More Podium Surprises, More Seagulls! AustralianGP Recap

Aprilia is amazing at Phillip Island, and we get another surprise winner! I recap all of the action, smoke, birds, and unexpected twists of the AustralianGP, along with the big mover in the MotoGP Championship!

The Rundown:

- Honda blows two engines in two days
- Yamaha domninates the front row in qualifying?
- Everyone is coasting around in qualifying - get on with it!
- Sprint Race: Aprilia fights it out at the front, while the real action is for third
- MotoGP Race: A surprise winner that hits on multiple levels
- Bezz can't quite overcome the penalties
- Alex Marquez isn't dominant anymore, but still effective
- The MotoGP Championship: Third place changes hands, second is close to being locked up, and the fight to be top-5 couldn't be more tense
- My take on the AustralianGP!

What did you think of Phillip Island? 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):
Frommotorweek dot Net. It's the MotorWeek podcast with your host Wilson.
An amazing aprelio performance, more surprises at the front and
another seagull incident. Australia provided all of the drama and
excitement we've come to expect from it over the years.
Hello and welcome to the MotorWeek post tray show for

(00:22):
around nineteen of the twenty twenty five MotoGP World Championship
the Australian GP at Phillip Island Circuit in Victoria. My
name is Wilson, I'm your host and man, come on,
what more could you want? For the second consecutive round,
we get a surprise first time winner, there is a
major change in the rider's standings. There were two Yamahas

(00:46):
on the front row of the grid and our first
ever sprint podium and first podium of any sort in
a long time without a Ducat rider involved. Then, on
top of that, you've got Marco Bitzeki trying to do
his best Marquez style come back after his double long
lap penalty, and in the middle of it all some
great battles for the back of the podium. You know,

(01:07):
we've come to expect the unexpected from Philip Island and
we were not disappointed in that respect. So let's talk
about this race weekend. Before we get started, though, I
would like to take a brief moment to invite you
over to the website. You can find all of the
latest episodes as soon as they're released at motoweek dot net.
You can follow on Blue Sky just search for motoweek,

(01:28):
or on Instagram at motoweek USA, and most importantly, leave
your comments. Let me know what you think of all
of the penalties we saw this weekend and of our
surprise winner on Sunday on Facebook at Facebook dot com
slashmotoweek dot net, or over on the Reddit subbitt r
slash motoweek. And if you do want to support the program,

(01:49):
you can do that on Patreon. Just head topatreon dot
com slash motowek. All Right, the excitement and more importantly,
the unexpected immediately kicked off the weekend with Hondasp tacularly
grenading not one but two engines running full throttle down
the gardner straight. Joemir did it on Friday n FP
one all by himself, and then Luca Marini up the

(02:10):
degree of difficulty on Saturday, morning and FP two he
blew up, running immediately ahead of Pedro Acosta. Now you
can't really see it on the World Feed broadcast, but
there are some photos that Moto GP posted online. Go
check those out. You'll see exactly how close it was
between Luca Marini and Pedro Acosta. Acosta had to make
a heck of a move to avoid all of the

(02:32):
aftermath of that. It really had shades of Valentina Rossi
in Mujello a couple of years back. Although it's crazy
that it happened to two different riders and two different
engines for the same manufacturer and the same team on
the same weekend. So I guess they were tuning a
bit aggressively and they can afford to because they've got concessions,
and so Honda were able to replace those engines because

(02:54):
they blew. And that's part of the advantage. You could
take a risk with an engine because you've got a
lot more flexibility than like say Dukati or Aprilia have
in maybe tuning an engine to within an inch of
its life and then running at top speed. Now, the
drama continued into qualifying Jack Miller coming up big at
the end of Q one, he squeezed his way into

(03:17):
Q two by just a few hundred silver Brad Bender
who was trying to get into everyone's way in that session.
And then Q two was even more wild because Miller
stepped up again and shot himself to the top of
the chart about halfway a little over halfway through the session.
And meanwhile, the star of the weekend, Marco Bazeki, he
had one lap waved off because of a yellow flag.

(03:39):
Then he was held up by both Peco Bagnaya and
Luca Marini a couple of laps later. Bagnaya got a
penalty for that one. But then Bez, with probably a
little bit of red mist going on there, came storming
back to the poll, just missing out on his track
record time on Friday, And at that point you thought
this is done. I mean, with Bez being so dominant

(04:01):
on Friday and Saturday morning, nobody was going to be
able to beat him. Right. Oh no, No, it's Philip Island.
Weird's tough happens here, And it happened in Q two
once again, like we've seen multiple times this season, here
comes Fabio Quatrararo out of nowhere, not only sniping the
poll after time ran out by just a couple of

(04:23):
hundreds of a second, but Miller's time still survived, and
so both of them ended up in the front row.
Two Yamaha m ones on the front row of a
motor GP race. I didn't even know how that happens.
Now for Bez not the worst thing in the world,
because he then's comfortably starting in the middle of the
front row with a couple of Yamaha riders that he

(04:46):
knows might be able to get a good start, but
they're probably not going to be a factor by the
end of the race. But how about Raoul Fernandez fourth
fastest in Q two after looking impressive on Friday as well?
That was foreshadowing. We didn't know it at the time,
but that was foreshadowing of what we're going to see
out of him the rest of the weekend, and likewise
foreshadowing Peco Bagnyaya all the way back in eleventh and

(05:10):
on top of that, snagged a three grid spot penalty
for cruising on the racing line and holding up Marco Pitzeki.
And that was a common thread. We saw a lot
of riders just simply loping along, maybe looking for somebody
to trail instead of getting out there and getting on
with it, and I've never been a big fan of that.
I don't believe that Fabio Quatraro was following anybody when

(05:32):
he got the poll time. But I just I hate
it when guys are just kind of cruising around out there,
waiting for somebody to fall in behind, and not really
paying enough attention to what's happening behind them on track.
And they're all professionally, they're the best in the world.
That kind of stuff shouldn't happen, and it did multiple

(05:52):
times on Saturday morning. And not only did Pego get
a penalty, but Brad Bender get a penalty as well.
But more importantly, not only did we have Bez on
the front row with the yamahas, that means zero Ducati's
on the front row. Alex Marquez was the highest Ducati
qualifier and he was only sixth, but I was worried
at that point that he might have been injured in

(06:14):
that late Q two reck. He was fine, although he
didn't have the weekend that I thought he might. Oh
and by the way, how about Poulis Bago qualifying eighth
filling in from Averc Vialez. I love that from a
rider jumping in cold and getting on the bike, and
he's done that all season long. We'll talk more about
him here in just a couple of minutes. So Bez
was looking in good shape, but there were a couple

(06:35):
of questions heading into the actual racing. Number one, how
real was Yamaha. Yeah, they had two riders on the
front row, but could Fabio and his string of pearls
translate that single app speed into full race results? And
then of course the question of whether Dukati could make
any kind of comeback after getting locked out of the
front row. That of course took us then into the

(06:56):
sprint race. Let's talk about what happened Saturday afternoon, and
the star of this race was frantic for sure, and
not just because we had another seagull incident. But this
one was not during the race. This is on the
warm up lap. Marco Bitzeki took out two birds it
looked like all by himself, one of which actually completed

(07:16):
the entire race on board with him, which is only
a little bit creepy. But the lights went out, the
Yamahas of Miller and Couachraro got a great initial jump,
but by the end of the straight going into Term one,
the approllees of Bitzeki and Raoul Fernandez had clawed back
all of that lost ground. The thing is, nobody got
a better start than Alex Marquez, who shot up the

(07:38):
inside from sixth on the grid actually took the lead,
but then Fernandez found his way back around Alex, and
he did so because of something we specifically talked about
on the pre race show, and when we were discussing
the Phillip Island circuit, I mentioned Term four, which is
otherwise known as Miller Corner and the fact that it
is so easy to override that one. You've got this

(08:00):
short straight heading toward it were your full throttle. It's
very hard. Actually, it's the hardest breaking zone on the
entire circuit. It's a great place to die bomb. But
if you get it wrong, you can completely open the door.
And that's exactly what happened to Alex Marquez in that corner.
If you watch it back, he overwrote it. He tried
to recover, he tried to slide the rear end and

(08:21):
kind of back it in and reset his line and
get to the apex. It was too late. He opened
the door. Fernandez is leading Marco Bizeki slides right, bying
the second classic example of term four being a boost
to a rider or a stumbling block, depending on whether
you can hit that term perfectly or not. But surprisingly
it was Fernandez. It then settled into the lead early

(08:42):
with a couple of tenths on Bez. Although you had
that feeling that Marco was eventually going to take control now,
he did make a mistake about halfway in the race
at turn ten, nearly wiping both of those riders out.
But while those two were up at the front playing chess,
the real battle and the real fun in this sprint
was for the final spot on the podium, which initially
featured Alex Marquez, Pedro Costa and Jack Miller, who at

(09:05):
one point worth three abreasts at the start finish line.
It was so exciting Marquez fell off the pace, but
here comes Fabio de jan Antonio stepping up to take
Alex's place, leading to an absolutely fantastic three way battle
for third on the final lap. And the star of
that show definitely was the hometown hero Jack Miller. Jack

(09:26):
was trying so hard on the final lap and I'm
gonna admit I try to stay neutral, but I was
rooting for him. I mean, if he would have been
able to make that pass heading into turn twelve and
get on the podium, the place would have gone bonkers,
and that would have been an epic move because it's
not the place where you traditionally pass at Phillip Island. Unfortunately,

(09:47):
it didn't work. We'll talk more about Jack in a moment.
But in the end, it did take a little longer
than I expected, but Marco Bateki and his seagull co
pilot eventually did what everyone expect that he would and
he took the lead. In this case, it was with
just four laps to go. He made his move in
turn two, but at that point he pulled the pen

(10:08):
and just strode off in the distance. In those final
three plus laps, he extended his lead to three point
one four nine seconds. That's how fast he was. And
I don't know if Marco was pulling Mark Marquez here
and just kind of tucking in behind Rabuel Fernandez, you know,
make sure he was good on the tire pressures before
finally pulling the pin. But it was clear that he

(10:31):
was saving something for the end and he had more
to give earlier in the race. If he had wanted to.
He was so fast in those final couple of laps.
You know, at the conclusion of the sprint, I was very,
very curious, as pretty much everybody was, how he could
potentially recover from that double long lap penalty on Sunday
in the Moto GP race. I thought it was still

(10:51):
going to be pretty unlikely, but he was so fast
at the end of the sprint, and I probably were
so much faster overall than everybody else that it was
but at least on the radar for Bez, and the
media definitely picked it up m ram with it. I mean,
everybody was saying, oh, man, he was so fast in
the sprint, He's definitely going to be able to come
back from that double long lap penalty in the Moto
GP race. That's a lot to ask for. But I

(11:15):
understand why they were thinking that, because even I was like, wow, man,
I mean, he was so quick in those final couple
of laps. Maybe he could actually make this, make this
whole thing work. But Bez wins and then in Park
for May actually apologized to the bird top marks for Bez,
and I did find it slightly humorous when he said
that it was a shame that he hit the bird,

(11:36):
although it was worse for the bird than it was
for him. Moving on, rou Fernandez should definitely not hang
his head losing to Marco Bitzeki. I mean, Bez was
just on another level at the end of the sprint.
I have Fernandez on my watch list heading into this
weekend to see how he would follow up on his
strong performance and that sprint podium back in Mandalika. This

(11:58):
alone not even kids so during what happened on Sunday,
This alone was the perfect follow up. Even if he
had done nothing else for the rest of the weekend,
this would have reinforced what we saw out of him
two weeks ago. He wasn't just second, He was far
superior to all of the other non appreleason track. It

(12:18):
was very much with Bez and Fernandez a Mark Marquez
Alex Marquez situation where they were on a separate plane
and then there was the rest of the field. It
was an excellent race. Raoul was showing tons of confidence
and he wasn't rattled by the fact that of all people,
Bittechi was right on his rear tire, you know, saying
he's racing better than I've ever seen him. Isn't by definition,

(12:40):
really saying a whole lot considering his past performance, But
in this case it does carry a lot of weight,
because we're not talking about a guy who was running,
you know, thirteenth or fourteenth, and now he's running seventh
or eighth and you're like, this is the best he's
ever run. He had already made that step, right and
then now in the past two rounds he has been
comfortably podium worthy, and that is a big, big move

(13:04):
for a Moto GP rider. He's continuing to race the
bar's phenomenal, phenomenal performance by him, and like I said,
that is not even beginning to consider what he was
able to do on Sunday. Third in this race was
Pedro Acosta, picking right back up where he left off
in Indonesia and continuing to look fantastic now. In this instance,
he also provided a majority of the entertainment for the race,

(13:26):
fighting off those three different challengers really four in a
hotly contested battle for the back of the podium, and
by holding off not only Miller's Yamaha, but the Ducats
of De Jan Antonio and Alex Marquez, he also effectively
locked the Desmo riders out of the podium for the
first time all season long, and the first time ever

(13:46):
in a Moto GP sprint race, which is a big,
big step forward for the other collective manufacturers. And yeah,
if Mark Marquez had been in the race and fully
healthy and everything, that might not have been how things
worked out. But hey, a Prillia, Aprilia and KTM on
the podium at the beginning of the season, I don't
think many people would have thought that that was what

(14:07):
could happen by the time we got to late in
the second half of the year, but it did. Other
writers I want to talk about in this one Jack Miller,
Yes he was racing in Australia, but we talked about
this on the pre raiow as well. Jack has been
exceedingly resistant to home field advantage in the past at
Phillip Island, even when he was on the all conquering

(14:27):
ducat it only worked out for him one time. So
for him to be as good as he was in
this sprint, taking that podium fight all the way down
to the final corner and doing it on a Yamaha,
this was a phenomenal run for him and for Premak.
I definitely wanted to see him step up his game,
and he did even more than I'd been hoping for.

(14:48):
So it was by far his best single race of
the season, and even though he narrowly missed out on
the podium, considering his results the rest of the year
on this bike, that fourth place finish was pretty much
like a podium or a win for them. Fabio de
Jay and Antonio came charging up into the mix at
the end of this one, and it was exciting to
see if he would be able to sneak a Ducati

(15:10):
onto the podium at the last possible moment. In this one,
he wasn't able to do it, but considering that Alex
Marquez drifted from third down to sixth in the closing laps,
Digia was not only the leading Ducati in the field,
but he was the only one that looked strong at
all at the end, and that was a little bit
of foreshadowing for Sunday as well. Luca Marini was once

(15:31):
again the top Honda, and I would have loved to
have seen a little bit more action in the middle
of the pack near the end of the race. The
world few commentators kept raving about in a Abastianini all
weekend long. But Marini also did something on that final
lap or two because he went from tenth, which was
outside the points, to eighth, which was inside the points,

(15:51):
and I don't know exactly what he did to get
there at the last moment. You know, I was looking
for a little bit more out of Honda in general,
because they showed so much promise in Mandlika and the
couple of weeks prior to that. But this was still
I think a decent effort on the part of Marini
and Honda. The same can be said for Paula Spargo. Actually,

(16:12):
I think Paulas Spargo's race was really good. No, he
wasn't the top finishing KTM, but think about this for
a second. Here's a rider competing in just his third
round of the season, his sixth race in the past
two years, and he lands ninth and scores a point.
That's impressive, and that's where he's been every time he's
gotten on that KTM in his two rounds and then

(16:36):
the sprint in phillip Island this year, his average finish
nine point zero. Is that spectacular? No, but that's pretty
darn good for a rider who isn't full time, who's
just jumping on the bike here and there. I don't
think many other people could accomplish that. Paula Spargo still
has the talent, even though I guess he doesn't have
the drive to do it full time anymore. For me

(16:58):
and al Deguer, I'm unfortunately kicked off the follow up
to his breakthrough Indonesian weekend in a gravel trap, although
I would argue his day was better than that of
his Ducati stablemate Peko bag Yaya, who started bad and
then simply got worse. He was eleventh in this one.
The three spot grid penalty only applied to the Moto
GP race, so he started eleventh finished nineteenth, a dead

(17:24):
last in the running order. He was not just thirty
two seconds off the pace overall, he was three and
a half seconds behind samkat Chantra. He was more than
seven seconds off the pace of a prilliate test slash
film rider Lorenzo Savadori. Yeah, so he answered my question

(17:48):
coming in pretty quickly. Will we get the moste Tegi
Peco or would we get the Mandalika Peco. We got
the Mandalika Peco. So Marco Bateeki was dominant in the
spread on Sunday at the end, But would his speed
would the speed he showed in the sprint or at
the end of it, would that be enough to overcome

(18:08):
the double long lap penalty that he'd have to serve
on Sunday. On top of that, could he take over
third in the rider's standings, And on top of that,
would do Katti find a way back to the podium
after getting shut out in the sprint. Well, I'll answer
all those questions and more when we talk about the
Moto GP race next. All right, so let's continue our

(18:33):
discussion of this weekend's Australian GP and Philip Island by
moving on to Sunday and the main event, the Moto
GP race. And to start with the question or the
first question I asked at the end of the sprint
Marko Pitzeki and the double long lap penalty. So everybody

(18:54):
seeing the speed that Marco turned in at the end
of the race on Saturday, was like, oh man, he's
got a real shot, Like he has a real shot
to make up all that time and win this race
on Sunday as well. And I will admit I was
starting to believe a little bit of the same thing
as I read all the headlines right. But to do that,
it was going to be so important for Marco to

(19:15):
get a good launch in this one and give himself
the best chance to recover from those long lap penalties.
To his credit, he did exactly that. He went into
turn one as a leader, and that was not a
guaranteed thing, seeing how much he struggled and his starts
to Mandalika leading to that incident with Mark Marquez in
the sprint, and then even his sprint launch on Saturday

(19:37):
wasn't all that great. He got beat up by the
Amahas and then by Alex Marquez as well. But in
this one, great off the line, gets out front and
then worked the strategy, trying to stretch both his lead
and the field out as much as he possibly could
before taking those finate laps. Now didn't hurt the pedro costume.
Raoul Fernandez scrapped a little bit for a second behind him.

(19:58):
The question was how much of a lead would bez
build before he finally took the first of the penalty laps. Now,
because it was issued at the start of the race,
he had a larger window. He had five laps to
get in that first loop, and he went all the
way to lap five. He had a slightly bigger lead
on lap four, but he had stretched the field a

(20:18):
little bit more on lap five and as a result
that part worked out great. He slotted back into the
final podium position even after running the long lap. His
lap time that lap was actually great and so he
was behind only Raoul Fernandez and Pedro Acosta. The problem
was the second time that was gonna be the real
telling one. He waited two more laps to do it,
and then the stage was set for the rest of

(20:40):
the race. Ralph Fernandez once again leading like he was
in the sprint. Acosta and Fabioquacraro were behind him. He
eventually gave way to both Alex Marquez and Fabio de Jian.
Antonio Bez then was sixth. At the time, he was
a little under three seconds off the pace, which was
doable with the number of laps that were left in

(21:01):
this one, considering he won by more than three seconds
in the final three laps of the sprint race. But
the big difference here is that in the sprint he
built that gap with nobody to contend with. He had
just gotten by Raul Fernandez. He had clear track in
front of him. That was that in this instance. Yeah,
the time itself was doable, a little bit less than
three seconds, but he had five difficult riders to pass.

(21:25):
And Raoul Fernandez came to this race prepared and once
he got the lead and he saw Marco head off
for that long lap, he started pushing at the front
and that strategy was all the difference in this one,
as Raoul Fernandez rode the rest of this race pretty
much to perfection. Given the situation he was given and

(21:47):
understanding that there was a strategy that went along with it,
he did exactly what he needed to do. He pushed
to build that lead to a little over three seconds,
and then he simply managed it to the end for
an incredibly un likely victory. At one point it was
up to about four seconds or so, and then I
think he won by what a little over a second
and a half because again he was managing this race

(22:09):
down to the end. Like I said, unlikely victory. And
this second consecutive Moto GP race where we had a
first time winner. Of course for me and Aldiger pulled
off the same feet in Mandalika, and hey, I would
not have guessed that this would be the result in
the absence of Marco Bizeki at the front. I would

(22:29):
not have picked Raoul Fernandez as the guy to pick
up the pace and get to the front, but that's
exactly what he did. And yeah, this may not have
happened without the Mark bez incident which left Mark sitting
on the sidelines and unable to contend and Beitzechi with
that double long lap penalty. But that should not take
anything away from the performance that was turned in Sunday

(22:49):
afternoon by Raoul Fernandez. In this one, he showed the
speed in the sprint, then he combined it with both
opportunity and solid strategy in the Moto GP race for
a landmark victory. And there are so many storylines surrounding
this win. I mean personally for Raoul, he came into
the premier class hot headed and expecting everything to be

(23:13):
handed to him. And if you were here, if you
were listening to the show back when Raoul Fernandez came up,
we talked about this at length because I criticized him
for it, and I think rightfully so. He expected to
be handed a factory ride and be considered over Remy Gardner,
who he had fought tooth and nail in that Moto
two Championship the year before. He came up and he

(23:33):
had a chip on his shoulder, which is what you
expect of a top rider, but he got a rude
awakening once he got to Moto GP. He had a
sour relationship to begin with with KTM, it didn't work out.
Then he moves to a Prilia. It took a long
time for him to develop there, and even at the
beginning of the season there were a lot of people

(23:55):
who figured that once his contract ran out he would
no longer be on the Moto GP grid. So to
come back from all of that, to find a little
humility in the process and work hard to get better,
it is a testament to his willingness to change and
to not give up. We've already talked about the fact
that he took a step coming out of the summer break.
He took him mid season step forward, and he was

(24:17):
running much much better, and he was knocking on the
door of another step forward Amandalika, and then he throws
the door wide open and brings it home in Australia.
An absolutely fantastic career comeback along the lines of somebody
like Fabio de jan Antonio when he was facing getting
kicked off the grid. That's the type of career improvement
we're seeing out of Raul Fernandez. Now, the key will

(24:39):
be if he can keep this level of performance up.
And that was the big thing when it came to Fabio.
To jan Antonio, he was signaling, hey, I can do this.
I'm getting the podium contention, and then he won a
race and then he continued to run well after that,
and that's what locked him in for a renewed career
with Ducati and Raoul Fernandez to get the same thing

(25:01):
at Aprilia. He's got three races left. He's got to
double and triple down on what he was able to
do here. He doesn't have to go out and win races,
but he's got to be strong. He's got to show
consistent speed and then he'll be able to early next
year maybe negotiate his contract before things get kind of
crazy and lock himself onto the grid. He's got a
fantastic opportunity here if he can stay focused and keep

(25:25):
getting those top six ish type of results. But then
on top of Raoul on his own, you've got track house.
American team comes in out of four wheel racing and
unexpectedly buys this Moto GP program, right, And I told
you when they took over that this was a winning
organization and that their owner, Justin Marx, was very clever. Well.

(25:47):
They set the riders up to move forward this season,
and I maintained if Ioger hadn't struggled with so many injuries,
I think we would have seen some excellent things out
of him in his rookie season. But they laid the
groundwork for success and now they have it. And a
major part of that is kind of the third beneficiary
of this win, David de Brivio. That I think was

(26:11):
the move by track House, and that's what Justin Marx does.
He doesn't want to run the organization. He's like, I
don't know how to run a MotoGP team. I'm going
to find the best person I can to run a
Motor GP team. And David Debrivio, for those of you
who don't know, he was running the Suzuki organization and
he took them when they came back to Moto GP
and built them into a championship organization, winning the rider

(26:35):
title with Joe Amir a couple of years back. That
was the point at which Suzuki decided they were going
to pull the plug, and so Brivio, instead of hanging
around in the Moto GP, Paddock took what I'm sure
was a great paying job to move to Formula One
that didn't work out the way that he wanted to.
And Marx was smart enough to say, you know what,
it is a loss to all a Moto GP that

(26:57):
this guy is not involved in the sport. I will
hire you back, and somehow convinced Brivio to say yes.
And so what does track House get? A proven winner
who is so good at managing riders to get the
best out of them. And I've said this before in
the show this year, I will say it again. It
is not a coincidence that you take a rider as

(27:17):
problematic in the past as Raoul Fernandez and as inconsistent
as he has been, you stick him under the guidance
of a guy like David de Brivio, and next thing
you know, he's being successful. He gets his first podium
and then he gets his first win. And so it
all comes together for all of those parts, for the rider,

(27:37):
for the team, for the team boss. What a great
weekend and a great story to change things up late
in the season, we get to see something we never
expected to see in terms of a race winner and
who's on top of the podium. Great job all the
way around for track House, David de Brivio and especially
to Raoul Fernandez, Fabio, de Jay and Antonio another great race.

(27:59):
He started penth in this one once again came on
strong to challenge for the podium spots, fighting tooth and
nail with Pedro Acosta and then Alex Marquez to land second.
He was closing at the end, but I think that
Fernandez was just simply managing the lead. He was too
strong early on in this one. And while Digia has
had a few decent performances in sprints, Sunday races different story.

(28:22):
They've been a bit of a roller coaster the majority
of the season for Fabio. So this was a long
waited and welcome returned to the podium, his first trip
to the box and a Moto GP race since Mugello
all the way back in June, and only his third
of the entire season. So on a weekend where Ducati
was second best, Digia led the way and he ensured
that Ducati didn't get locked out of both podiums over

(28:44):
the weekend. Now, third in this one was Marco Pitzeki,
and you know what, Yeah, in the end, it was
too much to ask, you know, to come back from
a double long lap penalty, but to still finish on
the podium, that's super impressive, important for the championship, especially
considering the Peco bag Naya wrecked out of a few

(29:05):
points in the closing laps. And we'll talk about how
that I'll shook out here in a couple of minutes.
Would Marco have won with no penalty, Yeah, absolutely definitely.
Would he have won with one long lap? I think
he might have. It could have been close, because, like
I said, brol Fernandez had the right strategy in this one.

(29:26):
But I think that if he had slotted back in
third and then had the rest of the race to
try to close in, I think it would have been
really close and Bez might have been able to win it.
But two Finati laps that was just too much. It
put him behind too many riders to really be able
to make a charge, and his race to try to
get to the front was very, very similar in my

(29:46):
mind to the Mark Marquez situation. A couple of rounds
back in San Marino when Mark was trying to close
in and make up for mistakes and get to the front,
and in both instances that first rider was so difficul
to get by that it curtailed the run to try
to pass the rest. For Mark, it was the Honda
riders that held him up. In Italy. You wouldn't have

(30:07):
expected the hand riders to be able to hold up
Mark Marquez, but they did, and it was very, very
similar for Bez. For Bez it was Fabio Quatruraro on
his Yamaha that it just took too long to get
around to make running for the win even remotely possible.
And Fabio didn't even finish this race well, but man,
he was so hard to get around for those three
or four laps that Marco was fighting with him, and

(30:29):
that just held him up too much. During that time
that he was battling with Quatruraro, he went from being
about three seconds off the lead to being over four
seconds off the lead, and then we were essentially at
the halfway point. And now you're talking like sprint race, right,
and what happened with Bez and Fernandez In the sprint race,
Bez won by three point some odd seconds, like low

(30:52):
three second range, and so when you think about it
that way, in a half length race, he was three
plus seconds faster than Fernandez, and at the halfway point
of this race he was four seconds behind. The math
wasn't really working out. However, that being said, I think
that finishing on the podium still reinforces that Bez is

(31:15):
the fastest rider on track right now, especially with Mark
on the sidelines, and he's got three three more opportunities
and six more point races to reinforce that fact before
the end of the year and carry Aprilia into twenty
twenty six with a ton of confidence and a ton
of momentum. So yes, he didn't win, still great performance.
Other riders that want to talk about in this one

(31:37):
Alex Marquez, you know, like I thought coming into this weekend,
he's still fast, there's nothing to complain about, but he's
just not dominant like he was in the first half.
And at the same time, the competition from Aprilia and
KTM are closing in and we saw that on display
this weekend, where Alex was good, but he wasn't that
runaway second place rider like he was the first half.

(32:00):
But He's still steadily moving towards second overall in the championship.
Pedro Acosta man, he is still struggling to put together
that perfect weekend. He's so so close, but he can't
quite get there. After being so solid in the sprint,
he just faded a little bit at the end of
this one and that pulled him out of podium contention

(32:20):
and down the fifth. Still the class of the field
by far when you're talking about KTM riders, but that
Saturday Sunday balance is still falling short, which is why
as fast as Acosta has been, he only has one
double podium weekend all year long. Now, I still think
he's riding with top three speed, and once he gets
that consistency across the weekend figured out, he will be

(32:43):
a top three rider in the series now. Luca Marini,
he didn't make the breakthrough that I was hoping for
on the pre race show, but hey, steady as she goes.
Another top six performance for Luca and once again he
was the top Honda in the field. Honda's getting a little
bit closer, baby steps right now, they still need to
find that next thing that takes them from like a

(33:05):
sixth place team to a fourth, maybe back of the
podium type of effort. But Marini is proof of where
they are in, proof of their progress, and they certainly
have made progress, and Marini is a solid top six
rider right now. As a result, I mean then Alex
Rins and not Fabio Quatrurero, even though we were just
talking about how prominently Quatrero figured in Marco Bitzeki's attempt

(33:28):
to make it back to the podium. It wasn't Fabio
in the end, but it was Alex Rinz that was
the top Yamaha in the field, and I am not
quite sure why or how that happened. There was not
nearly enough camera time given to Alex Rins and so
I have no clue how he got there. You know,
Fabia was fighting so hard with Marco Bitzeki for fifth,

(33:48):
but then once Beds got by, that bike just went away.
On Fabio, he dropped all the way down to eleventh. Meanwhile,
Rinz somehow battled from eleventh all the way up to
seventh by the end of this one, so good race
for him. Go figure. I don't know how it happened.
I'll be looking forward to his comments. Maybe he'll explain it.
So that was what happened on Sunday. Let's quickly recap

(34:09):
the podiums in both races. On Saturday, the sprint race,
Pedro Costa finish third, once again fast but not contending fast,
not like Ducati Aprilia fast. Second went to Raoul Fernandez
and at the time I thought that was his best
performance ever in Moto GP. And then your winner, Marco Bitzeki.
It took him a minute, but he showed that he

(34:30):
is the class of the field right now with Mark
Marquez sidelined. Then we move on to Sunday. In the
Moto GP race, Marco Bizeki finished third man what could
have been without those penalty laps. It was still a
fantastic effort for him to even make it back on
the podium at all. Second with the Fabio Digi and
Antonio and unlikely second place considering where he started and

(34:51):
how many Ducats were ahead of him in this field,
although not as unlikely of a finisher as our winner
Raoul Fernandez. An amazing first victory for him and an
amazing first victory for track House, and yet another incredible
story as we head towards the end of the season.
I mean, in three in a row. We had Mark

(35:11):
Marquez and that insanely unlikely championship given his history leading
up to this point for me and al Degar as
a rookie winning his first ever MotoGP race. And then
we're Ald Fernandez, who everybody had assumed would not have
really any success in his Moto GP career, and now
he steps up and wins for a brand new or

(35:31):
relatively new motor GP team as well, and a satellite
team at that. Lots of incredible stories as we head
toward the end of the year. All right, So that
was what happened on track. Let's talk about how it
affects the Moto GP championship picture. Mark Marquez is still
the champ even if he is sitting at home right now,
and his brother Alex, despite not having a podium this weekend,

(35:52):
is one step closer to locking himself in as the
Moto GP runner up. Now Alex is up by ninety
seven points over third place with three rounds remaining. That
means there are one hundred and eleven points up for grabs.
He's got a ninety seven point margin right now, so
mathematically he's still not locked in. The Long story here

(36:15):
is that Alex needs to lose less than fourteen points
over the next three complete rounds, and he is second
in the standings no matter what happens. That's if the
rider in third wins everything right, which is unlikely at
this point. We've seen what's happened the past couple of weeks.
The short story here is that if Alex Marquez scores
twenty four points total next weekend between both races, his

(36:38):
second place spot is guaranteed. So I'd have to go
back and listen to my previous couple of shows. I
think I pegged Portugal as the round like after I
can't remember if it was Sapang or Portugal. He might
get it done at Sapang. I would say there's about
a fifty five to sixty percent chance that Alex Marquez
locks up second overall in the championship after Sapang. I

(37:00):
think there is a ninety eight percent chance he does
that after Portugal, depending on how things work out next weekend.
But the big story here isn't that Alex is very
close to clinching second overall, and we all knew that
was going to happen, or we're pretty sure it was
going to happen. The big story is who is chasing
Alex right now because that ninety seven point lead is

(37:21):
no longer over Peco Bagnyaya. Marco Bazeki's double podium effort
combined with yet another zero point weekend for Peco Bagnyaya,
means Bez is now the rider that is third overall
in the standings. He has an eight point lead over
his fellow Italian rider, and there are no signs that

(37:41):
Bez is going to be giving that spot back right now,
not with the way both he and Peco are riding.
And I don't even understand how Peco doubled down on
Mandalika with what might have even been a worse round
than what we saw in Indonesia. And I said that
Indonesia was his worst round ever in GPA racing, and

(38:02):
you could argue that this one might have been actually worse,
And with him riding that bad and no signs, no
positive signs that he's going to turn that around in
the final three rounds of the season, and Marco Bizeki
essentially the fastest rider on the grid right now, even
if the results don't always show it. It's gonna be

(38:23):
really hard. Peco's gonna have to really really step up
if he wants to keep third in the stadings or
get it back. At this point, I think Bazeki is
on his way to being the third best rider in
the sport at the end of the year. But when
we look down further, Okay, Pedro Acosta is in fifth,
he's once spot below Peco bag Nyaya, but he's not
safe there. Despite how well he's been running, he's only

(38:43):
up by twenty seven over Fabio di Jian Antonio, who
this weekend with his strong performance jumped ahead of teammate
Franco Morbidelli thanks to Frankie being very, very lackluster. But
even though Frankie has been stumbling, he only trails Digia
eight points, so second almost decided third. I think it's

(39:04):
only a matter of time. I think not sure, though,
but I think Peco might be safe and fourth. He's
got a forty one point lead over Acosta. So if
Bangyaya can just find a way to score some points
in each of the next six races. And I know
that sounds like it's all order nowadays, but back in
the day that'd be nothing for him. If he can

(39:25):
score something the rest of the way, I think that
he might be safe in fourth, but the fight for
fifth is very much on among three really fast riders,
and then you've got for me and out of here
Lingering back there in eighth. I think he's too far
away to really make any noise for fifth, but if
any of those other riders below fifth stumble, he could

(39:46):
jump up a spot or two by the end of
the year as well. So that's a championship picture. What's
my take on Australia. Well, it was great. It was
everything you would expect from Phillip Island. Some close action,
even though if that close action was con instantly for
third and not for the lead, unpredictable results which we've
come to expect so many times from Philip Island, and

(40:07):
then of course a couple of stray seagulls. In the end,
we got another new winner, another first time winner, and
a surprise one at that a first time winning team.
We had a major move in the top three in
the riders standings, and we almost got some magic in
the sprint from hometown hero Jack Miller. Marco Bazeki is

(40:29):
reinforcing himself as the best rider right now and he
will definitely be continuing on next week. Looking for the
victory that he didn't get Sunday. In the meantime, Ducati
is kind of on their heels. They're only one podium
finisher out of six spots this weekend and so they're
going to be looking to rebound and that carries us
perfectly in the next week as we head to the
Malaysian GP in Sepang, where Dukati has a real chance

(40:53):
to strike back because they are typically very, very good here.
It is not like philip Island where it's much more
of a free for all. In Australia, we've seen lots
of different winners, lots of different podium finishers. Ducati is
gonna have an advantage, but ken they take advantage, especially Peco,
we're gonna find out. And because of that, we don't
know what's gonna happen for third and fifth and the championship.

(41:15):
Those races are heating up. Marco Bitzeki is desperately trying
to take control of the grid. Heading into the off season,
we have a variety of young, up and coming writers
that are looking to make a name for themselves. This
is gonna be a lot of fun and in the
next couple of days we'll have the Malaysian GP preview.
In the meantime, I would highly suggest you subscribe to
the program. That way, you will not miss a single

(41:36):
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(41:58):
on Instagram follow at motowek USA, and most importantly, leave
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(42:20):
on Patreon at patreon dot com slash MotorWeek. Links to
almost everything I mentioned are on the website. Just go
to motoweek dot net. All right, so I don't know
what's gonna happen. It's a bang, even though it's a
Docatti track. Based on what we've seen the past three weekends,
anybody could do anything, and I cannot wait until we

(42:40):
get there, and I cannot wait to talk to you
about it. So until we chat again just a couple
of days from now, I want to thank you so
much for listening. Ride safe, and I'll talk to you
soon