Ducati's Magic Engine, Honda Enters the Chat, Marc Makes History - Motegi Recap

You know you're having a good day when you win with a blown motor! I recap all of the action from the JapaneseGP - including Pecco Bagnaia's return to the front, Honda stepping up on home turf, that Ducati engine that just won't quit - and the biggest Championship story of the MotoGP era!

The Rundown:

- Qualifying - Pecco throws down the gauntlet with a record lap
- Sprint Race - is that...the old Bagnaia? 
- Factory Aprilia wipeout
- MotoGP Race - How did that engine make it to the end?
- What about Honda? Fantastic weekend - can it continue?
- MotoGP Championship: 2nd - 4th is getting interesting
- Marc's Championship - the biggest story in MotoGP? I'll tell you why it is
- My take on the JapaneseGP

What did you think of Motegi? 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 neg It's the MotorWeek podcast with your host Wilson.
Peko was present, Honda was in the house, and Mark
made history. Motegi was the scene of comebacks, big, small,
and well gigantic. Hello and welcome to the Motorwek post
tray show for around seventeen of the twenty twenty five

(00:23):
MotoGP World Championship the Japanese GP at the Mobility Resort
Motegi until Chigi, Japan. My name is Wilson, I'm your host,
and I'll admit it. A couple of years ago, I
thought there was zero chance that Mark Marquez would somehow
win another Moto GP championship, even with the move to Dukati.

(00:45):
I thought he would win races for sure. I definitely
thought he would get on podiums, but at that point,
already being over thirty years of age, I was skeptical
that he'd be able to keep up with the likes
of Pecobagyaya and Jorge Martin, who at the time seemed
like he was going to be a shoe in for
a factory bike. Well, Mark won both Dukati and me

(01:06):
over last season, to the point where I did pick
him to win the title this year as unlikely of
an event as that would be in the four stroke
era for a rider of his age, But I certainly
didn't think even picking him to win the championship, I
didn't think he was going to be so overwhelmingly dominant
or win the title with five rounds left to go.

(01:28):
But that is exactly what happened this weekend in Japan.
For the fourth time, he clinched a championship at Motegi. However,
that was not all that happened this weekend. Pekobag Nyaya
is apparently back. They made changes to the bike, and
he finally showed signs of his old self, riding away
with both a sprint victory and then a Moto GP

(01:51):
win that saw his engine pull off some sort of
magic trick getting him the last ten laps to the
flag while it was in the process of slowly blowing
itself up, and we saw Honda maybe just leverage home
field advantage one way or the other. They did something
and as a result, they had their best overall weekend
in not just this year, but I would say multiple years.

(02:12):
So we've got a lot to talk about, including me
explaining just why this mark Marquez story is so big
and why I can't think of any individual story in
the MotoGP era, in the four stroke era that can
match it. And there's only one I can think of
that comes close in five hundred ccs.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
So let's get it.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Before we get started, though, I would like to take
a brief moment to invite you over to the website
if you've never checked it out before. You can get
all of the latest episodes as soon as they're released
at motoweek dot net. You can follow on social media
blue Sky, you can just search for motoweek or on
Instagram at motoweek USA. And most importantly, I want to
know what you think of this Mark Championship, of everything

(02:55):
that happened in Motegi, and whether you think this change
in pecobag Naya is real or if he's just going
to go back to where he was next weekend in Indonesia.
You can tell me about that on Facebook at facebook
dot com, slash motoweek dot net, or over on the
reddit subb at are slash motoweek. And if you enjoy
the show and you want to support it, don't feel obligated,

(03:16):
but if you want to, you can do that on
Patreon at patreon dot com slash MotorWeek All right, so
let's dive in to everything that happened this weekend in Motagi,
and as usual, before we get to the spring itself,
we have to talk about what happened earlier on Saturday,
where qualifying brought us multiple surprises right out of the box,

(03:37):
and Friday was pretty crazy on track to begin with,
but man, I'll tell you, qualifying just took it to
another level. Alex Marquez having to make his way out
of Q one in the end, it came down to
that final run for him to get that second spot
to move on. But the much more surprising story was
up at the front of the field in Q two,
because that featured multiple riders and a couple of manufacturers

(04:00):
trading shots at the top of the time sheet. In
the final three minutes of Q two alone, we went
from Peco Bagnaya sitting on the pole, to Frankie Morbidelli
and then Mark Marquez, then Joan Meir with Luca Marini
back and forth. Then Fabio Quatrrero poked his nose up
into the top three spots. Then we went back to
Peco Bagnaya in the end, taking the top spot with

(04:23):
the first ever Moto GP lap in the one forty twos. Obviously,
that was a track record, and that set the tone
for the rest of the weekend. Whatever changes Ducati made
were working for him right away, and he was serious
about taking the fight to mark in the rest of
the field for the first time really all season long.

(04:43):
So Peco gets the watch. He was joined on the
front row by the aforementioned Mir and Marquez. Mir being
in the middle of the front row was a pretty
big story to start with, but the even bigger story,
at least to start the weekend was definitely Bagnyaya. The
changes they made to the and the result on track
had the entire paddock talking and asking the question is

(05:05):
this real? Was it just a one off? Was it
like Fabio Quaccuroro, He can lay down one lap, but
it's not going to last in terms of race pace?

Speaker 2 (05:12):
You know?

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Could Peco actually perform once the lights went out? Well
didn't take long to figure out the answer to that
question as the field lined up later in the afternoon
for the sprint race, and the answer to that lingering
question was a resounding yes. Peco could make the performance stick.

(05:33):
Before we talk about him though, first thing, or hey Martin,
I mean, what the heck was he thinking heading into
term one of the sprint off the lights? The martinader
definitely had a plan. He was going to get to
the inside in an attempt to pull off a video
game start from seventeenth pass a bunch of riders.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Going into the first corner and kind of sneak his
way through.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, he started out okay, I suppose he got to
the inside. He got beside a couple of other riders.
He was gonna make the pass, but man, he wildly
miscalculated how hard he could go into that corner on
cold tires and how shallow of a line he could
take into the corner and still have a chance of
making it out the other side. And predictably, it all

(06:18):
backfired in spectacular fashion. His reartire came up off the
ground and breaking, which isn't unusual at Motegi, but again,
your own cold tires, The front end wasn't stable. The
entire bike goes wabbling into the corner out of control somehow,
and I'm not quite sure how. Even though he was
riding toward a pack of about oh ten riders, he

(06:40):
only managed to take out one other guy in the process.
Of course, the rider he took out was his own
Factory teammate, Marco Bitzecki. So the bad news there is
that in one corner, Martine wiped out the chances for
the entire Aprolia Factory team on Saturday. The worst news
is that he'll likely have to serve a penalty in

(07:01):
his next race. But the worst news is that he's
heard again yeap, Martin fractured his collar bones, so for
the third time in twenty twenty five, he's going to
have to sit out with an injury. The team already
is saying he'll be sidelined for at least a month.
That is definitely not a good situation. I mean, Martin
just cannot catch a break trying to find some sort

(07:23):
of comfort level and consistent rhythm on that RSGP. And really,
if there is a silver lining for a Prilia, which
it's a very dim one, it's that Bitzeki was okay
after what was a wild.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Looking incident that could have been much much worse.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
But let's not bury the lead here because while all
of that, a Prelia drama was happening behind him. On
Lap one, pecobag Naya immediately grabbed the lead with a
great launch off the lights, and just as importantly, both
Mere and Pedro Acosta, who started fourth, they both got
to jump on Mark Marquez, and that was a critical
component of how this race ultimately played out. Mark, Mehr

(08:01):
and Acosta all started fighting amongst themselves for position, dicing
each other up and making mistakes in the process because
they all saw Pecko up ahead of them starting to
build a gap and they said, I need to be
the guy in the front of this line as quickly
as possible before it's too late. That forced rash decisions,
It created mistakes, and all that did was break Peco

(08:24):
even further free, so he could build up a pretty
decent gap early on in this race. So let's talk
about our winner and Peco bag Naya. I'm he really
he got that good jump, he saw clear track in
front of him, he put his head down and for
the first time in months, he just went for it
and the bike was there for him and it worked.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Exactly what adjustments they made. They didn't say what adjustments
they made, although they did say that they were unusual adjustments,
and at the end of the weekend, Peko was like, man,
I wish we had tried this before, but if they
were unusual, that's probably why they didn't try it before.
But whatever they did did it was the right move
and as a result, Peco was fantastic. There was no drama.

(09:07):
He looked comfortable and confident on the bike. And speaking
of confidence, this is exactly the type of performance Peco
has needed for a very long time. Now, now I
will add a grain assault to this, because yes, they
made changes to the bike. The changes obviously worked and
it helped Pecko out. But the straits at Motaggi, even

(09:28):
though there are a lot of them, and this is
very heartbreaking track, those traits aren't as long or as
high speed as some of the other tracks we've been
to recently, and so you're heartbreaking, but from a lower
overall speed, and that could maybe have helped with some
of his front instability problems. So we really need some
bigger tracks, and we're going to get some between now

(09:49):
and the end of the year, where we'll get a
better idea of how reliable that front end stability is
going to be at places that are a bit more
challenging in terms of going from a super high speed
to a super low speed into a corner, and we'll
get that, like I said, over the next couple of weeks. Now,
we do need to talk about the lack of a
challenge at the front for Peco, which came mostly courtesy
of Mark Marquez, who did finish second in this race.

(10:11):
But that doesn't really tell the entire story. I mean,
like I mentioned, a moment ago, Mark got passed off
the lights by Pedro Acosta in a surprisingly strong Joam
Mir and that really effectively derailed Mark's race. And we
saw something a little bit uncharacteristic for Mark Marquez in
twenty twenty five. He was having trouble passing. I mean,

(10:34):
it took a long time for him to get past Mir,
multiple attempts to pass, and turns five and ten, Mark
was consistently running wide in those corners, allowing Mer to
either get right back by or to regain any ground
that Mark may have made getting into the corner and
closing up at the apex. Now, eventually Mark made a
pass that stuck, even though it was a little tiny

(10:57):
bit sketchy, but also a little bit clever at the
same time. So there were two times prior to the
pass that worked that Mer had gotten Mark on the cutback.
So Mark goes in deep, he runs wide, and mir
just goes right underneath him on the line and goes
right on back by. So the third time Mark dove
into the corner the same way, but then he kind

(11:18):
of break checked Mirror when they were side by side,
right at the place where mir was used to cutting
back underneath, and because of that, he didn't have the
space to cut it back. And so now you've got
two bikes going really slow on the outside of a
corner way offline. It then becomes a drag race from
that point off, and of course, and a straight drag

(11:39):
race between a Ducati and a Honda.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
The Dukati is going to win that fight.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
So, like I said, a little tighty bit sketchy the
way he did it with that block pass in the
middle of the corner, but it was a clever way
to approach the problem, and I would feel that it
was a little bit shadier had mir not finished the
race where he ultimately finished.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
And I don't think there was any chance that he
was as fast as Mark at the end of this one.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Now, after the pass, Mark actually then caught and got
by Pedro Acosta relatively easily. But all of that drama,
those guys dicing back and forth allowed Peco to build
a big enough lead that it simply wasn't worth it
for Mark to try to catch up, So he wisely
decided the championship was more important, and given that his

(12:23):
brother Alex scored zero points in a surprisingly disappointing sprint,
that was exactly the right call. Now, the last rider,
Mark got by Pedro Acosta. Yeah, he got passed relatively
easily there in the closing laps, but this was still
a fantastic effort and yet another podium performance by the youngster.
He's doing exactly what he needs to do right now,

(12:43):
just being consistent and reinforcing the speed he's been showing
us for the last five or six rounds, even if
it didn't pay through to Sunday. Excellent run the top
non Ducati rider. And speaking of having an excellent run,
let's move on to the non podium finishers, and I
definitely Lee, definitely want to talk about Joammir because I
don't even care that he lost out on the podium

(13:05):
in the end, it doesn't matter. This was an incredible
boost for both himself and Honda, starting on the front row,
nearly winning his first ever Moto GP poll and then
fighting in the podium positions for a good portion of
this race, giving it right back to Mark multiple times
in that battle that they had, and in the process,

(13:26):
not only did he score his best sprint result ever,
but at the time it was by far his single
best day of twenty twenty five, or really his single
best day with Honda on that bike, from qualifying through
the sprint. And it wasn't just mere Luca Marini was
solid as well. He finished seventh. You know, across the board,
I would say Honda, the factory Honda team had an

(13:47):
excellent day that really turned into an excellent weekend. I
said on the pre race show that I wanted to
see a breakout performance from them this weekend, and we
got it. I just thought it would be Marini that
delivered it. Who knew it was going to be Joammeir
Absolutely top marks for them, both Mir and Honda. Franko
Morbidelli got beat out by a KTM and a Honda

(14:09):
in the end, but like Acosta in front of him,
the consistency for Frankie continues. He was the fastest satellite
rider and the fastest Satellite Ducati in the field. After
being the same and qualifying, Fabio qua Carraro was easily
the best Yamaha in this sprint, finishing sixth. Next best
was Miguel Olivera all the way down in fifteenth, and

(14:30):
more importantly for me, at least, just like the Hondas
around him in the top ten, he was able to
hold his position and not fade at the end of
the sprint and keep that id in mind because it
is going to come back around when we talk about
the motor GP race, and I think that is an
excellent takeaway for Fabio and an excellent takeaway for Juammeir
and Luca Marini. With all of those other Italian bikes

(14:53):
around him, they were able to not get passed by
too many people, even if it would have been a
bigger boost for Fabio to be in the top five
by the end the day. Raoul Fernandez was the best
Apprilia in the field, finishing eighth, with track House teammate
Io Gura one spot behind him in ninth, that pair
taking the final two points up for grabs in the
sprint and in the process shutting Alex Marquez out not

(15:15):
the best day for a Prillia, but we also don't
know what might have been if Marco Bizeki hadn't been
taken out by Jorge Martin. I would assume that he
would have been in the points above his two stable mates,
And at the time after the sprint, I was like,
you know what, Sunday is probably going to give us
a better story about what Marco might have been capable of.
And that turned out to be the case. I mean,

(15:37):
speaking of Sunday, that was definitely the topic of discussion
coming out of the sprint. With Peco finally getting the
better of Mark, what was next? Was Mark really trying
to win on Saturday or was he thinking more about
the championship and if so, would that change heading into
Sunday with an even bigger point cushion than he had
coming into the weekend and knowing that his brother Alex

(15:59):
was starting like I think eighth or so on the grid,
And would that in turn then lead to this genuine
Mark Peco showdown at the front with Mark aiming to
take the twenty twenty five title in style a trip
to the top step of the podium, or would Mark still.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Be in championship preservation mode. How would it all play out?

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Well, we'll talk about the Motor GP race next, all right,
So let's continue our discussion of this weekend's Japanese GP
at Motegi by talking about the main event Sunday and
the Moto GP race.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
And this was it.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
It was all coming down to the wire for Mark Marquez.
His task very simple, goal number one, don't wreck, goal
number two stay ahead or just behind Alex Marquez, and
his unlikely return to the top of the Moto GP
world would finally be complete. So as everybody lined up

(16:58):
in the grid, we already knew that her our team
would be sitting out this race with a broken collar
bone from that incident in the sprint on Saturday. We
also discovered Sunday that Iogura would sit out this race
with an injured hand that gave him trouble in the sprint,
despite the fact that he actually.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Ended up in the points.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Huge bummer that he didn't get to run his home
Moto GP race in front of the enthusiastic Motegi fans,
which were entertaining all weekend long. But all eyes as
everybody was getting ready to go here were on two riders,
Mark looking for that historic championship and Peco looking to
double down on the incredible leap and performance that we

(17:38):
saw on Friday and Saturday. Out of him, lights went out.
Peco got a great start again, Acosta and Mirror right
behind him, both getting to jump on Mark. The only
difference between Sunday and Saturday is at the Moto GP race,
Meer made a little bit of a mistake right out
of the gate going into term one that allowed Mark
to slot in behind Acosta in that final podium spot

(18:00):
to start things off. Strangely enough, though, despite all of
the storyline drama, the race itself was actually pretty boring,
well for the first half. That is, then it got
really quite interesting.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Let's break it down.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Just before the halfway point, Mark made a move on
Pedro Acosta for a second, and as Acosta's bike started
to go away on him, Joemir continued his unlikely weekend
thrilling the Japanese fans by putting their home manufacture in
the podium positions. Then Markobitzeki got by the KTM rider
Franco morbid Deli passed him as well, and strangely enough,

(18:37):
that was just it for a Costa, he ran off
track a couple of laps later, ended up in the
gravel trap and that was it. But at this point,
even with Mark once again in second, pekobag Yaya did
the same thing Sunday that he had done on Saturday.
He took advantage of the guys scrapping behind him to
just put his head down and build a lead. And

(18:58):
so Mark is looking up a head at Peco four
seconds down the road, and honestly, what do you do
if you Mark Marquez at that point, There's no reason
to try to push it and make up four seconds
and end up, you know, off the bike in a
gravel trap somewhere, and now you've got to go into
Indonesia to try to win the title. And so like

(19:20):
in the sprint, getting to the end and second was
the same as getting to the end in first or
third or anywhere in front of Alex Marquez. And that
was that and the race was over, except that it
actually wasn't because with ted laps to go, something was
up with Peco's bike started with a couple of wisps

(19:41):
of blue smoke from the lower exhaust pipe and we
all know now what happened, right, But at the time,
it was like, whoa dude, The drama is definitely on
and Mark has a real shot of actually winning this
race and the championship, because in my experience, engines don't
unblow up like once they start to go they are
not long for this world. And there were a few

(20:03):
concerned faces in the Dakati garage at that point. But
I don't understand what happened. I guess that Peco had
a magic engine because it did start to get a
little bit better all the way up until five to go,
and then at that point it got quite a bit worse,
and you're like, no, no, it's good to go now,

(20:25):
Like the thing is gonna let go any corner. He's
just gonna get on the gas out of one of
these turns and that's gonna be that. And Mark has
to hope that he doesn't dup a bunch of oil
on the track in the process. And then Mark rex
out and again has to go to Indonesia to win
the title. But the race at this point was no
longer Pecko against Mark. Mark was too far back and
it wasn't Pecho against the rest of the field, it

(20:46):
was Peko against his engine.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Expiring and it was gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
It was just a matter of when and if it
was gonna pop before the race ended or after the race.
And so what had turned into a pretty boring race,
Peco's gonna win, Mark's just gonna follow him because he's
got no reason to try to catch him. It became
a bit of a nail biter. But in the end, somehow,
some way, Peco Magnaya made it to the checker flag.

(21:14):
How on earth he did so, that's beyond me. I mean,
that engine must have had some magic oil inside of
it or something, because the amount of smoke that was
coming out of that bike was alarming, and in just
about any other situation it would have expired long before
the end of the race. But it held together. And

(21:34):
of course Peco probably got some sort of message on
his dash saying, hey, if you can ease up a
little bit, why don't you do that? And he had
the time, He had a huge gap, and so he
could burn a couple of seconds to that lead and
still be up by a couple of seconds, which is
what happened, and it ended up capping it an incredible
comeback weekend, seeing Pecko score his first Moto GP win

(21:55):
since Circuit of the America's back in March, and his
first sprint wing get this since last year's season finale,
which of course was also the site of his last
double win weekend. And I had not realized that it
was that bad for Peco that he hadn't won a
single sprint all year long, and then you think about
it and you're like, oh, yeah, it has pretty much
just been Mark Mark, Mark, Mark Alex at one time,

(22:15):
Mark Mark, Mark Mark, and so Peco not only gets
to sprint win, but he gets to sweep. And for
a rider that was teetering on the edge of complete
and total collapse, this was an incredible return to form
and we will have to see if it continues next
weekend in Indonesia. That's going to be the real test
whether the changes that they've made and the speed that's
come along with it is there next weekend or not,

(22:38):
or if it was a matter of right time, right track,
right settings for the bike. And I honestly don't know
what the answer is. I'm optimistic, but I'm not really
one hundred percent sure what's going to happen for him
next weekend. But as big of a comeback performance, as
Peco's weekend was compared to the rest of his twenty
twenty five it will undoubtedly be massively over a shadow

(23:00):
in the books of history by Mark Marquez and his
comeback compared to the last five years. Now, Mark finished
second in this race, and I'm not quite sure whether
that was a function of him not racing as well
as he wanted to, or just simply making sure he
brought the championship home. It's probably about fifty to fifty,
but in the end it doesn't matter. He won the championship.

(23:22):
We're going to talk more in a minute about Mark
and his amazing accomplishment, but first I want to quickly
clear the table by running through the rest of the
notable riders in this one, starting with third place joymir
and it is way too bad. I feel so terrible
for Joy and and for Honda for that matter. It's
such a shame that he decided to perform like this

(23:45):
on this very weekend that Mark wins the championship, because
what an incredible run that, even more than Peco's, is
going to be so easily overlooked. Third in the Motor
GP race, and this is coming from a rider that
has so consistently struggled to even make it into the
top ten over the last two and three quarter years.
It is by far and away his best performance on

(24:06):
a Honda. And we'll have to see if it was
just home field advantage this weekend or if Honda has
genuinely found something. They took a step forward and they
continue at this pace. But it doesn't even really matter.
It was a great weekend in front of the hometown fans,
awesome boost premiere. After all the hardship that he has
been through since he came over to Honda, it's great

(24:27):
to finally see him have some success. Other riders that
were not on the podium, Marco Bateeki did indeed give
us a glimpse of what he may have been able
to do in the sprint had he not gotten taken
out by his teammate. He had a strong fourth place result,
making him the top finishing Aprilia and even with Jorge
Martine out of action for a while, Aprilli is in
good shape. I mean, they can rest assured that Bez

(24:49):
can still continue to lead that team forward like he's
been doing well all season long. Also on the topic
of Aprillia, shout out to Raul Fernandez finishing seventh. That's
his best finish and his best overall weekend since five
rounds ago when he looked really, really impressive. In Bruno,
Fabio Quaturoro was the top Yamaha in the field. Now
you remember early on he got beat up a little

(25:11):
bit in one lap, he dropped from fourth to eighth.
But this is where I'm going to bring around that
idea of the mention in the sprint race about Honda
and Yamaha. What Fabia was able to do after he
got knocked around and treated rudely and ended up in eighth,
he was able to hold serve the rest of the race,
and this was a really long race, and he was
able to stabilize things and make sure he didn't get

(25:33):
passed by any other riders. And that was exactly the
same situation that we saw out of Juammeir. He got
up in the third and he didn't have that late
race fade either. So it's encouragement that both of the
Japanese manufacturers are working on race pace and finding something
that's making them either more competitive or just better able

(25:53):
to manage their tires in the latter stages of races
and that's something that I hope carries through the rest of.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
The year for Honda and Yamaha.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
All right, looking at the rest of the field here,
there's nobody else I really want to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
I really just kind of want to move on.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
To Mark right after we recap both of the podiums,
starting with Saturday and the sprint. In third was Pedro Acosta,
just continuing to look stronger and more confident going head
to head with those two. Kadi's Mark Marquez was second,
not the most impressive second in the world, but super
effective in terms of his title hopes. Then your winner
Peco bag Naya at the time just his second win

(26:30):
of any sort in twenty twenty five and his first
sprint win of the year. Moving on the Sunday in
the Moto GP race, joemmir was third, his first Moto
GP podium with Honda and his first of any sorts
since twenty twenty one.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
I know crazy.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Second was Mark Marquez, not a win, but that second
second weekend was more than he needed to accomplish his goal.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
And your winner in the Moto.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
GP race, Peco Bagnaya, despite all of the engine drama,
he showed us his old masterful era for at least
one weekend. We'll have to see if it carries on
into Indonesia. All right, So that was this weekend of racing.
Now let's talk about the Motor GP championship picture. And
I don't want to put off Mark more, but I
do want to dedicate some time to Mark. So again

(27:17):
I want to clear the table here. Let's discuss the
battle for second through fourth in the championship first, and
that's because Peco's double win gives him a little bit
more breathing room sitting there in third place. He's nowhere
near out of the woods yet, but it's looking a
little bit better. Begnyaya extends his lead and third to
twenty four points over Marco Bitzeki. Now, Alex Marquez also

(27:41):
lost ground to Peco, but Alex still has a sixty
six point buffer between himself and second and Peco and third. So,
just to make that a little bit more simple, Alex
Marquez's second right now, then it's sixty six points back
to Peco and third, and then it's twenty four points
behind him to Marco Bitzeki in fourth. So that battle
for those three spots second, third, and fourth all comes

(28:03):
down to Alex really not having any more blips like
he did this weekend, Bez just continuing on doing what
he's doing, showing the speed he's been showing and hoping
that the other ones don't and then whether Bagnyaya has
really regained his mojo or if Motagi and those adjustments
they made were just an outlier. So that race is

(28:23):
really hot right now, and I think we'll have a
much better idea of what things really look like starting
next weekend in Indonesia because we have to see if
Peco is going to be able to be consistent and
if Alex is going to be able to rebound. And
you know, Bez, I'm feeling better about him because there
are no other factory or priles out there to run
into him. But while everyone fights it out for second best,

(28:45):
the rider at the top is decided. Mark Marquez is
the twenty twenty five Moto GP World Champion, and honestly,
in my opinion, this is the biggest story in the
four stroke to GP era, and if you don't want
to concede that at least the last decade, but I

(29:05):
really think in the entire four stroke era and really
going back before that, the only thing in the premiere
class that I think is in the same kind of
area as this. Mark Marquez recovery and championship is the
story of mcdowen, who came back from a serious leg injury,
was in danger of losing his ride at Yamaha at
the time, and then after his team came up with

(29:27):
the idea for a thumb break to use for the rear,
in almost no time, he became nearly unstoppable and went
on to collect five consecutive five hundred cc World championships,
also accomplishing that feat into his thirties as well. And
so Mark's return to prominence is at least as big
as that, but Mark arguably went through even more, and

(29:51):
just to recap for those who haven't been around for
the last five years, this is how it all went down.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Mark broke his.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Arm in twenty twenty and the season opener as the
defending champion. Then he tried to come back just a
couple of rounds later. After they did surgery, they put
bars and stuff in there, and he injured it again.
He came back way too soon technically, the team said
it was reinjured closing a door at his home as
opposed to the stress of the attempting comeback, but we
all know it was because of the stress of the

(30:19):
attempting comeback. What resulted after that was a series of
surgeries over multiple years to try to get that arm
back the way he needed it to be. And that
wasn't the only medical problem that Mark suffered. He had
to set out several groups of races with these vertigo
style symptoms that made it difficult for him to focus
his eyes. I mean, during that period between twenty twenty

(30:42):
and twenty twenty three when he left Honda, Mark sat
out seven stints of races due to these various injuries
and surgeries and recoveries, a total of thirty races. He
missed thirty races between twenty twenty and twenty twenty three
in his absence that carried him to six Moto GP titles.

(31:02):
Got worse and worse, to the point that even a
healthy Mark struggled to stay on the bike and not
be in a gravel trap and definitely struggled to fight
for podiums. So what we ended up at the conclusion
of twenty twenty three was a thirty year old rider
that had missed a total of thirty races over the
preceding four seasons due to a combination of injuries, surgeries,

(31:28):
and a literal inability to see straight. And we've seen
stories like this many times before in MotoGP. A contender,
a champion has a big injury that makes them just
a little bit gun shy. They lose half of their
mojo right then they hit the wall at thirty and

(31:49):
they just can't even battle for podiums. Before and with
all of the injuries and the problems, especially the vision
problems that Mark had, the vast majority of riders would
have packed it in and were tired, especially once with
his level of success, he didn't need to make another
dollar in his life.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
He'd be fine.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
And so you saw him in that twenty twenty three
season and you're like, he's done, He's finished. And that
was evidenced by the fact that he volunteered to ride
for Ducati pretty much, no questions asked, wherever they wanted
to put him. He didn't care about money. He just
wanted an opportunity to try to see if he could

(32:26):
win again. And even then, even then, despite his past
success and how good everybody knew he was before the injuries,
and before the mysterraces. Even with that, Ducati was reluctant
internally to give him any spot at all, and in
the end they decided that they could find room for
him on the lowest of their Foremoto GP teams, sending

(32:47):
him to Grissini. Now we saw what happened to Valentine
Rossi when he settled for a satellite ride to appease
his manufacture, albeit that was on a worse bike and
at a much older age. But he did nothing, and
then he retired. And it would have been a safe
assumption to think that the same thing was going to
happen here. But for Mark it was a different story.

(33:10):
He reinvented himself, He worked harder than he had before,
he learned as quickly as he always had. Next thing,
you know, a couple of rough rounds to kick it off,
and then he's scoring podiums right away, then wins in
the second half of the season, and just like that,
those same Ducati bosses that weren't quite sure they even
wouldn't have anything to do with Mark, were willing to

(33:30):
promote him to the factory team over Jorge Martin. Very
controversial move. I was a bit skeptical, I will admit it,
and even though I picked him to win the title
at the beginning of the season, it still seemed irrational
to me that the thirty two year old rider could
win the title at all, let alone, after all of

(33:51):
the mental and physical tolls of the previous five years
at that point had taken on him. But instead of
letting those things break his spirit, as has happened to
so many riders and champions before him, Mark used all
of that trauma and all of that baggage to fuel
his resolve instead of destroy it. And so even though

(34:12):
the media and the world feed commentators seem to be
going over the top this weekend with this being one
of the greatest comeback stories of all time, I'm not
going to disagree. It's not hype. It genuinely is one
of the greatest and most unlikely comebacks of all time,
especially if we're just talking about motorcycle racing or even
world level autosport. It's been an absolutely incredible season for

(34:35):
Mark Marquez, an absolutely incredible championship. It's inspirational, It is
literally an inspirational story, and it's history making in so
many ways and unbelievable in so many ways. I'm sure
that if three or four years ago you sat Marked
down and said you will be world champion again, he

(34:55):
probably would have said to you, well, of course I'm
gonna be, but he probably would have thinking I'm not
even sure if I'm going to be racing a motorcycle
that far in the future. So congratulations to Mark, and
whether you're a fan or not, take inspiration from what
he's overcome, what he's been able to persevere through, and

(35:15):
recognize the magnitude of what he has ultimately accomplished in
twenty twenty five. So that's my take on Mark Marquez.
How about my take on Motegi. While this round was unpredictable,
it was surprising, and of course it was history making.
Pecobagnaya is back and form, partially on the shoulders of

(35:36):
a magic Dukati engine that somehow got him to the
end of the race. Honda looked better than they have
for a really, really long time. Second through fourth in
the rider's standings is a great battle right now. The
Japanese fans are so much fun with their love of
the riders and their dedication to making the experience personal
to them, And of course we got to witness a

(35:58):
history making championship top marks despite the lack of a
major battle at the front. But do not worry, because we're.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Not done yet.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Oh yes, we have many more opportunities for major battles
at the front. MotoGP is right back in action this
weekend in Indonesia, and now now the gloves can come off.
Mark has nothing more to lose, so he can go
for it one hundred percent. Peco appears to be back
in form and so he can go at it one

(36:28):
hundred percent. Might we finally finally get the epic battle
between those two Titans that we've been waiting on all
season long. That's what we're going to talk about on
the next episode of the program. We've got, of course,
more shows to come, more pre race and post race shows,
and I don't want you to miss a single one.
So if you have not done it yet, I would

(36:49):
highly recommend you subscribe to the program. You could do
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(37:11):
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(37:34):
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talk again just a couple of days from now, I'm
want to thank you so much for listening, ride say
and I'll talk to you soon. S