around f one before
it was even on Netflix, So you are.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Not that old amazing that Netflix didn't invent formula? What
is it.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I'm not going to ask you how old they didn't, apparently, Roonita,
I'm not going to ask you how old slash young
you were when I did my very first Grand Prix.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
But it was in.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Nineteen ninety eight, so I'm not sure you would have
made it through the gates with the press pass back
in those days. But it's been super interesting, you know,
all jokes asider because I feel like I'm living at
this liberty story for a second time, because it was
eight years ago that they first became involved in formula.
If anyone knows anything about F one. In the years
prior to that, it was, as Mark Weber used to say,
(02:05):
it's Bernie Eckleston's train set.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
We're just playing with it.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
And that was the way Mark always used to describe
Formula one, and it was very much. It was run
in such a different way, an unrecognizable way, than it
is now. You look at what's happened to F one
just in the last eight years since Liberty's been involved,
there's a lot of good that's come out of that.
There's a lot of things that rusted on fans turned
media people that are of a certain vintage, shall we say,
(02:30):
probably don't like about the way that Liberty's gone about it.
I'll be super curious to see knowing Motor GP as
I do, but seeing the Liberty experience from the F
one side as I have, I'll be super curious to
see what translates, what doesn't work, what they'll do the same,
what they'll learn from with what they did with F one,
and what they'll do differently. The next few years is
going to be super interesting. I feel like I'm watching
(02:52):
a movie that I've already watched once before, but I'm
not quite sure. I remember how it ends, so that's
going to be the interesting part about it for me.
Yes there is some content ext and yes you made
the old joke Guilty has charged. Someone's got to be
the Sadia figure on this podcast, and it most will
be made.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I love the fact that, like you just said, the movie,
and the first thing I thought about was the fact
that Happy Gilmore two has just been released on them.
That's obviously on my mind. But let's not talk about
Adam Sandler and Gold. Let's talk about Moto GP. So Simon,
I want to hear from you, because obviously you're in
the paddy. What's their general mood among teams and writers
(03:28):
since the whole Liberty takee I've always confirmed.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So first of all, no one really knows what's going
to come yet, right, that's the thing. We've seen what
they've done with that one, but we know that the
model is maybe not necessarily just copy and piste. So
people are expecting definitely things that have been done in
F one to be done, but not all of them.
So it's not going to be just oh, look, this
is exactly what they did. This is exactly what we're
(03:52):
going to do now as a.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Result, so there's going to be you know, people are
still curious about what actual ship it's going to take.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
There hasn't been any Liberty people in the paddock yet
since the takeover. We think that's probably because the round
after the takeover was like Saxon Ring and Bruneau, which
are two of the least glamorous paddocks.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
In the championship, and we think they've.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Probably held off on telling Liberty to turn up until
we go to the Red Bull Ring at the next round,
which is like the greatest facility that we have, and
it's the fau Bels and Whistles experience. So we think
that we're probably going to see some Americans rock up
in the paddock at the next round, the first one
back after the summer break. But the general consensus seems
to be that this can only be good because, you know, fundamentally,
(04:37):
we have an amazing product.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Motegip is.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, Okay, there's a bit of a lull at the
minute as we wait for the new rules to come
in with the on track action, but by and large,
it is an excellent product. What you see whenever you
watch it is super entertaining. It hooks people in it
draws people in, but don't know have been really bad at.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
The bit where they get new people to watch it.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
There has been a you know, not very good marketing
strategy built around the sport, and I think that is
where Liberty really changed things in F one. And it's
the kind of the low hanging fruit for whenever they
come into motor GP. Someone told me recently that whenever
they took over Formula one, the marketing department in FOM,
(05:20):
the company that runs F one was four people and
the first thing they did was hire another one hundred
and sixty. And that's the kind of attitude that the
motor GP. I think that the murdor GP paddock thinks
that MURDUGP needs it needs.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
That kick up.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
The asset needs to be shown to more people because,
you know, without turning this into motorbike journalist bash is
car racing. When you watch an F one car go
around a track, it's all right, it's cool, but you
can't really see the driver. They're very enclosed, even more
so with the halo these days. Then you watch a
motorbike go around a track and the guy's hanging off
(05:59):
at knee down, elbow done. You know, everything is more
visually spectacular. It should be an easy cell, especially with
the short you know, the short eRASS and the attention
span of you know, our current screen addle generation of yours.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
It should work. All the pieces are there and we
just need Liberty to work their magic. Hopefully.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, it should actually work better in some respects of
the FI model for a couple of things that you
just said there, there is that there is something quite
visceral about being able to translate the on track action
live from a Motor GP event that Formula One will
never replicate, and that is because you see the human
element of it there there in the bikes occupy a
smaller space of tarmac. The stage is bigger for them
(06:43):
to show what it is that they can do and
you can actually see the people. Now the flip side
to that is a performance element to it. If we
go to some of the similar circuits that the two
series go, so you think of Catalonia or I can
tell you Simon, there's nothing quite like standing on the
outside of turn three at Barcelona watching a Formula one
card just completely lit going through there with barely a
lift of the throttle. It doesn't look like a human
(07:05):
should be able to control. That is quite staggering when
you see that. But there are certain tracks and the
way these races are played out over such a short
intense time frame that translates brilliantly to a story, A
great story being told better is the way I always
like to describe it. And to my mind, you know,
it's hard for us because we're in it and we
(07:26):
live it and we breathe it. But Motor GP is
kind of world sport's best kept secret in a lot
of ways because it's got every element you would want,
but perhaps not the storytelling that you need to get
that out to that wider audience. But Redtter, I'm actually
going to ask you a question. I want to go
slightly off script here. We want to ask into questions.
I'm going to ask you one for a change, because
this is your domain. We are simon how it's been
(07:48):
felt in the paddock with the news of liberty coming in.
So you know, you live in this social media space,
this is what you do. What is the reaction from
the rusted on bike fans because I would suggest that
they're probably a little wary, maybe a little skeptical, And
I wouldn't say gatekeeping is quite the right term, but
it's like, we don't want some of the elements that
(08:09):
Formula one has become to come into our inverted Kova's sport.
What's the general sort of reaction in the social space
being like, because it's not a space that I tend
to occupy too much because I'm too old that can't
be bothered, and Simon drops in and out of it,
mostly when he's sparring with people who are probably calling
him names on social media. So, given you all the
most neutral of the three of us in this conversation,
(08:29):
what is it actually like? Like, what are we hearing
from the fans?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I think MODOGIP fans are so serious about the sport.
It's not necessarily about the hype and the glamour like
what we've experienced with F one, So I feel like
what a lot of the content that translates from F
one is a lot of the who witch drivers dating
this person? Then what's happening off track? It's all of
(08:54):
the tabloids and the gossipy type stuff. MotoGP seems to
still just be about the racing or the manufacturer or
the technology that's coming in now. I don't necessarily know
if it's going to correlate across because I feel like
most of the demographic who are fans of Moto GP
either a because they ride a bike so they're interested
(09:14):
in it, or they're the older generation. And I'm not
trying to say anything about age. I feel really bad
now because it just seems to keep coming up in
our conversation. But I think of people like my dad
and my uncles are those sorts of guys who rode
bikes with their kids and then followed along through the
eighties and nineties, and now it's kind of continued the
ROSSI fans have come in. So I'm really going to
(09:35):
be interested to see if that whole glitzy glamour a
sort of content translates across. But what I do think
would be really cool to see is the personalities and
the characters come through, like what we do see in
F one and what Drives Survived did brilliantly. I know
you worked with Daniel Ricardo a lot of Matt, so
(09:55):
you know Daniel as a person, and then you see
Daniel who's on the TV show, it's his character. It's
this goofiness. Jack Miller's kind of done it. I feel
like my brother did a little bit back in the
day with the bucket hats, trying to create that like
personal branding. So I think if we can see a
little bit more of that style of staff come through,
then I think it'll be cool. But then this is
(10:17):
where I'm going to kind of pivots assignmon because I
have this opinion. But you know, all the VR forty
six guys, they're all like friends, right, so there's we're
not going to see too much of that head budding.
But then there's Pedro Poster who wants to create this, right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, there's definitely there's people in monigp Crowno for a
platform for ravalies.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
There is, and I.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Mean the other thing, not even the raiders though before
we even look at them. You know, I think part
of what mid Drive to survived so interesting was the
ravelry between the teams.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yes, you know, if you were to.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Say who is the biggest raveler, who was until recently
the biggest ravelry in F one, it probably wasn't Lewis
Hamilton versus Max fist Up, and it was total war
versus Christian owner. And that's something that Drive to Survive
really magnified. One thing that's super interesting about this whole
like tvsque situation that they've created and f one is
(11:11):
that it's looking more and more likely that sort of
one of the breakout stars of Drive to Survive is
already on his way to the Motorjip Baddock because former
HAS team boss gunther Steiner has been linked to taking
over the Tech three Motorji beating because Hervey Pontrell is
ready to retire and sell up. So like, there's your
immediate way to hook these fans across, isn't it. You
(11:34):
Just you don't even pretend you're trying to do something different.
You make a Motorgip documentary and you call it Right
to Survive. You don't have to pretend that you're doing
anything else, and you you launch this kind of spiky,
outspoken character into the middle of the team bosses, and
that's going to create something, because we already see little
flickers of that with you know, Honda and Kate Hamer
(11:55):
always taking shots at each other subtly, and they you know,
Caddy Gigi sitting and his pedestal attacking everyone below him
with his rule changes, and there's lots of drama in
murugp and that side of things. And then you've got
writers who you know, there's certainly writers who want to
create a bit of drama or who aren't afraid of
creating a bit of drama. Mark Marquez would punch his
(12:19):
grandmother to win a championship, let alone one of his.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Rivals, because that's just who he is, and we will
see more of that.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
There's people like Pedro Acosta, who is very outspoken and
opinionated and not afraid to say, you know, what he
feels about his rivals.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
But I also think that.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
There's there's guys in MUDUGIP like Jack Miller who are
smart enough to also understand the opportunity that this presents
to maybe lay it on a bit thicker than they
would normally. And I'm not saying that Jack's character is
an act, because we all here and know what Jack
is like, and he is exactly like he comes across.
But there, you know, there are opportunities to maybe just
(12:59):
be a bit.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Stronger with some of the things that they see.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
And do I know multiple people in modern GP who
don't really like each.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
Other, Tim Metz Ravels.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
You know people who come up against each other on track,
but It almost feels like there's not a platform for
them to dislike each other publicly at the minute, and
that's something that Liberty will, I am certain, build for them.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah, I think that's where the difference is to me, Simon,
and I think that Drive to Survive created the platform
for some of these rivalries that may have been rivalries
in lower case to step forward into the spotlight. I
mean the Christian Horner Toto Wolfing. You've got two alpha
males that are very successful in their business lives. They're
probably going to look at each other with a fair
amount of suspicion interrepidation.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
But we didn't have the.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Forum to know about that in the past, Whereas I
feel a similar series for bikes, there are these things
that simmer, but perhaps there's not the platform to push
them out. But I'm curious with this for me and
that I think a lot of people on the bike side,
they see Liberty met and they almost see that as
shorthand for Ride to Survive or whatever we're going to
(14:04):
call this fictious series we're talking about. Do you think
it's not as simple as that? Is it like we
don't necessarily have to have one and we have to
have one now. But do you think that's an inevitable
byproduct of liberty taking over here, or perhaps is there
a different playbook given the sports and their audiences are
so different that Liberty need to follow at the moment.
(14:24):
I don't think it's just a matter of getting a
few boom mics in the paddock for a year and
filming everybody's offhand conversations, creating a few faux conversations, and
then badging it as something else. I think bikes people
on principle would probably bristle against that.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I think that there will have to be a documentary series, okay,
in some shape or form, simply because it is it's
the standard iron sports. Because of drafts of ave you know,
sex Nations, Ugly, a turd of France's America's Cup.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
They have all got these documentary series.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Built our own, you know, kind of behind the scenes
access because of what Liberty is dead. So I think
that there will be there's an inevitability that the mortigp
will have to do something similar. I mean, ever, for
no other reason than to repair the damage did by
their previous attempt. Oh my god, it was going to
go for a documentary series ever met, so it has.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
To be done.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I went looking for some old clips of Motor GP Unlimited,
and I gave up after the second one I found
where they had spelt Mark Marquez's first name incorrectly, But
that's another story in the actual caption. So that was
that wasn't a great start. But what do you think, Simon,
in terms of you know, we know what liberty has done,
but if they if they phoned you and said, look, Simon,
(15:40):
we'd like you to come, and you know, we'd like
to sit around a table and really pick your brain
and everything we want to do. We're going to take
your guidance on this to your mind. Where is it
they make the big, biggest impact? And maybe a second
question to that, what's the priority here? Because you can't
do everything tomorrow. This needs to be a slow burn
over a long period of years. And you mentioned twenty
(16:00):
seven as being this sort of inflection point maybe for
the sporting part of all of this, because let's be honest,
the rest of twenty five and twenty six looks like
a decade benefit and probably a number ninety three benefit
until we get to the rule changes. So there's this
natural You've got your feet under the table for eighteen months.
You now know what this sport is. The sporting narrative
might change twenty seven. It might not, but it is
the possibility that it will. What's the priority do you
(16:23):
think that what's the lowest of the low hanging fruit
as you described it, and then what should they be
looking at doing longer term?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
The thing for me, and this is something that Renida
has already picked up on. The thing for me that
Murujip has always done that I don't think is necessarily
the right approach is with the possible exception to golf,
I think we're the only other sport in the world
that markets almost exclusively to the people who take part.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
In that sport.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Does it wear absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Sell motiv regressing to bakers, And that's as we've seen
that as a diminishing audience because less people are ratings,
especially as people are riding sports bikes, and the kind
of the previous captive audience of the guys who will
buy what you race.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
On us on a Monday aren't there anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So that to me means we have to look at
open in the audience and that is something that Liberty.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
Has done really really well. On F one. You know, the.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
If you enrage the teenage girl fan base of any
F one driver, you quickly realize how much they've changed
that audience.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
And it's for the better.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Don't get me wrong, I'm using that example because it's
the way that you see them in their visible But
it's really cool that there's now a huge broad demographic
watching motorsport. That's good and I think that that's something
that we can transfer over fairly easily because we've got
all the same elements.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
One thing that I think really stands.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Out for me in the short term is you year's
circuits talking about.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
How F one is.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Is there big cash kind of how you know, like
Silveston this year five hundred and eighty thousand people across
four days compared to like ninety thousand for Motor GP.
Circuit of the Americas are bringing in less than forty
thousand people in race day for MUDORGP. They're bringing in
one hundred and thirty one hundred and forty thousand for
F one. So the circuits in some places are already
(18:28):
have already been positioning Motor GP as a kind of
a oh you can't afford to buy an F one
ticket at one thousand dollars. Would you like a MODORGP
ticket at one hundred and fifty dollars yep. And we're
kind of we're really well positioned in the short term
to be the overflow for the fans who can't afford
or can't find a way to go and see f
(18:48):
one live. And that seems like a really easy opportunity.
That seems like a really simple thing for them to
build on as part of a longer term strategy that
you know, really have to be taken MODERGP to North
America because that's where the money is, that's where the audience,
where there's a huge audience who loves sports. The problem
(19:10):
is right now that they can't do anything about that
in the short term because there is the sum total
of one circle in North America that can host modogyp.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Well and the other part to me and this is
something I was going to get on too later, but
we've kind of arrived at it now. There is a
diversity of nationality in Formula one that makes the sport
more global. You look at the current twenty two rider
MotoGP Gridge, You've got fifteen riders from Spain or Italy,
and some of them are absolutely awesome. Some of them
I'm not sure they should be a motor GP. That's
(19:40):
another conversation. But there is a sort of homogeneity to
the driver the rider line up at the moment, and
I don't want people to be promoted just for the
sake of the fact that you have, Oh, we need
this passport and we need this passport and the better
riders aren't going in it. I've always argued that if
you get to MotoGP as a Spanish writer, there's none
of this Oh it's the Spanish World Championship. Ausly, you
better be bloody good because there's a lot of good
(20:01):
Spanish guys that are lining up ready to get in there.
But you know, at the moment, we've got the sub
total of no Brits, no Americans, and white Australian who
occasionally speaks English, and Jack Miller and any agree with that.
And so you've got an American media company coming in
trying to sell the sport where you've got one and
a half native English speakers on the grid. Will give
(20:22):
Brad Binder the Haarf Brother's say much on the best
of times, but you've got a lot of guys who
aren't dealing in their native language here, And I'm wondering
if a more diverse grid is something that, you know,
longer term, the sport is going to need, if it's
really going to crack this American market. Because I'm Renda
is putting her hand up here, I'm going to finish
this point. The Americans love their professional sport, but they're
(20:44):
not necessarily only loving the American athletes. Because you look,
the best baseball players in the world, there'll be some
Japanese players in there, the best basketball players in the world.
There's nearly triple figures of guys in the NBA that
don't and lots of Australians quite frankly, lot of guys
from all over the place. So it doesn't necessarily matter
about in their sports if you're the best at what
you do. But I do wonder if a more diverse
(21:04):
grid is a way of unlocking some of that new audience.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Well, yeah, diverse grid, but just the fact that everyone
in F one actually speaks English, So every radio calls English.
Every the green room by they're waiting for the podium
is in English. Moroto GP are trying to copy it,
and all of a sudden you have Matt Bert trying
to translate, Like for us here in Australia, he's trying
to translate what they're saying in his limited amount of
(21:27):
Spanish that he knows. And no offense to Matt and Lewis,
but it's like, I want to hear. I want to
hear the emotion of what they're saying, and at least
the F one drivers they are relaying that because I'm
guessing they're speaking English in the garages as well. You know,
most of these teams here not, so I feel like
that's like the first thing that they need to do.
If they're going to bring in these radios and stuff
that they're testing as well, why not have them speak
(21:48):
in English so that the whole planet can understand and
hear what these guys are saying. Do you guys agree
with me on that?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I follow with people regularly on social media, But the
Spanish people are about this is such a But the
reality is that English is the most widely spoken second
language in the world. It is It is the language
that if you're in Indonesia or if you're in Argentina,
you probably speak English is your second language. So it
makes sense to force them into speaking in English across
(22:16):
the board, and you know that there are factory Moto
GP writers whose English.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Isn't that good and that's like, oh, guys, like.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
That seems like a really you know, that's a low
hanging for it to pick.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
And to be fair to Dorna, they have been working
on that.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I know that, like the minute that they realized Pedro
Costa was the next big thing, he was basically forced
into Dorna organized and paid for English lessons that paid off.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
So they are aware of that, and it's.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
You know, it's an obvious one because the Spanish grid
that we have is frustrating and I have to say,
I have to say it is more frustrating to Dorna
than anyone else and it is annuinely.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
I know there's a.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Perception about it's a Spanish championship and it's easier to
be to get promoted if you're Spanish, but that is
despite their best efforts to fix it. You know that
you look at the amount of money that they've spent
that they spend from Mini GP Championship to Asia Talent
Cup to running the Junior GP series and Spain, you
know this system to bring up kids some countries that
(23:23):
are not Spain Italy, and we're starting to see the
effects of it. You know, Iagura arriving Amotor GP is
the first kind of Asia Town Cup star to come through.
There are other kids we've seen who I'm watching coming
through the pipeline. You know, there's a couple of a
couple of quick Aussies in Red Bull Rookies, for example,
(23:44):
Carter Thompson, who's who's come up through the ranks of
Asia Talent Cup. And I think the problem that we
have right now maybe is that Dorner realized about five
or six years ago that they really needed to do
something to fix this. We're only now starting to see
the first payoffs of that, but it's going to take
another favorite six years to really change the structure of
(24:05):
the grid.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah, if this was twenty twenty right now and we're
having this same discussion, then that we'd actually been a
good place. It needs to catch up. I completely agree.
But the sentiment is there and they have acknowledged it.
It was just maybe a little bit too late. But Simon,
I did want to ask you in terms of you
mentioned the size of the crowds where we go to
the same circuit like Silverston and Kota. And the one
that always comes to me is there is one motor
(24:28):
GP event that basically runs like a Formula One event
in terms of what it has on the side. It's
not just you turn up and watch bikes go around
in circles for three days. There's a festival with a
bike race in the middle of it. And I'm talking
about Lemon. And you see the crowds at the French
GP every year, that's matter what the weather is, and
the weather's usually crap, let's be honest, but you see
the way they turn up and they show out and
(24:50):
they make that event unlike anything else for our Australian
viewers that may not know the full story of that event.
Give us a bit of background as to how that's
organized and the promoter it does an amazing job, as
we know. But do you think that is the template
that Liberty will look at and go, oh, this is
what we need to do because this is repeatable across
most of our other circuits if we get this right.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
First of all, I should probably say this is not
the podcast to bash the Lemon where they're given the
rimulant family history at Lamon and the Ruin Well very true. Yes,
Lamine is run by a crazy little Frenchman called Claude
Michet who has like fingers and lots of sports pays,
(25:32):
owns a professional football team, runs a couple of endurance races.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Ron's Lamon and you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Know, Liberty should probably just offer him a blank check
to come and work for them because of the job
that he does in promoting the sport. They you know,
the Lemon Weekend starts now on a Monday because they
open the campusites in a Monday and they start to
fill them from Monday and then there's something on stage.
(26:00):
Basically all weekend there is always entertainment happening. There is
these mad parties in the camp sites. There are you
know the this year. For the last few years actually
they've done a live broadcast from pitt Lane and the
Start Finished Grid on French National TV on a Thursday night,
and I think this year they said they had twelve
(26:22):
thousand people in the grand stands for it.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Okay, so you know, and that because I think that
goes out free to air. So imagine whenever you put
you on Zarco and Fabio Corduao on the Start finished
grid with twelve thousand people on the grandstand and you're
able to interview them and have them ride bikes and
normally Fabio does a special home livery that he unveils
as part of it, and you know, it's it's an
(26:45):
awesome event. But it's really worth noting that Lemon has
been like this since long before they had two fast
frenchmen on the grid.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
This, you know, it's not linked to the Zarko Corduadro effect.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Because it goes back before that to just a really
good event where you know, I am absolutely certain there
are people who go to the French Grand Prio and
never see a motorbike contract because you can go for
the weekend and be a part of this crazy kind
of almost music festival and just enjoy yourself without actually
(27:21):
even caring about the racing or having to go and
see the racing. The only place in Europe I've ever
been that's anything like it is the eleman Tt in
terms of this big festival atmosphere. It's completely unique in
motor GP and it has to be at least part
of the model because then you look at other events
like I'm coming back to buy Silverstone again, but Silverstone
(27:44):
this year accidentally, without realizing, scheduled the race during the
TT and the number one impact that it had was
that all the sort of cool live stuff that Monster
Energy in particular have done in the past, all the
stunt shows in the drift car and all we're on
the aid of Man and suddenly there was no fan entertainment.
And you know it when you only have three championships
(28:09):
and when you come from you know, like a lot
of British fans do come from British Super Break Championship,
but there's maybe fourteen races in a day, and then
there's three races in a day at the British Grand Prix.
You need to buff that out. You need to fill
in around it. You need to entertain people with more
than just bike racing. You need to give them value
for their money. Lamon is very good at that.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
I'd say they're the best in the business of that.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
It looks like some of the F one races are
doing a good job of that as well, and that
to me is kind of a model to build on well.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
And Renata from your point of view, I mean, you've
only recently sort of been in the F one space
over the past couple of years with Fox and you've
come down to Albert Park, which let's remember it is
a semi permanent street circuit in a public park, so
it's not even a permanent facility. You cannot believe what
that event has turned into. It is absolutely wild with
the stage and the bands and all the other activities
(29:05):
and never mind what's going on track. It's sort of
turned into the equivalent of the horse racing spring racing
Carnival here in Australia, Simon, and there's lots of people
that turn up and they will not see a live
car for three days, but they don't care because they
having the time of their lives because there's so much
that's going on. But Ronita, from your point of view,
I mean you've seen what Albert Park has become. I mean,
it's the templates there, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
The template is there for sure? For sure. The first
thing though, that when Simon was talking about Silverstone, so
I witnessed Silverstone for the British Motorcycle Grand Prix.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Of course, yes, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
So I was there to work for both events. Silverstone
Moto GP fantastic for me from a working point of view,
I had some friends out in the fan area, so
I got to see them. They were telling me how
cool it was to be able to watch the bikes
and Bloody Bluff and then went back for the Formula
One went to arrive and I had to pay for
(30:00):
for car parking, which is fine, like I'm happy to do,
but the fact that over the whole weekend it was
nearly going to cost me four hundred pounds in car
parking and I'm parking with the spectators, so they're having
to pay that. So considering the fact that these F
one fans are spending pretty much their whole entire year's
savings for a holiday to go watch F one at
(30:21):
Silverstone is mind blowing that they're doing that. But it's
not translating over to F one. So if we can
get that vibe and that build up of people there,
not saying that people to charge four hundred pounds for parking,
I'm saying get the people there because yeah, Albert Park,
I was in the general fans or own area and
(30:42):
we had Lune Croisson, so famous Melbourne croissant restaurant. She
had a pop up stand, Daniel Ricardo had his wine there.
There was so much going on, there's vibes. Imagine if
Mark Marquez and Insto three P sixty who I know,
Simon you work with, they had a pop up stand
there and they were doing activations and or not. And
that's probably the biggest take that I took this year
(31:02):
from attending F one and MotoGP is. I really feel
like Moto GP could learn from F one with their
activations for their fans, because, like you said, it's this experience.
And I thought of Bathurst, because Simon, you're at Bathurst
last year.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I'm thinking, you know, the guys there, they have their
tents setup and their costumes and their party and the
time they're not watching the cars on track either, because
they're just there for the vibes. So how do we
bring that to motorcycle racing and Moto GP without losing
the complexity of the fact that these guys are mustling
around prototype bikes in near death experiences, in literally sliding
(31:43):
on asphalt, traveling at stupid speeds. How do we keep
that seriousness and the complexity and just the rawness of
the sport but bring in everything else at the same time.
And Matt, like you said, you witnessed this through F one,
So how do we do that? How do we do that?
From your standpoint and my standpoint.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
You've kind of hit upon a bit of the catch
twenty two, I think.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
So I was talking last year at one point.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
We did a podcast together with David Brivio, the track
house team boss, obviously veteran MDORGP team boss who also
spent a bit of time at Alpine and F one,
and he was telling me that we were talking about
the subject actually, and he was telling me that Austria,
maybe last year, Fernando Alonso came just to spectate a
(32:28):
motor GP for the day and they were standing in
the middle of the product together, him and Brevio talking
and kind of Mark Marquez had came past and had
stopped to say hello, and you know, Jack Millard compassed
and stopped to say hello. And because they all know
who Alonso isn't he He's a BUGP fan, so.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
We know it's all they are.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And after kind of four or five MOTORGP writers had
stopped to say hello on their way past, he turned
to Brivio and he said, like, these guys do not
know how easy their lives are, because there is no
time in my schedule on a F one weekend up
in the padic can say hello to someone because they
have this crazy schedule of activations and events and promos
(33:06):
and all this stuff that you know they're doing with
their sponsors on stage with their team and the MUDIGP
writers do have an easier time of it. But at
the same time, no one in F one is getting
off a free practice session and needing to go immediately
to a physio session because they've fallen off twice one hundred.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Mans an hour.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, and there's always you know, we're going to have
to find a balance point between the expectations that is
going to be placed on on MODIGP writers to do
more of the marketing and pr side of their jobs,
while also remembering the fact that they're doing something.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Really dangerous and that the you know, it.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Is a physically tougher weekend than it is being an
F one driver. And no, that's not to get anything
away from F one. I'm just talking about the you know,
the sheer impact of crashes.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yeah, that's the truth. I mean, there are there are consequences.
You can absolutely tear all four corners off a Formula
one car and take the hands device out and go
back and you'll be fine. There are consequences to MotoGP
guys coming off, and you look at weekends. You look
at Mark's weekend in Asen this year. He was very
very close multiple times to severely hurting himself in accidents
(34:17):
that would have had major consequences not just for that
weekend but for others. And he used three of his
nine lives that weekend. He was a very very lucky boy.
Now at the end of the day you look at
it and say, well, he's got one hundred and twenty
odd point championship lead.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
It's all fired. It could have been very, very different.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
So there are consequences with that sort of stuff. But
I'm curious, Simon, you mentioned before about that extra workload.
Now everyone sees Liberty coming in, and you know, it's
like the old the old cashier with the dollar sides
flickering around because everyone can see what it can do
based on what Formula one has done.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
How much do you think motor GP.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Is prepared to change the way it works and the
way it goes racing to get access to that pot
of gold that is clearly there at the end of
the rain.
Speaker 5 (34:56):
Some of them are very prepared.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Some of the raiders are not because they're greedy, but
just because I think that there's there's a sense at
the minute in motor GP, especially in some of the
traditionally really strong markets, of almost they're they're what's the
word I'm looking for, they're almost disappointed that they're not
who they wanted to be when they were kids.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
And Juan Meir's manager told me once that that is.
You know, the thing that makes him the most angry
about Dorna is the fact that Juan Mehir can walk
down the street in Madrid and no.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
One stops him for a selfie.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
The guys in MODIGP weren't champion and in what should
be modigp's biggest market. But you know, that is something
that has really suffered through the kind of universal.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Move to pay per VTV.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
You know, we've seen audiences go way down and with
that they've lost some of that brand image recognition and
they want it back.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Definitely. Lots of writers want to be.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, they want to be the guy who's who's
you know, dating beautiful supermodels and Monaco and his Lamborghini
and getting pictured in the tabloid magazines doing it because
that's you know.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
Everyone wants to be not everyone wants to be that.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
You know, there's certainly I can think of motor GP
writers who would have absolutely detested that casey stoner, But
there's certainly some of them that want to be bigger,
want to be earning more, want to be more famous,
want to be more successful, and the leader exactly. You know,
(36:39):
there are guys that will lean into it, and there
will be guys I think, like we saw initially with
Drive to Survive, there will be guys who got left behind,
who choose to be left behind, like kind of Lewis
Hamilton Wells to an extent, I think in the beginning
of Drivet to Survive. But once once they're teams, once
their employers and their sponsors see that you kind of
(36:59):
have to doing it, there'll.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Be a push where they won't get a choice.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Well, this is where the Driver to Survive thing for me,
they got it was it was a well made series
because it was groundbreaking because no other sport had done
it at that point. We've had a lot of imitators
that have done it since, to various degrees of success
or not where they got super lucky. Formula one was
the first season of Drive to Survive was twenty nineteen.
On the twenty eighteen season, and it was kind of like,
(37:25):
you know, there's a bit of Netflix content.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
That's fine.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Ferrari and Mercedes weren't even involved in it. They did
not want any part of the first series of Drive
to Survive. And then, of course the start of twenty
twenty happens and everyone's I can tell you this, Simon,
because we were there. Everyone's lined up outside the entry
gates at Albert Park for the first race of the
Formula one season and everything goes to shit and we
don't have a Grand Prix and we don't have a
Formula One season and everyone stays home for six months.
(37:49):
But there's twenty episodes of this reality TV. And I
used that term loosely series called Drive to Survive. Everyone's
sitting at home, everyone's bored. Let's watch this. Oh this
is interesting, isn't it. Because we've got no live sport
and you had a captive audience and no live sport.
It was content. It was the perfect content at the
perfect time short of there being another one in one
(38:10):
hundred year pandemic. I think I've lived through the one
in my lifetime, thank you, So I don't want another
one of those motors. REVP is not going to get
that perfect confluence of circumstances to start to build this
brand if that's the Liberty playbook in terms of having
a reality TV series. So you do wonder what it's
going to take if they go down that path to
have this thing kick off and succeed where some of
(38:31):
these other imitators perhaps have not.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I think the thing the opportunity that they have in
that situation, in the situation where Ino is maybe to ignore,
and I hope that Liberty are going to do this.
There's a few things where I hope that they ignore
what kind of seems like the immediate money mech and
opportunities because its long term is maybe more about official
(38:56):
There was a news story comote this week.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
In the UK that.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
The you know, we've always had BBC and then ITV
is the two big broadcast networks here and for the
first time ever in the last kind of month, ITV
has been knocked back to third place by YouTube in terms.
Speaker 5 (39:14):
Of content and where people are watching their content.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
So, you know, make the series, put it on YouTube
for free and USU your f one brands to co
promote it. Be able, be kind of willing to take
the risk of doing something that you can push out
for free and use that to engage people, because that's
the way to do it if you can't replicate the
(39:39):
success of Drive to Survive and that, like you say, Matt,
those amazingly beneficial circumstances that they landed in.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I remember watching one.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Of the seasons, must have been season two, season three,
the start of twenty one, whenever we had those two
Motive GP races back to back in Qatar, and we
were locked in a hotel where we literally went alad
to leave the corner of the hotel that they built
a wall around for us. And I remember watching the
first episode of draft of that season, that new season,
(40:10):
which had just come out, in the gym one night
while on an exercise bake. I'm going to tap in
the shoulder from Valentino Rossi to say, oh, this is
the new season.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
Is it good? And then like three days.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Later he was watching it in the gym because we
had nothing else to do. And then they benefited from
that massively, and we're not going to get it, So
do this do the thing where you can sell the
sport and the drama, but do it in a different way.
Look at YouTube, look at social media, push it onto
people's forms.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
The YouTube idea is brilliant. I love it.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I'm going to play Devil's advocate advocate for a second here.
What if you're one of these long standing TV partners
that's gotten over the top product and it's like, well,
we've paid X dollars for this and you're giving this
thing away on YouTube that's going to potentially cannibalize our audience.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
How does that conversation go.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
They have to be going to the broadcasters and saying, look,
we are going to make changes that are going to
increase the amount of people watching the sport in your
channel in five years time.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Bear with us.
Speaker 5 (41:07):
Just bear with us then.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And we have seen a few of the broadcasters, to
be fair, taking a few risks along the same lines. Recently,
the day that Murujip announced sprint races, I wrote a
column saying sprint racers should all be free to air,
regardless of the pay per view package. The Sprint race
should be free to air every week in every country
(41:31):
to hook people in. And it's been interesting watching more
and more broadcasters get on board with that. It's free
in it, it's free in Spain, it's free in the UK.
So people are.
Speaker 5 (41:40):
Willing, I think to They're realizing that they're going to have.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
To take some hits in order to go to this
sport as a whole, because the long term effect, when
you look at what F one has done, the long
term benefits have to outweigh any short term losses.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I agree, and I think exactly what you're saying. I think,
even from a content creator point of view, is okay
with Fox Sports. We can use the broadcast content because
we have the Fox logo on it. It's fine. So
then we can go on post mark markets crashing for example,
me on the other side of the camera, and I'm
a content creator personally, I can't use any of the
(42:19):
on track footage. My content will get blocked straight away.
So how the content creators like myself and like other
people out there on socials, how can we keep building
the sport and having more people talk about it if
we can't use the content. So that's why I see
your point the sprint having it free to air, Why
not exactly?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
And the one thing that I'm hoping comes into play
exactly what you said, Nida, because this is a constant criticism.
The Donut basically garret their footage like the Crone Jaws,
and no one's ever allowed to use it to do
anything with it.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Only shipping them a lot of money to do it.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
MBA launched a program a few years back where they
have a system where you can I think there's probably
a similar system in MODOGIP where the broadcasters can like
kind of pull highlight clips out of what they're doing
for socials and stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (43:12):
In NBA, they opened that up to fans. They did
and allowed.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Fans to create short short form content, little clips, not
big things that they could edit turn into.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Means, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and it proved
to be really successful.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
The guy who launched that program at MBA is a
guy called down Rosimondo who's now the chief commercial officer
at MODEGIP.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
And I'm hoping that.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
As he kind of wrestles some of the control away
from some of the maybe more old fashioned mindsets within Dorna,
that that's something that's going to come to you, because
it's not just about the broadcasters and the series making content.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
It's about all of us making content completely.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
You create, you make a bigger pie and that everyone
gets to eat, right. That's the way it works when
the Rossamondo things so Simon. For your background, I was
an NBA journalist before I was a motorsport journalist, so
I've been around old.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
I'm so old.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I was in the NBA when it was in black
and white and they didn't even have inflatable basketballs now.
But the way they have it's been so interesting to
watch the way they have opened up their product over
a long period of time. They were one of the
first sports leagues I ever remember that were really quick
in getting their own highlights from a game that were
going viral on social media and doing it themselves because
(44:31):
they were sick of you know, old mates sitting at
home with his phone recording his TV. Oh, here's a
guy who did an amazing three point and it looks
terrible these cats in the background, and you know, there's
like someone vacuuming the floor, and let's sound as rubbish.
The NBA will be here's that highlight, and here's six
different angles of it, and here it is on every
single platform that we have within fifteen seconds of it happening,
and it'll be better than anything you guys can do.
(44:51):
So they took ownership of it, so there's a quality
control element, but they're also pushing it out and so
you would get these murmurings. I remember in the early
days of them doing this without boring our bikes audience
completely stupid. Steph Curry, who plays to the Golden State Warriors,
he would have these flurries of three point shots in
games only he could do and you would hear this thing.
It's like Curry's going crazy. Curry's going crazy, Like you
(45:14):
hear this, and you be on social media and here
is a forty five second clip of the nine to
three pointers that Steph Curry's just made in the first
half for a game that's still going. And it was
there and it was up. They were so on it
so early. The quality of what they were doing was good.
You just went to them whenever they had something that
needed to be told because you knew they were going to.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
Do it right.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
And that would be something that if modor GP could
adopt one tenth of that model would be a fantastic
addition to the sport.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I reckon I feel like Fellas we pretty much kind
of touch on all the subjects of Lebty. So I
want to we've just fixed all the problems. Let's round
it all are Simon. I'm going to come to you first.
Liberty Media taking over Donner? Is this a good thing?
Is this not going to ski away our existing fans.
We're going to get a new fan base and we're
(46:03):
going to see Moto GP get all the credit it deserves.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I think Liberty Media are smart enough to know that
they do not need to touch the sporting product.
Speaker 5 (46:14):
They just need to build it out. They need to
build stuff around it.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
The benefit of that should be that if you're an
existing motor GP fan, you know what.
Speaker 5 (46:23):
No one's making you watch the documentary series. No one's
making you watch.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
The social media. You don't have to watch Drive to Survive.
If you're an F one fan, you can just churn
in on Sunday and watch the race. And that remains
the case with MODORGP and whatever Liberty do.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
I mean even more than.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
F one, because they're not going to make any of
the changes that people dislike a bit F one the
most that Liberty have made, like street circuits, that's not
going to happen.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
We're not going to Miami with a modigp bike.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
So the core product will always remain the core product,
because the core product.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
Is not the problem.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
It's all the stuff around the product that we need
to change if we're going to expand the fan base
and bringing new people, and that can only be good.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's not a case
of attracting different fans. You're not trying to water down
or cannibalize the fan base you've got. You're trying to
attract new fans to increase the size of the fan base.
And so to my mind, the sporting product, the on
track product, quite frankly, is better than Formula one. It
has been for a long time. It's just a story
that needs to be better told. They're a media company.
(47:28):
Their business is telling stories and telling stories well to
the widest possible audience. And that's why I'm super optimistic
based on what they have done to a sport that
they probably picked up with more issues with Formula one
when they had it, I'm super optimistic that longer term,
this is going to be a really good thing for
the sport.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
And at the end of the day, I want to
be in a position where we're.
Speaker 5 (47:50):
Seeing raiders get unto the mold of two grid without
having the mortgage. Mom's host did, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
That's part of it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yes, Yes, that's a whole other podcast and a whole
other conversation. We need to go down one more question
and then I feel like our listeners, if they're stuck around,
they're going to get a full understanding. But Simon, there's
rumors about a potential F one motor GP race on
the same weekend. Hey, what's your thoughts on this is
(48:16):
not going to happen or is that just crazy?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
The problem is, I think there's one circuit in the
world where it's doable, and that's Silverstone. Yes, because Silverstone
has two pit complexes yep, And I think that's probably
the only place where you could really pull it off.
There's nowhere else that has the space, that has the
size and the space apart from well, maybe it's a
(48:40):
good excuse for Formula want to go back to sipaying,
which I think a lot of people would love because
they have that they're Simons and the Pharasy as well.
But there's not a lot of places where you can
actually physically do it. For me, the actual actually the
secret to it is maybe not just jumping in and
doing a joint F one what did GP rice? Why
(49:00):
not do like a Red Bull Rookies rounded F one race.
Why not move the Women's World Championship over for a
rounded F one rice where they've got a smaller padduct footprint.
And I mean, who doesn't love watching Red Bull Rookies
because it's the most manic sport on Earth. So there's
there's a way to do it, at least to test
the waters that doesn't just involve full steam ahead into
(49:23):
a joint F one motor GP weekend that I think
would still do a pretty good job of the concept
of selling our sport to that audience.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
The only other circuit I reckon that you could if
you're going to go down that path Simon, because it's
not as big of a paddock footprint as you said,
is if you could do Castaloonia, simply because I think
the rebel Rookies would probably resonate a little bit better
there perhaps than Atma Silverstone.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
I mean, these places like Austria where you could fit
in the rookies. They don't have a big foot, But yes,
there's lots of places where you could.
Speaker 5 (49:53):
Make it work.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
They would have to be one of the circuits that
we both go to, right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Exactly, Just imagine. I'm even thinking like if it could
happen magically like F one at Coda because obviously the
American fan base Formula one they do like that big
show and then have Bodo GP and Mark Markers. Oh,
that would be cool.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
One thing that wouldn't surprise me at all in twenty
twenty six, the new Bago Championship, the new how To
did with some Bago Championship that's coming to Murder GP.
I would not at all be surprised if one of
their roons are at F one Koda.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
On the undercard. Yeah absolutely, because they are at totally
different times of the calendar as well.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, March in March at October, so you can absolutely
do that.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, believe the bags are going to be at Barcelona,
and obviously we're getting off track here. We have our
Aussie Choy herfous in there as well in that championship,
so hopefully that might be ed as well. We'll keep
you guys on that. But guys, I feel like we
could just keep talking and talking and talking about how
are we gonna fix Moto GP. I just have this
feeling it's the beginning of something much, much bigger. But Simon,
(50:52):
thank you so much for joining us here on pit Talk,
and we're gonna see you in a few months, like
Matt said at Philip Violence, so we'll hatch up then,
And Matt, as always the statman, it is a pleasure
having you on board here with me. Moto GP is
back in Austria for around thirteen at the Red Bull
Ring and you guys can catch all the action live
(51:13):
on Fox Sports and KO. If you want to keep
up to date with all of Matt's articles, though, you
guys can do at foxsports dot com, dot AU, Forward,
Slash Motorsport, don't forget to follow us on socials at
Fox Motorsport everywhere, and subscribe to Pittalk so you never
miss an episode. But from Sliven Patterson, Matt Clayton and
myself Rinita Vermulin, we're going to be back real soon
(51:36):
with more Moto GP Pit Talk
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