What’s going on with MotoGP’s frozen 2027 rider market

The Athletic Almost two months ago we were getting very very excited about MotoGP 2027 rider moves. Since then nothing's really actually happened apart from a man marrying a motorbike, leaving that seems a while ago now. Welcome to a bonus episode of the race MotoGP podcast where we catch up with the rider market before action gets underway at this weekend's Circuit of the Americas round. I'm at beer with me as usual Simon Paterson, Val, Herunchi, Simon. Come into you first with the key question for this little mini episode. Why is nothing happening at the moment when we know that all these people have agreed these deals and in some cases have actually signed them. Why are we waiting for people to actually announce stuff? I mean we know, yeah, so we know I were pretty sure that there's probably about six deals signed. Like quarter hour to Honda, Marques staying at Chicatti, Acosta, Chicatti, Martin Tiamaha, and then the one that we're like 100% sure that has done is the Paco Magnariad Appregnidin. And yet nothing has been announced because the teams have, I don't want to say the fall note with Dora now, but there's a bit of a longer heads going on. Essentially, with the new regulations cycle, all the teams are five year deals with the championship. With the new regulations cycle, all those deals and so everyone has to sign a new deal. And some quite clever people within the MotoGP paddock. So what we've seen before the MotoGP doesn't have an F1 system like a Concord agreement where there's a universal deal offered to every manufacturer. Every manufacturer has in the past signed their own deals. Clever people on the paddock, among them for me, Yamaha, Boslin, Jarvis and current and Pertiaboss Massimo Révela, have put their heads together and said, "Wait a minute, why don't we negotiate collectively so we get more money out of the organizers?" And essentially, the reason that there's no deal announced at the minute, or the reason that none of the writer market stuff has been announced, is because none of the teams have contracts to actually compete in MotoGP next year because they all want more money than they've ever got before because it turns out that whenever you go together and say, "We all want X million to take part," then the championship can't do you any, do some of the things that have been happening in the past. Someone told me, "Give me a good example of basically every team would go to the championship and the championship would say, "We're going to give you 6 million, but we're going to give it everyone else five, so don't say anything." Whatever it turns out that everyone is getting six is the best. So it's sensible that they're negotiating collectively, they want to chunk up the TV revenue in particular. And I understand why they're not going to announce their writers next year until they could contract to actually take part in the championship, even though we all know they're actually going to take part in the championship. No one's going to walk away because of this. No, it's the right moment to get these things in order. You don't have to be left behind when the Liberty thing happens if MotoGP takes off in the way we all expect in hope. And then you're still there on 6 million when someone next door is suddenly on 600 million. That's a big exaggerating number. I don't really understand money. Then you're screwed and you've missed just a lot. So I get that. And in the meantime, we are waiting for these official announcements and all the things that we know are going on. But Val, one common question in the last few weeks has been, "Will one particular deal actually happen at all?" Jorge Martín committing to Yamaha preseason. Well, at the time, we said all the reasons why it was logical. Since then, Jorge Martín had this brilliant start to his actual first real unhinged season ish with a brilliant. Yamaha is, "Where we expect it to be, but it does look painful. Literally, here's in the position where he's about to swap the best bike for the worst bike as they are currently. Is there any chance this won't happen?" Jorge Martín has form for not turning up in the team. We've got a list we can go into there. Do you think as H&M's this one could fall through? No, not particularly. But also because whenever that narrative kicks in, people talking about can him and apprily change their minds, do the U-turn and everything that's happened and stick together. But for that to happen, apprily we have to run through bikes, reps all on them. We then drive the Ciosos style because Pecabana is going there. We know that and Marko Zeki has officially been announced as staying there. There is no room there. At that point, if the question is for people, why would he leave when he's riding already this well on the bike? Well, that's already happened. Maybe they didn't have that information at hand. Maybe they had enough of the information, but it's a question of also the relationship there and what the two parties have been through. Vizavi won another. So there's nothing that indicates any sort of suggestion that he is not going to Yamaha. I mean, I guess you could theorize that I'm pretty sure that it's done, done, done, like to the point of probably sign, done. But I guess the only way you could theorize some way out of it is if. I can't think of a scenario in which it doesn't happen, especially now that a prayer is filled and the whole question is a prayer. I mean, I guess you could create a scenario where Mark hasn't signed with the Cati and he's going to do something else and then the Cati and he's a quick replacement and somehow the Cati goes in for poor him, Arteen. I guess, or a poor him, Arteen goes to Honda to Ford with Super Team with Fabio Gratararo. I guess, but the financially Honda has committed its big money for Zomoli to Fabio Gratararo. It sounds like what Yamaha will offer him is the clear spearhead of a project that desperately needs a spearhead is what he will want, even despite the fact that that bike has had the start that we expect it to have, especially in the context of Goyania. This is not a hopeless project, clearly. I don't have any doubts that this one will get over the line or has already got over the line. There's no such thing as a hopeless Japanese MotoGP project coming into New Vegas. It's a great innovation cycle. They will find a way out of it. Because of budgets, you speak to even Cati, even a prettier, you speak to the other manufacturers and they are still really jealous of the budget that the Japanese manufacturers come through and what did you think projects? That is just the way it is. That's also reflective in Martin's new salary, I'd imagine, which is probably going to be three or four times what he's getting at a prettier. And all the only possible way he stays at a prettier is track coast. Can any of us see him riding a satellite bike again? Been there on that, won the title. Got the t-shirt quite literally off me. That's not going to happen. No, I think it's just a typical Martin story. Again, how far this is swung, the fact that he's. He didn't exactly stop down the pit lane to sign for Yamaha and the same way he did to sign for a prettier. Yamaha had to move quickly to avoid being embarrassed by Katerara going, "I'm sure given that Martin was flirting so heavily and effectively more than flirting with Honda last year, Katerara ending up at Honda doesn't look great for Martin in his management." They jumped somewhere else. Yamaha's desperate, Martin's desperate. They're not even thinking about how a prettier is going to go. Because at that moment, the prettier is going, "Hang on, your engine again." We had to pretend you weren't the launch. You see the mood as he gets the result, he's now getting it. It looks like, "Why would you break that?" But let's say, "Vel, it's broken, it's gone." Also, when we're talking about this, it is important to remember that we're talking about a different mode of duty, the land, quite literally a different mode of duty, different bikes, most importantly, different tires. So much of a prilious, current burst has been put down, particularly we talk about the harder construction tire that will not be here this weekend at the start of the Americas, but we talk about how a prilia seems to be quite good at exploiting that particular tire. Certainly, people always say it, but it doesn't make it less true. It's the part that connects the bike to the ground. The next year, that bit is going to be different. That bit has the potential to completely turn the whole performance picture upside down, even before we get to the 850 bikes instead of the 990 bikes. That's even before we get to all the other stuff that's going on with the arrow and all that noise. Even before we get to the fact that the Yamaha project is going to have a lot more experience with the V4 at that moment than it does at this moment. Yeah, the bike's not good, but it's really new. It's really, really new. He is going to be handsomely rewarded for the privilege of leading that project, of being the lead rider for a manufacturer that has proven the ability to be at a baseline level of competence, especially now that it's made this big switch and continues to commit a lot of finance. To the past couple of years of Yamaha inspired any particular confidence, certainly not. But I think if you're a MotoGP free agent, like he was, you have to get rid of almost all of those preconceptions when you move like that. of the amount of variables coming up. You can't really look at the results. The only valuable information for him in terms of like a prily Yamaha de kati on the blah, blah, blah, whatever. The only valuable information for him right now is I can still do this. I can still be in championship contention like I've still got it. Like last year did not break me fundamentally in that regard. That nothing else matters is he's going to be the constant. Nothing else has got to change. Yeah. Part of it is still funny, hilarious. If all hey, Martin, who was supposed to graduate to my GP with KTM but didn't, was supposed to leave a prily but didn't, was supposed to go to Honda but didn't also didn't go to Yamaha. I would find that a brilliant storyline. Who's going to join him? Luke Morini and Fabiade de Jantonia have both been mentioned. What is the current smart money in the paddock Simon on who Yamaha will go for for its second works or either? Those are the two names. It seems, I mean, there's no well in the word towards Alex Rens. It just hasn't worked and it's hard to see them retaining him. I've heard kind of the DJ Antonio talks are fairly advanced and I'd imagine that recent form has improved that considerably by making them look really good at the minute. I know that what would you be loves a bit of recency bias but I don't know if there's maybe wild card options that I'd be looking at if I were them that actually stand out a bit more. I'd be having serious conversations with Juan Mere. I'd be at least saying hello to Iagura's management because we know Japanese factories love Japanese writer. They haven't had one while I'm a gurdy Yamaha would be awesome but I don't know if he's ready to kind of take that step backwards I guess for the time being he's young enough that he can. But beyond that, I mean, there's not many, there's still little occasional rumor that they're going to try and, you know, they're looking at rookies but I just can't see that for the factory lineup. I think there's too many experienced hands. There's a MotoGP that are free agents that you take one of them first especially when you've got Pramak to Slot of Rookie and two if you really want to. Although I think the situation next season and the fact that they're probably changing both factory writers is quite good for Jack Miller because there's this big what if in MotoGP right now that's not been asked or answered yet about what's going to happen whenever we get to the Red Bull Ring and the first August test of the at 50s and who's going to be allowed to ride the new bikes. Oh yeah. Yeah, very true. Because if Fabio Quattararo is going to Honda, do you want him riding your Yamaha at 50? No. If Packup by Nair is going to a Prey of Do you want him riding your Jigatty at 50? So but then if you're Yamaha and everyone's leaving, what do you do? Yeah, that could be very quiet test. You run agustive fellows and enter the world. Yeah, but then you don't want Dovey to open your is bike. You want Dovey five years ago to open your is bike. You don't want three seconds off the pace. Dovey developing at that point. So it you know Miller then suddenly returns the services a little bit. I think just by dent of being available. This risks aging badly tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or the day after tomorrow but Jack Miller has not had a particularly good start to the season. That's quite poor last time out at goyanya. Not overperforming top rye crass gaply only the way you would expect him to. I would say generally like with no ill well no disrespect to what all of these guys are to do and no disrespect to the talent at the level of accomplishment. As far as riders who can be reasonably deemed surplus to requirements go on the grid. I think he's on that list and I also think that there will be a push and pull for him between the security blanket of some form of supervised deal from some form of manufacturer that can be offered earlier than a commitment from Yamaha. Yamaha already kept him waiting quite quite long for this past renewal. I would not be totally surprised if that you would have to put up with another way like that to be able to chance. And I would not be surprised if this time the economic incentives, nobody wants to leave him. Everybody hangs on for as long as they can. Simon's making gestures and I can interpret them. No, not that. I was just thinking that I don't think that Yamaha is going to do the keeping him hanging around as long as that's time because it's going to be a more binary decision of do we want to check for development or do we not and not a case of let's wait and see if there's a fast rookie that's potentially promotable. I think it's slightly different circumstances from 12 months ago. But they're quick. We're still we're not far enough into the motor to season to know whether somebody like that is going to be. Do you want to rookie to be the guy that's helping develop a new bike whenever I'm going to have a variety of bike? You suddenly if all the good contracts are sewn up and you suddenly find out that like just one of them I like, like, Isan Givaris really hit Ford or whatever or I don't know, even or tolla. Anybody like Montagonzales suddenly wins five in a row and actually decide actually let's yeah, let's give that a go. What would you be factories like to find out in its season? Like to go, oh, this guy's interesting. Let's let's try it. I mean, the Diablo Ray refeeding frenzy kind of came out of nowhere last season and then he obviously has backed it off. So I can't I can't fold the methodology there, but I'm just saying that there's what if there's a Diogomareira hiding in plain sight right now. Now for me, currently the Diogomareira is that a Helgado who should have multiple options, but let's see. Maybe there's another Diogomareira. That's probably there's better ways to put that but. A big bit of not movement yet, but talk is what is going to happen in the Gikati satellite lineups next season with the the thought at the moment that Alex Simon being that VR46 will take Fermi now to go off Grassini and Grassini could be out of the Gikati fold altogether. And it will go into more detail in the coming weeks about Grassini and the potential Honda reunion, but just gives a quick kind of headline summary of what's going on there at the moment. Yeah, so lots of talk that Fermi has gone to it is signed for VR46. It wouldn't be a signature per se. It would be an extension because he has a two plus two Gikati deal that he joined with a GP on. So it's basically just taking the option on year on the second two years of it. But with Gikati trying to personal it VR46 it sounds like there are separate rumors that Grassini are deep into talks with Honda about leaving. But going back to leaving Gikati going back to Honda. I can't see any reason why you move Aldiger or unless it was because Grassini were going to be a Gikati. He's happy there. He's fast there. He's consistent there. He's having fun there. I don't see any reason at all to upset things unless it's for a really good reason like they're leaving and not simply because VR46 asked for them because none of the Gikati satellites are paying enough money to Gikati to have that level of clout. That's not the way it works there. Yeah, it all fits together very nicely. The rumors that we know about him leaving the rumors that we know about what Grassini had planned. It's interesting, because there's also been reporting about Grassini being blindsided a little bit by Aldiger being taken off their hands. And then by the Gikati Indrassini is still trying to hatch something out for 27 despite that. I just want to, like, firstly, I want to say it's pleasant that the teams we have in MotoGP care performance. I don't know. It's such a silly thing, but I don't think you can take it for granted. I want teams to be angry like, "Hey, you've taken the guy. We want the guy who can win races for us. We want to win races. We just want to be here and collect whatever business reasons here to collect sponsorship, money, agreement, money, etc. It's nice. It's nice that everybody cares that nobody is here just rent seeking. I guess quite cool. Not that there's a lot of rent to seek, I guess. It's maybe a slightly different ecosystem to some of the other leagues around the world where that's a much bigger issue. I would be quite surprised, indeed, if that happened without consideration for the place of, like, if you do want to keep Gersini taking out the gear off of them, kind of seems weirdly personal. That, like, VR46 has wanted out the gear for a while. We know that. I don't know who that's driven by necessarily. I mean, obviously, just nationality-wise, you go and look and you tell probably Pablo Nieto, the team manager, because he's Spanish, but maybe Dante and Ross himself was quite keen, hard to say, maybe with your solution. I think that's quite likely. Yeah. But it was already between the lines. Really between the lines. Algar has been invited to the 100-kilometers flat track race at the Ranch Faroeil, and that's generally a sign that Valentino likes you. Same with the, we know they floored in the Blocostas. in sort of in the end. - Who's invited a load to it? - Yeah, similar way. And obviously the fact that there is that longstanding interest, I guess they could go to the Kati and say, "Hey, we've wanted him for a while. "We couldn't make it work financially now. "Now we're your primary satellite team, Gimme." But the fact that the Kati said, "Yeah, sure, whatever." I think is quite relevant. And then if that decision has been taken without receiving it being out of the fold, then you then need to get quite creative to give Risenia a viable lineup. Like if you're Nadia Pettivani, who can you take now at the Kati to where you still feel quite good now that KTM is taking Alex Mark is off your hands all of a sudden. And Fermi Naltiger is going to another Kati satellite team. What do you, do you try to take Fabio Toshan Antonio 'cause we are 46 doesn't want him, or something like that? I mean, he clearly is very capable on the bike, but that just, that doesn't feel right, that doesn't feel good within the hierarchy. Do you try to take Danny Hulgado, which I heard some when I. - Yeah. I mean, for me, it's straightforward. You just go back to the past and start winning races with an Airbus in uni. - Who is the leading, one of the leading contenders I've heard Link Turgersini Honda move, but for me, either sense, you just take an air back. 'Cause it gets wadly, like, it's fairly easy to acknowledge that what he's going through is bike-related, not necessarily radar-related, or at least bike-related to the extent where it's damaged the rider's confidence and psyche a little bit, and no, he's not performing. I think the current and air walls are fixable with a different bike and a different team. And Grisini, it turns out are quite good at fixing an air, 'cause they've done it before. - Yeah, for my. - My counter-argument there would be not that he's necessarily like a bad sign of my counter-argument would be that Grisini has gotten accustomed, and I hope, like, motivated and believing that they can keep it up to a fairly lush life within MotoGP in terms of how competitive they can be seasoned to season. I mean, they got Mark Marcus for a year, that's insane. They got Alex Marcus the second in the championship. They won a race in Thurminga of the Garela season, and if Thurminga is back up to fitness soon enough, they should have a lot of good times also within the season, and doesn't air bastini excite you enough after all that? - He did the last time he was a Grisini. - Yeah, a lot of us have happened to see that. - No, no, I know, I know, I know, I know. - But I'm just like, there's history there. - Yeah, history there. - There's reason for Grisini to look at that and go, we could make that ride to work. We've done it before, he's in terms of base ability that will clearly very good, the trouble is, that's the only time MotoGP, we've seen that from him. Okay, a little bit before that maybe, but he was not a success in the factory team. He is really not a success on the KTM. Damaged goods is a blunt phrase, but you're signing someone on a memory rather than with any particular confidence. Even though I absolutely agree, I think it's the bike slash bike him compatibility issue. I don't think he's gone bad and lost talent as such, but can you dig yourself out of that? That's the question. Well, we're on Jucati. Let's meander away from the rider market for a special segment in this podcast. The first of several this year that we've made in partnership with Jucati's title sponsor, Lenovo, we're gonna be looking behind the scenes at how Jucati operates, particularly around a data and tech, covering its presence, its past and its future. Simon took a visit to the Jucati Lenovo remote garage after the season opened out, and here's what he found about how it works and what it does. (upbeat music) Over the last few years in MotoGP, one of Jucati's big strengths has been the Jucati Lenovo remote garage that they run here at headquarters in Bologna that gives them a whole ton of extra data analysis and processing power over a race weekend. We're really fortunate. We've been allowed to sneak in today to find their good development manager, Nicolom Ancienelli, and talk a little bit about the magic that goes on behind closed doors during a MotoGP race weekend. Nicolom, the Jucati Lenovo remote garage was first introduced in 2020 right during the pandemic. We've seen you guys really utilize it since then. How do you see it? Having changed the link between the team, the guys track side, and the people back here in Portugal and in Italy every weekend. Yeah, the Jucati Lenovo remote garage started in 2020, you're right during the COVID pandemic. And at that time, we were realized that we were ready to use our simulation tools and analysis tools most ready for tires to use it during the race weekends. But unfortunately, because of the condition, it was really hard to allow people to travel, to move directly, to attend directly to the race weekends. So we started thinking that it was possible, like normally they do in Formula One, to use remote garage to build a remote garage. So we started with a pilot project in 2020, and then we asked to our partner Lenovo to allow us to develop this project. And so in the following years, we together with Lenovo, we built the infrastructure that allow us to assist the track side people with engineers that works directly from here, from Bologna. The main challenge was at the time that the interconnection that we have and maybe we still have, is not as powerful as they're using Formula One with satellite dedicated connection. So we had to solve the problem in a different way. And so we started to think with Lenovo how to deal, and the solution maybe mainly was to move all the processing and analysis computational power on track side, using IPA Performance and PC on track sides, and this makes easier to use a Lenovo Performance Interconnection and allow our engineers to work directly from here, from that quarter to the data that rely on the HPC on track. So from that point of view, it was a long journey, and this was a thing that has changed the way the track side engineers work together with the engineers that are usually in Bologna and don't usually don't travel for all the race weekends. - So what actually happens inside the the jacadillo Lenovo Remote Garage on a race weekend during a track session, and how does that link back to what you guys are doing track side? - Yeah, at the moment in the doca tireovo Remote Garage, we have three engineers working every weekends from here from Bologna, and the first one is an engineer from software development department that he takes care, that all the process that we run on the HPC on track run properly, reliably, and he oversees that all the workflow of the data being processed of all the bikes we have on track. So actually we have six bikes, and so a massive amount of data coming every session that all this processing going in the right way and with the right timing, and all the updates of the tools are deployed directly for the issue as weekends. Then we have an engineer that is data analyst from the data analyst department that take his care on extracting KPI from data, generic and this KPI can be related to reliability of the bikes and also to performance. So usually he process all the data, extract the KPI using our tools, and generate share reports with the people that is on track. So we can have on track co-dense information from this massive amount of data in a really fast time, usually we talk about having these reports, sharing these reports some minutes after the end of the sessions, and also we have KPI running in real time when the bikes come in. And so this data analyst guy can communicate with us and on track and make some alert, especially in case of reliability issues are coming up. And then the last we have a vehicle dynamics engineers that is mainly dedicated to tire analysis. So we collect and process all this data that are related to the performance of the bikes. stravite prehavida med fakt results. Av jzo pri älazela, ča ves推та PKS elementaryova cycile haven, da v den� č Kay пропilala kde hrystve sea tras bi ekem str Čeraj. S ali zberva investigsenja, ili ligati i str Èž, kehira mislila na dal izina peg. Dačih zašve mato interdepend lepš膏. Ti obet mexikanji, asi 兒čena osletna popしth��ice, dače se gleda, dače in svega, dače ide, a zelo izvrčnice, dače in svega, dače sam zelo. Svega, dače, je, dače, dače, dače, dače, dače, dače, dače, dače. Sve, jad je, če, ljenovo, je preformatice, kompečne, da Jorge Valj ama Tallenj in tešleh ste ti helivo. 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Svečno je začnjiš učit stormishür dod. you can use. During a race weekend, you have tight sessions, you cannot plan your test because something will go wrong for sure, under 80% of times. And so you have to treat, to work with tight times, with less data and also with less analytical kind of testing. So you have to understand which is the most valuable information and try to take decisions and suggest decisions with less amount of data with respect to the session and also with more noisy on it. So that start working from house without the stress of traveling around the world helps us to gradually go inside this mechanism and go inside this rhythm. And then so after a few years, they usually are ready also to attend the race, then at least. I think we all know about the stresses of traveling around with one thing. You know something. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. We learned lots. We really liked coming here and see our endists and have a conversation with you guys. We're at Austin this weekend, Simon. We've really mentioned track house. You're catching up with track house boss Justin Marks later in the weekend for the interview. You'll be here some of in our future podcasts and see in our videos as well. Track house is in the weird place in the rider market because there are people who don't expect track house to hang on a Moto GP for the long term necessarily. There's also being links to a few riders. Jan Meier, most recently mentioned in connection with them. Yeah. So track house may not remain as in Moto GP as track house, but there will be a satellite appraed team that will probably be headed by David Abrie, we're actually on it. So the the structure will be there regardless. And there's yeah, this is weird. Jan Meier remember that keeps coming up. And the reason that I say that it's weird is because if they say in Jan Meier it would come at the expense of our Fernandez. And Jan Meier and our Fernandez are managed by the same person who claims he knows nothing of this. And it's be quite publicly saying that he knows nothing of this. So it's it's I think this is maybe wires getting crossed for people of like speculated to the point where it's become fact. And some people's minds, but it's one of those rumors that originated outside the paddock and I isn't being talked about inside the paddock. So I think I'm not saying that means it's not going to happen, but right now it doesn't look like something that's that's you know, who's to being set in store. It looks quite up in the air. And I think they're going to do everything they can try and keep a grower another set of the box. So I given Massimo Riverless great love over all Fernandez and given that role Fernandez is now delivering results albeit in a slightly haphazard way someone described today as the new Maverick Vignales. And that he's essentially the best writer in the world for 45 minutes a year. And there is a certain element of truth to it I think. But it might be enough to kind of keep him in place. All things considered. Simply because I don't really see anyone else stronger that would be willing to take probably what trackers are putting in the wages and you know it fits. It's a weird situation for Fernandez because if you can't drop Fernandez you had lots of challenges to drop Fernandez with lots of evidence for why you should and now it's like you didn't drop him then why would you drop him now and he's actually doing fairly consistently or right enough and sometimes brilliantly. Well I mean you're talking about it in a vacuum just you know the decision is binary drop or not drop Fernandez where it's obviously the outside factors who can I get who is not Rell Fernandez and how does he compare to Rell Fernandez? Yeah but I'm going to just blatantly interrupt you. It's not like it's here's Mark Mark has next door do it we who we could get. There's a lot of writers who are sort of much of a muchness so your decision is kind of more do we stick with this guy or do we replace him with A&other because there's lots of A&others around there's not like a Sir A&other Lord superstar who's not who's not committed somewhere else already. I think the difference potentially is and I don't know this is how doubted Breville would be thinking or somebody else would be thinking within the track house structure or whatever structure could there could be what I do think is true on how I would look at it at least is for many of these years I think we we've raised this already in a certain way but I feel firmer about it now for many of these years Rell Fernandez had disappointed but we you know we always knew that there's that like hideous insane upside that we want to tap into and it's yeah it's like like the mean picture of the person mining that stops right before he hits diamonds right it's like that thing and I was wondering how many MotoGP team bosses are like I don't want to be the the guy who stopped right before the diamonds and then somebody else picks it up and gets my Rell Fernandez shaped diamonds I think the the more time he spends in MotoGP the better he gets but also the more clear it becomes that maybe the diamonds aren't there like there's some reasonable metal but it's it ain't you know it ain't diamonds and that's the part where you then feel more emboldened to turn to Moto2 and you know like throw a throw a whatever throw a net have a look see you can say Danny whole cuz I know cuz I think he'll have better options this honestly on evidence of of the year so far but there's other like there's other guys around there's the the KTM Dutchman who I am not naming because I keep messing up his surname so I'm really I'm just calling Colin yeah sure Colin surname yeah I was gonna avoid it but I decided it's you know it's dishonest it's intellectually dishonest for me not to name him just because I'm worried about butchering his surname so yeah the attraction of the attraction of color of his year is that you know for a team that that financially aren't in the best position is probably that there would be a very generous incentive from Dorina to make that happen dot trader in the grid with with no Germans in the pipeline with Asin as as kind of a figure headress and with him being just just quite good be fairly easy and I don't know if I'm not saying Dorina will pay them to take him but though hand him you know it will become guitar always try co-stressing something like no partner than with someone that will pay them also I gotta I gotta say I don't believe for a second it's visually or it's gotta be fair or something there's no way there's no way I don't believe that we have to have them on there's no there's absolutely I don't this is the fight of the paddock yeah so yeah maybe we can play it the next podcast yes yeah done so that's the way to solve it definitely but he is like he is legitimately potentially very good and there's a lot of because mode 2 is such a it's just it's kind of an insane class to where there is half a reason to think that actually like any of these guys you know what anywhere in connect was like anyone you can be yeah yeah but anyone anyone who can be 185 centimeters plus and competitive in model 3 back yeah it's good yeah that's you know okay let's hope for Val um Val is free tool for benefit of yeah that was legally too all to risk in model 2 yes don't look here in that dream squad that's dreams quashed yeah um we we're fed to our Fernandez as the new Maverick Vignola let's just talk about the current Maverick Vignola is to finish off because oh my um Val Maverick Vignola is with your idea so justify what's going on right now you make it sound like like like uh like 30 years ago my idea like I just came up with this guy that's not accurate to be specifically I always talk about here Maverick Vignola is we believe very early on was committed to by KTM as a second works writer for next year Maverick Vignola has been rubbish this season just can be fair positively bad KTM has been rubbish this season yes but he's been hanging off with the exception of pedra Costa yeah they've been hanging off the tail of that rubbish yeah I mean Bender has been more of a disappointment given that Maverick is always up and down of Brad is always like just some high p into that of every is I think they've all been really poor apart from pedra who is potentially the greatest writer on the great potentially I'm not sure I'm ready for that conversation yet that lights her right out there let's put a pen in that one for tonight yeah check it in the last five minutes it seems like a vibe I think to throw in but I do think it did come up right now and not earlier which is a little convenient but you know we did come up that you know the shoulder is still not right and I I kind of tend to believe that and also believe that Maverick just refused to accept that before or refused to take heed of it and then suddenly there's been a company - He's just my openly dead, right? - Yeah, 'cause he's been, we've also had that last year. Remember when he would show up and he'd be like, yeah, you know, it's fine, it's fine, it's all right. It's getting there and then suddenly, oh, it's not getting there at all actually. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's something. - I've been in and going home, see you guys. - Yeah, yeah. It was clearly, like for a guy who's never been injured, basically, he murdered you, he's clearly there's a bit of a culture shock there, but also it's a very complicated injury. He says now that on the day, so it's clear that he's not, the left hand corners, I think, are not good. Which should not have taken this long to figure out, but okay, neither here nor there, that the changes of direction glibbed together with Mark Mark has, we have a super rider. - So, you know, there's, we could probably, like, like, Kronenberg style, you know, the fly a bunch of riders. (laughing) - Yeah, I still think even if you did that, that half and half splicing of Maverick Vignolas and Mark Mark has one half would only perform well, one-seventeenth of the year, which would remain an issue, even more of an issue. - Yeah, you know, okay, I take the argument that maybe he hasn't been spectacularly and more rubbish than being to a bastion in a line that we're across through his driving, but the difference is those two were kind of fine to see who was gonna be ditched or not, whereas Vignolas was the one who was being committed to for the long term. I can see the shoulder thing, definitely. I can also see that in a situation the bike is difficult, Maverick is the only who is more likely to just completely drop off the face of the earth because he's amazing when things are right or he can make them right, but when they're not, where is he? - So, there's a few things there, and we should be able to see by, like, going more specific. KTM was clearly sort of prioritizing him, and then it was a recent report from motorsport.com that it's the winged the opener and Brazil. They came to him and are actually, like, we have to hold off on this 'cause, like, think you don't seem right yet. Basically, we have to think about this, which is fair enough in the sense that, if it is the injury, then before they make any commitment, well, they gotta know that the injury is, you know, it's going to properly heal. They gotta know that he's not going to just, you know, check out a motor GP or be, again, we don't know that it's the injury, but I'm just gonna say, the Alex Rinsing, his way around for two years, like, you're not gonna commit to that well in advance, no offense, Alex. The two things are most interesting about Maverick right now, the first one is a familiar story. It doesn't matter where he qualifies 'cause he's last coming out of Zermon. And, I mean, it's fundamental, right? The way we, it's just what it is. It's part of the package. You have to bake it into your calculations always. Whatever, like, the goodness of the KTM starts, it has not fixed it. Like, and, you know, we can see, again, there's a clear hierarchy in how good KTM riders are improvisationally on the opening lap. So, where I would say, heads across this distinctly average, I would say, an Airbastienini is maybe good-ish, but it's because of how far he starts all the time and Brad Bender is consistently incredible. That would be, and Maverick T'Nallis cannot do it. So, that's your ranking if you want it. So, that's one interesting thing where that obviously depresses his results 'cause then he ends up in the situation that he never wants, which is, yes, to race other bikes, so that's not right. And the second part is, which makes me believe the injury, he's not staying on track. Like, he's falling off, he's blowing breaking points. There are a lot of limitations to Maverick, but one limited, like, he is actually a really famously clean and tidy and generally repeatable rider. And I think what we saw through the preseason, where I remember looking at the long runs, and being like, oh, this kinda looks like the second best KTM, but you can't string five clean laps together, you're going off somewhere, and we've seen that exact thing continue through the race weekends, which, to me, screams like, oh, the guy's not right physically. Also, I mean, the bike's a little evil, but mostly the guy's not right physically, I think. And we're going to, we're probably never going to get the full full story of it, but certainly we're going to get more information into that bucket this weekend that the ultra physical circle in America is, and then by what he decides to, you know, what his recovery's going to be through the enforced break, and how he's going to be at Harest, and what we're going to hear about his training, et cetera, that kind of stuff. - Yeah, no, it's, this is gonna be revealing weekend, given this is one of the scenes of it's like, absolute greatest, greatest performances, but it's also like, say, the last place you're going to come if part of your body is not really hanging together probably right now, or if you're not confident what your bike's going to do. Simon, you've got a little plan for this weekend that you should shout about, while people are here to hear you. - Not sure exactly yet, whether or not it's a Friday night or a Saturday night plan, but we are going to do our annual podcast meetup. Somewhere in Austin, probably, there's a couple of breweries in time that have really nice beer gardens and food trucks. Really huge code last year was great fun. So keep an eye on the social channels, myself, where there is models, and we'll get a plan for that, but it'd be really nice to hang out with some podcast listeners. - Yeah, talk about a GP. - Absolutely. We know that we have lots of American fans in our audience and in the race members club, and Simon would love to spend some time hanging out with you in Austin this weekend. Hopefully, us chatting about the stalled rider market will could jowl some of it into happening, but my hopes the next week also are not high on that front. We'll be back for the normal episode straight after the US Grand Prix Sunday night Monday morning European time. (upbeat music) The athletic.