The hills were alive with the sounds of Moto GP and a Prillier on pole, a rookie on the podium, and a double slide right off the star line.

How else do you sum up the Austrian Grand Prix.

For some writers it was a weekend of celebration and for others nothing but pure misery.

Curses were broken, champagne was sprayed, and yes, Matt Burt definitely called it a Spielberg blockbuster one too many times.

Love your Bertie, But this week Pittalk Podcast is brought to you by Shannon's Insurance.

I'm your host, Rinita Vanmullen, And if monogp Analysis were a winner Schnitzel, he'd be the crisp Golden Crust.

Welcome back, Matt Clayton.

Matt, we had to go for a funny intro because this whole weekend, I feel like, was just you couldn't have written it as a blockbuster as a Matt No plenty of times.

Right, Yeah, you were just going through all the things that happened.

It's one of those race weekends where that many things happen that you go back and go, oh yeah, Jack Miller blew his bike up on Friday and had to sit out the start of Saturday practice and got fired a thousand euros to dumping fluid all over the track.

That was about the thirteenth most important thing that happened over the course of the weekend.

It just felt like there was so much going on and so you've done a reasonable job to encapsulate that over the weekend.

The only disappointing thing for me was no schnitzel's were eaten by me over the course of the weekend, so I didn't completely get into the Austrian GP spirits.

I might have to do something about that next time.

Oh man, well, what are you going to do for Hungary, because like, you've got to get into the full the experience being in Melbourne, right, You can't just peace out there.

In the cold, No, I know the culinary experience of Melbourne.

I'm sure I could dig out a Hungarian restaurant from somewhere.

Melbourne's got those places covered.

But yeah, missed out on the schnitzel.

That was a rookie mistake by me.

Well, Mark Markes didn't miss out on the podium or the win this weekend, So.

No denying Mark.

Marqus he's the man of the hour.

What else can you say about him at the moment.

Yeah, he's just got He's got everything so under control at the moment in that, you know, both races, in the sprint behind his brother and in the main race behind Marco Betzeki, you just thought, all right, it's a matter of time.

I think what the interesting thing was for me and about you watching it was that there was an inevitability with the spread that he would get past Alex and that would be the end of that, which it was.

The Grand Prix for me was interesting in that he clearly decided when he was going to go against Betzeki, and Bazeki fought back and really made him work for it, which I think his testament to just how confident he is at the moment, how good at Prillier are at the moment, they're clearly the second best bike and Bodo GP right now.

But the thing I loved about Mark is like, well, I think he said, you know, I decided to step back for a few laps and breathe a bit, have a little sleep, have a rethink, have a reset, and then I'll just pass him somewhere else where he can't immediately cut back past me.

So market is calculating and cunning, bess, but fair play to a Prillier generally and Bozeki specifically, because this is just not one or two races now that he's been good, he's been genuinely since Silverstone, and he's getting more confident, the bike's getting better.

They were absolutely hopeless on Friday Apriliant.

They're both in Q one.

So for Berzeki to come through Q one, take pole position, score a podium in the GP, nearly score a podium in the sprint, that was the big story out of this weekend.

But we can't sort of just gloss over the fact that Mark Marquez is on a twelve race winning streak, six perfect weekends from Aragon to Austria and this championship, which it was inevitable before.

But if he's winning at the Red Bull Ring, then frankly everyone else as well go home at this point because if there was anywhere he was going to lose, it was going to be there.

I think maybe you've mentioned it before on the pod and end.

Something that I'm thinking about is I kind of just want Mark to wrap up this championship because then I want to see him play and have fun, because I feel like at the moment, he says in the press conferences, you know, I'm not thinking about numbers.

I'm just here to win.

We'll just win, just wrap it out, like you said, and then go and play, and then let's show us what you really can do on a Moto GP bike.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, it's one of those things that it's inevitable that you do start to do the mats when you've got this much of a lead.

And as much as he's never going to take anything for granted because of what's happened to him since he won that sixth title in twenty nineteen, it does become a process of all right, if I get this, then i'll be this far in a head, and so on and so forth.

You start running the numbers at this point.

There are a lot of stats that came out of the weekend that you can just sort of gloss over.

But I did save two for you because I thought you'd like both of them.

One.

You probably already worked this out.

He's already scored more points this year that he scored last year.

There's nine rounds to go, he's already scored more points he did in twenty twenty four.

The other thing that's absolutely staggering, there's only actually nine people now that mathematically cad win the World Championship.

So if Mark took the rest of the year off, it's only the eight guys behind him that there's only enough points left for the eight guys behind him to actually win the championship.

Everybody else is already eliminated from championship contention, and it's August.

It does show you the sort of season that he's having.

But I'm a bit like you, like, no matter when it is that he gets this thing wrapped up.

Towards the back end of the year, there will be a race and a track somewhere where he won't have to sort of go against his instincts.

I guess I kind of feel sometimes at the moment that he's kind of having a conversation with himself, like, you don't need to do this, you don't need to do this.

Once the championship is done, then we'll be able to see him completely unleashed.

And the way things are going right, I don't think we're going to have a live championship by the time we get to Philip Island.

But we might see Mark unleashed at Philip Island.

Now that with no championship permutations to think about, could be a lot of fun because you know, at the moment we don't actually know how fast he is, because he's just fast enough to win Grand Prix.

How fast is he actually we might find out at the end of the year.

I think you smack bang on with that.

I think you know, if your listeners, if you're at home on the couch, bring your friends, bring your friends, are family over making an event because I think we're going to see an incredible Mark Marquez at Philip Island, and if you're lucky enough to be there as well, then what a race that's going to be.

But let's go back to Duke Caddy, because yes, Mark celebrating happy days.

Peko Banyaya sad face, he's just nowhere.

And I think when you were talking about Betzechi, just before you know Betzeki, Mark passed him.

Betzecki gave it back straight away.

You see it with Peco, Mark passes him, he kind of tries and then he just dropped back.

But this weekend he just dropped back and he just dropped back now we know we had that trouble on Saturday's sprint though, where I think he was blaming the tire right because, like I mentioned in the preview, there was that weird slide with him in Furman off the start line where they just kind of slid across the start line.

So lucky there was no incident there.

But even on Sunday Peko.

He's struggling.

I don't know how else to explain it.

He's mentally and physically defeated.

I feel like, yeah, I mean, look the sprint, I'm almost prepared to write a line through because he had the crazy slide off the start.

There was clearly something going on with the tyre.

He ran really deep into turn one and just parked it.

In the end, you can rule the line under that.

The thing with the grown There's this pattern with him now right in that he's generally qualifying okay about where you would expect him, and he out qualified his team mate that that was decent in Austria, and we know that's a track he's been really good at in the past.

He starts reasonably well, he's pretty feisty in the first couple of laps, but then once he sort of gets overtaken for the first time, like sort of four or five laps in.

It almost feels like he does the big sigh and he's kind of just resigned to his fate at that point.

And never at any point when he sort of got knocked back from second or third.

Never at any point did you think, oh, it's all right, he'll come back, this will be fine, he'll launch some attacks on people.

The thing that was a bit stark for me, and this is like a two time world champion.

I almost felt that he was getting bullied on Sunday like the past that in the second last corner that Acosta and Aldegare put on him when they went through at the same time.

That was worderline disrespectful for a two time world champion just to get bullied like that.

But I think Peco at the moment is maybe they feel that he can almost kind of be picked on a little bit because his body language, everything that he says, he sounds super defeated to me.

And what was so interesting was that we know that the relationship with him and Docatti's just been absolutely rock solid, right as you would expect because he's either won the championship or been runner up for the past four years.

There's a Dacadie's thrilled because they bet the house on Mark Marquees and it's coming home in spades for them.

That decision to choose Marquez over Juge Martine effectively last year, that's paid itself off many, many times over already.

There's a sense of frustration with Banyaya now, and I think on both sides, Like Banaia said after the race, you know, I need some answers for this, and you get the sense that Gjacadie are like, look, we're hurting this thing upside down.

We're doing every possible thing.

You've been amazing for us, but can we just get on with this please.

There's a sense of frustration with all of this, and I suspect that he's so in his own head now, not necessarily because he can't beat Mark, because I think he's really stick enough to know that nobody can beat Mark, but the fact that he can't get close to being the writer that we've seen over the pa past few years.

I don't see how that changes in the next nine rounds because clearly the bike and him just haven't worked.

So something needs to change for next year, does the machinery change or just heat change, And so there's this growing frustration here.

I don't think there's some split that's going to happen anytime soon, but imagine if we're still having this conversation in twelve months time, and it's been twelve eighteen months of this the I cannot quite get my head around.

You add the sprints and the Grand Prix together.

This year, Mark Marcus has won twenty one races.

Peko's won one race, and that was gifted to him because Mark crashed from the lead in Kota.

And when we were talking about this amazing partnership between Marquees and Banjo and oh, it's going to be so exciting and there'll be so much tension because it's going to be close and it's going to be brilliant.

Mark's walking into Pecko's team.

Of all the storylines we thought were going to happen this year, it just hasn't happened because Mark's been Mark and Peko's just been an absolute shell of who he's been for the past couple of years.

I'd personally love to see him pick it up because having those two fight for meaningful things is a storyline that Motor GP could use right now, but it seems like an absolute pipe dream.

He seems completely lost to finish eighth at a track where but I think I worked it out before last weekend he had not led for one lap in three years in Austria twenty twenty two to twenty four.

I think he'd led all but one lap in the Grand Prix's there, and he finished eighth, and he's behind three ktms and he's behind a rookie on a Ducati.

Like it's hard to see how it gets worse.

Makes me think next year they're going to go on to as seeing in parentheses, a GP twenty six if we don't even know if they're really on a GP twenty five, but it's a GP twenty four plus whatever, Matt, because you know the rules and everything inside out, and I'm just thinking off this my head.

Here, is there a way that Peco could possibly go back to that GP twenty four because there's no point in them changing too much before the twenty seven rules come in.

Right Yeah, And that's and that's the conundrum, right, like do you make wholes changes to what should be an evolution of this year's bike to go back to something that appeas is one rider, when every single piece of it's going in the bin for twenty twenty seven anyway, for Dicati and for everybody else.

That's the problem with this.

I think the interesting part about it is that, and you know the riders will never talk about this, but the twenty four, as in last year's tocaty, still seems like the better bike.

And I say this in that Furman Aldegere is finishing on podiums and he's been and he's a rookie and he's been inconsistent, but he's still riding what is probably the most manageable bike to ride on the grid.

And Alex Marques is having by far the best season of his career on a GP twenty four.

I don't know if the twenty five is better than the twenty four.

It probably isn't, but it also shows you how good Marquees is.

Like you wonder to see yourself right now.

Imagine if you had Mark on Alex's bike, or Aldegerz bike or Morbidelli's bike on the twenty four, which is clearly a championship winning machine, what would he be doing to everybody on that bike?

So that's the curiosity for me in that it's not as easy as just saying O Peko will just basically give you last year's bike with some new stickers on it and off you go.

What was interesting?

You probably picked up on this in the post script for Austria.

There's the Massano test coming up, and it sounds like Bannaya's angling to try and get some laps out of twenty four and that'll answer the question once and for all.

Is it me that can't ride this twenty five?

And because I was so used to how good the twenty four was, or is there something else happening here?

He needs to almost like back to back them to see what the feeling is.

Maybe there'll be something on the twenty four and go, oh it does this that the twenty five doesn't do it, and they'll be able to make a change because you have to think, like the last time Peco wrote at twenty four was at the end of last year.

There's several riders in that decade stable that never De jan Antonio has never written a twenty four.

He went from the twenty three to the twenty five, as did Mark coming from Grassini, so it'd be super interesting if he gets his way, gets a chance to try the twenty four at Massano, and then if that unlocks something that he's been missing, because I actually think silly as it sounds, for two time world champion, he's kind of underrated.

He's an incredibly good rider when things are right.

We've seen that he didn't lose last year's World Championship because he was slow.

He lost last year's World Championship because he was He crashed him many times from positions of advantage.

There's a great rider in there.

We've seen that for the best part of four years.

But he's just completely a well at the moment.

And I think it's more it's less the fact that Mark's beating him and he's in his own head about Mark.

Then he's in his own head about why can't I make this bike work.

I think you mentioned the Morbidelli and that's one thing that I was thinking of the weekend is how much would it be playing on Peco's mind if this is something he'd even consider as the fact of Like, Morbidelli's on the GP twenty four and he's not doing anything with it, but then Pecko's on this bike and still struggling is like going, well, you've got this bike, why are you not doing it?

And if that is like he's playing, But I think he kind of answered the question there with what you're saying is if he can get this test and he can make those comparisons to figure out what that wants percent is because we posted an interview with Casey and Casey was saying that, you know, Pecker and Christian have a really good working relationship at your Caddy.

So whatever it is that they're missing, they will find it, but it's just taking a lot longer than what they anticipated.

Well, and until Picco actually gets his way and gets the chance to ride this twenty four, everything that you think is different between the twenty four and five is purely speculative because you haven't ridden the twenty four for so long.

If you were to ride the two different bikes on the same day, which you can do at a test, obviously there will be all right on this day.

At this point in time, I know that I like a B and C on the twenty twenty four bike better.

Can we make some changes to try and get aspects of the twenty five bike more like that?

And then if that doesn't unlock the performance that he's missing, then at least you've tried it.

At the moment, it's purely speculative.

He actually needs data and he needs feeling right now to be able to properly back to back these things.

So it sort of shapes as a bit of a I mean, look, this season's gone.

It's not a key moment for this season, but it's more what does it mean for the end of this season leading into next because I almost see twenty five and twenty six is like being one long season over two years, because the rules are pretty much the same, and you know, no one's really moving around.

Everyone's looking for twenty seven.

If he wants to be competitive next year, that's got to start now, and then maybe that starts after Masano if he gets a chance to test the twenty four.

Again, from a sad note to a little bit of a happy hour one, let's talk about how other podium places.

So we've mentioned Mark, we've mentioned but Zechi, you said furman Aldeger who had this incredible like mid to late race pace that for a second there looked like he was going to really charge Mark.

Then pedia A Costa also.

Managed to get on the sprint podium on Saturday for KTM.

So let's touch on Katim.

Because they're a mixed back at the moment, aren't they.

You see Pedro saying, oh, we're making the progress and we're heading in the right direction, and.

Then you hear Brad Binda just go squea kend Liz terrible.

It's interesting with them in that I feel that the you know, the start of the we know they had their financial issues and there was development late to the bike and so on and so forth.

You felt that a Costa was getting pretty much everything out of that bike, or pretty much anything it had to provide at that point.

And you know, we'd go weeks and you go, oh and Aabastian and he's on the grid.

I haven't seen him for three weeks because he was so far down the back.

I think you can see how that is getting better now, because yes, a cost has been up there the last couple of races.

Bruno, he was good, fourth in the Grand Prix here, third in the podium in Austria.

But you look up and you go, huh and Aabastian and he's in the top five.

Brad Benders in the top seven.

So It shows you that things are getting better because there's more of their riders that are doing more with it.

Now we know Maverick Vinielle is injured, so he didn't get to We didn't get to see what he was going to do there.

The only thing I'd slightly caveat that with it's my asterisk, which is not useful in an audio podcast.

But I would say Austria is such a random circuit, right, It's not like anywhere else on the calendar.

So I don't know if three ktms in the top seven in Austria is like some sort of Okay, this is what they're going to do now every other track because there's kind of nowhere else.

Like the Red Bull Ring, it is a complete one of one.

It plays massively to Katium has enormous straight line speed.

We know that, and you look at that Austrian layer.

It's basically four gigantic strakes with a bit of a quigly bit in the middle.

There's not much to it.

It's a bit of an oversized go kart track in a lot of respects.

So how's that going to translate when you get to more fast and flowing tracks, how's that going to translate to somewhere like Messano, which tends to be a pretty good bell weather for what a lot of these bikes can do.

So definitely better than it was a costa.

He's certainly not holding back a costa.

Like watching him in qualifying at the moment and watching him on the opening laps of a race.

He is absolutely taking no prisoners, which I kind of enjoy.

It's been good, good fun.

Oh yeah, it makes it a bit more exciting.

Right, Well, he's absolutely going to make you have an uncomfortable moment in a past like he will not care.

He will put the bike somewhere and then you can just decide how hard you want to fight him.

But he's putting it there, that's what he's going to do.

So yeah, super fisty, which I like, and good to see them.

Certainly it's an important race for them, right Austrian GP, red Bull branding all over the bike.

Good weekend for them.

I need almost like I need more of a sample size to believe that they're kind of back.

But you'd have to say that there's this quite clear hierarchy at the moment, and I'm going to set you up for what this is referred to as a professional segue in the business, because you've got Tocaddie in step one.

Aprili is clearly the next best.

Katiem I think is pretty much the third best now, not as good as a Prillier, but better than everybody else.

Honda is looking quite good.

We probably should talk about your mirror at one point.

And then in Austria you had Yamaha.

I do believe that will be on your run sheet, so why don't we go there?

You hit the nail on the head.

That was the next thing.

I was going to say, let's go from a high to a low, because why not Yamaha.

Holy cra Yeah, that's literally what can you say is holy crabby?

Even Fabio Cordoriro's post race de reef, I've taken nothing from this weekend And you wrote in your article this quote from Jack Miller.

We prosted part of it on socials and he's just going I tried everything and there was nothing like what could they do?

This was just it was out of a horror movie.

The other I listened to all the post race deve briefs and the three words that stuck out to me, Quaaterero said, ridiculous and useless, and Miguel Olivera said irrelevant, and I thought that was that.

I mean, Miguel's more one of you, more sort of genial riders, and he always comes up with a good soundbit.

I thought that was a pretty cutting comment.

But this is how horrific this was.

All four Yamahas were in the bottom five in qualifying.

Three Yamahas were the last three finishes in the sprint, and all four Yamahas were the last four finishes in the Grand Prix.

Kuaaterero fell into a point because some other people retired in front of him.

He was six seconds behind the worst non Yamaha, which was Ayagura.

He was twenty five seconds behind Mark Marquez in a twenty eight lap race.

He was the only Yamaha rider that wasn't a second to lapse lower than Mark.

And that's not Mark pushing.

And we're talking about Austria being a one off track.

It's every Yamaha technician's nightmare.

The bike doesn't have straight line speed.

It really struggles to get out of slow speed corners after heavy breaking, which is all Austria is.

It's just point and squirt point and squirt point and squirt Jack was saying that he'd get up to one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty k's an hour and the thing would just be spinning as you're going up through the gears.

OLIVERA was saying he was still spinning in six gear, and so there's absolutely no rear grip.

They have a special tire for Austria because of how hectic the acceleration is there.

They only use it there in Thailand, and so all the Amaha was doing was just spitting its guts out every single time it came out of a corner, and you could just see how gently they were trying to feed the power in, but it didn't make any difference at all.

It was utterly miserable.

I think the only salvation for them is that we know it's a really good bikes still on flowing circuits.

We know that it's a bike good enough three races previously for Quatrero to be on pole.

So it's a particular type of circuit, but you add all the variables there, circuit layout, hard tire, no top end, can't get out of a slow speed corner.

It was almost like they were in this other category.

It's like they just let four Mota two bikes on the grid.

It was absolutely grim.

I think the only thing that's good about it, if you can use the word good here is I think I wrote this.

I'm trying to remember the number now.

I think those four riders that they have Yamaha of one about twenty five Grand Prix between them, Like, you're not talking about a bunch of rookies and no hopers here, and they're all in the same part of the racetrack, all struggling with the same problems.

So this is not a rider problem.

This is an equipment problem, and it's something that if there was another Austrian Grand Prix this week, or a circuit like it, then you'd be terrified as Yamahar as to what you were going to get.

There's nowhere quite like Austria.

It's not been as bad as this all year, and I don't think it'll be as bad as this in the future.

But if you ever wanted a snapshot of Honda need to sorry, what Yamaha need to do to get this bike up to front running speed watch the Austrian Grand Prix.

Maybe with your fingers over your eyes.

If you're a higher engineer because it was pretty grim, but it was just hopelessly.

I was just you're just looking at the lap times, going how were these things this slow?

But they were all this slow, So there's nothing to do with any of the four riders.

You'd have to say.

I'm really glad you pointed that out, because I feel like sometimes for listeners it's so easy to quickly point fingers or fans going, you know, Jack Miller, look at him and he was second last, or wherever you finished on the weekend.

It's really good that you point out, actually it was all for yamahas And I think in your article I remember reading a quote from Jack saying, you know, a few weekends ago, Fabio put this bike on pole, like you said, and now.

We're all in the bottom of QQ.

One, So how are we meant to how are we meant to ride around here?

And I think it's kind of calling from what a lot of I'm reading online is when the new engine coming for Yamaha, is this going to kind of fix that problem?

Because is that the.

Only real variable as to why they are struggling so much at a circuit like this when everyone else SEMs to be does that jump better.

Right.

I don't think it's the only varia.

I don't think it's the only variabil.

It is a variable.

Right.

We know that Yamaha is the only brand that runs you in line for since Zuki left at the end of twenty twenty two.

It's not the It's not like the magic bullet for your problems.

Right.

You don't just get a V four and suddenly everything's fine.

What I suspect, well, what you'd love them to do is to say, well, we've got this V four project.

It's bubbling away in the wings.

It's not quite ready yet.

But Yamaha in the past has tended to be let's make sure until it's one hundred and fifteen percent bulletproof ready before we bring it in.

I'm not sure what you've got to lose at this point by at least running saying even if you just run Gosto Fernandez in a couple of races as a wildcard, or you even give someone like Kuaturra and say, look, we'll give you the option if you want to try this.

I don't think they can go into twenty twenty six with questions as to whether the V four is the way to go.

I think they need those questions to have been answered already, and then they make the decision.

It's like, well, we're going to race in twenty six with the V four, so at least we're the same as everybody else, and you've got like for like comparison.

At the moment, we don't know if it's purely an engine issue, because you know, it's just a variable.

It's not the only variable.

Yeah, this V four thing might not quite be ready yet, but what better way to maybe fast track the development of it.

Let's just get it out there, even if we're running it with a wildcard or a test writer, and let's see what happens, because you're never going to know.

Now.

I guess from Yamaha's point of view, it's an utter disaster from a pr perspective if you put the thing out there and it's horribly slow, or it's unreliable, or it blows up or whatever it is.

But I don't see how you're going to get the answer on to whether this is the way to go or not unless you actually try to do it.

Again, we're talking before about theoretical versus actual.

In the case of Banyaya, you've just got to buy the bullet and go for it.

And if this is the thing they've got to be careful of.

He is Quaaterero's their prize assets.

You know, he's a top I wrote this the other day.

To my mind, he's a top three writer on the grid.

Still, he's an absolute a lister.

The last thing you want to do as a company.

I know, Fabio has been there for a very very long time.

He's your biggest asset, and you want to keep him engaged and happy and motivated and ready to push this project forward because he's going to get super richy feet right if this doesn't work out for him.

He's been there for a really long time.

Yes, he's been loyal.

Yes he's also been massively paid for the results that he's been getting.

But this thing, it's been three years and so what a race?

Right, every other manufacturer's won a race in that three year period, including some that aren't even on the grid anymore, and so something needs to change there philosophically for them to take a leap forward.

Otherwise they are literally and metaphorically like they were in Austria.

They're just spinning the wheels, going up and down on the same spot, don't they Yeah.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

My only worry I'm going to say worry is the word is for Yamaha.

Is they're going to bring on Gusso Fernandez in and if they're going to test this engine, they're going to.

Do it at Mategi in Japan.

And I don't necessarily think that's the right sorry not test it bring it in as.

A wild card.

I don't know if that's the right circuit even to kind of see if it compares two what else is out on the field right now?

You know, Well, the thing with Motegi is you know it's going to rain at least one of the three days because it always does, because it's Motigai in September or October.

So I agree with you on that front.

You know, it would be interesting, and who knows whether they've got the resource to do this.

We go back to this Mesano test.

What if all four of the riders had a chance to actually ride the thing at a test and they again we're talking about comparing it to what they've already got.

That to me seems like a more realistic thing to do.

Let's get the race riders on this bike at a test.

You don't have to tell everyone what you're riding and where you're riding it, what the settings are and all that.

You do all that in the background, but at least you get them out there and you've got four really experienced heads who've won a lot of Grand Prix between them, and they can say this part of the engine is better, this part of the engine is worse.

This is where we need to focus on.

This is an improvement, to at least show them that you're doing absolutely everything behind the scenes to try and get this right.

I don't think future weekends are going to be as grim as Austria was, But if you're Yamaha, you just can't have weekends like Austria because it was, you know, some of the words that quadraro us were a little bit lighter.

I mean it was frankly, it was embarrassing what they were doing on the weekend.

Yeah, it definitely definitely was.

But let's go over to someone who didn't have an embarrassing weekend and we've got to give him a shout out.

Juan Mia, finish your race, top ten, congratch one.

I'm giving you a big round.

Of applause here because this is like a milestone for him, and I know we shouldn't be like taking the mickey and everything, but not at all celebrating the fact that he.

Actually finished a race.

And when I thought was really cool is we actually saw him on the broadcast and the cameras were actually showing and I could I really see how much those Hondas were struggling with the front end going into the corner and the different line that he's really having to take.

This is the first time I could see in a real race situation.

I can't remember who he is around, I'm pretty sure as a KTM and did you Caddy at this point, and they're taking fairly similar lines because they basically look like the same bike from the front now and then you see the Honda coming in and it's totally different and no wonder like it makes sense.

Yeah, he was incredibly good.

I have two notes in my notes here for as you aren't Yah.

One, he didn't get knocked off the track by anybody else.

That's always a bonus.

That's his second best result since he's been at Honda.

If you can believe that he finished fifth in India in twenty twenty three.

That's how long it's been.

And this wasn't a sixth place that owed itself to a bunch of people falling off or he got lucky or this all that happened.

He kind of was having this weekend at Bruno where he qualified really well and they got punted by Alex Marquez and the race there, and it's the latest in a long list of incredibly bad luck for him.

Really good ride, super super good ride, best honder over the course of the weekend, really impressive.

We know that thing's not brilliant in the straight line, so you talk about the lines he was having to take to try and fight with ktms and to caddies, but fair play to him, and he would just be so relieved that he actually saw the checkered flag from the track and not watching it back in the box after someone had punted him.

So yeah, good news story, and there's a good writer in there, and you know he never stops trying.

It was just nice to see that he actually got some reward for that.

And nice to see Raoul Fernandez as well on the track house that privily are up closer to the front.

Nice to see like one of the satellite teams and also like the privately owned team a little bit closer to the front.

We know I is really struggling at the moment.

But apart from that rear right height device malfunction that was too often, I mean, Raoul's fighting for that top ten and top five position.

Now.

It's interesting in that, you know, if you looked at his career, it kind of feels like his story has been written by now.

You know, it's like, well, this is who this guy is.

He's been good.

I reckon he's been good for about the last four or five rounds.

He's making me reassess.

I don't think he's ever going to be the rider that we saw him in Moto two.

We're so awesome as a rookie.

It's like, Wow, this guy could come into Motor GP and be anything.

It's never quite materialized.

But I don't think it's I don't think you can just sort of put him in the hopeless basket either.

There's clearly a decent rider in there.

The bike is getting better, he's starting to get some better results, and I think the thing that's really interesting here and this is where Mark is making the difference at the moment, it feels like the field is sort of compressing a little bit in that it's not just the Dakati companymore in that.

Yeah, okay, we've had Dakati's a winning lots of races because they employ Mark Marquez, but you look at the variety of guys scrapping for podiums.

Now, we talked about Bazeki, you mentioned a Costa before, probably is going a lot better.

Juam is finishing in the top six, Yamaha has had pole positions this year.

It's good in that it's not just Dakatti's one, two, three, four, five, six, which is what it was at the start of the year, which is really interesting.

You can go back to like Thailand when you were there, it was so who's going to finish seventh?

Because that's kind of what it felt like.

So, yeah, we're getting the same guy winning a lot of the races because he's one of the greatest that's ever done it.

What's going on behind him?

It feels like it's a nice changing picture week on week, and this is what we want to see.

We don't mind if there's one rider or manufacturer that's winning stuff, but we just don't want the same race every weekend where unless you're on a to Caddy you've got absolutely no chance.

That's what it felt like last year.

Right now, the other podium places to me feel super open, and that's what you want because you get interesting races.

I'm really glad you brought that up because it made me think.

When we spoke to Chris, my brother on the pod, and it's pointed to him, is this the time where we're going to start to see that separation happen?

And I think he was like, no, I think it's going to take a little while longer.

And then you mentioning that, it's like going, okay, well, yeah, there's not that big of a separation.

I've had Marks in his own league.

But everybody else is there now, All the other manufacturers are in it.

It's not just to Caddy and the rest.

And this is where it gets interesting, right because we talked about twenty five and twenty six sort of being one long season over two years.

Next year, there will come a point where all these factories will start to focus much more on the new rule set than the current rule set.

Right, it makes sense.

Why would you invest a heap of time and resource of money into something that's going to be obsolete in a few months time.

And often in any sort of motor sport, when you get a mature rule set and a mature set of regulations that's been going for a while, everyone kind of converges on this one way of how you need to go fast.

It happens in Formula one all the time before rule resets.

It's happening here as well.

I actually think we could get a really quite competitive season next year for second place.

And I say that because if Mark is upright and writing a decade and being Mark Marquez, then we're probably going to see a continuation of that.

But I thought Austria was interesting in that I don't think you would have picked necessarily and Aldegaer Berzeki two to three in that Grand Prix after Friday.

Bizeki was in Q one and Aldegaer, you know, he's not brilliant in qualifying and he's not over one lap.

He's fantastic at the end of races, and so the fight for the minor places is certainly interesting at the moment.

And you say, well, I mean I used to see some different guys win, but it's better than sixty caddies finishing one, two, three, four, five six.

Because they're docaddies, it's at least some variety for us.

Variety is definitely a word that we can say to talk about.

The next subject I wanted to bring up because it looks like Diogo Morrera is going to Honda.

Now there's a lot of rumors that he was going to go to Pramac Yamha, but Matt, I feel like you've got.

Some juicy goss for us on this.

So what do you know about the Morrera Moto GP move for next season?

It sounds like there's he's got offers from Yamaha and Honda, and it looks like the Honda deal is going to be the one that gets over the line because it looks like it's longer three years instead of two, so that takes him across these two rule sets, and he's also going to get full factory status.

The interesting thing for me is that I always thought that that second seat at ELSIR was kind of closed off because it was dependent on having a rider from Southeast Asia to keep the Iomitzu sponsorship.

And we know that Lucio chechenelated doesn't mind a sponsor dollarphant he do when you're running a privateer team.

It seems like Somkhat Chantra was clearly promoted too early and he wasn't ready and it's not worked at all, and he's currently injured and he scored one point for the entire season.

It sounds like they're prepared to not have that Idamitzu money that they've had with Chantra and Nakagami before him to get Marera in there.

The interesting part for me is that Brazil we know is going to have a Grand Prix next year.

They're back on the calendar.

You can't tell me that signing Marera for a privateer Honda team is not going to bring an incredible amount of commercial interest from Brazil.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the brand Petro brass it's the state owned Brazilian petroleum company that every single time a Brazilian driver's been in Formula One, there's been Petro Brustick is stuck on the side of those cars.

So that could be your financial shortfall if you're losing Iamitsu, don't be surprised if we see some Petro bruss Because on an Elsie R Honda next year.

If Marera is in there, it's super interesting to get a writer from a country where I guess it would be like what Alex Barross or someone was the last Brazilian we had, that's like, what twenty years ago.

It's been a really, really long time, so that's cool, Like it's nice to have a different nationality in there.

The flow on effect from this, which reading some reading a couple of stories from Oriel Pugamont with Autosport, who is almost the bible on these sorts of things.

He's absolutely brilliant at it.

It seems to me that this could be announced as early as this weekend.

Perhaps what that would do is that means Jack Miller's chances of retaining that second Promac seat go up massively because they've kept Olivera and Miller hanging on now for a long time.

It was going to be before the break, and then Jack went off and did Suzuka for Amahara, and it's still lingering, and it's still lingering, and they're both frustrated by it.

Olivera sounds more sort of resigned to the fact that he's probably out to be honest.

But if Marera took that spot at Pramak, then that was kind of it, I don't think Jack had any other options at all, and so Jack might sort of fall slightly backwards into a seat there at Yamaha.

But something I mentioned before about keeping Quadurero happy.

If you're developing a V four project and you've got all these spinning plates in the air of your Yamaha, you can't tell me that Quataurero is going to be super thrilled with two rookies in the Pramac lineup if that was what it was going to come down.

So if it was going to be Rascatlioglu and Marrera, neither of whom have ridden a motor GP bike, neither of who would have experience with the Inline four or the V four, or the tires or the tracks and so on and so forth, and then have to learn it all again for twenty twenty seven when everything changes.

So I think Jack, the reason Jack was hired in the first place is because he's got experience with all the other manufacturers.

He's been around a long time.

We know he was really influential with Decaddy as a guy who would test new items, their ride height device and so on and so forth.

For Quaduro to know there's an experienced head who's kind of seen and done everything at this point working in the junior team if you like the B team be for a short time, but I think it's probably good for Yamaha to have Jack's experience still there.

Marrera is super impressive, like he's having a really really good motor two season, absolute class of the field in Austria, which was a good timing when you negotiating a contract with Andre I would have thought.

But so we might have an exciting young Brazilian on the Greed next year and we might still have our veteran Australian, which for Australian fans sounds like a win win.

So you're seeing this.

Possibly Jack's not moving to the Factory team like the rumors were saying.

He might say at Promak and Alex Rinz might stay at Monster Rateergy.

It sounds like Palo Paversio was asked about this in the Friday team principal's press conference in Austria, primarily a sponsor.

I think to the interview that Jack Appleyard did with us when he mentioned the fact that there was perhaps getting a little bit shaky with Alex's tenure there at the Monster Yamaha team.

Pavesio said, no, no, no, Alex will be staying, which okay, I admire him backing his rider.

There's no statistical sense for that comment.

But he's under contract, and the Japanese factories aren't super aren't super keen on breaking contracts generally with factory riders, let's be honest.

So it sounds very much like Alex Rings is going to get a stay of execution.

We've had this discussion before.

It's not Alex's fault necessarily, but he's not the writer that he once was.

But it sounds like that avenue is closed off.

But reading the tea leaves here, it feels that the Miller Pramaha drink there you go.

Miller Pramaha access is going to continue, probably for at least one more year.

What happens for twenty seven interesting right with Pramak because Rascal Leioglue and this is another thing that Jack Appleyard said on this podcast.

He comes in with a huge reputation and we're super interested to see how he's going to go.

There's no guarantee it's going to be good.

He's going to be a twenty nine year old rookie learning how to ride Michelin tires and motor GP bikes and a whole bunch of circuits he's never been on.

It might not be that amazing, at least initially.

Or he might just be so talented that he can get on one of these things and make it sing from the start.

Right now, what's Yamaha's succession plan?

So Alex Reins is out of contract at the end of twenty six, it's hard to mount a case to him being retained after that.

Then what do Yamaha do Because they've got the a lister in Quaaterero, the other seats are a little bit I'm not quite sure what they're doing with them at the moment.

So I don't think Jack's going to be a motor GP for a long long time.

He's already been in MOTORGP for quite a while, let's be honest.

But I think he still has a lot to offer that project for what it needs right now.

And then they'll come a point where they've moved on and Jack's ready to move on, and it'll be a mutually a mutually agreeable parting, you might say, So, yeah, watch this space.

I expect the Marera thing probably lobs first, and then at some point Pramak will say, all right, well we've got to keep one of our two current writers, and the one they probably keep is Jack, So.

Let's move on to the ossies because it was exciting this weekend.

We had five ossies on the track.

Yeah, which is pretty cool.

To see the Legends parade, the one thousand, one thousandth sorry because.

That's hard word to say, easy to write.

Easy to write, exactly, Moroto GP race and they brought out the Legends Parade and Casey was there.

It was quite nice to see him back on that repsol Hond delivery.

He's just so iconic as.

Then Casey in the twenty seven and just to see him back on his USC two and three B as.

Well as goosebumps awesome.

Yeah, he looks in good Nick Casey.

I know he obviously had some health issues and stuff over the years, but you forget how gungny still is.

He looks like he could probably get back on the grid tomorrow and have a crack at it.

But how good was it to see that bike?

And is that funny how your eyes do funny things?

Like we were trying to stop saying Repsol Honda at the beginning of the year because it wasn't Repsol Honda for the first time ever.

And you see that bike back on track again and everything just looks right with the world again.

It's just an orange bike.

Awesome livery amazing rider on it.

Yeah, it looked like it was a nice throwback and very very nice to see.

It's a shamer.

We couldn't see more of the bikes and everything on track, you know, Simon Crazy, Lakoma Agustini was there, Lauras Caparrossi, so, I mean, a lot of it who do work in Daughter in the Panic and whatnot.

But cool to see Casey there.

And then we had that little interaction with Casey and Valentino on.

The grid though.

That was funny, quite interesting from our fierce rivals, shall we say, from your ambition outweighs your talent to a nice handshake and a smile on the grid.

Yeah, they kind of buried the hatchet.

I mean, you remember that video last year when Casey went to the ranch and he was doing some motocross with Valentino.

And when these guys get older and they're not fighting with one another anymore, I think there's a general level of respect there.

It's nice to see a couple of legends rubbing shoulders amicably because it certainly wasn't like that in the past.

But I do like how you've set this up with let's talk about the other ossies, because frankly, I think Casey Stotter was the best performing Australian at Spielberg over the course of the weekend because everyone else had a bit of a shocker or was very slow or in the case of Center ages very painful ending to his weekend.

Oh, I don't know if you guys listening, if you've seen that crash of centners and you know I did post it after I saw him get up and walk away from it.

But wow, that was a big crash.

I've been trying to find out that inner details it.

At one moment it looked like he possibly had someone run over his leg or I don't know the ins and outs, but taking from what the team of post on socials, what Center's posted on socials is that he's gone to have some more checks and it's going to be a recovery time.

So Matt, have you heard any latest news on Senna?

No, we know that He was taken to a trackside hospital and then which to Barcelona for some more medical checks, so you know, his participation for this weekend.

We don't know whether that's happening or not yet.

He could probably use a gap between Austria and Hungary that's longer than a few days.

But it was a scary one in that that chicane which is kind of a band aid solution to a problem there at Austria.

It's not the most elegant way of changing a racetrack.

The first laps of all the races are a bit fraught there.

You just have to be on the outside and have to check up to avoid somebody, and things like that can happen.

He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, so it's one of those ones like you looked at the accident thought that could have been worse, but still it certainly wasn't pleasant, and yeah, he wasn't looking too great when he got up, so better to be safe than sorry, were these things, particularly if there's a concussion involved, And yeah, I would I would be surprised if he was racing and hungry this weekend, but that would you know, we're know what motorcycle races are like if someone says you can race, theyre going to race.

So well, guess we'll.

See at a young twenty year old motorcycle racer.

Is not going to take no for an answer.

But we will keep you updated on any other news that we hear about.

Ossie sent Aegeus and yeah, like you said, rough weekendles for Joel and Jacob in Moto three, but Moto three racing.

Oh man, it is sure.

Sure, let's quickly move on because if you guys have sucked around, thank you.

We're going to move on to Hungry and a new circuit that we never been to before, Ballaton Parks.

So we know a lot of writers have tested here on stup mikes or six hundreds in their spare time.

I was talking to when I was actually in Europe Eloer this year and he mentioned the track surface was quite interesting there.

That was back in the summer, but I know it's still hot.

He was saying that it's crumbling a little bit.

And then I don't know, Mattter, if you've seen that Jiucaddi video where they factory Jacaddi and the privateer teams went and tested there and Mark was saying just how.

The rear tire was just sliding.

And I don't know, if we're here they were making it up and trying to tell a story or whatnot.

But from me my opinion, look, I'm not the racer track looks narrow and the corners look quite slow.

But my question to you is is that going to make it more of an even playing field this weekend kind of like what we saw back in Bruno, because no one has the data from this place.

Yeah, that's always a good thing in that everyone's literally going there with a completely clean sheet of paper.

We know that Ducatti sent all their riders there on some Panagales to bomb around during the mid season break.

Classic Dacadi like, We're just going to fly all six of our riders and Mikaylee Piro in there and there's seven brand new Panagales and you guys just go and get your eye in because you can.

Classic to Caddy, this is why they're leading everything.

But I do like the fact that it is a real step into the unknown.

I like a new circuit.

I think it's the most level of level playing fields.

I like a new circuit generally.

I don't know if I'm liking this circuit particularly much.

It's an odd circuit.

Lad anyone that's listening to this go and find a track map of this thing.

The first corner first four corner sequence is just not necessarily conducive to great motor GP racing.

It really concerns me with the funnel effect into that first corner.

And if anyone saw what happened on the first lap of the first World Superbikes Race there a couple of months or end of July rather, there was a six bike pile up in the first quarter and it's pretty sketchy because it almost turns completely back on itself and then onto its right and then there's three consecutive left hand as that follow So trying to imagine twenty two motor GP bikes thundering and term one there's going to be super interesting.

Not sure how that's going to play out.

I think the sprint will give us a bit of a bit of a test as to what that's going to be like.

It's an odd layout.

Banyaya.

After testing the Panagali they said, I don't think we'll use sixth gear here, and that shows you how slow it's going to be.

A lot of Chicanes.

It's a different track, right, And I don't mind the idea of you don't want twenty two cookie cutter race tracks here, you want you know, you don't want twenty two Austrias.

One Austria is fine.

One ballot on park is fine.

The reason we rave about places like Bagello and Acid and Philip Island is because they are there completely outlies.

They're ones of one, you know, varieties of spice of life and all that sort of stuff.

So I'm not sure it's going to be the It's not going to be some high speed thriller rollercoaster of a race track.

It's pretty flat and it's pretty tight, and it's going to be pretty slow.

But it's a different style of race.

And what you said before about no one being super prepared for this, I quite like the challenge of you get to a new place and it's like, well, you've only really got one practice session now to learn this thing on Friday, because you're straight into what is effected Q ero in the end of practice on Friday, You've got to try and get yourself into Q two if that's possible.

So this becomes a weekend of who can learn the fastest, and who can live on their wits and who is prepared to push when things aren't completely perfect.

You don't have the data, The track's a little bit sketchy.

You're still finding out where the limits are corner after quarter.

So if that doesn't sound like a recipe for Mark Marquez to make everyone look a bit silly and Friday practice, I don't know what it is.

Because a new track and marquees and a chance to explore the limits, yeah, I don't think you'll get through the day without possibly scuffing his letters a little bit, but you'll find the limit pretty early and then try and stay within it.

I put on the superbikes on KO back from when they last a ballot on Park, and I pointed out the fact that they hadn't mowed the grass on the edge of the track, so the grass was coming up onto the curb and I thought that was hilarious.

Other it was just such a superbike thing, but it made me, Yeah, I wonder what.

It's going to be like for Moto GP.

But looking at the track layer and I only watched a few laps, it looks like real chicanes.

In this circuit.

Sure is, And that's what the difference.

When it's a car circuit, they're just flat out kinks, and I think the you know, you need to put the chicanes in for bikes, just for runoff room and the fact that the track is it's in quite a narrow piece of land and that it quite loops back on itself, so you'll have one of those a bit like Urmass where you have the long back straight and then the section immediately after where you're almost riding at the guys coming on the other part of the track, which again I'm doing hand signals here on a podcast, completely useless, but in a small part of a piece of real estate, and I think you need the chicanes to maybe knock the top speed down a little bit, get it turned, then change and go again.

So it's going to be super stop star It's not going to be a great flow to it.

But it's the same for everybody, right, everyone's got the same challenge here.

This strikes me as a weekend where you might see a few random outliers of like a guy who just adapts really quickly.

You'll look into Q two and you go, what's that guy doing in Q two?

He's barely been there all year, So from an interest point of view, I think it's going to be pretty high because for all the viewers, all the riders, no one's got any experience of this.

Love be a new track because it's it just it resets things for a weekend where you know, the other weekends perhaps can be a little bit more predictable.

Wouldn't it be good just thinking out around here if we saw like an I Grew a comeback like what we saw entire lab.

Where he just like it came out of nowhere rookie, You're.

Like, whoa, he's in like the top five, and then the rest of the season in nowhere come into a track like this, you just see I Grew again and go straight into Q two like and this.

Will be one of those weekends where for whatever reason, someone will hit the ground running on Friday and go feeling good here And this is going to be a track where, because no one's got any experience, confidence and early confidence is going to be key.

And that's why I think you'll get to the end of Friday and you'll see three names that are in Q two that you'll be like, oh, that's a big surprise.

So if you've had a bit of a crappy weekend in Austria, Yamaha, maybe there's a chance for someone like Couadarero, who we know can just extract lap times out of bikes that probably don't deserve it.

Maybe you see him in Q two, he just pulls out a stunning lab a week after they were complitly useless in Austria.

Well, ma'am, I'm not gonna ask you for your your predictions this weekend because, like you just said, we don't know.

I've hurt from the fact of Mark Marquez possibly dominating, so we'll leave that to the actual on track action.

But that pretty much rounds up our recap from Austria and our little look ahead at what we do know about Balaton Park.

Moto GP is.

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