AustrianGP: Marc on Repeat, Aldeguer Hits Fast-Forward

Marc Marquez dominates, but Fermin Aldeguer steals the show! I break down the MotoGP action from Marc's first Red Bull Ring victory, including the surprise performances - both good and bad. Plus - I predict when the title will be decided!

The Rundown:

- Qualifying: Bezz turns things around in a big way, with an assist from The Doctor
- The Sprint Race: Disaster for Pecco, KTM looks good, the Marquez brothers look great
- The MotoGP Race: Have you heard? Marc won his first MotoGP race at the Red Bull Ring!
- Fermin Aldeguer steals the spotlight with a late charge
- Should Marc be worried? (spoiler alert: no)
- Bezz contines to prove Aprilia is making major progress
- Acosta keeps the youth movement building toward the future
- Pecco needs a major reset in focus and approach
- The MotoGP Championship - I predict when it will be official
- My take on the Red Bull Ring

What did you think of the AustrianGP? Let me know on Facebook or the Motoweek Reddit Sub.

Find all of the latest episodes at Motoweek.net, follow on Bluesky and Instagram – and you can support the show on Patreon!

Thanks for listening!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Frommotoweek dot Net. It's the MotorWeek podcast with your host Wilson.
Aprilia continues to improve, a rookie surprises and Mark wins
his first race at the Red bull Ring. Also Mark
wins his first race at the Red bull Ring. Hello
and welcome to the MotorWeek post race show for a

(00:22):
round thirteen of the twenty twenty five MotoGP World Championship,
the Austrian GP at the Red bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.
My name is Wilson, I'm your host. And did I
already mention that this was Mark's first win at the
Red bull Ring? I figured I should because for some reason,
not sure why, the world feed commentators didn't even mention it,

(00:46):
not once. Oh and Casey Stoner was there too, who knew.
All right, I'm making fun of those guys a little bit,
and I always repeat myself, so you guys are allowed
to make fun of me, and they're allowed to make
fun of me as well. And hey, if we're being honest,
pretty much everything that could be said about Mark Marquez
this twenty twenty five season already has been I mean,

(01:09):
you can only say he's amazing so many ways, so
having a story like him having never won before in Austria,
it becomes a big deal for sure. I mean, journalists
have to write about something. However, just as big in
my opinion were the story of the riders that didn't
have a great weekend here and then the rookie that

(01:31):
absolutely did because for me and al de Gaer gave
us another taste of what potentially he could do at
the MotoGP level after that amazing showing late in the
race on Sunday. So let's dive into everything that happened
in this weekend's Austrian GP. We will also talk about
the championship picture as well, because I am prepared to

(01:54):
make a prediction not on whether Mark will win the
twenty twenty five MotoGP title, but when did the math.
I've got a race ready to go, so I'll tell
you about that later and we'll find out if my
prediction was right. Before we dive into this weekend's race, though,
I do want to take a quick moment to invite
you over to the website if you've never checked it

(02:15):
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(02:37):
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do that on Patreon at patreon dot com slash motoweek.
All right, let's dive in here to the entire weekend
of action at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, and

(02:59):
obviously the most entertaining part of qualifying clearly was Pedro
Acosta taking us on a backstage run from turn three
all the way down to the pits. When his bike died,
he coasted through what appeared to be the fan entrance
and then literally rode his bike through the back door
of the garage. If you haven't seen it yet, I
would highly recommend you go back and watch Q two.

(03:20):
It happened kind of right in the middle, and I've
never seen anything like that happen in any Moto GP race.
I don't know if you have. That was, like I said,
the most entertaining part of early Saturday, but by far
the most exciting and surprising part of Q two is
what happened after that Acosta event, because in the closing minutes,

(03:41):
Mark marquezrecked pecobag Nyaya, ran off track, and Acosta nearly
came back on his final lap after all of that
craziness in the middle of the session to take the poll.
He lost it in the final turn. In fact, he
had full on wrecked. I mean the front end of
the bike was gone, and he made a fan fantastic
Mark Marquez style save to at least stay on the bike,

(04:04):
but that cost him a legitimate shot at the poll
and in front of everybody. That I just mentioned was
the aprillia of Marco Bitzeki, who had the weirdest story
of any rider up to that point during the weekend.
He was nowhere on Friday, I think it was eighteenth
in practice. That was his best time. That he makes

(04:26):
it out of Q one and ends up on the pole,
and he wasn't even the top rider in Q one.
That was Ane Abastieni and he who by the way,
was riding the wheels off the thing. He was backing
it into every corner. It was so much fun to watch.
I was glad that they were keeping the camera on him.
But bez just literally came out of nowhere, and he
actually credited Valentino Rossi for his ability to get on

(04:47):
the poll. He said that Friday he had such a
bad day that Valet came over, they talked about it.
Rossi worked with the Aprillia team to make adjustments to
the bike. He said, they worked on it late until
the night comes back on Saturday, the thing is completely changed,
and next thing you know, he's on the poll, joined
by Alex Marquez and Peco Bagniaya on the front row.
No Mark, of course, after the wreck, he attempted to

(05:10):
keep on qualifying. He limped him fourth with part of
his fairing missing. I don't even know how he put
down a lap that was I think about four or
five tents off the pace. Pretty impressive given the damage
to the bike. But we got a surprise at the
front from Bitzeki. Then you had defending Winter Bagnaya on
the front row and the fastest guys in practice, Mark
and Pedro Acosta. They were kind of handicapping the field

(05:34):
by starting fourth and seventh, respectively, and that then set
the stage for some potential fireworks Saturday afternoon as we
headed into the sprint race. And first things first, what
the heck happened with Peco Bagnaya on the start? I
know it was a retire issue. I guess he said

(05:54):
he didn't get it warmed up enough on the warm
up lap, But I mean that was just brutal to see.
I mean, for a rider who had dominated at the
Red Bull Ring the past three years in a row
to have that bad of a start and get hit
with such crazy wheelspin it grenaded any chance he had

(06:15):
for a podium and it actually was way worse than that.
We'll talk about him more in a minute. For me
and al Deger actually had the same problem himself immediately
behind Peco, to the point where I thought, is there
something on the track? But no, they just both had
a terrible start at exactly the same time, and that chaos,
along with the other riders that were trying to avoid

(06:35):
those two riders who didn't take off, that effectively allowed
the Marquez brothers to break out at the front, which
is pretty much the worst possible thing that could happen
to the rest of the grid in a twenty twenty
five MotoGP race is that you spot the Marquez brothers
positions on the track, and seconds on the track, Alex

(06:55):
was leading the way and then after a short battle
between Pedro Acosta and Marco Bittize, the factory KTM rider
easily slotted in behind that leading Ducati Duo Peco eventually retired.
That's right, he brought it down pitt Road, jumped off
the bike and he was like, I'm done, and that
was so out of the ordinary, and because of that,

(07:17):
it got so much focus from the commentators trying to
figure out what the problem might have been, that it
was a weird race. After that, it kind of became
the background plot that Alex and Mark had cleared off
and the field stabilized behind them. We get the status
quo all the way down to five to go, and
then Mark Marquez made his move on his little brother,

(07:38):
and like we've seen so many times this year, that
was all there was to it. And even though Mark
only led the final what four and a half laps
of this race, make no mistake he was in control
the entire way. There was no doubt that he was
simply riding behind Alex, just logging laps until he decided, eh, ok,

(08:00):
some make my move. And not only did that give
him some extra assurance that he wouldn't run into any
stupid tire pressure issues, but with nobody even close to
passing him from third, why not take your time and
pace the race. I mean, there's no prize for winning
by more. Victory pays the same amount of points whether

(08:20):
you're one second head at the end or five seconds ahead.
But if you're trying to win by five and you
end up falling down in the process, you don't get anything.
And the thing about Mark Marquez, and we're not going
to talk a lot about Mark and these races because
he was so amazing and we all know that, but
the thing about Mark right now is that he is

(08:41):
so much better than everyone else that he can't afford
to only make moves when he wants to. I mean,
Alex is the only rider that's even close on pace,
and in the end even he can't hold a candle
to his brother. And yes, without foreshadowing too much, we
saw what happened with for me and now the garret
at the end of the race, on Sunday, But we

(09:01):
don't really truly know if al Deegar was gaining on
a Mark Marquez who couldn't maintain pace, or if Mark
was just pacing himself not expecting anybody to make a run.
And that if Mark knew that there was going to
be some stiff competition at the end, he might have
paced himself just a little bit faster, and then it
wouldn't have been a story much of a story at

(09:22):
all outside of the fact that for me and Audegear
finished second. So I don't I hesitate to say that
there was something different that happened Sunday that showed a
weakness on Mark's part. I think it was just him
not anticipating. And obviously you can catch Mark off guard once,
you're probably not going to catch him off guard again.
And the one time you do catch him off guard,

(09:43):
he still won easily. So I mean, he's unbeatable. Right now.
You have another amazing performance. But let's not take anything
away from him because he got there because he is
that fast. And let's also not take anything away from
Alex Marquez because, like I thought he would be coming
into the weekend, he slotted right back in to where

(10:04):
we expected him to be or what we've seen out
of him in the first half of the year. At
this sprint, you know, we saw the signs of increasing
competition on Saturday, Bez winning the poll, Acosta continuing to
be a podium threat, and yet Alex really is the
only rider in the same zip code as Mark right now.

(10:24):
Now again, if it came down to it head to head,
Mark is almost always going to be out Alex, but
he's the only one who's consistently within sight of what
Mark's doing. And better yet, for Alex, he appears to
be healed from his injury. And while I thought after
Saturday that the long lap penalty would probably negatively impact

(10:45):
his race on Sunday, and it did more than I
thought it would. Even with the idea of the aforementioned
increase competition with the other guys I mentioned, along with
Jorge Martin potentially starting to pressure him, Alex still reinforced
to us in this sprint that he has transformed into
an elite rider this year and it doesn't look like

(11:06):
his speed is going to slow down unless something out
of the ordinary causes it to, like a long lap
penalty or an injury. So he was second. Pedro Acosta
rounded out the podium and I loved this result for him,
I mean, coming off of that excellent weekend in Bruno,
to show up and immediately back up what we saw
there with another podium here is first time out in

(11:28):
Austria definitely is a big bonus. And yes it's home
Terur for KTM and that does make a difference. And
I know some people right now are like, no, no,
it doesn't. I don't have the stats in front of me,
but if you want me to look them up, I can.
We have seen many riders and manufacturers in the past
perform better at their home track. There are a few

(11:49):
examples of people who haven't, but more often than not
you get a boost from that. And if you're still skeptical,
just wait until we get to the Motor GP race.
Here in a couple of minutes, Pedro was still within
sight of the Marquez brothers at the end of this one,
I mean a little over three seconds back, but he
was still in the neighborhood right plush you could see

(12:10):
on track and more importantly you could hear in park
from ay the confidence building with Pedro Costa and the
spike and so I think that that was a big
reinforcement race for him, and we saw part of that
play out on Sunday as well. Maybe not the way
he wanted, but I still thought it was a positive

(12:30):
weekend overall for him. Other writers I want to talk
about in this sprint, let's start with Marco Bozeki, And yeah,
in the context of Q two, him finishing off the
podium was a little bit of a disappointment, but in
the context of how he ran on Friday, this was
an excellent comeback for both bez and Aprillia as a whole.

(12:51):
I mean, considering that the rebull ring isn't his or
Aprilli as best tracked by any stretch. I thought it
was a solid performance. It was where I expected him
to be, somewhere in the top five, and it made
me very optimistic that with the bike set up settled
underneath him and a longer race on Sunday, that he
could take what he learned in the sprint and make

(13:13):
more of an impact in the full length race. And
that actually also makes me wish that I did a
show right after the sprint so I could say that
because that's what I was thinking. And then on Sunday.
When I did the show after the race, you would
be like, oh my gosh, he might actually know what
he's talking about, even though I don't. I just guess
really really well. Next up Brad Bender and inn A

(13:33):
Bastiennini at KTM, partially proving what I just said a
moment ago about that home field advantage. Even if this
isn't their respective home tracks, it is for KTM as
a whole. And that pair finished fifth and seventh respectively,
in front of all of their corporate bosses. Both of
them were in the points, and I was especially impressed

(13:53):
with Bastianini's effort all day Saturday, and that did carry
over in the Sunday. No, he wasn't close to being
in contention, but that Saturday performance I think was the
best day of riding we've seen out of him yet
on the RC sixteen, and it was a lot of
fun to watch. I mean, it looked like the beast

(14:14):
that we remember on the Ducati, just hanging the bike
out there and having fun. Join Zarco was the highest
finishing Honda in ninth after an eventful weekend that saw
him in the gravel trap a couple of times up
until the sprint, but he continues to be the fastest
Honda rider by a good margin, a couple of seconds
ahead of the Factory duo of Luca Marini and Joan

(14:35):
me Or on Saturday that didn't pan out the same
way on Sunday. And then for Jorge Martin, this was
an interesting sprint for me when it comes to him,
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little
disappointed to see him finishing tenth and also not making
it into Q two at all. But I do have
to keep reminding myself it's only his second race weekend back,

(14:59):
and the time of the sprint his third race back,
and we did see his pace improving in the final
few laps of the sprint. At the time, it was
interested to see if that would translate to Sunday. We'll
chat about him more in a minute. Fabio Qua Carraro,
Oh man, Fabio dude. In this one, he was proof

(15:20):
of just how not a Yamaha track the Red Bull
Ring is, or really how not suited to the Red
Bull Ring the m one is. I mean, he was
shaking his head during qualifying, and I'm sure he was
doing exactly the same thing in the sprint. The bike

(15:40):
just doesn't have the power up out of the corners
to be anywhere near competitive. And this is how bad
it was. All right, So, despite being the highest finishing
Yamaha in the field on Saturday, Fabio was around thirteen
seconds off the pace, so that's about a second a
lapse slower than Mark Marquez, and even that seemed to

(16:00):
be Fabio overperforming in typical fashion. The other Yamahas of
Alex Frinz, Jack Miller, Miguel Olivera were the last three
bikes in the running order, and at the end of
the race they were all six to eight seconds. Not
behind Mark, they were six to eight seconds behind Fabio.

(16:22):
I know, that's really really bad. So if Yamaha wants
to start by focusing on something, focus on the track
like this, because if they make it better at the
places where they're already strong, they might win a race
here and there, but they're not going to be competitive
in the championship unless they can figure out how to
be fast at the stop and go tracks in addition

(16:42):
to just the handling tracks. Let's move on, because it
was a sad situation for everybody involved to another sad situation.
The one surrounding Pecobagniaya. He said he had a bad
reartire and that he didn't get enough. He hat into
it on the warm up lap that im pounded the
issue and caused a bad start. Listen, I don't know

(17:04):
if it was solely the tire to blame. However, he
was clearly having handling issues with that bike shaking on
him in corners. There was some onboard video that you
can watch where you can really see it. But it's
just another thing, another thing in it season where his
confidence is at an all time low and the championship
has already slipped his grasp. But to struggle like this

(17:26):
at a track where he's been so dominant, it really
just adds insult to injury, and I think that I
think that they just simply need to sit him down
and say, Peco, the championship is over. Mark is going
to win it, so stop worrying about him, and stop
trying to catch him, and just worry about making yourself

(17:48):
better every race, because we want to see you on
top of the pit bocks. You can win races, You
are fast enough to win races, and it's not the
bike in general, because if it was the bike in general,
maybe Mark would be doing good, but we wouldn't see
Alex doing good. We wouldn't see Fabio di Gia, Antonio
and Franco Morbidelli doing good. And this weekend we saw

(18:09):
for me and out of gear running well, like everybody
is running better than Peco right now, or at least
running with more confidence. VR forty six did not have
a good weekend at the Rebell Ring at all, But
they're all running with more confidence than Peco, and so
they need to get Peco to focus on himself and
stop worrying about everybody else, because it's the worrying about

(18:32):
everybody else that has his confidence so low that he
feels like he can't overcome any limitations of the bike,
where he can't overcome having a bad tire, and when
in the past he could and we know that because
we've seen it. We've seen him step up in these
major moments, and I'm sure that the bike wasn't perfect
in those moments, but he figured out a way to

(18:54):
bring it home on the podium and in critical situations
he figured out a way to win. So he's capable
of doing that. They just need to get his focus
off of Mark, Mark has really thrown him into a tailspin,
and I don't think the situation with Alex is really
helping that much either. So to wrap up Saturday, despite
some qualifying drama, things shockingly ended in familiar fashion at

(19:18):
the front, Mark Marquez dominating Alex in tow. But we
did get some fun at the back of the podium
as we saw Pedro Acosta really up his game. But
even with Acosta am Pittechi for that matter, really stepping
up to the challenge on Saturday, did anybody have any
kind of chance of beating Mark on Sunday? One rider

(19:43):
thought maybe he could. We'll talk about who that is
when we discussed the Moto GP race next. All right,
so let's wrap up our discussion of this weekend's Austrian
GP at the Red Bull Ring by talking about sun
and the main event, the Modo GP race. And I'll

(20:05):
tell you, in a world where Mark Marquez is on
a completely different level, this was kind of a high
drama race for him. Right off the lights, there was
that intense side by side moment between Mark and Peco Bagnaya.
They had a brief back and forth, and then when
Mark finally tried to make his move on Marko Binzeki

(20:25):
for the lead. Bes did a phenomenal job making a
comeback pass fighting with Mark, and ultimately in the end
there was nothing he could do. Mark was just too
good in sector one, but they had a really nice
and intense back and forth that made things a heck
of a lot more exciting. Then, with just five laps
to go out of nowhere, here comes for me and Aldeger,

(20:50):
who completely went on a charge. He fought his way
out of a battle with Peco Bagnaya and Pedro Costa
to claim the final spot on the podium. But he
was not done yet, streaking past bez for second with
relative ease. Then he did that so easily that it
looked like he might have had half a chance to
chase down Mark at the front. However, it's one thing

(21:13):
to catch a fading but Deecki catching Mark Marquez, let
alone passing him different story. And it's no big surprise
then that Mark Marquez noticed the threat and simply pulled
a little of that leftover speed out of his back pocket,
stalling the rookies progression and slowly extending his lead to

(21:34):
the finish. And like I said when we were talking
about the sprint race. I did not see the end
of this Moto GP race as any kind of sign
that there's some vulnerability there with Mark at this point.
It was simply a case where he didn't anticipate this
kid was going to come out of nowhere, and we
didn't anticipate it either, So it's not like he knew

(21:56):
it was coming and just couldn't, you know, maintain his gap.
He noticed they told him on his pitboard, They probably
told him on his dash, and he was like, oh, okay,
I can find another tenth. I got more than that
left over, and so I think that there was nothing
to be worried about or no yellow flags here when
it comes to Mark Marquez. And so let's talk about

(22:17):
Mark in the race. And listen, we've discussed at length
the entire season how amazing Mark Marquez is or has
been in twenty twenty five. So instead I'm just gonna
throw some stats at you. This win, I can't believe
I'm saying this again after I made fun of them,
was his first Moto GP victory at the Red Bull Ring,

(22:39):
And really, you know, I think it has more impact
if we give it at least a little bit of context.
Because Mark Marquez at the Red Bull Ring has been
involved in some of the most exciting races ever in
Moto GP history. He's gone down to the wire twice
with Andrea Dvizioso, and both of those races came down

(22:59):
to the five corner with Mark making a desperate dive
bomb move that didn't work. Dovee wins, and that's what
makes this bigger story as opposed to Mark just was
terrible here in the past and then he figured out
a way to win once he got on the best bike. No,
he was amazing here on the Honda. He just got
outdouled in a couple of rare occasions where Dovee had

(23:23):
his card here, and so that's what makes it a
bigger deal that he comes back and finally wins here.
So first win at the Red Bull Ring, his seventy
first Premier class win, and his ninety seventh victory in
GP racing. In addition to that, if we just look
at twenty twenty five, it is his sixth consecutive double
win weekend, his ninth double win of the year, and

(23:46):
he has now won twenty one of the twenty six
points races run this season. That means he has won
eighty point eight percent or roughly eighty one percent of
the races that have been run this year. That's crazy.
And after the sprint, just after the sprint race on Saturday,

(24:06):
mart Marquez had already scored more points in the first
thirteen rounds of twenty twenty five that he scored in
all of last season when he actually finished third in
the championship. And then of course that was before he
won on Sunday, So that now means he has scored
twenty six points more in twenty twenty five and thirteen
races than he scored all of last year. And in

(24:27):
case you were wondering, because I know I was, no,
he has not caught the point totals that Peco and
Jorge Martin posted last season. He's currently eighty behind what
Peco did in twenty twenty four, and of course then
ninety behind what Jorge Martin posted. He will pass both
of those riders' point totals before the twenty race barrier

(24:48):
that they had last year. To do that, one hundred
percent guaranteed, you'll probably do it in the next like say,
five rounds or so. And you know I was wondering,
coming into this weekend, whether Mark uz would start the
second half with the same intensity as we saw in
the first Given his pretty decent point cushion that can

(25:08):
make you relax a little bit, there was no need
for me to worry. And I'll tell you we are
very likely watching what might be the best season any
Moto GP rider has had in the four stroke era.
So keep that in mind for the remaining rounds of
the year as we watch Mark do what he's been doing.
But as amazing as the veteran multi time champion was riding,

(25:31):
how about the rookie behind him? I mean for me
and Aldiger absolutely had his breakout race on Sunday. Now
that's not to say he hasn't done anything before. He
had the double podium in Lamar, which technically was a
better overall weekend results wise, but not only was Sunday
his best individual result, this was the best race he's

(25:55):
run so far in his very very brief Premier class career.
He was so wrong at the end of this one,
and to be able to save enough tire to make
that final push is such an important skill. And remember
he didn't just pass anybody to get second in the
final lapse of this race. He did it against Marco Bitzeki,

(26:16):
who is one of the best himself at preserving tires
late in a race. So for me and audegear be
one of the best at his own game, and that
made this a great race performance wise. It made it
a great race for learning, I mean being able to
pass somebody like Pitzechi at the end. And if for
me can master that skill, there will definitely be more

(26:39):
podiums in his future. And don't forget that it was
a great race in terms of confidence as well. I mean,
he started his podium charge with an aggressive but clean
move on our trivel Pedro Acosta, and he had got
roughed up a little bit at the beginning of this one,
and I think he went all the way down to
eighth before he battled this way up the second. Now,
we do have to take this race with a grain

(27:01):
of salt. It's not like this is a switch that's
been flipped and now he's gonna run in the podium
positions every single weekend. He's still a rookie and so
I imagine there will be more inconsistency to come, just like
we've seen out of him all season long. But peaks
like this show us where the potential really lies. If
he can put it all together and do so consistently,

(27:23):
and that's a great sign for him. It's a great
sign for Chrissini right now, and it's a great sign
for Ducati down the road, because Mark Marquez isn't gonna
be Emoto GP forever, and who knows what is going
on with Peco Bagnaya right now in terms of his
confidence and his ability to compete for championships. So let's
move on to the guy that for me and Aldi
Ghar passed at the end of this race, and Marco

(27:43):
Bitzeki Man, he put on such a great show. He
really really tried to maintain his pace against Mark, put
up a legitimate fight after getting passed, But Mark was
just so freaking good through turns two and three. And
it wasn't just during that battle. You could see it
in the overhead shots the entire final third of this race.

(28:06):
He was so good in those turns. And by the
time that Bez realized I'm not going to be able
to keep up with Mark, he had also used up
enough of his bike trying that he later on had
no defense against. For me and audegear. But the important
part here for me is that the speed continues. This
is not a case of a good race here and

(28:27):
a good race there, kind of like what we've seen
out of KTM this season. But Zeki and his Aprilia
are legitimately a podium contender. Now, this is his third
Motor GP podium in the last four rounds, and it
could have easily been four in a row without that
mistake on Sunday in Germany, he was in podium contention.
And it is the fourth consecutive round where he has

(28:49):
landed on at least one podium across both the sprints
and the Motor GP race. And his average finish in
those last four rounds, his average finish, remember he had
the one DNF on Sunday in Germany. In the other
races that he finished, his average is two point eighty five.
He has single handedly proven when I say single handedly,

(29:11):
i'm looking at you jo Aorgey Martin. He's proven that
Aprilia have put the work in to be competitive, not
championship winning competitive, not yet at least, but consistently podium caliber.
And so now Jorge Martine, once he gets healthy and
gets back into shape, he gets to take advantage of

(29:32):
the work that was done while he was out. By
the way he wrecks Sunday, he looked like he was
shaking up. The team said he was okay, which is
a great, great sign for him and for a Prillia
because they do need him to get back into shape
as quickly as possible. Because if Bez can do what
he's doing, Martin can do exactly the same thing, and
so it'll be a lot of fun to see both

(29:53):
of those riders battling each other for a podium. So
great race for Marko Pitzeki. Great weekend from Markapitzeki. And
and I'm not just saying that because I picked him
to finish third in this race, and he finished third
in this race. Again, I guess I really don't know
what I'm talking about. Other riders I do want to
discuss from Sunday's Motor GP event. Want to start with
Pedro Acosta, and I know that he would have rather

(30:16):
been on the podium, especially considering what he was able
to do on Saturday and the fact that they were
in Austria in front of all of the corporate bosses
and stuff like that. But this was not a loss
for Acosta, it was not a negative that he finished
fourth and missed out on the podium. This was still
reinforcement of what we saw in Bruno. Now there is

(30:38):
the home track thing, so because of that, I would
really like to see similar speed out of him next
week in Hungary, just to confirm that it wasn't all
home field advantage, right. But he's had two excellent rounds
in a row and again a great sign for another
young rider to turn into good performance. Him and aldegarran

(31:00):
the same weekend. I mean, that's so exciting to think
about for the future. And by the way, if you
still don't believe me on the home track thing, let's
talk about some other KTM riders right now. Anebastianimi finishing
fifth in this one, capping what was by far his
best weekend ever on the KTM. I mean, he's only
been there thirteen races, but still, and then Brad Bender

(31:21):
finishing seventh, and that means that every single KTM that
started this weekend, and unfortunately Maverick Vinalas was not part
of that group. He had to sit out due to
his injured shoulder not being fully healed yet. But every
KTM that started on the grid, finished top seven in
both races, and that in turn also means that every

(31:42):
single KTM rider that started this weekend also passed Peco
bag Naya in both races too. Man, I don't even
know where to begin. Saturday tire thing, Okay, I get it.
Stuff happens Sunday, I mean what another bad tire? No,

(32:04):
it just it was not a good weekend for Peco,
and it was not a good Sunday for Peco. Now,
statistically speaking, the French GP was worse for him, but
considering just how amazing Bagnaia had been at the Red
Bull Ring for each of the last three years, just

(32:25):
completely dominating, and then you look at what he did
this weekend. This was absolutely his worst performance of twenty
twenty five. And the concerning thing here is that it
didn't start that way on Sunday. His launch was great,
no mistakes this time, and then he looked confident, trying
to battle back and forth with Mark Marquez, and so

(32:47):
it really felt like, hey, even if he can't beat Mark,
he's definitely going to slot into a podium position here
and bring home a good finish. Instead, once Mark got
by him, he just started vading and then it didn't stop.
He went from third technically second all the way down
to eighth, and it was happening because he was getting
passed by riders that wouldn't have even been on his

(33:08):
radar at this track a year ago. So, yeah, the
tire thing in the sprint or whatever, but there's more
going on with Peco. The confidence is just not there,
and like I said, they need to sit him down
and get him to refocus on different goals, not on Mark.
But I'm really wondering if it's going to continue this

(33:30):
way until the end of the season. I hope it doesn't,
but there's a chance it could. So he just needs
to get to a track where maybe Hungry is going
to be a good track for him because nobody's been
there before, so it's a reset button. And so maybe
if he feels just a little bit confident coming out
of the box and has nothing in the past to
compare it to that confidence, it won't be there if

(33:53):
he starts a little slow but gets better and better
and better. Right, because it's very possible, it's not even
really possible. He call fight on the front row. I
was gonna say it's possible, you know, he wasn't running
as fast as he thought he could to start the weekend.
He wasn't leading sessions, and so you know that confidence
hit kind of spiraled. But no, he was good on
Friday and he was good and qualifying. He qualified better

(34:16):
than Mark. So I don't know. Let's keep our fingers
crossed that Hungary is a reset button for him and
maybe he can come at things with a fresh mind.
I guess we'll see. Let's move on because I definitely
want to mention Juamir because he finished sixth in this race,
and I'm gonna repeat that because I am not sure

(34:38):
when or if I'll get to say that again. Juan
Meir finished sixth in this race. Welcome to a good result. Well, heck,
welcome to the end of a Moto JP race. It
is the first time, the first time in the past
four rounds that Joamir has seen a checker flag on
Sunday and only get this, only the fifth time all

(35:02):
season long he's made it to the end of the
full length race. But the thing was, he was really good.
I mean, he legitimately raced people to get to where
he ended this one. It wasn't gifted to him with
people wrecking out or anything like that. He battled his
way the sixth. I would love to see that more often.
I'm not confident we will, so we're gonna appreciate it

(35:23):
while we got to see it. I also do want
to mention Raoul Fernandez because they made a big deal
about him on the World Feed broadcast, because he was
hanging there in sixth for a good portion of this race.
He ended up drifting toninth, which isn't the best, but
they were onto something. We do have to recognize the
effort that Raoul Fernandez has been putting in and the

(35:46):
step that he's taken on that Aprilia since Mujello and
I've got the numbers to show you. In the first
eight Moto GP races of the year, his average finish
was twelve point six, with one in the last five rounds,
and that's a decent sample size. In the past five rounds,
his average finish on Sunday and Moto GP races seven

(36:10):
point six. That is not a small amount. Think about
that for a minute. He's improved his finishing spot on
Sundays by five places. That's really impressive. Now, Trackhouse team
boss Dovid de Brivio attributes it to Fernandez adjusting his
work ethic and his diet this season. I don't know
for sure. I am definitely speculating here, but I think

(36:32):
he's probably adjusted his attitude as well, and his approach
to this team and to Moti GP in general. I
don't know if you remember back to that Moto II
battle that he had with Remy Gardner so fiercely fought
all season long they were KTM teammates. They went back
and forth and back and forth. Fernandez lost out, but

(36:53):
he exited that battle with Remy Gardner with a really
big chip on his shoulder. That's started showing as negotiations
began for his move to Moto GP, and he really
thought he deserved a better deal than Remy Gardner. And
he also thought he deserved maybe the move straight to
a factory team. Now you could argue that maybe he

(37:15):
was right, because Remy Gardner's not MotoGP anymore. But still
he gave everyone the impression that he felt something was
owed to him by the Motor GP teams. He didn't
realize how much bigger Moto GP was than what he
thought it was in terms of the writers and the
talent level. Everybody a Moto GP was as good as

(37:37):
he was when they were at that same level, right,
so he didn't really realize I don't think the big
leagues that he was graduating into now. It may have
taken him some time, multiple years. I would say that
the major factor here is the presence of David de Brivio.
I mean, he's a proven champion, he's a proven winner,

(37:58):
and I don't think that it's a mistake at all
that he shows up on the scene. And you take
a rider who's been struggling for years with multiple manufacturers
like Rioul Fernandez, and all of a sudden you start
seeing progress out of him. So I think that Brivio
really spurred the change and approach by Fernandez, and as

(38:18):
of now it seems to be working. And if it
does well, he's been around long enough that this might
save his motor GP career at least for the time being,
because he was definitely headed towards a Fabio di jan
Antonio type of situation where it just wasn't working, and
so when silly season comes around next year, it'll be

(38:39):
very easy for him to be the odd man out
or having to take an assignment World Superbike or go
back to Moto two or something like that, and it
still could happen, but at least now he's in a
much better place to try to fight to keep that seat.
So good job, good job for him, good job for
track House. And it's taking a while, but we're seeing

(38:59):
that influence of David de Brivio starting to pay off
for them, and I think we'll see the same thing
happened with Io Gura. It's just said Ogura's have bad luck,
he's had injuries. Next year he's gonna start to come
into his own, I really think, because the speed is
there for him. And then I want to talk about
Alex Marquez. Last he had to serve that long lap penalty,
so it wasn't very surprising to see him drop to

(39:20):
the back of the top ten early on, and he
was in a really tough situation because he had to
serve that at the beginning of the race before things
really got stretched out, so he was gonna lose a
lot of spots one way or the other, and I
think he dropped out a third or fourth to run
that long lap penalty. The part that was surprising was
to see him not be able to come back from

(39:41):
that penalty. All he could do is maintain pace, and
he dropped back to what tenth or eleventh, and he
finished tenth And that was a bit of a shocker,
especially considering his speed on Saturday. And that gives me
a little bit of pause. I mean, not that his
performance was going to drop off, it's just that, unlike Mark,
who's used to running at the front all the time,

(40:03):
Alex is used to running second. He's used to running
behind somebody, and so it was a little bit surprising
that just simply putting him in a little bit more
traffic prevented him from showing off the same type of
speed that we saw from him when he only had
one person to follow in Mark Marquez. So I don't know,
maybe part of that was set up for the bike.
They weren't anticipating what it was going to be like

(40:25):
to run back in the pack, because they really haven't
this year. So Hungary is going to be an interesting
race for him as well. I'll be curious to see
if he bounces back. I kind of tend to think
that he will, and that this was the anomaly and
not the new norm for him. So to go over
the podium is both on Saturday and Sunday. In the
sprint race, Pedro Acosta finished third, his third straight podium

(40:46):
at the time and a great sign that his Bruno
form is still there coming out of the long summer break.
Alex Marquez was second. Great part about this he looked
fully fit and right back where we expected him to
be speed wise. And then your winner in Mark Marquez
just on another level. I mean, even by mart Marquez standards,
he's on another level. We move on to Sunday and

(41:09):
the Moto GP race. Marco Bitzeki, thank you very much
for making me look like I know what I'm talking
about when I really don't. He finished third like I
expected him to, well guess he would for me, and
Aldiger had an amazing breakthrough race finishing second, and your
winner on Sunday, Mark Marquez, who continues to simply be unbeatable.

(41:33):
And speaking of unbeatable, let's talk about the Motor GP
Championship picture coming out of the Austrian GP. And this
wasn't just another incredible weekend on track for Mark, it
was also an incredible weekend in the standings for him
as well, because with him having yet another double win weekend,

(41:53):
combined with a lackluster round for pecobag Nyaya and then
that long lap penalty really hamstringing Alex Marquee as in
the Moto GP race, all of that combined allowed Mark
to gain significant ground on both of his main rivals.
He leaves the Red Bull Ring with a one hundred
and forty two point lead over his little brother and

(42:14):
an impressive one hundred and ninety seven points over Peco
bag Nyaya. Is this championship over? Yes? I mean, barring
something cataclysmic happening, Mark is gonna win this thing, right.
This is how big his lead is. And we've talked
about this kind of before. The number of rounds as
opposed to the number of points each race weekend is

(42:35):
worth thirty seven points twelve in the sprint twenty five
in the Moto GP race. Those are the maximum. That's
the maximum somebody could gain on Mark if he wrecked
out right, Mark, based on that number has a nearly,
not quite but nearly four round lead on Alex and
just over a five round lead on Peco Bagnaya. To

(42:57):
put that into perspective, if Mark doesn't gain a single
point on Alex or Peco, right, if he just scores
exactly what they scored every weekend from here on out.
He'll clinch the championship at the conclusion of the Australian
GP if he gains just six more points on Alex

(43:17):
next weekend, and then after that stays level with the
other two, he'll clinch the championship after Indonesia, and Indonesia
is only five rounds from now. And now that's not
the worst case scenario for Mark, that would be scoring
zero points from here on out right, but it's a
pretty unbelievable situation that Mark would be him where he

(43:40):
would gain zero points on both Alex and Peco the
rest of the year, right, because he's been doing exactly
the opposite of that and showing no signs of slowing down.
In the last six rounds, just six rounds he's gained,
get this, one hundred and eighteen points on Alex and
he's gained one hundred and twenty five points on Peco,
WHI also means that Alex has gained on Peco. And

(44:01):
that's my boggling thinking about the fact that Alex has
been injured. So even trying to look at this pragmatically
as realistically as I can, with as good as Mark
is racing right now, I think that he clinches things
at Japan. I'm not sure he'll win all of the
races between now and then. It would be pretty unrealistic

(44:23):
that he would, although I think it's pretty unrealistic he's
done what he's done so far this season. But with
Peco and Alex showing less consistency than they showed at
the beginning of the year, and then the addition of
riders like Bez and Acosta and potentially even Martin and
for Me and Aldiger being more and more competitive, I
think that those other riders have a bigger chance of

(44:45):
watering down Alex and Peco's points, just like we saw
in this Austrian GP. I mean, at the beginning of
the year, you probably don't have Marco Bitzeki and for
me and Aldigar finishing in front of Peco bag and
especially not joy Amir right, and so I think this
increased level of competition as the manufacturers are getting their

(45:06):
bikes more and more suited to what the Ducati can do,
that's watering down Peko's points, And the same thing happened
with Alex as well. Alex couldn't pass these guys because
they're better than they were at the beginning of the season.
And I think that that effect is going to be
more profound for somebody like Alex or Peco than it
is for Mark, because Mark is so much better than

(45:27):
everybody else right now. So as of this point, how
everybody's riding, I'm calling it. As they cross the line
in Motegi, we will be crowning Mark Marquez as the
twenty twenty five Moto GP World Champion. We'll see, We'll
see if that comes to fruition or not. Although I
don't think I'm going too far out on a limb there.
I mean, honestly, I don't think there are many people
that would disagree with me on that one. And honestly,

(45:50):
the way that Peco and Bizeki are riding right now,
I am not so sure that Bagnyaya is really safe
in third in the championship. I mean, he's only up
by forty three points now over Marco, and their fortunes
are certainly moving in clearly opposite directions performance wise. I mean,
before the season started, I'm pretty sure I said on

(46:10):
the preview show that if Jorge Martin had been able
to make a speedy return to the grid that he
could have competed for a third overall in the championship.
It looks as if Pitzeki has really taken his place
in that scenario that the appriliate is capable of it,
and Bez is showing that to us. And unless Peco
can really make a turnaround and start to get back
on the podium the way that Pitzeki is riding, he's

(46:32):
going to catch him in three to five rounds. I
would say maybe even less than that. So that's the
situation and the championship we'll find out if I'm right
about Japan or not. Now let's wrap up with my
take on the Austrian GP. We saw a couple of
big surprises, a couple of tenths, and fun and interesting
moments on track. But through it all, Mark Marquez continued

(46:53):
to show us his greatness. But it wasn't all Mark though,
And that's what I really liked about this round. I
love the fact that we're seeing a Prillia consistently in
podium contention, that we saw kat CM have a strong
weekend with some great and exciting on track action out
of all of their riders, and of course the biggest

(47:14):
flash of brilliance yet from rookie for me and Aude
gear keeping alive that idea that maybe, just maybe he
and Pedro Acosta are on a collision course to give
us some incredible championship battles in the future if Mark
isn't simply winning everything still at like thirty five or
thirty six years old, which apparently could be a thing

(47:36):
the way that it's going right now. But I will
wrap up by saying this about Mark Marquez. Listen, whether
you are a fan of his or not, appreciate, appreciate
watching him do what he's doing right now, because we've
never seen anything like it from a rider of his age,
especially considering his story and the injury that kept him

(47:58):
down for multiple years and coming back through a satellite team.
This is like something that you definitely want to understand
while you're watching it, just like watching Valentine Rossi and
his prime, watching Kesey Stoner in his prime, watching Jorge
Lorento and his prime, like, appreciate it. Now. We've already
seen Mark's prime and he's having another one. But the

(48:20):
one he's having now is so much more epic because
of the scenario, because of the situation and because of
his age, and I know that it's super tempting for
the people who aren't big Mark fans to be like, oh,
this season is so boring, I don't want to watch
He's just winning everything. Don't look at it that way,
look at it the other way that we don't see
this like ever, right, And so there is something to

(48:42):
watch for, and who knows, maybe your favorite rider can
go out and beat him. And how much bigger will
it be if you're saying, like a big Marco Bozeki fan,
if Marco goes out and wins in a straight up battle,
that means he's accomplished something even bigger than just winning
a race. So definitely take this season for what it's

(49:03):
giving us and appreciate what we're seeing not only from
Mark but for some of these other riders in the
field as well. So that's what happened in Austria. What
did you think, Well, let me know. Tell me what
you think of Mark. Tell me, if you're not a
Mark Marquez fan, what you think about the job that
he's doing this season, and whether you appreciate it or
if it just makes you mad, Because I understand both

(49:25):
for sure. So we're done with this race. We are
not done by any stretch when it comes to the season.
In fact, there is no rest at all, and on
top of that, we are headed directly into uncharted territory.
Moto GP is right back in action next week, returning
to Hungary for the first time since nineteen ninety two,

(49:46):
and this one is at a brand new track, taking
on the recently built Ballaton Park circuit outside of Budapest.
As the riders try to figure out this track, we're
gonna do the same thing too, try to figure this
place out and more importantly, try to figure out who's
going to be able to perform here. Although I think
it's a pretty safe bet that Mark Marquez should be

(50:08):
high on all of our lists, but we'll try to
determine who else might be able to battle with him.
And this is really the opportunity if somebody wants to
get to jump on Mark, Learning this track faster than
him is the one way you might be able to
break through that armor. So there's a lot to look
forward to, not much time until it's here. We've got

(50:28):
the pre race, the post race. I don't want you
to miss any of it. So if you have not
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(50:50):
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(51:14):
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(51:35):
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(51:56):
you can just go to blue Sky Search. You'll be
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want to thank you so much for listening. Ride safe,
and I'll talk to you soon.