MotoGP Season Ends on an Aprilia Cliffhanger - Is Ducati in Trouble Next Year?

Valencia opened with Ducati, but ended overwhelmingly with Aprilia - is 2026 set for a showdown between the Italian manufacturers? I break down the ValenciaGP action, talk about what it means for the balance of power in MotoGP, and recap the Championship! 

The Rundown:

- Qualifying - Bezz sets the pace, Pecco continues his slide, but the gap at the top shows how close the best manufacturers really are
- The Sprint - The media said Bezz would win, Gresini's team manager said Acosta would win, but neither got it quite right
- The MotoGP Race - Aprilia ends the year with a bang, their top rider leading the way, with an impressive Valencia surprise just behind
- Third place races were where the action was at all weekend
- Acosta is disappointed, but shouldn't be
- Honda loses one level of concessions - should they have?
- MotoGP Championship Picture - how the final battles worked out
- My take on Valencia
- What does the season finale mean for 2026? Are we on the verge of an Aprilia-Ducati championship? Or will Marc Marquez tip the scales back toward Ducati?

What did you think of Valencia? 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.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
It's the MotorWeek podcast with your host Wilson. A Prillia
makes a big statement while Franco Morbadelli shows everyone what
would happen.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
If I was on a Moto GP grid.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Valencia, as expected, gives us podium surprises and a big
dose of drama heading into the off season. Hello and
welcome to the MotorWeek post tray show for a round
twenty two of the twenty twenty five MotoGP World Championship,
the Valencia GP at the fun and enthusiastic Ricardo Tormos
Circuit in Spain. My name is Wilson, I'm your host,

(00:39):
and you know the season might officially be over, but
the story is just starting. After what happened this weekend
in Valencia, Aprilia stepped up to the challenge of taking
the fight directly to Dukati Pedro. Acosta continues to show
that he's ready for great things and Ducati, in the meantime,
has no clear leader right now now. So was Valencia

(01:02):
a glimpse of what's to come in twenty twenty six
or was it an anomaly? Well, that is just one
of the things that we're going to try to figure
out as I recap the final round of the twenty
twenty five season. 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

(01:24):
as they're released at motoweek dot net. You can follow
on social media at blue Sky just search for motoweek,
or head over to Instagram at MOTOWEEKUSSA, and most importantly,
tell me what you think. Leave your comments on Facebook
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the Reddit sub at r slash motoweek. And if you

(01:44):
do want to support the program, don't feel obligated, but
you can. You can do that on Patreon at patreon
dot com slash motoweek. All right, so let's dive into
everything that happened in this Valencia GP. By the way,
I apologize it, we're doing the post race show a
day later than normal, but there was so much that
went on and I wanted to recap the standings and everything.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So it took a little longer to put the show together.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
But let's start with Saturday and qualifying because I really
think that not just that Q one session, but really
the entire Valenci weekend encapsulated pecobag Naya's whole season. He
goes out there in Q one needing desperately to be
in the top two in advance to Q two to

(02:30):
have any chance of trying to defend his fourth place
spot in the rider's standings against Pedro Costa, who was
just a few points behind him, and on his final run,
sitting second on the timesheet, the bike runs out of fuel,
he coasts into the gravel and that was it. That
was it really for his season. Essentially, he got bumped

(02:54):
out of the top two in the session, is relegated
to sixteenth on the grid for the finale weekend, where
he was already in trouble of losing fourth to Pedro Acosta,
let alone trying to catch Marco Pitzeki for third, which
was pretty much an impossible mission from the start, but
to make matters worse, the rider that Peco was trying
to recatch for third overall, Marco Bitzeki, ripped off a

(03:18):
blistering one twenty eight eight oho nine lap to easily
take the poll ahead of Alex Marquez and Fabio di
Jaan Antonio and the rider chasing Bagnyaya for fourth. Pedro
Acosta qualified fifth on the grid, and so, like I said,
him running out of gas really was representative of everything

(03:39):
that has gone on with that sixty.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Three bike in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
It all comes to a very unceremonious end, and it
would continue in the sprint and the Moto GP racing.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
We'll talk more about Peco here in a couple of minutes.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
But the big thing about qualifying that I want to
point out the top five, the top five in the
Q two session you have Marco Bitteki, Alex Marquez, Fabio
di Jan, Antonio, Raoul Fernandez, who came out of Q
one nearly in the one twenty eighth himself, and then
Pedro Acosta. They were all they were all separated by

(04:14):
less than a tenth of a second. And of course
in that group you've got three manufacturers, two Aprilias, two
Ducats and a KTM and the top Yamaha Fabio Quachraro,
was sixth fastest and he was only a little over
a tenth and a half off the pace. And so
the takeaway for me here from qualifying at Valencia is

(04:35):
when you go to a track where you remove just
a little bit of the advantage of all that top
end horsepower and all out speed and you add in
a lot of technical bits to balance out the big
front stretch. You can see just how much closer the
top bikes are now than they were back at the
beginning of the season, and you can see how much

(04:57):
progress Aprilia and KTM have made and why it's so
important that somebody like Yamaha get that V four engine
going because the smoother power delivery characteristics of that particular layout,
combined with maybe a little bit more horsepower, might just
be enough to get Quatruroro more in line with the
riders that had just mentioned that qualified ahead of him. Now,

(05:19):
of course, qualifying is one thing, because that's just one lap.
Race pace. Now that's a completely different animal. So let's
talk about how all of the action on track played
out once they lined up, when the grid and the
lights went out this weekend starting with Saturday's sprint race,
and this sprint is the prime example of why we

(05:41):
run races, because in the lead up from qualifying up
to the sprint, everybody was talking about Marco Bitzeki as
the favorite, and that was a hard point to argue
for sure. I mean, he was so fast in qualifying
and everybody just kind of assumed that he would run
away of things. But Grissini team manager mckelly Massini, he

(06:03):
wasn't convinced. He said he thought that Pedro Acosta might
be the strongest driver overall, and he was definitely onto
something because Acosta, off the lights, jumped from fifth all
the way up to second. And meanwhile, Bez, who gambled
on a soft front tire when everyone else on the
first three rows except for his Prelius table mate Rabol

(06:24):
Fernandez went with a hard front, also had apparently a
problem with his whole shot device not releasing in turn
two and he ended up dropping like a rock from
first down to sixth in the opening couple of corners. Now,
Bez definitely leaned on the whole shot device not working

(06:44):
as his major problem and not the soft front tire.
But let's face it, he dropped down to sixth and
he only made it back up one spot by the
end of the race, and that was by passing Fabio Guacurero.
And we all know that the Yamaha likes to fade
at the end of every race, including sprints, and so
it doesn't really make a loud case for the soft

(07:04):
front tire being the proper choice. Now, that same soft
tire worked okay early on for Raul Fernandez, who slotted
in the third, but even he wasn't able to hold
a podium position, and in the end that medium tire
definitely won out and the Appills had to settle for the.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Spots just off the podium.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
But back to mcklly Messini, Grassini team manager, who was like,
I don't know about this Pedro Costa guy. He might
win this race will Apparently Missini wasn't giving his own
rider enough credit because Acosta was quite good in this one,
and we're going to talk about him in a moment,
but he didn't have anything for Grassini's own Alex Marquez,

(07:42):
who was absolutely, although somewhat predictably, brilliant in this one.
And that's not a big surprise because Alex has been
so good on every single Saturday. But I threw in
the somewhat predictably part because until the racing started, it
really looked like both Bez and Acosta would have Alex's

(08:02):
number in this one, but Marquees was not only quick
off the lights, he was incredibly consistent. He didn't put
a wheel wrong the entire way. That allowed him to
take advantage of just a small early mistake by Acosta
to open up about a half second advantage, and then
he slowly pushed the margin by a tenth here and
a tenth there on the way to his second consecutive

(08:25):
sprint victory. And it really set the stage for what
we were going to see on Sunday as well, even
though Alex wasn't the winner in that Sunday race. This
track at Valencium, we talked about this on the pre
race show, demands so much precision, line choice and hitting
those corners perfectly and not making mistakes is the key.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I mean, yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Tough to pass here, but it's possible to pass if
somebody in front of you makes a mistake, or, like
Alex Marquez found out, it's possible to build a gap
on a rider as good as Pedro Acosta was this
past weekend if he only makes one small mistake. And
Alex was pretty much perfect in this race, and we
saw that same performance out of the top guy in

(09:11):
the Motor GP race as well, and it's just a
factor of this track, and it's why we see so
many different riders win here because it's hard to be
perfect at a track every single time you're there, and
Valencia is so unforgiving if you're not that we see

(09:31):
the winners, We see the dominant riders rotate, not just
from year to year, but from race to race within
a round, and we saw this out of Alex Marquez,
who made no major mistakes and was as close to
perfect as he possibly could be in this sprint. And
the other thing we talked about on the pre race show.
Over the last two rounds, Alex really regained his consistency

(09:53):
and on top of that, added winning speed to the mix,
and this sprint was the perfect example of that. Now,
if you're Dukati, you want to see him take over
the top spot in the absence of his brother, based
on the way he was running the first half of
the season, and based on the fact that he is
the number two rider in the championship this year, so
you want to see him step up and take over.

(10:16):
But that's a tall order at the end of the season,
considering those major improvements that we've seen out of both
Apprelia and KTM. That has really tightened up the competition
and made the field very, very close, like we saw
him qualifying. So for Alex to suddenly assume that role
over the last three rounds of being the dominant rider
or at least the top rider arguably even with that

(10:39):
increased competition, that's a fantastic sign that he's taking another
step forward in his development and his prime to make
things a little bit more interesting next season once he
is handed a currence back GP twenty six to start
the year. So this was an excellent performance by a
rider who maybe five or six rounds ago, look like
he might be fading to end the year, but he's

(11:00):
really brought it around the final three rounds at least
up until the sprint.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
We'll talk about the Moto GP race in a second.
One way or the other.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
He scored another victory and the dream season continued for
Alex Marquez, or the dream season in this case comes
to a close for Alex Marquez. Now for Pedro Acosta, no,
he wasn't able to keep up with Alex in the end,
not really being able to break back through once that
gap got stretched out to about one and a half
seconds or so, and he didn't get a lot of

(11:28):
camera time because he was kind of running a pretty
lonely second in this one, especially with Alex comfortably at
the front, and then that fantastic battle happening behind those
guys for the final spot on the podium between Raul
Fernandez and Fabio Digi and Antonio. But it doesn't matter
because a quiet second for someone like Pedro Acosta is

(11:49):
definitely a step in the right direction for himself and
for KTM specifically, because it wasn't big news. There was
no surprise here. Has been running brilliantly. We've come to
expect him to be in the podium mix and he was.
He delivered on expectations and that was something he wasn't

(12:10):
doing at the beginning of the season. So no, not
a lot of fanfare, and I'm sure that both he
and KTM really wanted a victory given his performance from
Friday up through Saturday, save for that little bit of
a stumble in qualifying that left him fifth on the grid.
But I mean, come on, if you would have told
KTM that they would be a little bit bummed by

(12:32):
performance like this at the beginning of the season, they
probably wouldn't have believed you. So it was another excellent
run for Acosta and another excellent race for KTM. Now
Fabio di jan Antonio rounded out the podium and provided
the bulk of the entertainment and the excitement in this one.
He put on a show with that intense battle against

(12:54):
Roel Fernandez for the third spot, and it was a
fitting return to the box for Digium. In case you
didn't remember, the last time out at Valencia for him
on a Moto GP bike in twenty twenty three, he
crossed the line in a podium position but then was
demoted to fourth with a tire pressure penalty, and so
he was able to get that back, and of course
he ended up capitalizing on that on Sunday as well.

(13:17):
But that brief and exciting exchange between himself and the
track house rider not only paid off with a medal,
but it also at the time helped him solidify his
hold on sixth in the rider's standings over his VR
forty six teammate Frankie Morbidelli, who finished sixth in the sprint.
A couple of other riders I want to talk about
from the sprint on Saturday in Valencia Raould. Fernandez may

(13:42):
not have finished on the podium, but after struggling in
Sepang and then having to withdraw for medical reasons from Portugal,
this was a fantastic comeback performance and one that I
really did not expect. And remember, we're only talking about
Saturday now, We're not talking about Sunday yet. Even in
the context of Saturday alone, I thought this was a

(14:04):
fantastic comeback performance. You know, I told you on the
pre race show that Valencia always gives us some sort
of surprise, and I thought I thought that Iogura might
be the one from track House in that category by
the way he finished ninth, he took the final point
in the sprint, but instead it wasn't Noga, it was Fernandez,

(14:24):
who not only finished fourth but looked incredibly fast despite
the fact that he made what was the incorrect choice
and gambled on that soft front tire. It does beg
the question would he have been on the podium had
he gone with the hard front like everybody else, And
I would say there's a definite chance that he would

(14:44):
have been, you know, And at the time, immediately after
the sprint, what I wrote down on my notepad is Man,
it's going to be really intriguing to see how the
Apprellius would perform Sunday on equal footing in terms of tires,
because you got this guy in Rooul Fernandez, who we
didn't even know if he was going to race this
past weekend, and he looked so good having made the

(15:06):
wrong tire choice. What would happen if he made the
right one, and what would happen to Marco Bizeki if
he made the right tied choice as well? Because Bez
was able to stabilize things and he ended up just
two tenths behind his fellow a Prillier rider in fifth,
but like I said, he was only able to pass
one rider from that drop from first down to sixth

(15:26):
by the end of the race and get up into fifth.
Now that was nowhere near where any of us thought
that Bez was going to finish this race. We all
thought podium minimum and the potential for a win was
through the roof in most everyone's thinking. Now, of course,
that didn't happen, and like I mentioned earlier, Bez kind

(15:46):
of blamed the entire thing on his whole shot device
not disengaging immediately, but the front tire gamble really I
think was the killer for him in this race, and
from a strat egic standpoint, it didn't make sense. It
was a really unusual move considering beziness situation going into

(16:08):
the sprint. I mean, he was trying to lock up
third overall in the championship and he essentially just needed
to finish the race right. All he needed to do
was gain three points on Peko Bagnaya. Peko, as we
all know, was starting down in sixteenth. And so if
you are Marco Bitzeki, playing a conservative and simply doing
what everyone else was doing on tires, that's the call

(16:31):
you make here. And I know in hindsight it doesn't
seem like a big deal because he's still finished fifth
or whatever. I would maintain that not going with the
hard front tire cost him a shot at the podium, right,
So it definitely negatively affected his performance, even if the
whole shot device had still not worked properly in the
first couple of corners. I think on a better front
tire he would have had a chance to move up

(16:52):
further still might have finished on the podium. And so
if going with the soft front tire and gambling cost
him positions, then that means that you are really risking
it when you're going contrarian, how many positions you're gonna lose.
Because in this case it played out all right, But
what if that soft front tire had been a disastrous

(17:14):
choice and he starts dropping back through the field to
the point where Peco might actually catch him, or where
you're forced to push so hard late in the race
to try to keep up once that front tire wears out,
that you end up wrecking and opening the door for
your rival to score back those points and take things
to the final race of the year on Sunday. And

(17:36):
that's what Marco Bitzeki and the seventy two team were risking.
I mean, if Robol Fernandez wants to take that gampbell,
that's fine. You know, he doesn't have nearly as much
at stake here as Marco Bitzeki, So I don't agree
with the strategy. I think that the hard front tire
would have likely resulted in a better finish and would
have minimized the risk of him wrecking out or dropping

(17:59):
back through the field than potentially losing third and then
having to get it back in the final race on Sunday.
In the end, it's all, you know, me just shouting
at the clouds or whatever, because it all worked out right.
Peco couldn't muster a finish in the points. He was
fourteenth in this sprint. He only moved up a couple
of spots from where he started, and so Marco's five

(18:21):
points for fifth it was more than enough to lock
him into third in the overall riders standings, and it
was a huge win for both Bez and Approliate, even
if he wasn't on the podium. And so, you know,
what do I know about strategy? Right? It all worked
out in the end. So who am I to say
that the soft tire was the wrong choice when he
accomplished what he set out to accomplish, even if I

(18:43):
would have made the call to go with what everybody
else was going with, because there was a much smaller
chance of it working out disastrously bad. All right, Let's
move on from Bez to Fabio Quatrraro, who was the
highest finishing Yamaha in seventh. The good part about this
is that he was able to fight a bit with Bitzeki,

(19:03):
even if bes was on the wrong tire. But still,
the bad part is that there was a bit of fade.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
At the end of this one.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
For the M one, Fabio lost out to both Pitzechi
and then after that to Franco morbid Deli. He was
a little over seven seconds off the pace in a
half length race. We'll talk about how that played out
in the full length race here in a couple of minutes.
And the worrisome part about this for me is that
it happened at a track that should have theoretically equalized

(19:35):
Yamaha's top speed and acceleration disadvantages a little bit. And
I would be lying if I said that I didn't
expect something better than what we saw out of Yamaha
in both of these points races. And speaking of expecting
a little bit better, Honda's best performance wasn't in the
points at all.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
In this one.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
The best they could do was tenth on the shoulders
of Johann Zarco, who was their best rider. After the
factory Honda team literally sabotaged themselves in one of the
most embarrassing ways possible. Meer lost the front end of
his bike early on. He locided directly across the track

(20:18):
right into his teammate Marini, and just like that, in
one corner Oli Factory Honda was done.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Terrible result, but.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Maybe maybe not as bad as Pecobagniyaya, who, despite coming
into Saturday having won two of the last four points
races in Valencia, was once again nowhere. He started sixteenth.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
I mentioned that.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Already by the end he moved up to fourteenth, and
he was nearly twelve seconds off the winning pace, and
that performance, couple with paid draw a Costa grabbing yet
another sprint podium, left Bagnyaya to fall yet another spot

(21:07):
in the championship, drifting down the fifth six points behind Acosta,
with only that one last chance on Sunday left to
make up the points, and not a lot of optimism
surrounding that entire sixty three team. The only the only
good news for Peco at the end of the sprint

(21:27):
was that Fabio digian Antonio was too far back in
sixth overall to be able to catch Bagnaya for that
final spot in the top five and knock him down
to six because if Digia had been close enough, it
would happened. Because Fabio was way way better the entire
weekend than Peko was. On top of that, I do

(21:50):
want to welcome back not one or two but three
riders to the Moto GP grid this weekend. Maverick Vinalez
made his return to Detech three KTM. He was eighteenth
in the sprint. Al Schaspagro made a wild card appearance
for Honda. He was nineteenth, and then Jorge Martin made
his long awaited return to a Prillia. He managed just

(22:10):
twenty second after running wide part way into this sprint.
You know, he said he was going to take it
easy this weekend, which I thought was a very very
smart idea. The last thing he needed to do was
get hurt again. But at twenty four seconds off the pace,
his speed was only slightly better than I think what

(22:31):
mine would have been in this sprint. So to wrap
things up here, on Saturday, Alex Marquez keeps the status
quo at the front, but we didn't get a full
measure of what the field looked like competitively because it
Prelia simply botched the tire strategy, and so that made
me wonder would bez come storming back on Sunday could

(22:52):
have cost a breakthrough and finally get that KTM victory
in their final shot of the season, or were they
all once again to follow a Marquez to the checker flag.
We'll talk about the Moto GP race that answered every
single one of those questions and more in just a
few seconds. All right, So let's wrap up our discussion

(23:15):
of this weekend's Valencia GP by talking about the main
event on Sunday, the Moto GP race.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
And you know, I've said.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Multiple times in the lead up to this one, the
Valencia is always full of surprises, and boy Frankie Morbidelli
made sure right away before the lights even went out
that that would be the case in this one when
he came to line up on the grid after the
warm up lap and did something that I imagine only

(23:49):
I would do as a Moto GP rider if I
were one. Frankie ran into Ali Chaspago as lash was
stopping on his starting rib mark and dropped his bike
right there on the grid. I've definitely never seen something

(24:09):
like that happened before. It was incredibly bizarre, and I
can only imagine that Morbidelli was thinking about literally anything
else than what was happening in front of him to
make that kind of mistake. I mean, it was completely
absent minded. And then on top of that, Morbidelli ended
up fracturing his hand in the incident and is going

(24:31):
to have to sit out the Valencia test tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
And so it.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Literally was adding injury to insult. I know that sounds backwards,
but that's what it did, because it definitely was an
insult to his attention span that he had that wreck
in the first place, and he was injured because of
it in a way that nobody would have ever imagined. Now,
the good thing is that Morbidelli quickly got his bike

(24:57):
off the grid to start from Pitt Road. He ended
up having to pull in because again he fractured his hand.
There was no way he was going to make it
to the end.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Of the race.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
This time, though, the lights went out and the start
was much much better for Marco Bitzeki.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
No problems with the.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Whole shot device. He wisely goes with the tire setup
everybody else did, and big shocker, it all works out
really good for him at the start of the race.
The story was not the same though, for Peco bag Naya.
A few corners in. Now, this was no fault of
his own. He got run straight into by a completely

(25:32):
out of control Joanne Zarco. He goes off into the gravel, trap,
and his disastrous twenty twenty five season comes to an unceremonious,
although potentially merciful close.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Although also into.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
The gravel trap, went any hope, even the slimmest one
that he had, of gaining back forth in the championship
morem Peco in a couple of minutes here. But the
setup for this race was definitely different than the sprint.
Bez got a much better start and so he led
the way. Unsurprisingly, Alex Marquez was in tow behind him,

(26:08):
followed by Digia and then the upstart Aprilia of Raoul Fernandez,
who fought really hard for and quickly got that final
podium spot. Pedro Costa meanwhile, was relegated to a shocking
fifth on the KTM. But this race turned out to
be much more interesting than a simple runaway for Bez
off the start, even though nobody really challenged him, but

(26:29):
at a circuit where passing is notoriously difficult simply for
lack of a lot of opportunities, we saw some stuff
happen out there. We had the three bike breakaway at
the front, with Bez, Alex and Fernandez in a holding
pattern for the first ten laps or so but then
things got interesting past the halfway point the final third

(26:50):
of this race, as Acosta and de jan Antonio turned
up the intensity and caught a rapidly fading Alex Marquez.
That set off an excellent battle for the final spot
on the podium, which was far and away the most
entertaining part of this race, just like the battle for
third was the most entertaining part of the sprint the
day before, a Macosta was looming like a shark behind

(27:13):
Alex for several laps before making his move into term four,
and then the jan Antonio quickly got by Alex and
then made his way up to Pedro murking ominously behind
the KTM rider with less than three laps to go,
making his move for the podium in that same term
four that initially got Acosta into the third spot past

(27:34):
Mark Marquez, and so that was action wise the highlight
of this race, and the battle for third was definitely
exciting stuff. But the story in this season finale was
definitely a prillia with an incredibly surprising performance out of
Raoul Fernandez and an absolutely masterful performance from Marco Bozeki

(27:59):
who got the job he needed, built a gap and
then was just solid as a rock on his way
to back to back Moto GP wins for the first
time in his premier class career, and he rode so.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Well in this one.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
I mean, like I mentioned during the sprint, Alex Marquez
won that one because he didn't put a wheel wrong.
I mean, he raced a nearly perfect race at a
track that demands finesse and demand's precision, he was able
to deliver on Saturday, and Marco Bitzeki did exactly the
same thing on Sunday, and at a track where the

(28:36):
bike moves all over the place because of these big corners.
Bez was so solid and motionless on the bike. It
was very fitting that Jorge Lorenzo was the guest flag
waiver because Bez definitely looked like he was channeling his
inner Lorenzo, so calm and confident and motionless on that like,

(29:00):
and so smooth even as the rear tire was dancing
all around. So it was a great ride and it
was a great win. But the big story here for
me at least, is that Bez is the big story
right now. And what I mean by that is that
Aprillia have done such an incredible job of effectively flipping

(29:24):
the script from just a month and a half ago,
when Martin Marquez was crowned the Premier class champ. At
that moment, Dukati was king with Mark wearing the crown,
and nobody was thinking about anyone being able to dethrone them.
But right now, a month and a half later, at
the end of the season, everyone in Moto GP is

(29:48):
talking about a Prillia and not about Dukati, And when
it comes to a Prillia, everybody is talking about Marco
Bizeki and not Jorge Martin. Last part is important because
on pitt Lane after the race, Massimo Rovola was asked
about challenging Ducati for the championship next year, and his

(30:08):
response was we were supposed to have done it this year,
and he's not wrong. I mean heck, in my preseason
predictions I even said and Aprili would finish third in
the rider's standings. But obviously I predicted that rider would
be Jorge Martin and that only his preseason injury would
keep him from being a real championship contender. But what

(30:31):
almost nobody expected was for Bitzeki to pick up that
banner and carry on. Let alone do it as effectively
as he has to end the season, and in the
process he's shifted the narrative heading into twenty twenty six
to a storyline where Ducati now has a legitimate challenger.

(30:52):
Now that being said, Valencia alone doesn't accomplish that, and
I know that the world v commentation we're kind of
talking about this race and this win is some sort
of definitive warning shot to Dukati. I don't think that's
the case. I mean, after all, Valencia is completely a
wildcard race in terms of results. In the last eleven

(31:14):
points races run here all the way back to twenty sixteen,
we've seen ten different winners. Pecobag Nay is the only
repeat winner in Valencia in any points race between twenty
sixteen and now. So Valencia isn't really a sign of
who the rider to beat is heading into next season,

(31:37):
only who happens to be good that particular weekend. But
that doesn't mean that Aprilia isn't a challenger for Dukati.
A legitimate challenger. They absolutely are, and it's because of
the body of work at Aprilia that's what has them
dominating the headlines and the speculation right now. And I'll
explain what I mean. In the first six races of

(31:58):
twenty twenty five, the first rounds, all Aprillia riders combined,
all of them had zero wins, zero podiums, zero sprint wins,
zero sprint podiums, and collectively they had a grand total
of two top five finishes across Moto GP and sprint races.

(32:19):
Both of those came courtesy of Iogura in the season
opener of Thailand. That's it for all a Prillia riders
on the grid. But then since Bitzeki's breakthrough win at Silverstone,
Aprilia have combined for four Moto GP wins and eleven podiums,

(32:41):
three sprint wins and eight sprint podiums, and they went
from two top five finishes in the first six rounds
to twenty seven top five finishes the rest of the way.
And all of that has happened with Iogura struggling with
consistency and injury throughout his rookie season, Jorge Martin on

(33:01):
the shelf the vast majority of the way, and then
of course the film rider was Lorenzo Savadori, which you're
never really going to get anything out of other than
some test data. Right, So the majority of those results,
in fact, all of those results I just mentioned since Silverstone,
the last sixteen rounds of the season or whatever it is,

(33:22):
that all came from Marco Bitzeki and Raoul Fernandez, and
that's it. And the vast majority of that, of course,
came from Bitzechi. So you take those results and then
you project that potential into twenty twenty six with an
Iogura that's now seeing tracks for the second time around

(33:43):
on a Moto GP bike and then a fully healthy
Jorge Martin. And that's why Aprilia have people talking because
now they have potentially four riders that could go out
there and compete for top fives, and three to four
riders that could consistently compete for podiums the way that

(34:06):
they're riding right now or the way that they have
the potential to ride at this moment. And the bulk,
the bulk of the credit for that needs to go
directly to Marco Pitzeki for making that vision that Aprilia
had been working on a reality on track. But let's
also not forget the next rider that we've got to

(34:26):
talk about in this one, Raoul Fernandez. And it is
difficult to put this weekend above his absolutely epic Australian
GP performance a couple of weeks back, but Valencia is
right up there. I mean, Fernandez was absolutely phenomenal this weekend.

(34:48):
And yeah, you could point to the sprint and say, well,
he had a good jump and he got help from
Pitzeki having a bad start, and he ultimately had to
settle for fourth. So it looked like a little bit
of luck as much as anything else that got him
that could result, completely ignoring how good he wasn't qualifying.
But Sunday Fernandez proved that he could do it the

(35:09):
hard way. He battled from outside the podium spots, first
to get pass Fabio to Jan Antonio and then making
up over a second at that point and then passing
Alex Marquez for second place. Then it wasn't that, you know,
he passed a fading Alex Marquez and then you know,
watched Marco Pitzeki ride off into the sunset. He kept

(35:31):
bez honest at the end. The gap at the finish
was a touch under seven tenths of a second, And
no it wasn't the victory and second place like he
had in Australia, But this was still fantastic stuff, riding
on the same level, and he does it just a
few days after having had to sit out Portugal with

(35:51):
a left shoulder injury. They didn't even know whether he
was going to be able to race it all this weekend.
And not only is he out on track, but he
turns in a perform Mormans like this both on Saturday
and on Sunday. And I will say, what Fernandez is
doing right now to close twenty twenty five is very,
very similar to the type of turnaround that we saw

(36:14):
out of Fabio de jian Antonio at the end of
twenty twenty three. And I'm gonna say something again that
I said a couple of weeks back, because.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
I stand by it.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
I don't think for a second that fernandez Is turnaround
aligning with the arrival of David de Brivio at Trackhouse
is coincidental. I mean, justin Marx and Trackhouse brought in
somebody who they know is excellent at managing riders and
getting the best out of him. We saw that at
Suzuki and we're starting to see that now at Trackhouse.

(36:46):
That's what he's done with Fernandez, who, let's face it
was on the verge of being out of MotoGP after
his contract was up at the end of next season. Instead,
now he's got a Moto GP victory under his belt,
he's got multiple podiums, and he's looking in pretty good
shape for a contract renewal at right now, he's twenty

(37:07):
five years old, and you know, those great performances that
we've seen to close out this year hint at some
excellent potential heading into what will be his prime years
or the prime yeers for any Moto GP rider of
twenty six through about twenty eight years old. And so
what a way to end the season for him personally

(37:30):
and for a Prillia with that one two finish in
the Moto GP race and Aprillia nearly led the first
non Dukati podium in like forever, it was only through
the sheer effort at the end of this one from
Fabio to jan Antonio that that was avoided. Just like

(37:50):
in the sprint, third place was where all of the
action was in this race, starting with Acosta and Alex
Marquez squaring off and then Digia turning in an epic
effort to make up the gap with the podium contenders
easily dispatching of the rapidly fading Alex Marquez and then
turning his sites to Acosta. With just a couple of

(38:10):
laps left to go, he made the pass and Digia's
first double podium of the year may have only been
a third third, but it was more than enough to
salvage and otherwise disappointing Sunday for Ducat and easily locked
Digia into sixth place overall in the rider's standings to
end the year, over teammate Franco Morbidelli, who of course

(38:33):
threw away any hope of retaining that position in the
championship when he.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Threw away his bike on the grid.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
So that was the podium, But there are a couple
of other riders that want to talk about, and then
we're going to discuss the Moto GP Championship the final results.
Pedro Acosta finishes the year with a really solid weekend,
but there's no doubt that it was still a disappointment
for him personally, probably for KTM as a whole. You know,

(39:03):
with as good as Pedro has been riding, missing out
on the podium in this Motor GP race definitely stinks.
But we have to look at his results to end
the year, and they're consistently excellent.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I mean, in his.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Last nine straight points races to end the season, he's
been in the top five and in those nine he's
had seven podiums and an average finish of two point
eight nine. The only thing missing in those final rounds
to end the year, unfortunately, is a victory. And let's

(39:41):
face it, that is far more a function of the
bike than it is of Acosta. I mean, he's done
everything he possibly can and more with what he's been given.
So now it's time for KTM to step up their
game and give him something that better matches the Aprilias
and the ducad that he somehow has still been able

(40:01):
to consistently fight with even though his bike isn't as good.
And providing that better equipment is not just critical for
Acosta to be able to take the next step in
his career, but it is also absolutely vital for KTM
because the only way, in my opinion, they're going to
be able to convince Pedro Acosta to stay is to
give him a bike that he genuinely thinks he can

(40:24):
go out there and win a championship on. And trust me,
KTM absolutely positively need to keep Pedro Acosta. Giving him
a better bike, a bike that he feels happy with,
has to be their top priority. It's going to speak
louder than money at this point when contract negotiations come around.

(40:45):
Next writer I want to talk about is Alex Marquez,
And you know, it was so perplexing that after an
absolutely stunning season, the likes of which we have never
seen out of Alex before, it all kind of ends
with a bit of a whimper. I mean, he ran
second early on and looked a little bit threatening to
Pitzechi at the front. But not only did Alex's Ducati

(41:08):
drift completely out of the podium spots at the end,
but he even got beat out in the final corner
by his own teammate, for me and alde Gear to
be relegated to a lackluster sixth in the end, despite
some incredible livery on that bike. I love the silver
theme that they went with. It was Alex's worst finish
of any sort since Motegi five rounds Ago. Now, after

(41:30):
the race, Alex said, hey, the tires really went away
on me and I had a vibration and I'm not
exactly sure what caused it, but that's why I dropped
back so far. And you know, in the grand scheme
of things, I'm not really too worried about this kind
of blip. It's a race where his season was already
figured out. He was already going to finish the second
one way or the other, and he won the sprint
on Saturday, and so we know that he's fast here,

(41:53):
we know that the bike is fast here. It really
does point the finger. It's some sort of anomaly with
a bad tire or with something with this set up,
and who knows, maybe his brain was already focused on
the upcoming Valencia Test in twenty twenty six and that
factory fresh bike that they're going to be handing him.
So I'm not too worried about it, but it made
me feel better. I would like to see a decent
performance out of him in the Valencia Test. I think

(42:16):
that could erase any potential worries or doubts coming out
of that.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Moto GP race.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Let's talk about Honda now for a moment, because Luca
Marini needed to finish seventh to get Honda moved up
to a higher concession rank, from concession rank D to
concession rank C. So if he finishes seventh, then Honda
loses the lowest tier of concessions, including the ability for

(42:46):
all of their full time riders to test whenever they
want extra test tires to go with it, and most importantly,
they would lose the ability to freely develop their engine
during twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
So let me say that different.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Way to make it more clear. If Luca Marini finishes
seventh Sunday in Valencia, then Honda is not allowed to
work on their engine design throughout the twenty twenty six season.
They have to submit a design at the beginning of
the year like everybody else except for Yamaha, and then
that's the engine that they have to run the rest
of the way. Luca Mariini finished seventh, and if I'm

(43:25):
being honest, I don't understand why. Actually I take that back,
I kind of do understand why. Unfortunately, the rider in
front of Lucamriini at the end of this race was
Jack Miller, who was at the time overperforming quite a
bit on his Yamaha and then had a big time

(43:48):
fade at the end. He went in the final couple
of laps from being just in front of Marini to
two and a half seconds and two spots behind him
as the checker flag flew. And so if Marini had
tried the sandbag in front of Jack Miller to finish eighth,
it would have been really, really obvious because after Jack

(44:12):
started dropping off, the next rider behind him was Brad Binder,
who was nearly two seconds behind Marini. So if you're Luca,
what are you gonna do drastically cut your pace burn
off two seconds over the final couple of laps. That
probably would have gotten everybody in trouble, and Dorna would
have taken your concessions away one way or the other.

(44:35):
So I can understand why he didn't finish eighth, But
if there had been a legitimate way to finish eighth
and make it believable, I think that would have been
best for Honda to keep those extra concessions to start
twenty twenty six, because they've improved, but there is definitely
still room to get way closer first to KTM and

(44:58):
then to a Prilia and eventually du Kati. They have improved, though,
and we saw that with where Marini landed in this race.
It was consistent with the performance that we've seen out
of him for the second half of the season, so
Honda technically should lose some of their concessions as a result,
because they have gone from a team that is consistently
outside the top ten to a manufacturer that can consistently

(45:21):
place themselves inside the top ten. So everything worked out
the way that it probably should have, and Morini was
the best finishing Honda in this one. Jack Miller was
tops for Yabaha, and that's mostly because Fabio Guachurrara was
shockingly bad in this race and ended up breaking out.
It was fun to see Jack holding firm for a

(45:41):
while in seventh, although, like I mentioned a moment ago,
he eventually drifted pretty bad in the final few laps
and ended the race ninth. And then for the riders
in their final Moto GP race, Miguel Olivera had his
best showing in the last four rounds, scoring points and
finishing eleventh. Some cat Chantra didn't fare quite as well.

(46:02):
He did make it to the end, but he was
the last rider in the running order, about thirty nine
seconds off the winning pace in seventeen. So to recap
the podiums for the final round of the season, in
the sprint on Saturday, Fabio di jan Antonio was third,
fighting his way onto the podium in entertaining fashion. Pedro

(46:24):
Acosta was second, continuing to get closer to the goal
and show just how much his talent can elevate that KTM.
Then your winner, Alex Marquez. He did what he just
simply does on Saturday and made me optimistic that he
can keep it going on the factory level bike in
twenty twenty six. Moving on to Sunday in the Moto

(46:45):
GP race, Fabio di jan Antonio was once again third
in this one, his first double podium of the year
and it saves Ducati from the embarrassment of the other
manufacturers locking them out of the podium altogether. Raoul Fernandez
in second gives us a Valencia surprise and a great

(47:05):
great story to end the season, in addition to putting
an exclamation point on the Aprilias statement that was made
by our race winner Marco Bitzeki. An incredible win for
both himself and Aprilia and a bit of a warning
shot to Ducati that those guys in Nola mean business

(47:26):
heading into the twenty twenty sixth season. So that's how
the final race weekend of the year worked out. Now
let's see how it affected the motor GP championship picture.
As we now have the final standings for twenty twenty five,
and as we have known since Motagi, Mark Marquez is

(47:47):
your twenty twenty five Moto GP World champion, and as
we've known for a couple of weeks now, his younger brother,
Alex Marquez is the runner up. In an epic and
unprecedented Marquez brother won two in the standings, but Valencia
decided the rest of the top five, with Marco Pitzeki
finishing the year on an epic run to take third

(48:08):
overall for Aprilia, Pedro Acosta showing his true talent over
the second half and really over the final five rounds
of the year to take away a super impressive fourth
for KTM and in the process relegating one of our
preseason favorites, pecobag Nyaya to just fifth in the standings, which,

(48:30):
let's be honest, a lot of riders would be thrilled
with you ask three quarters of the field and they
would love to be fifth in the standings. But when
you're a two time champion expected to compete for the
title and instead lose by two hundred and fifty seven
points to a rider that wasn't even on track for
the final four and a half rounds of the year. Well,

(48:52):
fifth doesn't seem like much of a consolation prize. And
if you want a little bit of perspective on just
how bad things were Peco at the end of the season,
all you have to do is look.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
At the numbers.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
And you know how much I love numbers, and of
course I did already look at the numbers, and after
Moteki Okay, after the race in Japan where Mark Marquez
won the title, after that round, Mark was ahead of
Peko by two hundred and sixty seven points. To end
the year, Peco trails Mark by two hundred and fifty

(49:28):
seven points. So that means in five rounds, five complete
rounds with thirty seven points up for grabs, every single
one of those five rounds, Peco Bagnaya only made up
ten points on Mark Marquez, and Mark only finished the
Indonesian Sprint where he finished sixth and scored four points,

(49:50):
And then, of course Mark didn't score a single point
for the rest of the year. So now, technically, because
Bagnaya scored nothing in that Indonesian Sprint, technically he made
up fourteen team points on Mark after Mark stops scoring.
That doesn't make him look any better now. By comparison,
Alex Marquez during that same span made up one hundred

(50:13):
and twenty one points on his big brother. Similarly, Marco
Bitzeki made up one hundred and one points on Mark
while Peco made up fourteen. And heck, Marco Bitzeki made
up ninety seven points on Peco Bagnyaya during those last
five rounds, which is why Bez is third overall in
the standings and Peco is all the way down in fifth.

(50:33):
There's absolutely wild stuff from a rider who we all
know is so much better than that. It's really inexplicable,
and the problem is Peco can't explain it either, and
it seems like neither can du Kati. So this Valencia
test tomorrow is going to be very, very interesting to
see how Peco responds and whether they can start to
sort out those problems. And then it's going to be

(50:55):
even more interesting to see if they have enough time
between now and the start of twenty twenty seven to
get everything lined up to the point where Peco can
start to perform the way we expect him to again
and you know, of course, we don't know how much
of a toll the end of this season is going
to take on Peco's confidence and how much that's going
to be a factor, maybe even more so than the

(51:16):
bike that they give him and the adjustments that they
make on it. So that's your top five in the
World Championship. The rest of the top ten in the standings.
Fabio de jan Antonio finishes sixth, after his up and
down results this year ended on the up that he needed.
Franco Morbidelli finishes seventh. He was plagued by mistakes and
mishaps over the final few rounds, which is what relegated

(51:38):
him down to seventh. Eighth place went to Fermi and Aldegar,
who looked good enough over the last couple of rounds
to make me optimistic about his chances for twenty twenty
six of being a breakthrough rider. Fabio Quaccraro was ninth.
He would have been top five with a better bike,
even on an Aprilia, I think he would have been
a top five rider. And then tenth place, believe it
or not, went to Raoul for Fernandez and what a

(52:02):
charge at the end to get himself and track House
into the top ten in the riders standings over some
really really good riders. Your independent rider champion, of course,
was Alex Marquez by a couple one hundred points. In
the Constructor's championship, Dukati had long since already locked that up.
They won by three hundred and fifty points over Aprilia.

(52:24):
Katim was third, Honda was fourth, Yamaha was fifth, and
I don't think any of that is a surprise. That's
kind of the way we perceived their performance on the
track in exactly that order. The team championship had already
been handed over to Factory Ducati. After them was Grissini
finishing second. Very impressive stuff by Grissini. V R forty

(52:45):
six was third, Factory Katim was fourth, and then the
Factory Aprilia team was fifth, mostly because they just didn't
have a second rider that could match Marko Bitzeki's stats
or even contribute significantly to Marco Bitzeki's stats. The Independent
Team Championship, No big shaker, Garsini wins V forty six
is second. Track House was third in the Independent Team Championship,

(53:09):
followed by Tech three, Elci Rahanda, and then Pramak Yamaha
Premak goes from first in the independent standings last year
when they were running Ducati's all the way down to
last now that they're on Yamaha, and that is your
twenty twenty five season. My take on the Valencia GP.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Well, the racing was just okay.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
I mean, outside of third place both days. That was
the exciting part by far. But what was far more
important coming out of Valencia where the storylines, the storylines
heading into the off season and the suggestions on how
they may affect what we see on track in twenty
twenty six. The level of intrigue here through the roof

(53:53):
Ducati taking the spring convincingly, but then Aprilia taking the
race even more convincingly. Meanwhile, Pedro Acosta just needs the
right bike to get past that final hurdle and make
it to the top. Of course, the big story exiting
Valencia is a Prillia sending that warning that they are

(54:15):
serious about being contenders in twenty twenty six. However, we've
got to take that with a grain of salt, because
remember Aprilia have done their loudest talking while Mark Marquez
has been sitting on the sidelines, and so we really
have no clue if they are the contenders they appear
to be for the title or if they're just simply

(54:38):
contenders to be the next best thing to Mark Marquez.
It's one or the other, and I think that Aprilia
is ready to challenge Dukati in general. There's just a
difference between challenging Dukati and challenging Mark Marquez. On a
Dukati they're there, and I think they're gonna be there

(54:58):
to start twenty twenty six when it comes to being
able to beat Ducati on a regular basis for a
podium spot, but it really comes down to how well
Mark heels and how quickly Mark adapts to whatever changes
Ducati is making for twenty twenty six. That's going to
be the real challenge both internally at Dukati and for
Mark Marquez, as well as what level Approlia is really

(55:23):
going to need to be at to be able to
compete potentially for a championship. So instead of definitive answers,
I think we leave Valencia with a lot of questions
about twenty twenty six, which is exactly the way the
season finale should be a cliffhanger for what comes next.
That's what this past weekend was, and that's why I

(55:45):
thought it was a great way to end the season.
And I love that we hardly have to wait at
all to get at least a few of those answers
or suggestions or hints of those answers as to what
comes next, because everyone is hitting the track tomorrow in
Valencia on twenty twenty six equipment or whatever their manufacturers

(56:06):
have ready for twenty twenty six at this point, including
that very intriguing V four, which should fingers crossed, be
in the hands of one Fabio Quatrouroro and I cannot
wait to see what he does with it now. The
Valencia test also brings with it the official debuts of
World Superbike Star to Parkres's got Leoglu in the premier

(56:27):
class for Yamaha, along with newly crowned Moto two champ
Diogo Morrera logging his first ever laps in LCR Honda colors.
So much to look forward to, so much to speculate about,
and so much to talk about in the offseason, not
only what happens on track in twenty twenty six, but remember,
this is going to be a big silly season. Contracts

(56:49):
for all of the biggest riders are going to be up.
Everyone is going to be trying to best position themselves,
not only for the teams that have an advantage. And
remember now A're Prillia factors in way more than they
would have even a.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Year or two ago.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
And then there are the rule changes as well, and
riders are going to be trying to gauge how well
each one of these manufacturers has gotten a head start
or has done their homework on these rule changes. And
remember engine development for these new rules has been really
clamped down, and so that's going to up the stakes

(57:25):
quite a bit because we don't know who's going to
come out of the gates strong in twenty twenty seven,
who's going to dominate to open the season in twenty
twenty seven. It's not necessarily going to be Dukati just
because they're the best right now, and it's not necessarily
going to be a Prillia because they've gained on Dukati
so much. Anybody, including Handa and Yamaha could be the

(57:45):
premier team in twenty twenty seven when the season starts
with these new engines and with this new rule package,
and so that plus the changing fortunes of Dukati and
Aprilia and maybe KTM, and then the concents at Yamaha
giving them more flexibility to develop. All of those things
are going to come together into what could be one

(58:06):
of the most chaotic silly seasons in a long time.
And it's all going to start pretty much right around
the time that the twenty twenty six season starts, because
we all know that teams love the SIME riders as
early as possible and get them locked up, especially when they're.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Some of the top riders in the sports.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
So the short story of that long version there is
that we've got a lot to talk about in the
off season. We have a lot of fun shows coming
up and I don't want you to miss a single one.
So if you have not done it yet, I would
highly recommend you subscribe to the program. You can do
that on Apple Podcasts, YouTube podcasts, Speaker, Stitcher Player, dot Fm, Spotify, iHeartRadio,

(58:48):
Audible podcasts. Basically go to your favorite podcasting site type
in motoweek you should be able to find the program.
Of course, you can always get all of the latest
episodes as soon as they're released on the website at
motoweek dot net. You can follow on social media just
go to Blue Sky and search for Motoweek, or you
can follow on Instagram at motoweek USA. And most importantly,

(59:11):
I want to know what you think of everything that
has happened leading up to this point in twenty twenty five,
what you think is gonna happen in twenty twenty six,
and your thoughts on the Valencia test tomorrow. You can
leave those on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash MotorWeek
dot net, or over on the Reddit sub at our
slash MotorWeek. And if you feel so compelled and don't

(59:34):
feel obligated, but if you want to, you can support
the program on Patreon.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
It does help.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
You can do that on Patreon dot com slash motoweek.
And remember we are entering year number ten of the
show in twenty twenty six. I cannot believe that have
made it this far and have all of you to
thank for it, And so throughout twenty twenty six, I
don't know what we're gonna do, but I'm going to

(01:00:01):
come up with something interesting, and we'll go over some numbers,
and we'll try to do some more interactive things, and
I'll find some way of saying thanks to the people
who have supported the show, and during the off season,
I'm going to really sit down and try to figure
all of that out. But one way or the other,
I want to thank everybody for supporting the show for

(01:00:23):
so long. It's an independent show. I don't do this
for a living. I'm not supported by some fancy business
or company or website or corporation or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
It's just me, me and nobody else.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
And I just want to talk moti GP with you,
and hopefully we can continue to do that for a
long time. And I'm super super appreciative of everybody who
has supported the show up until this point, and I
cannot believe that we've made it this far together. So
let's see what happens in year number ten of the program,
and let's see what I can get motivated to do
to expand the show and move it to different areas

(01:00:56):
and give you guys some extra stuff. But that's not
to say that we're gonna wait until twenty twenty six.
We still have more shows on the way. We have
Thanksgiving here in the United States coming up next week,
and so I probably won't do a show that particular week,
but we do have to talk about the Valencia Test,
and so we will do that in the wake of Valencia,

(01:01:16):
probably take a week off after that, and then I'll
come back and we'll start talking about some build up
to twenty twenty six and whatever rumors are out there
in terms of Silly Season.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
And anything else that you guys want to talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
So leave those comments on Facebook and read it and
let me know what you want to discuss during the
off season. So until we talk again just a couple
of days from now, I want to thank you so
much for listening, right say, and I'll talk to you soon.