Brazil 2026 - That Sinkhole Feeling

0:00Welcome to the Oxlibon MotoGP podcast. Hey everyone, it's the Oxlibon MotoGP podcast with me, Matt Oxy, Old Race, Old Journalist, and Data Engineer, Cool Guy, All-Round, Good Guy, Peter Bonn. Yeah, we're talking about Guyanya, today's Brazilian Grand Prix, first Brazilian Grand Prix in 2004. Great for MotoGP, back to being in an awesome country that loves racing,

1:02but obviously things didn't go quite to plan this weekend in various ways. Well, we're going to talk about the racing first, and then we'll talk about the kind of sinkholes and stuff like that later. So, I mean, yeah, I just mark up a second in a brilliant, wow, wow, wow. I mean, that's their fourth race win in a year, in a row. I mean, Porta Mau and Valencia at the end of the last year, Bury Ram and Guyanya today, this year, they've led, Berserkis, led every one of those laps of the last four races, 101 laps, no one's got near him. So, I mean, wow, yep, probably a 100%, you know, they've been getting closer and closer and closer to this. Every year, they've been getting better and better and better and now. Wow, they're just screaming at, what did you make of it, Peter? Yeah, boring, but yeah, yeah, an interesting weekend, a lot of things that happened to have to do with with the Circumstances, with the track outside, but then it was really the same for everybody. Yeah, and yeah, second race in a row, where I'm really just dominating, three of the top five, there's no coincidence that it was just, it was way too easy when you see a brilliant doing the lap time.

2:04So, yeah, they made a huge step again. It's the second race in a row where we have very special tires, not even the rear, but also the front, the asymmetric front. I mean, it's been around for years, Michelin, and everybody hated it. So, they stopped bringing it for quite some time, but now they brought the asymmetric, all the front tires were asymmetric. So, it was, but like I said, it's the same for everybody. And so, they made a lot of things more clear, who is on the ball, who knows exactly how to react to what, to changing Circumstances, and who has it basically, okay, another crew is maybe a bit strong with who needs way too much time on tracks that they know to get up to speed. That was really clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that the reason most riders don't like asymmetric fronts is because just the feel you get, because obviously you've got three different compounds in the front of the tire, and you know, you can deal with that in a rear tire, but it's a very weird feeling to be going from left to right, and suddenly you've got this grip, and then suddenly you've got that grip, and that's generally why they've never really caught on. And yeah, I mean, just one of those weekends where, you know, new track, the disaster of the,

3:10well, the disaster, but the weather, so a bad start with the weather, and then just really kind of brings out, I think we saw that a lot of that yesterday is kind of intuition and natural talent coming out and making things happen. By today, I think by today's race, people, teams and engineers and riders were getting more zooms, sort of zoomed in to where they need to be, you know. Which is why, but it's just what exactly it should be. Yeah, yeah, I mean, let's be so proud, we saw all the Yamaha's have pronged cool. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I like weekends like this, you know, it's to watch, you know, you wouldn't, you don't want to be an engineer or a rider when shit, all this shit's going on, but to watch it, and to sort of see how different people react, and it's always fun, because you just never know what's going to happen, you know, most race tracks we go to, we kind of know what's going to happen, you know, but here, you really don't know what happened, what's going to happen. We saw that in the sprint yesterday with with the Quattararo up near the front for, you know, I mean, just amazing on the V4 Yamaha wasn't quite the same today. I think you had a rear tire issue, but yeah, I just, Bazzecchi, it's just a joy to watch on that bike. I mean, he,

4:13the, the, the, the, the, the turning point was a pretty was 2020 when they brought in Massimo Rivilla from Ferrari, um, to run the whole thing, and they brought in, um, and Romano Albesiano, the technical chief decided that finally they would get rid of their 75 degree V4, engine, which vibrated and was slow, didn't, wouldn't rev very high, and it vibrated, so it made shit power, and, and the vibration was so bad that it would pass to the chassis to get chatter from the engine. And when they went to the 90 degree V4 in 2020, as soon as I did that, they started picking up the pace, and, and, and with the Rivilla in charge of the whole organization, and, and a decent bike, finally, I mean, when Alicias Bargroh rode that bike, the 90 degree V4 at Sapan in February 2020, the first time, yeah, for the very first time, he nearly retired at the end of 2019, because he was just banging his head against a brick wall, couldn't get anywhere. He did three laps on that bike at Sapan, and came in and just burst out, I mean, we know, Alicias is a bit of an emotional chap, but just burst out crying, just saying, wow, I've never ridden a bike like this. Finally, we've got a bike that actually works, and, and since then,

5:17they've just been building, building, building, building, building, and that, and now they're, yeah, I mean, another one too, and, and great to see Jorge Martin back, you know, I don't think there's any, ever been, you know, a lot of people were riding him off last season, we certainly weren't here, you know, you, you don't lose that talent overnight, he's never lost the, the drive, but great to see him back, and obviously, he's, he's pretty fit. I mean, I mean, a lot of the riders, although we were pissed off, and it's sort of ridiculous to cut the race distance by a third, and, and, and Quadarro said that they were told three minutes, I think, before they went out for the grid, I mean, which is why you saw some riders switching from the medium to the soft, you know, some teams didn't have time to do it, so the whole thing was just chaotic, but, um, leaving that beside, yeah, Mark, Mark Rebazekki just absolutely fantastic leading the championship, and, you know, with 100% a championship contender. Yeah, and coming back from, from this, you know, on Friday, he did everything wrong, you could possibly do, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, destroying, you know, sabotaging his own weekend completely, and then Saturday, such a comeback,

6:19I mean, that these are the things that gives you a lot of confidence, yeah, me watching him, and I'm pretty up, but him, especially in the team, the way, the way you come back in a weekend, it's so difficult, it's so difficult to come back in a weekend, and if you do it like this, how you, you, you thank a lot of a lot of confidence from that, because, yeah, he found himself in, in, in qualifying one, but on these really shitty circumstances, that's even definitely always, that's, let's like a big plush, you go in there with no how, and then the same two guys that, that were one and two in Q1, also, were one and two in Q2, and started up on the front row. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can still change, I mean, you were me, but often we say, okay, you know, Friday, there's already too much pressure, because Friday afternoon determines your weekend. Well, if you're super strong, if your team is really from another level, you can come back, if you're Mark Marquez level, or if you're a brilliant, as a manufacturer level at the moment, you can still come back on Saturday, but it just shows how far ahead of the game they are, of everybody's game. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you think a couple of years ago, apparently, you know, they'd have one good weekend, then two bad weekends, and then the next weekend,

7:21they turn up, they'd start really well on a Friday, and they're going to have a good weekend, and then they actually go and end up going backwards. So, you know, they've, they've improved so many, in so many ways, and that would be River, Riverlor, but also Fabiano Stelakini, his arrival, kind of tightening the whole show up. But, I mean, yeah, so, Bozeki finished Friday, 20th, you know, they went out Friday afternoon, very tricky track conditions, they don't really know the track, they don't really, you know, it's not fully dry, they're not, there was a five minutes window to do it on Friday. Yeah, no, exactly, yeah, with the with the rain threatening and everything, and, and, and, and, this is not a lot, and there was a fast group, and Bozeki was in that first group, fast group, and then who crashed right in front of him? Was it a Costa? Yeah, was it Pedro Costa? I don't know, somebody, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he had to go back with the group, then you have to go with the loan, it's so hard, and he lost contact with that group, yeah, and, you know, in those kind of conditions, if you're not, you've got to really risk it, you know, you really have, but if you're not getting the feel from the bike, you can't really risk it, because you're just going to cry. He didn't want this tires up enough, and then you don't get,

8:21it's not like you don't understand the feedback, the feedback is all wrong, wrong, wrong, the bike is screaming at you, no, no, no, don't do it, don't do it, and you have to put in there. Yeah, it's, it's one of the talent circle, for example, has, when he knows he has to put in heat in the tires in a couple of times, he just does it, and then he looks bonsai, but he, he knows these things very, very well, and, yeah, yeah, but it's also knife-atch, you know, knowing it is one thing, but he was, yeah, yeah, particularly was just a little bit unlucky by losing the contact with the group, then you don't heat up your tire, then you get the wrong feedback, and then suddenly the five minutes perfect, when they're from Friday afternoon, he's gone, and that was it. It's that usual catch 22 thing, if you need the tires to be hot, to go fast, but how do you get them hot? Yes, without crashing, you know, because you've obviously got to start working them to get them hot, and if you, if you overwork them in tricky conditions, it's, you know, it's like you say, it's always, always, always a, a knife edge, but I mean, he looked, was actually, yeah, I mean, obviously the combat's kind of helped by the fact that everybody's kind of flailing around, not really sure what they're doing, all the teams are trying to work out, you know, trying to gather data and work out what the conditions are changing all the time, so I think that probably helped them a

9:25bit, but yeah, I mean, the apprilia to me, it's always been a kind of blade of a motorcycle, it flows, it's like, whereas that the katie is a bit more of a hammer, it's a bit more of a blunt instrument, isn't it? It's like, stop, go, stop, go, whereas the apprilia is just got that lovely kind of flow, and it just, the riders look like they can attack so much more that than on the dukati, you know, on the dukati, you see Mark, and he's just, you know, even when he was in a good shape last year, he never really looked like he was ringing the thing's neck, you know what I mean, it was almost like he was doing what the bike needed him to do, whereas the apprilia seems to allow you to do what you want to do. The dukati, it's really fast, but not in a complete way, it has some downside, like, like, shit, you can't flow it, you can't very sweetly, quickly, and, and quietly bring it from full after full, right, without disturbing anything, you can't do it, you have to force it all your slow, and apprilia as they love that, so it's a more complete motorbike at the moment apprilia, so yeah, clearly, clearly, it's a more complete motorbike, and it's easy to,

10:26if I agree, I mean, three apprilia is in the top five, it's only over and others, who is anyway an enigma, nobody will ever understand them, and he's fast when you don't expect it, and he's completely off the, off the, off the, off the pace here all weekend, without nobody's doubting apprilia when they look at over and others, it's just, you know, I agree, it can overtake at will, so three different characters as riding, and as physically as well, and they're all fast when apprilia means it's got a broad window where it works, and because I agree, it's small, and, and, and this, for the arrow, everything is different, but he can just, it's, it's relatively easy for I, actually, at the moment, and he is taking, he's doing everything correct, because he's, yeah, he's given a better bike, and he goes faster, that's what you're supposed to do, at least. Yeah, yeah, I mean, Fernandez, who knows what happened to him, but I think, you know, if, I think if it had been a normal weekend, whether wise, he probably would have been up there, but it's so easy, like you were saying, that if you start off bad, once you get into that hole, it's very difficult to get yourself out of it, you know, and, and, and, and Fernandez obviously just had a nightmare of a weekend. Yeah, I mean, they just, did you Antonio Mark, had a fantastic

11:30battle for third? I mean, they would nearly four seconds down at the flag, did you, I don't know, getting third behind, behind base, so that's what 23 laps, four seconds, that's a big guy, that's a big advantage, you know, to get in that sort of a time. I mean, the way Mark, Marko went away from him was just astonishing. Yeah, but like yesterday, what happened today was, I have to mind my words here, it's bigger than it, than actually, than it would have been, but thanks to Jean Antonio's ambitious action on Mark, they went both wide, and then Jorge Martin became immediately second, but that, that also gave, gave the second, like almost a second in that lap, because of that action, and it gave Martin the P2 for free, didn't that fight for it, and that was it. Yeah. That, then the race was more like, that was it, that's done. Yeah, yeah. I'm just really surprised them at, for me, if anything is, is the shocker of what I, the shocker, no, that's, no, that's definitely not the right word. The, the outstanding thing is that there is, doesn't seem to be an excuse for Mark, but he just got beaten on the same bike by a normal,

12:32Italian good rider, but not somebody we ever called an alien, and he's just got beaten up fair and square. He makes mistakes, the guy makes mistakes, he makes mistakes, he had nothing, he gets, he could do anything. Yesterday, after the sprint, I was thinking, okay, Mark realized, I lost a lot of points in the first race. It's gonna probably be a championship completely different than last year, so the guy who makes less mistakes, it takes points every time they're dead, it's gonna probably be the champion this year. That, that was his thinking, that's why yesterday, okay, that's it, that's it, that's it. But today, no, no, no, no, we just had no answer, yet no answer. This is a, yeah, it's a really surprising thing for me to see, Mark didn't look as vulnerable as last weekend, he still sits a bit awkward, you know, the right elbow is really high and so on, but he got beaten fair and square. Oh, yeah. That's, that's a long time ago, I had to say that same bike, everything's same, and it's not the team that is known for having always something really special, a little bit extra on the contrary. The VR team was on my list of like suspicious teams, a little bit too often stuff there is not really on the level where it should be, but,

13:34cool, they are dead, and he did it. I mean, what a boost of confidence must this be for Fabio Gerentonio, beating Mark here, really, and back to back, you know, hanging on his fairing and so on, cool. Yeah, did you and Tony obviously, because he made a mistake, which obviously, yes, so it turned 1112, which lost the win to Mark in the sprint, you know, and his tenacity and kind of not giving up to Mark's day and coming back at him was pretty impressive. I mean, he actually overtook Mark when Mark went wide on the city where the track was breaking up, but he was on it, the track was, he was on his field, the track was, yeah, the track was the same for everyone, I'm not saying it was, you know, making an excuse for Mark, but yeah, and he said the race was beautiful. I mean, you know, if you're battling with Mark, Mark, and you know, you've got his measure, that must feel pretty good, must feel pretty good. I mean, there's no doubt that Mark still isn't there. He's right, sorry, he said yesterday, before the sprint, he said, I'm defending, yeah, you know, I'm still in defending mode. And it's all right, hand is here, super right,

14:34hand is a long time breaking into right hand, if it's all right, shoulder, right shoulder, that I show them, yeah, definitely not. And yeah, he and long right hand is as well, exactly the corner that A, he doesn't feel comfortable on and B is, is bad for that shoulder. So, you know, I think from a point of view, and obviously we're using the heart, the heat-resistant tire here, which suits the flowing, apparently, a better than it works with the jicati, because without that sort of shoulder grip from a nice soft shoulder, you can use, you can find your speed with edge grip, which the, apparently, it does, but the jicati makes it speed going in and going out. It doesn't make it speed going through the corners. So with this tire, it's kind of screwed. I mean, I don't think that made so much difference this weekend, because everything was such a mess, but people weren't quite able to exploit their advantages as they, as they would normally. But also, a, um, a pretty, we're much better in the long race, because they run the medium tire rear, as opposed to the soft rear that they run in the sprint, and the soft as we all, as we always talk about on here, you got a lot of grip from the rear, and it's going to push the front, take away a little bit of the grip from the rear with the heart of tire, and it just makes the bite more balanced. So I think,

15:38you know, that's why, uh, I've probably made that one of the reasons why they made a huge jump from, from the sprint to the, to the main race. Also, one thing that Digiantone has said that, um, he kind of noticed that, you know, when, when the grip is a bit, if he like, it was this weekend, that the apprilia can attack the corners much better. And the apprilia's always, all apprilia's have always been about the front end. Yeah. Pretty much all of them. They've just got that something in the DNA, every, pretty much every factory has its DNA weird, really, which quite often is, remains after the engineers change and everything. It's like, how is that possible? But, but it's just the way it is. And he, you know, and if you can attack the corner well and get the bite turned, which you can with the apprilia, then you're better set up for the exit. So even though the, the Gikatti's got the, should have the advantage on the exit, the apprilia is in a better space. It can turn quicker. So you've got more room to use on the exit of the corner to accelerate, to exploit, to really get the power down. So, um, and if you're accelerating a little bit better out of, out of the slower corners, Matt, you really start to get, you only get the reward for that, once you hit 56 gear. Not so much immediately. And you don't see people jump out of a corner

16:42if you compare them with the others. It's more you see a little bit different, initially. And then certainly you get bigger, bigger, bigger when they hit 56 gear. Well, 56 gear, they did only once. They're left here. Because it was all second to four, second to four, second to third. And then one time they hit 56. Uh, yeah, the, the difficult track for everybody, but yeah, for everybody, it was painful to see Fabio Quattroaro fighting so strong yesterday in, that he was super aggressive. He went from four to second to the corner in the sprint, but how we got past over the, over the finished trade by the Gikatti's end up really as that was like silly. That was, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, that, that, obviously, yeah. So it's probably leading the constructors title, uh, reading the, leading the riders title, but they've had the advantage of, of this tire, the last, these last two races. So I think it's going to be really interesting when we go to Coat next week. And then to her death a month afterwards, you know, with the normal tire to see where the differences then, I think, I think then we will have a better idea of where we are. Uh, obviously next, uh, Coatroaro is, is, is anti-clockwise, one of Mark's folks, you know, that's what he wins there all the time.

17:42But I think, well, yeah, I think it'll, it'll, it, Coat is going to be really interesting from that point of view. It's like, if I don't think so much that a priori will have a disadvantage there, but their advantage will be less, I think, certainly. Or it, that will be really interesting. The Maverick Fignal. I think he was winning there with a priori, uh, that's, uh, I think we'll do him a service of, of not, of not, of not mentioning him. It would be nice just to talk about the track, because I, just a little bit before we keep, keep on talking about other riders, I mean, not, you know, there were lots of people say, how it's super tired, it's super slow, blah, blah, blah. But wow, it, I'm really liked it. I mean, it's a very short track, not the shortest. It's not as short as, um, Saxony, but left time is shortest. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's, it's, but it's fast. You know, it's a fast track, much of the corner, it flows by the 75 average. It's high. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's a nice, it's got a real nice flow, flow to it. No, no, real Mickey Mouse corners, I would say. I would say that, uh, basically the layout is pretty much exactly what it was when we last went there in 1989. Yeah, you say we because you already had a solid

18:44bet. I was, I was a long time ago. I was almost young then. And, and I can remember going there, and back in those days, it was, it was a pretty, we kind of thought, thought it was a bit of a go-kart track. I was just looking at the circuits that we went to. Yeah, because you also did sprank or shy by time. Oh, well, no, the circuits that we probably thought we'd car as well. Yeah, that, no, the circuits we went there, we went to sort, Suzuki, sort Spurgring. Exactly. Hockenheim. Sparfranker. Sure. You know what I mean? It's the mega fast, open, old school, ancient, some of them super-dangerous tracks. You know, so we got them going on and it's like, wow, this is a tiny track, but actually now it's, it's actually, oh, it's actually not bad, you know what I mean? So how, how our perspective changes? It's so, yeah. I feel so lucky to have been around when, you know, we were going to the Hockenheim, Suzuki, sort Spurgring. Wow, they were just mega tracks, but yeah. What does it remind me of, Matt, this, uh, Bollaton Park? I'm good from last week, but then just from last year, but then we'll be a little bit more flow.

19:47And I didn't like Bollaton a lot, because it don't, no, it, and it provides entertainment, but not my type of entertainment. It turns it too much into a show. Motor too much, she was, was a barge stormer in Bollaton, because they, they have, they don't have the downsides of this. This was also beautifully motor two or motor three, this track, but for motor GP, for the Cure and motor GP bikes, no, no, no, no, no, there's just, basically, there's just one line. So most of the opportunities, most of the overtaking we saw this weekend, Matt, was because the guy in front made a mistake, which is not really why we go racing, but it's obviously exaggerated by the track being so dirty and being so, so low grip outside the racing line, made you also a bit careful where to, where to, where to push and where to do the action, but that, that, that's what it reminds me of Bollaton Park and, and that's not a compliment, that's not a compliment, just more flow. Yeah. I love to see riders riding. Oh, yeah, I think you're being house on it. I think it's, I mean, Bollaton was just horrible, horrible, and this place, you know, even though it's short, it's got some lovely, I think some lovely flow and, and, well, we saw a lot of crashes because obviously

20:48people are getting to learn the track, its conditions are changing, it's dirty. When I came from, I love seeing riders doing a fast lap there when the camera follows them, because it's all action, you're going to be super precise where you put the bike, you know, these corners are getting tighter and tighter and you do like nine, if you got them wrong, up until 12, you're slow, that's beautiful, you know, but for the racing, I like to have more overtaking opportunities, and that was just, yeah, yeah, yeah, turn one, and, and, you know, you're on Yamaha, you're already pass way before turn one, but then there's probably a luxury problem to have, because seeing the bikes flowing around there is a joy, definitely was a joy. Yeah, yeah. Can you imagine doing 30, there was a plan, 30 or 30 on left, I mean, it's the same time as they do on a run track, but it must feel like ages for the ride, because they're counting down, they're living in another dimension when they're on the bike, they don't live in the middle, they live in laps. So it's like, I've got to go after the 30 laps, he's not going to be happy. No, no, no, no, no, and, and I think this is also, so not as short as, um, saxonering distance-wise, but the shortest lap time in the whole championship,

21:50117 or something they were doing, whereas I think the lap record at, uh, saxonering is one minute 20. Uh, let's go down the order, who, who we got after, who, who else do we want to talk about? I think we, we should big shout out for Diego Marera, I think he had an amazing weekend, you know, his second mode of GP race racing at home in incredibly complex conditions crashed on Friday. That, that, you get those, when you see a young guy coming up, generally, you get something like markers and he was instantly winning races, but generally you get these guys and, and you just get these little glimmers of like, wow, you know, just little moments, you go, wow, and I remember Bozeki, his first season, his first year was amazing, his first season, but no, but there was one particular thing going to Philip Ireland. He hadn't, we hadn't been there for three years because of COVID and, and he went out first time there in three years, first time on a Moto GP bike and he was fastest after 15 minutes of FP1 and you go, holy shit, this guy knows what he's doing. If you, you can do that, you can, you can, you can, you can, especially, but so Marera here during Q1, he was fastest, briefly, Q1, only, and only briefly, but nonetheless, that's pretty impressive.

22:54And he, and the same this morning in the warmup, he was briefly fastest. So you just get these little glimpses of like, little flashes of brilliance and you think, okay, he was on telly more now, and I watched some of the, some of the footage again. What I noticed is that he is, and what I like a lot. I mean, the Honda, you need to manhandle the bike still. Like you said earlier, the bike still has his DNA. It's not going to left or right by itself. You have to force it a little bit. Diego isn't, it's very loose with his hands on the handlebars. Very, very loose. His fingers are sticking out everywhere. Like, he's not really pushing. He's, he's, he's making the bike, the way he holds it, mid corners, this comes from confidence. If you're really sure how you sit on the bike and how your knees on the fuel tank are where it's going, you don't, you don't, you're, you have to be loose on the handlebars, which is easier to say they're not, they're not. He's very loose on the handlebars mid corner, which stabilizes everything and gives everything its natural balance in the bike, because if you're not loose, you constantly trying to make the bike do something, which is if you're lucky, want to do and then helps it, but if you're unlucky, doesn't want to do it. And you come back saying it doesn't want to turn in, but maybe you pushed a heart on the wrong

23:56moment on the handlebars and he's completely stress-free on the handlebars, which is a good sign. You remember Lorenzo, his outside hand was completely off the handlebars and Martin can have it as well. These guys are all, ah, there's a thing. Maybe it's because you got short arms. So everybody and I got a whole lot of short arms. He reminds me a little bit of, of how you're about Tista, the way he sits on the bike. Maybe also a little bit of the colors, the way he comes up, when he starts to break for turn one and say, ah, that's about Tista again. He's alive. He's, he's back, but yeah, all just good, you know, this was still actual. And he just seemed sort of super cool the whole time as well, you know, in his head, he just didn't seem to be flustered at all, which is impressive for his age, for how much of a rookie is, and also being at home in Brazil, with everybody going mad from, you know, much better Sunday for Alex Marcus, six just behind Iagura. No, I passed him to ice and overtaking. We noticed that he took him too long yesterday, and sprint to overtake Fabio Guadrero, and it took him a long time. So ice is fast with Apparillia, not the greatest overtake, but still, yeah, he made it to be five. Well, who knows,

24:59if the race was really 31 laps? I mean, I mean, basically we had two sprints this weekend, didn't we, really? You know what I mean? And, and, you know, this is grown pre racing, you know, it is meant to go on for 45 minutes, you know, not 30 minutes. Yeah, I mean, well, it's more than shit. But like I say, we're going to go into that later. I mean, and Pedro Costa, I think he was one of the guys that switched to the soft, but he kind of, when he started going back, was really quite quickly. And, yeah, I mean, he had pretty much a grim weekend. Was he ninth in the sprint? Wasn't he? And seventh in the main race, I mean, yeah, I mean, a KTM, we've got a lot of works to do. And, you know, the other three riders were all at the back with the Yamaha really. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. KTM's Yamaha are in deep, deep, deep trouble. They both have one alien with sort of safes to graze a little bit. Yeah. But if they think is there where they are now, wow, yeah, yeah. I think my rider of the weekend might be Aldiger, Firmin Aldiger. I mean, wow, well, he qualified six, seventh in the sprint. Was he eight in the main race? Hasn't ridden, hadn't ridden the MotoGP by since November tests. Yeah. No, no testing, so paying no, no testing at

26:07a breweram, no race weekend at a breweram. So he is what eight days behind everybody else, right? Qualified. And he comes in. Qualified. And he comes straight to Kirtel. Yeah, he comes straight in. And he's basically fully competitive. I mean, he finished 11 seconds behind the winner, seven seconds behind Mark Markers. I mean, wow, I mean, just again, it's one of those things where you see a moment where you go, wow, I mean, we've seen that them already with Aldiger, you know, quite apart from him winning at Mandelica last year. But, wow, this is a guy with a hell of a lot of natural talent. Yeah. He just seems to be able to get on it and just make it happen. You know, and that is remarkable. I mean, still walking around with a club with a crutch, you know, but to have not been on a bike for all that time, and he's been coming on a new track. Yeah, okay, it's new for everybody. Any conditions on Friday and with one under 75 ever, it's in the drive. It's a fast track to be on a shitty condition. It's on a fast. It's like all we could fail to buy on the first time in your life. And it's wet on Friday morning. And then he put it already in Q1. So yeah, you know, like, if you've, yeah, exactly, if you've got it,

27:08you just come back from your broken leg, you do not want to crash on that broken leg again. Let's break it again. You could break it again. And when the conditions are like they are on Friday, where everything is super sketchy, you know, that's the most, that's the kind of conditions that you're most likely to crash in. So to come out of all that, like you say, straight into Q2, just remarkable. I think, I think kind of everyone, what everybody else did was pretty much, yeah, the Zeki winning Martin, yeah, all pretty much, yeah, I would have expected it. The one thing that is completely unexpected, I would say it was Fermin Aldiger doing what he did today. I mean, just wow, incredible, incredible, you know, beat the top Honda, which was Yohan Zaka in 9th, 12 seconds behind. So again, Honda is still half a second behind, you know, they're still, they seem to be kind of edging forward. We talk a lot about that. But actually, if you look at the kind of results, where they are on on on on on kind of race distance, they're still, for me, they beat Kate, they were better than KTM this weekend. Yeah, but that's not so much. Of course, I'm seven, Sarco is nine. That's not so much. No, no, no, yeah. Yeah, you're right. That's

28:15spectacular. That's easy to overlook. Let's you know that you know that the, and for me Fabio Paktraro Friday and Saturday was, I mean, yeah, I hate, I almost hate the guy sometimes for all the tragedy and all the drama that he chose in at his bike, even when the start doesn't work, he's on rain tires on a wet patch and the bike goes sideways and he nearly, you know, you can see him. Okay, come on, I can't fuck down. But then when it's qualified time and race time, there's nobody better than him on the moment that he gives so much energy. And then don't fall off, don't make mistakes. I mean, super, super. It's, it must be a difficult guy for the team to work with. But Jesus, you can count on him when it matters. Quite special. He made everybody look extra silly on the Yamaha's here. Yeah, I mean, in the sprint, he was just like, wow, and you know, I think kind of rightly, Yamaha have got quite a lot of stick, you know, over the last few months, but then they had a pretty horrible time at Buriram. But you know, they are, they are just still just starting that, you know, I think we should judge them properly about half the way through

29:16through the season where they are then. I think that's a good time to kind of judge them, um, to see where they kind of really are getting with this bike. And, and I know what Quattaro did on Saturday was him rather than the bike. But nonetheless, you need the bike to, to be able to do that as well. So, so I think Yamaha seemed, seemed to have made some steps, you know, even though they had a pretty shitty time today. There's no real wrong bike there. And that, that was also interesting on the Friday, when even the riders had okay, the Friday was just about us the riders. The bike didn't matter at all. And suddenly Toprock was there and because, you know, then that, that's like the huge equalizer put everybody on the Friday on the track like that, that makes things more, and the more do we can do it and the more things went normal, the more backwards Toprock went. Yeah, yeah, sorry. But I mean, you know, uh, uh, uh, Alex Rins, uh, 20, basically a second off, the Rins and Bastionini, basically a second off the, um, the pace in, uh, 14th and 15th, Maverick Vinalis finishing 18th, uh, a second and a half off the pace last, last position, um, I mean, you know, okay, I was super interested to see how his kind of link up with Jorge Lorenzo would go

30:21this year because I, you just don't know, maybe he would be able to unlock something, but he hasn't. No, and then there's Franco Morpidelli, you know, we have to speak about Franco because this was again a super strange way to be, not because we have to speak always about Frankie, but this time we have to because this was an unexplainable weekend. I don't know yesterday, because he does, he doesn't come from a very shit starting from 15 and then after one lap, he checking me, he's dead, last yesterday in the sprint, uh, something goes wrong there and then he does super slow lap times, yesterday in sprint and then in the last lap, he's at the top three or four fastest laps. Yeah. What the fuck's going through your head? If you're, you know, I'm, yeah, I'm hard on Frankie because it's just pointless what he's doing. All he did not was being in other people's way or making other people crashes weekend, but it's, he's so fucking lost. It's so, and it sounds hard, I'm hard, but it's also very interesting. How, I mean, I was hoping coming back, you know, this is some country, he feels at home there, he's a hero there as well, but some, something in his head went wrong and he can't get his shit together. It's really weird to see,

31:23really, really weird. He's a mystery. He's always been a, he's, he's a mystery. He's kind of, he's always been weird in history. He's like, hey man, I don't really know what's going on. Yeah. Um, and, and, you know, what about John Mere? Wow. Pekka Baniaya. Wow. Wow. Pekka, because Brad bin, uh, wow. I mean, I mean, just, there's just some real shit going for all those riders, you know, I mean, I remember last week, I mean, I'd say especially Binda, because, you know, he was right at the back and he crashed out as well. And, and, you know, to be slow is one thing to crash and to be slow and crash is, is, is another, you know, it's, so, you know, he's got a lot of words to with Phil Marin. I just, and, and again, you, you know, you never know about changing crew chiefs can unlock something in a rider, but, you know, and this is only the second out of 24, 22 race weekend, but, but at the moment, you just have to think, wow, Binda is, is completely lost. I mean, you just wouldn't expect him to be back with um, bastinini and banalas. I mean, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

32:27yeah, and, and Baniaya, oh, you know, I, I really thought we'd see him kind of back to where he should be this, this year, but so, so far he hasn't been. And, you know, you can trace things back to, he crashed in Q1, didn't he? Was it Q2? I can't remember. He crashed in qualified. Well, he crashed on Friday. He was the first to win down on Friday, so he didn't win to Q2. He was the first to win down. That's it, right. But more people went down and still did a good last time, but he didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He just can't seem to get the momentum, keep, keep screwing up, you know, his own fault. And he doesn't also, he does not make places when he's in the race. It's no problem finishing eight, but then he should have started 18, but he just finishes more or less around where he starts. That's when you start to get worried. I remember last week, I said, he lost a lot of failure last weekend, then he lost again, a lot of failure this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wonder. Was all the contracts are still not signed or not on public? Yeah, no, exactly. You know, there's the whole kind of liberty versus the manufacturer's things. We're kind of waiting for that for team, you know, rider contracts to being announced, but I mean, I know it probably won't ban you. Are they really

33:30wanting it all Italian rider team for various reasons? But his price, he needs to sign that till very quick, because his price is going down about about a million and quick every weekend, isn't it? Well, imagine that it's true what everybody already tells us for weeks, almost month, that must be true. Martin goes to Yamaha, Becker Royce to Australia. Just think about it for a second. Yeah, yeah, you are. You can't start to exchange things of how? Exchange of things have happened. Right. What do we need to talk about now? We need to talk about the the circuit. Don't we? What the whole event? I mean, I mean, I mean, I love Brazil and you know, always loved going to go out to go out near and, um, Jack or Paguar and Rio, the only weekend I, Brazilian Grand Prix weekend, I didn't enjoy it back in the day, was São Paulo. We went to São Paulo in 1992. That was when Mick Duan made it to come back after having his legs sewn together, and that was horrible weekend. It was raining all the time and doings injury, just cast this horrible kind of spell over the whole thing. But Rio was always awesome fun, you know,

34:32and he used to really, and you know, you're in Brazil. So you expect things to be a bit chaotic. But, you know, the plus side is you enjoy yourself, you know, the whole thing is fun and there's a great atmosphere. So they kind of balance out, you know, I remember the last race we had there was in 2004, Jack or Paguar outside Rio. And I think on the Friday or the Saturday, there was this big explosion in the media center. And the fuse box on the back wall of the media center had blown up. It was too much, you know, over, it sort of tripped out and started a fire, right? And the media center was going up in smoke. And we all had to run out, holding our laptops and everything, and stand out. And the fire engine arrived. I see I have fire engine at the tracks. It didn't take very long. And, you know, they sorted it all out. There was no great damage. So we all go back into the media center and start working for the rest of the weekend. And all they did was at the back of the media center by the fuel box, they had this old boy that just stood there. And whenever it was kind of glowing red hot, he would just pull the trip and just, you know, repowering all the

35:37TVs would go out. And then we'd wait five minutes and then he'd put it back on and you carry on. So I just really, you know, that's Brazil. And I love that because here I am 22 years later, talking about it, you know, that's what memory, that's what life's made of great memories. And I was kind of, we had the same thing this weekend with, with basically the sinkhole appearing yesterday. And they're having to delay the sprints and everything. And I mean, you know, for a while, it looked like the whole weekend might be ended, you know, and for the rest of the weekend, you know, instead of having a guy standing by the, by the, by the fuse box, waiting to, to, to, to trip the power to stop the place going up and flames, we have kind of guys stood near the sinkhole, monitoring it, making sure that it wasn't because I mean, you know, that could have opened up again during the race, you know, if it can open up on Saturday afternoon, it can open up on Sunday, after you know, a few yards further away. I mean, I have to say the whole thing pretty amateurish, you know, having a sinkhole, having the trap break up on the Sunday, shortening the race by a third, minutes before the start. I mean, the engineers must be back in raging. They'll all be too

36:40politically correct to say so, but you know, you spend all weekend working your thing towards 30, 31 laps, and suddenly it's all out the window, you know, and so just complete amateur out. I mean, I mean, respect for dawn, how they recovered from the problem yesterday. Sorry, not dawn, I smacked how they recovered from the problem because they fixed that problem really quick, you know, and they were, and the racing was able to go ahead. So, you know, and, and, and the Brazilian subsoil kind of played played ball today, didn't it? But I mean, what a mess. And the whole thing, the place looked half built, and the kind of area around the podium was a joke. I can imagine Chase Carey, you know, the boss of Liberty just sitting there going, presumably watching it from home, going, what the fuck is going on? I paid nearly four billion pounds for this, and what the fuck is going on? You know, I just, you know, Liberty are all about presentation, making it look rasmatares and glamorous and all that. And, and this how we can look at fucking mess. Yeah. And then we, yeah, we take fill up island from the calendar because it wasn't up to the standards.

37:42Very good point. Very good point. In the end, I love weekend. I love motor to motor to race especially there, because they can overtake their more options to overtake it. It looked more natural for them. And we were at some very special weekend, especially with a catastrophic Friday. Yeah. So it's interesting, but common, not too many of these weekends. It's a bit collaboration, like you arrive at the track and then your friends is also the organizer and you make the schedule and you change it every 10 minutes as well because somebody forgot the fuel or it's not, not exactly what we're looking for. No, no, no, no. And I mean, okay, so they had some rain, heavy rain and some flooding, but I mean, the rainy season in Guayania last from October to April. This is not something that they're not prepared for. And this is something that MotoGP should know about as well. And everything should be built according to what the requirements are. Although there was a lot of rain and some flooding, it wasn't anything like the flooding that Guayania had in September October. That was their wetest part. So that's ages back. So yeah,

38:45I just think in 2026 to be putting together race events like this is really so amateurish. You know, this is meant to be the absolute peak. And like you say, saying we're getting rid of Philip Ireland because the Philistilities aren't good enough. And they said, oh, well, it's the first year. No, it's not good enough. You know, you can't just, it's MotoGP. You can't just say, oh, yeah, it's very poor. You think of the 60,000 today. A lot of people over the weekend have a massage there to promote it. We have a Brazilian rider. We have a whole Brazilian rider. I think was not so bad. I think back to when we went to Argentina, there was a different story. Yeah, it's the normal thing with all these races. They're all a million miles away from anywhere. Okay, so Guayan is a million people. That's not a big city, but it's not Barcelona. You know, if you've got to race, you know, the whole thing about liberty is, you know, they quite rightly, they want races near big centres of population. So which in Brazil means either

39:46Rio or São Paulo. It's got to be one of those two. And we've obviously had races both those in the past. We can't go to Interlagos and São Paulo. It's too dangerous. And Jack Rapagro doesn't even exist outside. It was swallowed up by the Olympic development some years ago. But, you know, it's the same as Mandelica. It's 1200 kilometres from the capital of Jakarta and a plane flight. Termas was where we're not going anywhere. And you get 1200 kilometres away from Buenos Aires. And now we're going to Guayano, which is 1200 kilometres away from Rio and São Paulo. You've got to, it's a plane flight. You can't just jump in a car and drive to, you know, it's a two hour flight from... But again, 60,000 people on Sundays, not so bad. Not so bad, not so bad. But I mean, what I would hope is that if, if, if managed to be, get some traction in Brazil, then, you know, in a few years, they'll do what they've done with termas and Buenos Aires. They'll say, okay, we've got some traction. Now, obviously, Buenos Aires, we're looking at termas and thing. Oh, that's pretty good. We want to bring that to to the city. And so we're going next year, we're going back to the same circuit we went last,

40:48went to in Buenos Aires in 1998 or 1999. You know, which will be great. It's right outside the city. And in a few years, hopefully, you know, you'll get it somewhere in Rio saying, yeah, we're going to build a circuit. You know, that's what they need to do. I mean, you need to be by a main central population to run, you know, to really make a race work. That's just can't get more basic than that really can. Yeah. So off we go to, I think a lot of the paddock we're out of going this night. Dauna, Dauna's, most b sports entertainment, whatever you want to call them. They charter planes for quite a few of these races. So, you know, you'll have most of the paddock on their way into Dallas or, or, or, yeah, either Dallas or Houston or Austin tomorrow. I mean, what do you expect from next weekend, Peter? Next weekend. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's nice that we've had two weekends off and it's nice that we're actually going boom, boom, you know, really two weekends off. And now I can't wait. I can't wait for Austin. Yeah. I remember after the first race, Mark, and many people said, we don't know really where we are. It will only be after Chres,

41:50that we know where we are. Yes. Yes. But you cannot always say, how are we not really sure we need there? Like you said earlier, yeah, Yamaha, maybe you have to wait until the middle of the season. No, I don't need to wait for Yamaha to the middle of the season. I already know now that the pace of development is way too slow. I hope they catch up and that in the middle of the weekend, we see some progress. But yeah, okay, that's Yamaha. But yeah, for the others, yeah, of course, at Chres, we know for sure, but we have already, you know, two races, very, very different races. The only thing they have in common is wear tires. But to look at the reactions from the teams, the manufacturers and how the riders are, I think we are getting, we're getting to see or more or less where things are going. And after Austin, we are 70% sure who's where. Yeah, that's going to be, didn't I? Austin is, it's a weird track. I mean, Alex Rinz won that on the Honda. Yeah, yeah, you know, just, and, and Maverick Fialos on that, really, it's a weird place. So, yeah, look forward to it. And one thing I've forgot to mention is that this must have been Valentina Rossi's happiest day in MotoGP for a long, long time. You think he's VR 46 rider, Bozeki wins the race,

42:54and his VR 46 team beats Mark Marquez on, you know, the last place on the podium, he must have been jumping up and down at home in Tavulia, like he hasn't done it in quite a long time. So, it has been nice that Rossi's had a, had a good weekend, yeah, good on him. I mean, and somebody actually contacted me on social media saying, you know, with what's going on, you know, if we throw the net a little bit wider into what's going on in the world and, you know, in the Middle East and how it's going to impact the global economy, I mean, you know, if this situation keeps escalating, which it might well do, this season might not go the whole way. Now, you know, for various reasons, not out of safety so much, but more out of financial reasons. You know, if the, if the global economy starts taking a big hit, you know, cost going up, income coming down will liberty or whoever, what be able to afford the end of the season. You know, if you've got sponsors pulling out, they're like, you know, that everybody's getting in a, in a sort of lack of confidence in the business and so on. So we're drawing sponsorship and then the cost

43:56going up because of fuel and everything and how the logistics, it's not impossible that this year might not go the whole way. And I'm not saying that's because it's going to be a world war. I'm saying that's because more from, from the financial problems thrown up by what's going on in the Middle East, increasing costs and fuel and all that kind of stuff. So, so it's quite, quite an important season to get, get into the championship lead as quick as you bloody well can and try and stay there. Of course, maybe two minutes before you leave the pit, they change the rules and you've got no exactly exactly. Yeah, they'll say, we can't afford the fuel anymore. And that's another thing, people say, oh, the fuel isn't going to be a problem for MotoGP because, you know, they can just, you know, they can just use 100% non-fossil or whatever. Guys, you have to understand that the fuel used by the motorbikes is probably 1% of the fuel used by the whole circus. I mean, you've got 200 juggernaut's going to every European race. You've got 80 tons of freight for the flyways, flying 80,000 tons of freight, flying around the world

45:00three times. That's the amount of mileage they do. They basically, so, you know, if costs become an issue, you know, it's not impossible that we might be in that situation. I mean, I hope not, I hope things sort themselves out. We can all live in peace and harmony for the rest of our lives. How did we get there? I started saying, we need a couple of more races before I can just really who was there before we know it in early in the third world world. That's what we are. No, if they need to, Peter and I can, if they want us, we'll go in and negotiate a piece and calm every down, everyone down and get everybody watching MotoGP. Yeah, we bring Frankie. Yes. No, I suppose so. Maybe that could be his future, as a piece negotiator. He just gives out very positive vibes. 100%. 100%. I mean, he was super, I was going to say popular. When he was fast, he was such a joy. I was so happy also for the whole MotoGP world because it's such a different character. You know, he can win races or I'll be on the podium and I sense lovely things to say,

46:03but it's really race and eyebrow left and right, but always for fun. So, yeah, no, it's a real, it is a shame from that point of view to have lost him from the front because he's, he's, he's always great fun to listen to and just says great things. Larger because he's, he's kind of speaks English with an American accent because he spend all his time watching American movies and American sport. He loves American sport, but because of that, he just comes out with some real great kind of lines. I love it. I love it. All right. I still haven't got rid of my coffee, you know, Jesus Christ. So, yeah, so that's the end of it. I think we're done. And we will be back with you next weekend from Cota and we will, we'll be doing Friday Saturday updates as usual for our patron supporters. If you want to support us, go to your oxyball and go on to say something for our supporters because I tried to do an update on Saturday. I think was Saturday and was yesterday was, was it disaster? I shouldn't have tried it. It's something I'm very quiet. It was technically something went wrong with the microphone, but I wasn't really switched on as well. I had a little operation on Friday and I didn't organize my life properly

47:06around it. When I don't have pain, I always think pain is nothing and then it's not so much pain, but I was really like not fully sharp mentally. I watched the races with the different, with the different duties we can do. That's for sure. So, now, next week will be better. All right. All right. Fantastic. Thanks Peter. Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks some part producer and we will be back with you next weekend. Bye bye.