Mono GP went back to the Czech Republic for the first time since twenty twenty, and a boy did it deliver.

We had a legend making his comeback.

The other legend put on a masterclass and a fiery on track clash that has sparked just as much drama off track.

Pittok podcast is brought to you by Shannon's Insurance.

I'm your host, Ronita vmullin, and joining me is the man who's been around since before Bruno was on the calendar, mister mac Layton.

Matt.

I'm going to start off this podcast before we get into all the craziness.

Can you believe it the first race of the year that there's only been one new caddie on the podium and three different manufacturers.

Yeah, bizarre, two caddies in the top ten.

The way you're doing that, excuse me, the way you're doing that intro there, Ronita, I thought you were going to come and knock me off my chair sort of, you know, like a Bijuan miir for this podcast and just fall in a heap on the ground.

But that's a discussion for a today.

But yes, it was a strange woe, wasn't it?

Because We're so used to multiple de caddies being on podiums, and there were many races at the start of the season where you know, or five of the sixty caddies were in the top five, and the race that happened multiple times.

I'm wondering, and we can probably get into this a bit later, whether Bruno was kind of the way the rest of the season might pan out.

Now, going back to something we were talking about before about how the GP twenty four is going to become more and more outdated as the season comes along, But you look at the other manufacturers.

At the moment, Aprilia is going really well.

Katim had a really good weekend and so this was one of those rare weekends where I don't think that Mark Marquez had the best bike in the field this weekend, but he still won anyway because he's Mark Marquez.

But maybe that's something the other manufacturers coming up is something that we'll see over these last ten rounds of the year.

Well before we get into the riders and the manufacturers.

One of the biggest headlines from this weekend was Saturday's sprint, and that was the fact that we have both the factory Duke caddy riders Mark and Pacovanyaya both sit up and move themselves back due to tire pressure warnings.

Now, for those of you who might not understand, maybe you come from an F one background or whatnot, let me give you a quick rundown of what happens.

So during the check GPS sprint, several riders are flagged for potentially running below the minimum permitted front tire pressure.

So that included Pecobanya and Mark Marquez.

Right, So Moto GP's tire pressure regulations they were bought in to improve safety and the guideline.

And I say that an air quotes here for the minimum front tire pressure is one point eight bar and they have to hold that for a certain percentage of the race.

Now that can go oh, we can go down depending on whether they have clear air in front of them or how close they are, if they're in a pack, if they're further down the field.

So I heard that this weekend the tire pressure minimum change because there's a guideline, it was around one point seven six.

So we saw Mark Marquez and Pecobonna drop back.

You could go back and watch you see, first of all, it's peker Vanyaya he's sitting up, and then one writer comes past, then multiple writers come past, then a few laps on we see Mark.

Mark has actually slow down, constantly looking behind him to see what's going on, and then let Pedro Acosta come past and immediately sit on his rear wheel.

So we saw this happen.

We knew, Okay, it's tire pressure.

There's got to be something here.

But there's two different, two very very different stories as to why that happened.

And Matt, I'm hoping you can give our listeners a bit more of a detail because for both of them, yeah, it was tire pressure warnings, but they weren't the same reasons why.

Yeah, the Banyaya one's the easiest one to explain, because there was an erroneous setting, some finger trouble within the Docadie garage, so the sensor was going off on the dash even though it didn't actually need to, So that was one issue there, But the biggest issue was that the tire pressure measurement was actually setting correctly, so it was telling Mark that he had he was outside the window, as they liked to call it, in terms of the number of laps he was within the mandated pressure so it was basically sending erroneous warnings to several riders during the race.

And if you'd watched that sprint race, the thing you remember afterwards that it flagged three riders up for potentially breaching high pressure rings.

At the end of that race.

It was Iogura, Alex Rintu, well outside the top ten, and Mark who had won the race.

So there was this confusion at the time.

From Mark, he was receiving messages to say that he was outside of the high pressure window.

The team was fairly relaxed about it because they knew that he weren't.

So there was a translation issue, I guess you could say, from race control or the measurement of the tire pressures to Mark, so he was getting information that was different than to to Caddie, and he was also getting information that was incorrect.

Mark being Mark, he thought, well, this is not working very well.

I'll just go and sit behind Pedro Acosta for a few laps.

When he knew then that he was going to be within the window had there been an issue with his tire pressure.

He just passed a cost and gapped him by nine tenths of a second.

Did one and a half lapse anyway because he's Mark Marquez.

So I guess there's a case of no harm, no foul here in terms of everyone got the correct results and there was kind of nothing.

To see here.

But it's not great for a series of this caliber.

This is supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

We can't have finger trouble or incorrect sense of data being given to riders.

But I think the wider picture with this is you spent ninety seconds very correctly and eloquently describing what it is that was going on.

Does the average sports fans slash motor gpfan?

Do they not just want to watch a race between people over ten laps or twenty one laps or whatever it is.

This is a byproduct of all of the arrow that's crept into these bikes over the last few years and the way teams have to run these front tires, and the issue of safety is paramount here because given the choice, the teams would run the front tire virtually flat because they know that the tire temperature and therefore the tire pressure is going to increase when you're running in a pack.

The silly thing about all of this is that you are kind of predicting slashes, guessing what your front tire temperature needs to be based on where you are on the race track during the race.

The biggest example we got of this is you remember all the way back in round four in Kata when Maverick Vinalees is suddenly on the Grand Prix podium for KTM and was given a sixteen second time penalty for incorrect tire pressure.

Because his team had figured that he would be riding in the pack for the entire race, and because Maverick has those two days a year where he masquerades as the world's greatest rider, he got his way to the front and took the lead of that race.

He passed Mark.

Marquez on track, spent a whole heap of time at the front of the race with no with losing tire temp and losing tire pressure in a race that's at night as well the other factory at all of that, and then Maverick basically was too fast for his own good and cross the line in second place and was classified fourteenth because he got a penalty, which I believe we said at the time is the most Maverick Vinyal listing to do of all time, so this will be there's a resolution to this, and it's called twenty twenty seven when we get these new eggs that come in and we take all of the era off the bikes.

And everyone loves the performance of these bikes.

I mean, the speeds and the lap times they're doing is absolutely amazing.

But when you are making something that should be fairly simple to understand really really convoluted.

And the worst part about it was because it's a sprint race and they're over in basically twenty minutes.

We spent the best part of twenty minutes wondering who was in the tire window, who was outside the tire window, what pressure are people running this and that.

Meanwhile, there's twenty two guys having a motorcycle race and we're trying to understand what's going on on track through the lens of all of these would be penalties or possible penalties on who's in and out of the window.

They've created an enormous mess for themselves with this.

It's hard to follow, it's hard to watch.

It's a massive turnoff for people who just want to watch a good bike race.

We do have a solution to this.

I will give the I will give Michelin and the teams a little bit of a pass on this first time we've bring to Bruno in five years.

And Friday was kind of a wipeout anyway because it was so wet, so one done any dry where they're running.

No one really had the data.

There was a lot of guesswork going on on Saturday.

And I think you could see the benefits of it being dry on Saturday, because on Sunday were we talking about tire pressure penalties at all?

In the Grand Prix, No no one even mentioned it because everyone had the data to set their tires correctly.

But here we are about what.

Six minutes into a podcast, and we've spent five and a half minutes of it talking about tires, which you know, they're black and round and they go around in circles and that's all great, But it's not why people tune into watch, is it.

No, you're right, it's not why people tune in to watch.

And I do think like a fan who or sorry, maybe just someone who's casually tuning in or tuning in for the first time, going, oh, it's a Saturday afternoon in Europe.

I can watch a sprint or hear in Australia and then they see the race leader sitting up and letting the guy behind him pass.

Is that going to entice someone to want to tune in again and want to keep watching Moto GP.

I just think it makes it unnecessarily confusing because my first thought is my first thought when I saw it, was Oh, maybe there's a technical problem here, or it's made a mistake, or maybe there's a breakdown with one of these machines.

That's your first thought.

Whenever you see anyone in motorsport in that sort of situation checking up, you usually come to the conclusion that there's a mechanical that's about to happen.

Fair assumption, right, And so I think if you're trying to entice the casual fan or the person that's only intermittently interested in things like the sprints, it is a turn off because it adds a layer of complexity that you're going you went through a really detailed description which was completely correct, but for the casual fan that's just too much overloed, quite frankly, and even for the participants within the race and the teams and the TV broadcast.

It adds an unnecessary layer of complexity.

There is a solution to this.

This is probably not going to be the last time you and I talk about this, but I think it was exacerbated a little bit by the fact that we hadn't been at Bruno for five years.

You look at a picture of.

A motor GP bike from twenty twenty when Brad Benda won there at Bruno, and go side by side with the picture of a twenty twenty bike.

It's almost a different sport.

It's the best visual demonstration of how much this sport's moved on in the past five years.

The arrow, you know, the gend's out of the bottle when it comes to the erro stuff right, you can't stuff it back in.

And fortunately we do have an ind date for this for bring on twenty seven.

I think, well, yeh so, because twenty twenty seven like the real changes that matches said, but we've also got the new time manufacturers Parelli you're coming in now like for qualifying though I don't know if a lot of people know this, but they actually do run quite a low tire pressure for qualifying.

So even if the safety is there, because there's a potential if the tire pressure, you know, is at that minimum, that there could be an issue where it comes off the wheel or something at a rider could get injured.

It's crazy to think that they actually are running a lower tire pressure when they are doing qualifying anyway, the fact that they are doing it but they're not.

But then Michelin, we're going to bring in a new front tire.

Now they're not.

But we've got Parelli in twenty seven.

It's like, Okay, I'm not going to solve this problem now, but is it going to be still what we're talking about in twenty twenty seven.

Yeah, I would doubt it because you've got a few factors at play there.

You've got eight fifties rather than one thousand cc bikes, you've got no ride height devices front or rear, you've got no limited arrow, and you've got a new tire supplier.

So by gracing being what it is, there will be some sort of new gray area for the teams to exploit.

Because that's what this comes down to, right, It's a performance issue.

If you under inflate your tires, it's generally for performance reasons, but you've got to try and tiptoe the line between performance and safety.

Like you said before, the last thing we need is an overinflated tire coming off of RIM at three hundred ks an hour, because that's an aeroplane accident.

We don't need to see that.

And so there will be something else in the twenty twenty seven rags that we can't foresee yet, and it will become sort of the topic DJUR or become the thing that we're talking about.

That's a controversy because you know, in any form of motorsport, right, it's not so much what the rule book says, it's what the rule book doesn't say.

And so will look at the rule book and say, well, it says that we can't do this, but it doesn't say that we can't do that, And so teams operate in the gray areas because that's how you get an advantage over the others.

There'll be something else that comes up in twenty seven.

We just don't know what it is yet.

No exactly, and that's what we get to look forward to.

Exactly what I thought was really interesting now that I've gone back and I've thought about it, or I think that not the only hindrance to Peko's weekend.

But you look at what happened when Peco sat up and then he let one bike pass, he slowed down, and after that, I think another bike came past pretty much straight away.

Then you look at where Mark did it.

Now, Mark kind of was looking around him for a while because he was already gapping Pedro.

He waited for Pedro to come pass, and sat right behind him like he's already on the throttle as Pedro was coming past.

I think that Peco made It's hard when the warning's up and he's trying to figure out and now I'm not riding a bike at three hundred comers now.

But I think that maybe the choice of when he did his drop down and everything, I think that definitely hindered him.

We know he had the light was on and the issue and everything there, but look, he didn't have a great weekend to start with, which we'll go into more detail, but how much of that really came into play of just that that MILLI second decision?

Right, it was two things.

For me, what you what you said is completely right, it's when he did it.

For me, it was a bit of what he did afterwards, because all year Pecko was talked about not having the confidence on the front of the decade.

So if you're on a bike that's capable of winning the sprint, which Mark Marquez clearly was, it's the same bike.

Pecko doesn't have the confidence on the front end of the bike or the decisiveness in traffic to be able to let one to however many riders go and then just when at a time of his choosing just to immediately go back past people, And so to me, as you were watching it, when you saw Banyaya drop behind probably more riders than he wanted to, never at any point did I think, well, that's fine, he'll just get all those back, Whereas when Mark dropped behind a Costa, you're just thinking, well, he'll just decide to pull the pin.

Whether it's two laps to go or one lap to go, he's just going to sit there and stalk and stalk and stalk, and when it's decided, when it's time to go.

I felt like a Costa could do nothing about that.

It was completely on Mark when he wanted to go back and win the race.

Whereas once you saw Bangyay buried inside that top five a little bit, you're thinking he's not coming back from this, and that's the difference to me between two riders on the same bike this year.

It's funny like that sort of mid race change of position kind of summed up the entire season for me because there was never any doubt that Mark was coming back to take the lead, and there was never any doubt in my mind that Banyay was stuck.

Where he was.

Yeah, that's the narrative of this year.

You've hit the nail on the head exactly.

The peker Bannoel, Like I said, we want to I want to touch on him because from what I've heard, he chose a wrong tire Friday afternoon.

It was guidance from his team, but he wanted to go a different way.

They said no, And then I believe my Alex chose the time that he wanted to and look at where Alex ended up, right, So we had that wrong tire choice Friday afternoon.

We knew the weather was pretty crappy anyway on Friday, the wet wet sessions secured pole.

On Saturday managed to come through from Q one into Q two secured Pole, but only because Mark crashed out when he was on that flyer and said he got spooked by I think it was.

A Zarko crashed in front of him.

Yeah, exactly.

But then so you see this downer on Friday, a little bit up on Saturday, then that downer on Saturday's sprint, and then on Sunday with the Grand Prix he got the whole shot and then ran white again.

It's like, and we know Peco it has to be perfection for him, but I also feel like when he's got the opportunity, he's not making the most of it.

But it's kind of two variations of the same problem in that he's not a guy who traditionally can just and this is to his great credit, he's not someone who can park his brain and just go for it.

Sometimes.

He's so analytical in the way that he of the way that he thinks in that we saw this last year.

If you get a bite that is in the sweet spot and you give him the sharpest possible tool to exploit it, he's unbelievably consistent with it in that he didn't you know, once he got himself to the front of races, he would just beat you like it's death by a thousand cuts.

Alright, He just takes a tenth or a tenth there next thing you look up and it's four tenths and it's eight tenths.

And he doesn't have that volcanic Marquez pace, nor does he have Mark's ability to sort of push the envelope.

That's not who who is.

And the thing I do like about the way the two of them go racing when they're both at their best is that they're trying to achieve the same thing very very differently, which is always fun to see which of the two sort of styles and mindsets work.

At the moment.

You could argue that Peco needs to maybe think a little bit less and maybe take a few more chances, but that's not in his DNA.

That's not who he is as a rider.

And we talk about this on a previous episode in that there's a lot of Johe Lorenzo in the way that Banya operates in that when everything is just so in the sweet spot, you look at him and go, how's anyone going to beat this guy?

Because he's so unbelievably good, Whereas Mark is the is the sort of improviser he's prepared to dance on the tightrope a bit more, he's prepared to take a little bit more risk.

He's a lot like Casey Stoner was in Casey's heyday, who would just live on rawability and his wits.

But the thing for me with this version of Mark, and this is something that it was quite interesting watching him in the post race presser on Sunday night.

He's the same writer with the same name as the writer that won those six world championships in seven years.

But there's something really different about Mark now and that I think he in the past, I don't think he could necessarily control his natural instincts on when to push and how to push.

Now, I think he knows that he can push, but he's better at when he deploys that.

And maybe that's just a product of him being a bit older and a bit wiser and maybe realizing what it was that he lost with those sort of five years where he was in the wilderness through injuries.

Because and he's never shied away from this.

Let's remember that when things changed him in twenty twenty with the first of those the first accident and the first surgery, there was no one or nothing to blame but himself for that.

He knew that he had overreached that day, just in his sort of anger and adrenaline to try and get back to the front of that Spanish Grand Prix.

It was his impetuosity and his decision to push the envelope that day that pretty much ruined five years of his career with everything that followed.

I reckon that's been a really heavy burden for him to carry around for the last five years, because it's not like he can say, well, the bike spapped me off, or the tire was defective, or the team did something or someone else, you know, someone punted me off or whatever it was.

It was completely of his doing.

And so there's this sort of like thirty five thousand foot view of Mark now where he sees things and he represses his instincts necessarily, And it was so telling to me on Sunday after the race, where he knew that he had the race done, and to keep himself sharp and to keep himself intense and to keep himself interested, he'd occasionally just go out and say, I think I might try and set the fastest lap on on this lab and really really push for a lap, and then he might ease off a little bit and then he'd really really push again.

And this goes back to this narrative that we've been talking about for months now in that the biggest opponent for Mark this year is Mark.

And it's only now because of the fact that Alex Marqus has had a couple of ropie weekends that we've actually seen the championship margin blowout and it's one hundred and twenty points now, that to me feels like an accurate representation of Mark and whoever is the next best rider this year, because I think he has been that much better than everybody.

It's just taken us the last couple of rounds to get to where that margin should be, and that to me feels real now.

Is like when Alex was twenty thirty points behind, Never in my head did I think he's only really twenty or thirty points behind.

Mark's kind of kept him in it through some mistakes.

Now Marcus stopped making the mistakes.

This is where you see the difference, right.

I'm so glad you brought that up about Mark and what was happening in the Grand Prix, because when I heard the same thing, I just went, You've got to be kidding me, Like, who does that and then I go, oh, it's a Mark Marquez thing.

You know, the Mark's accident happened July nineteenth, twenty What date was the Czech Grand Prix, and what date did he break the record?

For you, Caddy and all?

That was around July nineteenth, twenty twenty five, so it was almost a five years right to the day that he did that.

I thought this weekend, I thought, you know what Mark is gonna like this circuit because I kept hearing Matt Bert say on the commentary or this is like Michello.

It's similar to Michello.

It's the Czech Michello.

And then you could see it during the Grand Prix, whereas like and the sprints as well, turn three was his passing opportunity and he would turn three, turn three.

It's just it's Mark Marquez coded.

It's funny because it is not a Saxon ring and it's not a coder, but all of a sudden, it's like, well, this is a Mark Marquez track once again.

Well, and this is the impressive thing with him this year because he's done well at the tracks that we expect him to do well, like when he went and dominated Saxon Ring.

Everyone kind of just shrugged their shoulders and went sure, because that's what he does.

The most impressive part about his entire seat was two things.

For me.

I thought that it would be super close with him and Banyaya for the entire year because Pecko's the incumbent.

He's been in that team for so long, you know, Pecko's in the last four years, Pecko's won two world championships and very narrowly lost to like Gould have one four World championships in a row.

The fact that Mark's come into that team and dominated Peco in Peco's backyard is one thing.

But there's this, there's just this difference with Mark now in that I think he he's riding much more intelligent and not that he rode unintelligently before, but like an underrated thing with him is that why does he never seem to get into tire trouble?

Right, He's always the guy that manages his tires better.

He's become so much more of a complete writer.

I mean, Matt Bert said it to us a few weeks ago.

This is the best version of him we've ever seen.

And I do wonder that had he not gone through what he'd gone through since twenty twenty, as you were saying, I wonder if we'd we would see that version.

I wonder if that version would have existed, all have come out.

Maybe it took him the trials and tribulations of that five year period for him to find something new within himself to be able to become the writer he now is.

But you know what's super interesting to me is that I love priding myself as being an amateur reader of body language.

I'm like sort of a body language doctor in my spare time.

I should get a degree for this or something.

I love the fact that publicly he's trying, he's not keeping a lid on it, but he's not going absolutely crazy when he wins these races like he's very you know, this could happen to me.

This could happen to me like this.

You know, the sky's always fall again, because when you've had an accident like he has and it changed the course of his career, He's not going to properly celebrate this until it's done.

And I think when it is done, which is something I have crunched some numbers on that I want to share with you.

When it is done, I think we're going to see this really rare occurrence of Mark really letting his guard down in that he's all of those sort of repressed feelings and emotions and everything that's driven him and he's held in for the last five years.

When it's done and you can't take this title away from him, the one that he's wanted for the last five years, I think it's going to be really revealing.

I think he'll let his guard down and I can't personally wait to see that because it shows that more human side and the development of him as a person necessarily not just as a racer.

He's so keeping a lid on it because in the aftermath of Bruno, when Alex Marquez scores no points for the first time all year, all of a sudden, that championship lead is you know, you can start doing that.

When is he going to wrap this up conversation?

Because it is real now those championship lead is so much, But even he's still holding himself back and maybe sort of repressing how he really feels inside because he doesn't want to sort of go too.

Early with that.

And one of my favorite little marxisms in his Spanish English, he says he uses the word injure when he means injuries, and when he was asked what might stop him from winning the championship, he said he could be injure.

In other words, he could be he could have injuries.

One of Mark's little set of quirks that he has with his Spanish English that I love that, but it's still in the back of his mind that every time he stands in front of a mirror, his whole upper body is marked with scars and signs of all the surgeries that he's had.

He doesn't need too much reminding us what can go wrong.

He sees it every single day, right, and that's God, and that's got to be in the back of his mind.

So it's not going to be over until it's over.

But the question for me now is, I don't know whether you've looked too far ahead in the calendar.

You know, there's actually a strong chance that he could win the championship before we head to Asia.

That's actually really in play now.

Although the more likely outcome, I think, and this would be very on brand for Marquez, he probably win it in Japan, because whereas he won most of his he seems to win all of his world championships in Japan.

It always seems to happen there.

But this thing could be over in the best part of ten rounds to go.

This thing could be over five rounds from the end of the season, I think, which is wild.

And I was actually going to ask, you know, when do you think Mark is the going to win the championship?

Because it's inevitable.

But yeah, looking at that, I've heard other people say similar.

I originally thought, oh, probably Indonesia.

You know it's not long before Philip Iiland.

Then there's only a few to go after that.

But Matt, I know you're the stats man, so I know you're gonna pump out some numbers.

So what's he going to take for Mark to win it?

Before they head to the flyways?

Let me just consult the document that I have very sneakily named Marquez points lead needed to win title Niga.

So in case you're wondering, no mystery there, So here's this is interesting for you, right, So he wouldn't need to be two hundred and twelve points ahead to win the title at Massano.

He's one hundred and twenty at the moment.

He needs to be one hundred and eighty five points ahead to win it after Japan.

That sounds like a lot of points, right.

Here's here's the key stat for me.

In the past three rounds so Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, he's outscored Alex Marquez by eighty points in those three rounds eighty eight ero points.

The previous three round he only outscored Alex by eighteen points because Alex was constantly finishing second or third.

Alex has been remarkably consistent all year.

That's been the hallmark of him staying in this for so long.

But we saw what happened to Alex.

He had the crash with a Costa at Asen, and he had the double non score this weekend, terrible start in the sprint, seventeenth across the line, had the early accident with juardmir in the race at Bruno, so he scored no points.

Mark has won perfect Sprint Grand Prix double in the past five rounds.

He hasn't dropped the point since Silverston.

Basically, that's how long this run has been going.

All it takes is for Alex to get a little wobbly like he has in the last couple of rounds or more likely For me, it feels like a twenty twenty five Apulia is now a match for a twenty twenty four Ducady.

At certain tracks, a twenty twenty five KTM is going to be a match for a twenty twenty four Ducati.

So instead of Alex is doing a really good job and finishing second and a distant second behind Mark, there's going to be a Bazeki, or there's now going to be a Joge Martin because he's now back, or you're going to have Petro Acosta there.

There's going to be other interlopers that could potentially get in the way of Alex just banking these points, and that just accentuates Mark's gap even more so.

In a roundabout answer to your question, mathematically, I could see him winning it at Messano, which winning in Rossi's backyard.

That'd be funny, wouldn't that go down?

Will?

More realistically, I think he wins it in Japan, and almost certainly by the time everyone gets to Phillip Island, I think he will be a seven time Motor GP champion.

Can you imagine?

Can you?

Oh?

That would be wild and god, I'd love to be a Flanel.

Well, they're just about rubbing his nose at my goodness.

Oh yeah, wow.

Okay, well, okay, there's there's the stats there, and there's something to kind of grow by.

So you said two hundred and twelve points, he'd needs to be a head at Mazano to take the crown, one hundred and eighty five ahead at Japan.

Okay, So you mentioned Alex Marquez a few times there, and I really want to to bring this up because Alex Marquez Juan Mia another collision.

That was the drama that I was talking about in the intro.

But let me say this, how much bad luck does one guy mean to get in a season?

You think?

Okay, Juan Miyer, we know he's the DNF and the crashed out king, but half of this or majority of it is not even his fault.

He's not the one crashing out.

He's being taken out, right.

I've always been so many of these which you are mea this year that I've almost forgotten which ones were which year and which ones were his fault.

And the common thing with a lot more of these recent ones is that not many of them are his fault anymore.

No, no, And like we saw this, what happened, and we saw Alex being handed along lap penalty after by the stewards, which, okay, you could tell I heard that Alex wasn't even looking or it wasn't trying to overtake.

He was looking in air quotes to try and overtake.

But apparently Duan said no, you know, he'd been getting close and what not.

But for me, it was the fact that the broadcast was showing them for like a solid amount of time.

You could see that Juan he was very, very heated, as he deserves to be because he's constantly being taken out, and Alex was like a little bit apologetically.

Just the fact that Juan just kept going and going and going.

He wanted to make it clear that that was not his fault.

It was so funny.

It was one of those conversations where I reckon that Juan mid ninety five percent of the talking and Alex is trying to walk away, and Mia is just walking around in front of him, looking through that little hole between the uplift advisor and the bottom of his help but trying to make eye contact with him to make his point.

He wasn't making a different point, he was making the same point.

Because he is so utterly sick of you know, seven days previously he got timpin bowling style by Ayagura in Germany.

You remember at the start of the French Grand Prix when in Aabastian and he crashed in the wet took out Banyaya and then Mia managed to crash in avoidance, and the person that missed that crash by about recentimeters was Joan Zako, who won the race about forty five minutes later.

So I don't know what it is with Jama, whether he's you know, encountered a black cat or walk under a ladder or broken a mirror or done all three.

At the same time.

But the guy is so unbelievably unlucky.

And I'm sure you're probably going to go into that number that I threw at you yesterday because we were talking about this offline and was like, how many DNFs does you and me have?

I don't know whether you've got it handy.

I can go through it if you like.

But yeah, come you're the stats man.

So yes, I did ask Matt because I wanted to do a post for the Fox Motorsports Socials just to say basically why this guy should be handed the crown now for DNFs this season, so come on, Matt.

Okay.

So there's a maximum of twenty four starts this year, so we've had twelve rounds.

Me is only done twenty three because he missed a CATA sprint because he had gastro in the desert.

That would have been heaps of fun this year.

On the DNF table, he has eleven DNFs, so he's only finished one more race that he's actually dnf'd in twelve finishes eleven DNFs.

The next most DNFs on my list here is Bradbinder with seven, so he's basically got almost fifty percent, again more than the next worst.

But I reckon minimum fifty sixty percent of these aren't his fault.

Yes, he will crash and overreach, as we know.

I do admire the fact that he's not prepared to sort of be patient and that he's going to rag this thing to the end of its life and try and see what he can.

Get out of it.

But man, can this guy just have some good luck?

And this was the thing right He qualified fifth at Bruno on a Honda, which was an awesome performance at a track that no one's been for a really long time.

He's best qualifying nearly two years, so he was right in the position to do something good about it and still managed to score no points because he got caught up in other people's accidents.

He's just the unluckiest guy.

I murder GP and you do hope for his sake that one day, all of these terrible events is payback for him, and that he somehow sails through and finishes second at a race or something or other, because I don't think there'd be too many people that would be supported for him, because the guy has just had the worst possible luck for a very very.

Long time, and the fact that he technically is a world chammian as well from twenty twenty and then you're seeing this now just crazy, but you just said like the unluckiest rider.

It also made me think of Takannakagami, who filled in this for the injured Yes, who then got taken out during Saturday's sprint, and then he's injured his knee.

I believe it was the ligament or something in his knee.

So filling in for an injured writer gets stickn out in Saturday's sprint, and now he's injured so who's the next person to fill in Alisha Spiro Honda.

That LCR Honda second seat needs.

It needs like an exorcism or something.

It's been pretty cursed as far as this year has gone, because people have been injured when they've been riding the bike, and it's so Chantra's bike and he's only managed to score one point in the first half of the season anyway, so it's Lucio might want to ride it himself.

At this rate, there's not many too many other options that are going around.

Lucio couldn't do worse.

I'ld say that he couldn't do worse.

But let's go from unlucky to finally being back on the bike and having I would call a pretty successful weekend.

Jorge Martin, Now we're actually talking about him being on track and for the first time in what feels like a few months, we're not going to talk too much about all his contract drama because Matt, you wrote a really cool article on Fox sports dot Com to au F Slash Motorsport from Jojey Martin and his pre race press conference where you sent me a message.

Go and watch it, and guys, if you're listening to this and you can haven't watched it, go and watch it because to see Jogey Martin skirting around the fact of him admitting that he made a mistake in causing all that drama, and you know, Massima Rivala basically welcoming him back and not getting blown well out of proportion compared to what it could have.

I thought that was just just fascinating to read.

But Matt, I wanted to talk to you.

Obviously P seven on Sunday in the Grand Prix like phenomenal.

But the seing that that stuck out for me in the midst of everything was Jjey saying about Mark Muckers texting him, don't make a decision when you're down, and I feel like that was Jorgey kind of going, I've made a mistake here.

I admit it, but I'm gonna I'm gonna utilize this and not say I'm sorry.

But then we hear that, you know, hey, got sat down for this team and he's like, I'm all in, like let's do this, let's do this.

And then to come out on Sunday at P seven, your first race back on a new manufacturer, you've been out for nine months injureds what a weekend.

Yeah, huge props to him and to the team for two reasons.

I mean, he sat there and did a twenty five minute press conference on the Thursday of the Bruno weekend, remembering not in his native language as well, which is a barrier that you know a lot of us can't even get our heads around.

And he stood there, sat on a stool on that stage by himself for twenty five minutes and had all of the awkward conversations that you would never want to have.

He didn't duck any questions, He was very open, He was pretty emotional at certain points.

There are a couple of points in that press conference where he really had to sort of stop and compose himself as a performance goes.

These guys are performance athletes because of what they do on the bike in terms of handling a really really difficult situation.

Yes, a situation that he put himself in, but nonetheless to handle that situation the way he did was hugely, hugely impressive.

No matter how much coaching you've had but done beforehand.

That was really really well done.

On track.

Perfect weekend in that he played himself in.

He did some long tire running, he rode in the wet on that bike for the first time, he managed to tick a lot of boxers.

Most importantly, he didn't hurt himself, which is the absolute best outcome of the entire weekend.

And he can look at that and say, well, look, you know, I'm half cooked or whatever it is here.

Marco Poseki finished second in that Grand Prix, so it shows you there's more performance in that bike.

And you know, a fully fit Jorgey Martine versus a fully fit Marco Perzki, we kind of know where the balance power lies there, so that's something for him to aim towards.

But I've got to say the way Aprillia has handled this in that they've stuck to their messaging from day one with this.

You could have excused them for taking like a real victory lap here in terms of everything we said has come true, told you so, like puff your chest out and so to have a.

Bit of a swagger around.

I thought the way they put their arms around Martin off the track and the way they greeted him in the box after the qualifying and the sprint and even after Friday practice when he managed to get himself into Q two.

If your johe Martin, and you've been at this really low air mentally because you've been hindered and then you were agitating for change while you were injured and frustrated that you weren't on the bike.

That's got to mean something.

And I think if your Martine and you have a decent strong end of the season, you can compete with some podiums here and there.

You see that the bike is the best thing that's not a du caddie on the murdor GP grid.

There's a non zero chance that he stays there if the going is good, necessarily, But I just don't think that Aprilia could have handled that better in terms of you're our star rider, You're our big asset.

We moved heaven and earth.

To get you.

We really want you here no matter what happened.

Let's the ward, the water's gone under the bridge.

Now let's start from ero and let's build here.

I thought both parties came out of the weekend with a lot of positivity and add to the fact that you know, Bazeki for the last what four rounds now has been genuinely up there most of the time.

You know, we saw what happened to asen he's been really really impressive as he's got to grips now with that bike.

He's coming on really really strongly at the moment, and if you take all of the decade runners out of the equation, like he's just about being the most impressive guy over the last probably four to five races.

That boats really well for Martine because you know, once he has this big break now gets himself more physically ready by the time we get to the flyways and there's a few tracks on the Flyways that he really goes well at, particularly Australia.

To be honest, he's going to be.

Pretty formidable because that bike is clearly quite good and he's good enough that he might be able to take it over the top.

So do I think Aprili is going to win a Grand Prix before the end of the year.

Yeah, I do.

I think they're going to win another one or two before the end of the season.

And you know, Martin's been amazing at Philip Ireland for the past few years, like probably the quickest guy, just not the guy who's what the Grand Prix because of what have Woode Jones Zarco in the Saturday race a couple of years ago, and he had Marke to deal with last year on the Grassini Decaddy.

But if you were ever going to put down a race, all, hey, Martin might win for the rest of the year.

I reckon Philip Island's fairly high on the list.

I think you can add to your talents not only body language reading but mind reading.

Because that was what I was going to ask you, what do you think Joy Martin can win a race this year?

But you answered that straight away, you know, when you were talking about Marco but Zechi there as well and saying you know how good he is.

It also made me think Raul Fernandez this weekend, Oh yeah, it seems like he's made a set.

But then I've also heard that he was like no, no, I mentally was there.

It was just working to get into this position.

Was he the first satellite team satellite writer to across the line?

Phenomenal weekend?

But was this just because it was in a Prillier suited circuit.

A little bit?

I mean, he's the overnight sensation that took four years to come to fruition.

It's funny is that came off one of the great Moto two seasons and we've been waiting for him to do anything in Motor TP Basically since then last few rounds he's actually been really good, and I think part of that is, Yeah, the Aprillia is clearly I reckon.

The Apprilli has made the biggest step over the last probably six races relative to all the other bikes, even the Ducati.

Necessarily, I think Aprilli has been extremely good.

Isn't it so so much psychological percentage of a rider's output is psychological in this game, right he feels that the factory is listening to him, and they're taking care of him, and they value him as an asset, and certain guys just need certain things to stimulate them or give them confidence, or to make them feel wanted.

He feels like a valuable writer in that project right now.

And isn't it funny how the narratives changed with that particular team, because at.

The start of the year you were there in Thailand.

It's like, man I.

Agura, this kid's aren't beelievable as a kid, he's a twenty five year old.

This Motor two champion guy's unbelievable.

How bad is Fernandez?

He's been there for three years, He's getting shown up by rookie.

That thing has totally flipped around.

In the last probably four or five rounds, A goura has really gone off the boil, and he's also been injured.

This is the best Ralph Fernandez we've ever seen, and you know, I think I'm right to be skeptical that I'd like to see it for a bit longer because I don't one hundred percent trust it yet, because it might just be a good run of a few races.

But what he did on the weekend, like you saw him just outside the top five, hovering around six seventh through the entire weekend.

At no point did I look at the timing tower and go, well, that feels like a fluke.

I looked at it and thought, that feels legit.

That feels absolutely where he should be.

He didn't owe to any great attrition or anything else.

He was just really really good.

Not in a podium position good, but certainly better than a lot of other guys on better machinery.

He was very very good this weekend.

And that's about three weekends in a row now, and I've been on record for a while saying that I think he's just overmatched as a MotoGP rider and probably is He's had his chance and probably needs to be moved on.

But at the moment there's a nice slice of humble pie waiting for him.

Me if he keeps doing this, and I shall gladly eat it if that's what it comes down to.

And I can just see Brivio sitting back there being like I told you guys, so, I told you so.

None of you listen to me.

He's the master at this though, is he?

We shouldn't.

If there's any rule in motor GP, we should learn don't doubt Daviadeo Brivio because he has the touch with these guys that you think back to Vignalees and Rins before he got injured and Chuan Mira.

You know, no one when when Juanma came into motor GP.

I don't think anyone was saying, oh, yeah, that guy's.

Gonna be a world champion.

He's so good at spotting these guys.

He's probably the best in the business at doing it.

So if Davadao Brivio says that you're good at something, we probably should just nod our heads and say, yes, okay, David Day, we believe you.

So maybe that's the lesson in all of this.

Maybe it is.

But before we wrap up Motorgib, because there has been so much to talk about these guys this weekend, I want to bring up Pedro Acosta double podiums for KTM and I think I messaged you yesterday, Matt going, when was the last time that Pedro was on the podium on a Sunday?

Thailand twenty twenty four.

Yeah, Thailand, it was two hundred and sixty something days since he was on a podium on a Sunday.

But my question to you, is this Pedro Acosta back or is this because Bruno's circuit haven't been there in five years?

Everyone was on an even playing field.

Circuit's been resurfaced, which made me think less chatter for the KTMS, which I think is why we saw an Abashanini up the front Pedro Costa.

You know, like, is Pedro back or was just situations aligning?

The stars were kind of almost in that perfect line for him.

Yeah, I reckon, if I'm going to split this percentage, wasn't going to go forty sixty.

I was gonna say thirty seven sixty three just to be stupid, But I was say forty sixty Pedro was better.

Clearly look at what the other ktms were doing.

Seeing an AA Bastianini fighting for something meaningful is like, where have you been all season?

Because we've not seen that.

And the other one for me, Paul Spargo, who's in there as an injury replacement for Maverick Vinales and he's finishing in the top ten in the Grand Prix and he hadn't ridden since Migello last year.

And Pole's very good.

Pole's a very very good Grand Prix rider when he was in his heyday.

But it's a sure sign how good that bike is when you can get a guy who's not raced all year and then he's up there in the top ten.

He was incredibly impressive and without sort of dissing Pole and how good he is.

If you can come in effectively off the bench with a week's notice to replace an injured rider in Maverick Vinales, it shows you that the combination of that bike and that circuit married really well over the course of the weekend.

So yeah, A Costa was better, but I think KTM as a whole was better.

And the thing I kept thinking about when I saw a spargo randomly is that Vinales has been the best.

He's not scored the most points, but I think he's been the best KTM rider of the four for the entire season, and we know that Maverick has those weekends where he can be pretty awesome.

I thought, man a fully fit Vignales on a really good KTM at a circuit that seems to suit it to my mind.

He's probably sniffing around the same sort of area that a Costa is, and maybe even better.

So yeah, look, a Costa was clearly better.

We needed him to get back on a podium because it had been, like you said, two hundred and sixty something days and we'd almost forgotten what it was like to see him up there.

But I think KTM on the whole was much better, and you know, they showed up a couple of the deucaddies.

Whether it's circuit specific one off or not, we don't know.

But of course the next round, once we eventually get back after the break, is Austria, right, So if ever a Red Bull backed KTM team needed a good result, it's probably at the circuit that underwrites the entire show for the weekend.

So let's see if that one lasts.

But yeah, certainly good signs for them.

Well, I was reading articles in the build up to the Grand Prix even after of Peguacosta's saying about how he it's been feeling like fire was his words, and I guess that's translating is the anger possibly or just the frustration that he's been dealing with at KTM.

But how he goes this podium, this double podium as well, and how beneficial and important that was.

But that's one thing that you just said that Pedro mentioned.

He goes crucially.

Our next race after some break is the Red Bull Ring.

It's our home Grand Prix, right, we need to be strong there and I think that confidence coming through from this weekend to there is going to be so beneficial.

But talking about Paula Spargaru, he beat Brad Binder and Brad Binda was the winner here back in twenty twenty, So what is this saying about Brad and his year that he's having with the KATM.

He's lok being maybe other than Bastian and he probably the most disappointing guy this year because you look at the past few years with Binda, he's just he was always that guy there that would pick up the crumbs if anyone drop the ball.

He's just been like a permanent top six championship finisher for years now.

He is no we are near that this year.

I think he's something got twelfth in the world championship standings, as I call up my pdf here on a live podcast, which is always good, Yes, twelfth, I was a good guess.

So yeah, look, he's just been kind of anonymous the entire year.

And the stat that's really alarming for me is he hasn't out qualified a cost of once this season, if you can believe that.

And this is a guy who we know binds not a fantastic qualifier, but he's a good racer, and neither of those things has happened for him this year.

So he's kind of been a bit a woll this year.

It was interesting on a weekend where all the other ktms had reason for optimism, there wasn't a heap to be optimistic about on that side of the garage.

When you think he was going back to the track where he won his first gron PRI back in twenty twenty.

Yeah, like it's wild to me.

I just couldn't believe it.

But the fact that Paul's barger a top ten.

I was writing that graphic and I did it before the whole firmin Al Deger penalty.

Everything came through, and I'm like, tenth tenth for Paul, that's crazy.

But who actually did get ten for the end.

After we had that, and I'd gone to bed because by this time it was like one am, and you know, we got to get up for a Monday morning to come back to Fox Sports and work Jack Miller.

So thankfully from Furman's penalty that Jack then was able to scrape through a top ten finish.

But the Yamas they struggled here, huh.

Like in the race qualifying Fabio, he was front from yeah, and you could see it as they took off, especially that main race.

You see that you caddies.

The Aprilia is just grow straight pass and then he comes off Fabio on the Yamaha.

It's crazy the difference, right, So over a one lap they're good, but it's it's that when the new engine comes it's going to be phenomenal.

Hopefully that it works.

Yeah, I mean, look, it doesn't get off the line very well.

It's the probably the worst bike in Motor GP in terms of getting off the line and the biggest problem that bike has.

It's amazing in.

Corners, but it can't it can't outdrag anything on a straight.

And so this is where I feel a little bit sympathetic to Quaturo this year, in that the pole positions he's taken this year, I'm not sure there's any other rider on that bike that could have done those up.

He's phenomenal on one lap with the risk he's able to take and the positions he puts himself in, but it makes it look even worse for him, where the natural order of that bike is probably finishing somewhere between sixth and tenth on a good day, and you look at the starting and finishing positions a lot, well, that looks really bad because he qualified on pole and finished eighth, but eight is the realistic result.

Pole is not the realistic result.

And a little spoiler alert for your spoilm own story here Wednesday, Australian time.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be releasing my top ten Riders of the Season rankings, which I do every year, so people can yell at themselves or yell at me, or yell at somebody.

That's the way these things tend to work, and no spoiler or alert to know who's going to be the best rider of the first half of the season.

I think we covered him in the first fifty minutes of this podcast.

But Quatauro is one of those guys that's really really hard to assess where the best to put him in these rankings.

I don't think his championship position reflects how good he's been.

And you can only judge someone based on the equipment they have at their disposal, and it's hard for me to imagine that someone could have done much more with the equipment that he's had this year.

I think he's reminded us this year why he's a twenty twenty one world champion and why, to my mind, I think he's still the second best rider at Motor GP.

I just hope that at some point we get to see it.

Yeah, this circuit just had no way of showing that.

When there's a part of the circuit called horsepower here, yeah, good luck with that, and it's a Yamaha like, yeah, it's not going to happen, But I'm interested to see your top ten.

So if you guys also want to check out Matt's top ten that'll be on Fox sports dot Com to aufd slash Emotorsport, and you'll find that on our social media channels as well.

Might even throw throw my pick in there too, so we'll see how that goes.

See if it's different.

I said to Matt, though, it's probably going to be more on vibes and less on statistics because that's why we work well with each other.

Vibes plus stats and do you get the right result of the yeend.

That pretty much sums up though the whole Moto GP weekend from the Czech Republic.

Now, we had a lot to cover there because, like I said, the writers haven't been there, Motor GP hasn't been there since twenty twenty.

Let's also go through the Aussies like we do.

Moto two Senate ages, he struggled.

I saw in his post race that he had issues on his bike from lap one so only managed to cross the line or p fifteen finished, But hey, another point in the bag, right, and Senate, it's only his second year.

It's still about learning, still about being consistent, hopefully as he comes back from some break head back to the Red Bull Ring a circuit that and he's ridden a lot more than we know he has done it in the Czech Republic so far.

He's having a strong year, right and we say this every weekend.

He's having a strong year for his second year in the World Championship.

Yea, yeah, I mean, I think if you were to look at where he might be based at the start of the year compared to where he is at the midpoint, I would say he's ahead of schedule right now.

He won that Grand Prix Silverston, he's been on the podium in other rounds.

He's probably in a better position than we would have thought he was going to be at the beginning of this year.

And as long as the.

Arrow keeps going up and we know where it's going to be next year, he's already resigned for next year, So look a quieter round in the Czech Republic.

There was circumstance and you could understand why that happened.

But on balance, I think he's first half of the year it's slightly more than half, isn't as twelve out of twenty two whatever that is, his first half of the year's been better than probably we would have thought coming into it.

So big tick for him, I think, and.

Quite rounds let's say that for our Aussies in Moto three.

Because Joel and Jacob both had massive crashes this weekend.

We know Joel was declared unfit for Sunday's race due to a fracture in his right foot from Saturday, but also Jacob he had a massive crash as well.

I just don't think he fully recovered from that.

He also said that he just struggled this weekend, but he crossed the line in fourteenth, So two points in the bag for him.

Now, Jacob's season so far, we know he had that crash in the off season that has taken him a while.

But I don't know he's struggling.

And I also know he's got depression now of he hasn't got that right for next year and we're coming into the some break right that's going to be weighing on his shoulders also, Yeah.

Needs I think he needs a break in, a reset, and he needs probably you know, we talked about those races before Motor GP heads out of Europe.

I think there's no formal before we head out.

Those four need to be good, don't they, you know, to we need to there's a new circuit in there of course as well, with Hungary coming in.

But those four races before we leave Europe and a lot of decisions are made pretty big four races for him.

We know that he's best, is good enough, we've seen that, but it's been a real sort of stop start year because of injuries and some form.

Stuff and a couple of crashes.

But as far as Joel goes, I do wonder how much of the decision.

I mean, obviously it's taken out of his hands to a degree, and that you've got to be past fit to race, but the fact that we've got four weekends until the next Grand Prix, like, rather than risk it and do something at Bruno when you're not quite right, he gets that extra time out and doesn't hurt himself anymore, and he can get himself right for Austria.

Because the thing with this back half of the season, we describe it as being a back half.

We don't go racing again until the middle of August.

These last ten races are packed into just under three months.

It goes super fast from here because we've got basically five double headers.

The rest of the way.

It's double headed, double headed the rest of the way.

The end of the season comes really really quickly from here.

Now's not the time to be carrying a lingering injury because you know, effectively the second half of the season happens in about twelve weeks or so, so.

You've got to be right for that.

Well, yeah, you're thinking long term here, right, because like you said, you've got to get the season done.

So I think from Joe Okay being declared unfit help.

But I also think, you know, taking that extra we can and getting back stronger so you can come in, like you said, and not have something longer because he's I think he's in the top five in the points of the championship.

I haven't, but I know obviously Ruaida was his main title opponent that he was fighting for.

I think he got overtaken I heard on the broadcast.

But if Joel's going to have any chance of fighting for this or getting that first win this season, he needs to be strong for the second half.

Yeah, and there's some good tracks for him in the back half of the season as well, So he's going to finish higher in the championship than he has finished previously.

We know that based on what he's done, but you know that there'll be give him half a sniff and there's going to be an opportunity for a home win.

I love the fact that.

He's approached Australia the way he has the past few years, and that, you know, like pressure is a funny thing for a home rider, right like some guys wilt under it.

Some guys find all.

Of the stuff outside of the track and the commitments and the appearances and the attention.

It's a little bit much compared to some of the other races where he can sort of just be in your own bubble and do your thing.

Joel's just like, bring it on, I'll sign everything, I'll take a selfie with everybody.

He's right there for it and loves being in the center of it.

It's no surprise that he's done well here in the past, so I reckon that's one that will be circled.

And as if it's like every other Philipilon weekend, there'll be about one hundred and twenty people from Joel's family.

He'll be turning up at the same time, so he might not get any sleep until he gets on the plane going back to Malaysia.

I know you're the stats man, But I just pulled up the championship standings for Moto three because I just want to clarify.

So Joel Kelso he has moved back to six.

He's on one hundred and ten.

Now he's thirteen points behind Munyo's that's who overtook him.

I remember now Matt saying, and he's one hundred and eighteen behind Ruaida.

Okay, but I think for Joel to get like fight back and be in that top five at the end of the year in Moto three, that's phenomenal when you're looking at in the first five is Spanish Spanish, Spanish Spanish.

Well and also because of just how deep that field is now, Like you look at Moto three these days and you scan your eyes down those championship standings and you have to go a long way down before you find a reason to not think a guy like a winner Grand Prix, like it's a super even field at the moment, it's really deep.

So for him to be paddling in those sorts of waters away from home with a whole imata of Spanish writers against him, yeah, he's doing really well.

Now most of the riders are going to go on their three weeks or four week in Joel's case, so I'm a break.

But for a few of them are Moto GP and one writer who we briefly mentioned but I want to talk about again, Jack Miller.

He's going to make his way to Japan in August for the Suzukah eight Hour, one of the most prestigious motorbike endurance races that there is on the calendar, and to be invited to do that as well by Yamaha.

In Jack's case, I thought it was really really interesting.

I mentioned it in previous pods.

But Matt, I wanted to ask you about the rumors circulating Jack Miller at the moment and potentially going to the Factory team alongside Fabio Kudura and replacing Alex Rinz.

That's the latest rumor that we've been hearing.

What have you heard?

What's your thoughts on that?

The Alex Rinns problem, and it is a problem for Yamaha now because Fabio Couaaterero is kind of a one rider team there with that Factory team right now, because through absolutely no fault of his own and through no lack of effort or commitment on Alex's part, he hasn't been the same rider since Magello twenty twenty three when he had that really really bad league break.

He's just not the same rider.

And we know a fully fit Alex Readings is a really really good Grand Prix racer.

We saw what he did at Suzuki.

He won a race on NELSI R Honda.

He's an absolute top shelf motor GP rider when he's fully fit.

The keywords in that sentence are when he's fully fit, because he hasn't been for so so long now, and this feels like a sort of career cul de sack that he's gone down now that I find it really hard to imagine that he's going to turn it around, not because he's not trying and they're trying to do everything to help him do that.

It feels like that ship has sailed a little bit in terms of where he is physically.

The gap between him and Couato in every single session on the Stopwatch and then in the standings is pretty stark right now.

It's interesting to me that Jack is being linked with that seat alongside Quasurero simply because I think when they formed the whole Pramak Yamaha thing.

It was very much supposed to to be a developmental team of let's bring guys in and see if they're up to it, with the logical progression the graduation, if you like, to the main team.

That was kind of why this team was established, if you like, to bring Yamahara into line with having four bikes like a lot of the other manufacturers, but also to use it as a bit of approving ground for riders who can then potentially step up to the main team.

And the analogy here.

To me, this always sounded a bit like a four wheel thing for me, in that it's like the two red Bull teams in Formula One and that you have whatever they're called.

They're called racing balls.

This year they were called Alpha, Tauri and RB and a million other terrible names.

But that team when they were called Torosso that was basically where they'd bring in all these young rookies and see if they sunk or swam.

So guys like Sebastian Vettel started there, Max to Stappan started there, Daniel Ricardo started there.

The ones that were really good graduated up into the main team and then did what they did in the main team and the ones that didn't quite stack up were cast to the side and the next new group would come in.

And so if Miller was to move to the factory Yamaha team alongside Quatrero, you've got an absolute a listor in Quatrero with someone who's super experienced like Jack Is, who's really good at sorting out new things on a bike and will be quick enough that you'll really get a translation of what Yamaha are bringing to the bike that I don't think Rins can provide right now.

It doesn't feel like he's physically capable of doing that.

And then that would leave Pramack to probably run with perhaps an LL rookie lineup for twenty twenty six with topre As Gatalioglu and perhaps the Yogo Marrera and Marera.

Is the interesting one in that we know Brazil's coming onto the calendar for next year.

It's clearly a.

New burgeoning market for motor GP.

You can imagine the ticket sales of the attendance and the sponsor interests and everything else when we go to go on to next year, So that's super interesting for me.

He's also the right age, he's super young.

We don't know what his story is yet and the raz Gataliol Blue thing.

As exciting as he is and amazing as he is to watch and is dominant as he's been in World Superbikes, there is an element of risk bringing him into Motor GP because he's going to be a twenty nine year old rookie.

That's really unusual, right, So for all the will in the world, he might be absolutely fantastic, and if he is, then maybe he's the one that ends up in the factory team.

But it's one of those we need to see it before we can say it.

And he's going to be a twenty nine year old rookie.

And I don't care how good you are in World Superbikes, you are still a rookie in Motor GP.

There's a lot of new things to get used to.

He might be so talented that he can just come in and make it work from day one, and that wouldn't necessarily surprise me, but I also think it might take him a little bit of time.

And so if you're looking at that Pramak Yamaha set up as being the proving ground for guys to go into the main factory team.

Jack Miller's motor.

GP career is kind of you know, the clock's at quarter to twelve or ten to twelve.

You know, we're nearly at the end of the ball here.

But he's been around for a very, very long time.

He's the perfect second rider in a main team.

We've seen that as recently as when he was at Decadie with Pacobana.

We saw the impact that he had there.

It's kind of reprising that role as Jack goes into the fire or a few years of his career.

But isn't it funny to think that two months ago we were talking about, Oh, Jack Miller doesn't have a contract.

Miguel Olivera does have a contract for twenty six top racs coming in.

Does this mean the end for Miller?

He might end up being in a stronger situation now than he was even two months ago.

And you just look at it from a statistical point of view, there's no case for Yamaha to get rid of Jack relative to Olivera or anybody else.

It's fifty two points to six.

It's twelve ero.

Jack leeds in qualifying for the season over's teammates.

And someone mentioned this and I forget who it was.

On a podcast I was listening to the other day, so apologies to whoever mentioned it.

Jorge Martin scored more points in one Grand Prix last Sunday than Miguel Olivera scored this year, and that's a pretty damning statistic.

So in terms of do I think that Pramak are probably going to part ways with Olivera, I would say almost certainly yes, But I don't think it's necessarily a case of Jack staying there.

I think Jack might even have a chance of being promoted up to the factory Yamaha team, because Yamaha has this rins problem that won't go away.

And as hard as it is to say, I don't see how another few races or even next year is going to change a story that we've been seeing for two years.

It feels like Alex Rinza's physical decline is real, and maybe that's the reason he gets shoehorned out.

Of that suit.

I'm actually kind of speechless because I thought you were just gonna be like, I reckon, Jack's going to move up.

But the fact that you've really thought about this in depth, and my original thought was Okay, yeah, Jack will move up be a teammate to Corderrero and yes, top Racs next year.

I actually thought that they that Pramac would bring Arbilino up because he's in their development team in Moto too, right, But yes, Diogo Morera, we spoke about this last weekend.

Obviously he made that silly mistake, but we've seen the consistency and Brazil coming back onto the Moto GP calendar for the first time in forever.

There's a sales point to it as well, and that's the thing with motogib is not just always about what you can do on the bike, it's also outside factors.

Well, another factor two.

We heard overnight Monday night Australian time there's going to be an Argentinian Grand Prix in twenty twenty seven.

We're not going back to Turmas in twenty twenty six, but there's going to be a race quite near Buenos Aires in twenty twenty seven.

And we go to this new regulation set having a South American rider on the grid for a South American race.

It sounds like a bit of a no brainer to me, and imagine, well that's going to do for tourism dollars and getting people through the gates and potential new sponsors for the sport and so on and so forth.

It sounds like a bit of a can't lose, doesn't it.

Yeah, and it makes sense what you said actually makes sense.

It was different than what I had thought of my head.

But like you said, looking at the points, Fabric Cordoro is currently ninth in the championship and one hundred and two.

The next Yamaha is Jack on fifty two, and he is fourteenth, and then we go down to eighteenth and it's Alex Rinz who's on the factory bike, and then yes, all the way back down in twenty fifth is Miguel Oliver who's only a head of so Chantre who scored his maiden point, and Alicia swagrou So the numbers speak for themselves.

What Kuatero has scored two more points and all the other Yamaha riders put together, there's a step.

For you that just shows you what Cordero is like as a writer and why he is number one at Yama and why he deserves to be another world champion if he gets on that bike that can then go head to head with Marquez or twenty seven just sounding more and more exciting everywhere.

I cannot wait for twenty twenty seven.

I know we have to get through the rest of twenty five and or the twenty six, but bring on twenty seven.

It's gonna be fantastic.

Bring on twenty seven.

And for those of you listening at home, bring on the Suzuka eight hour because we have it on Fox Sports and KO.

All of the action you guys can watch on channel five oh six on Fox Sports and like I said, on KO Sports.

But from Matt Clayton and myself Ronita Vermulin, I think that pretty much sums up the Czech Grand Prix.

We're not going to be having a summer break though.

We are still going to be here bringing you guys as much morotog news as we can and maybe even a few guests along the way.

But for now, if you want to keep up to date with all the latest MotoGP news, you can on our website, foxsports dot com dot Au, Forward Slash Motorsport, and also on our social media channels at Fox Motorsport everywhere.

Like I said, from Matt Clayton myself, that is goodbye from now and we'll be back real soon with more Moto GP.

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