00:00:00
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00:00:17
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannon's.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: On today's episode, Brody Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood win the Bathurst 1000 for the second time, and this time for Dick Johnson Racing, after Team 18 bungles its last fuel stop. Max Verstappen wins in Singapore for the first time, while Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri clash in the sprint. And Marco Bettecki wins in Indonesia to help teammate Jorge Martin retain a two-point title lead over Marc Marquez.
00:00:45
Speaker 2: Ahead of next weekend's Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: My name's Michael Laminato. It's great to have your company and the company of my co-host. He's just filled up his car with fuel. It's Matt Clayton.
00:00:57
Speaker 4: There's never a bad time to do that, is there, in 2026, Michael? Speaking of fuel, there's one of those weekends where there was so much going on in so many different time zones that I needed like a 36-hour day, not a 24-hour day, just to try and get life in amongst all of the motorsport that was going on. But, yeah, four wheels and two, different parts of the world, day and night. It's one of the bigger weekends of the year. And, yeah, we all need a bit of a contemplative light out afterwards. But there is certainly plenty to discuss, isn't there?
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:01:28
Speaker 3: Well, when you have three categories on the weekend, you know there's going to be a lot to discuss. Why don't we start with an old favourite subject of ours, old favourite segment of ours even, expert versus interested, There was only so many hours in a day for us to watch all of this sport. I've been to the Singapore Grand Prix. You've had your eyes on Indonesia. We've both been trying to keep tabs on Bathurst, but we can only do so much with our time. How should we start this one?
00:01:52
Speaker 1: All right.
00:01:53
Speaker 4: How about I kick this off here because Bathurst is the one where, I mean, it's the one that attracts the most eyeballs and the most of the public consciousness over the course of the weekend, let's be perfectly honest with respect to F1 and to MotoGP, but I guess if putting you in the expert chair here, I mean, the logical place to start here, I mean, look, the drivers that came up one lap. We needed a 160-lap race for these guys, not 161, for Anton DiBasquale and Lee Holdsworth. I mean, just absolutely heartbreaking watching that thing run out of fuel, going up mountains straight there.
00:02:22
Speaker 5: How did that happen?
00:02:23
Speaker 4: Because my understanding was they felt this could be an issue coming into maybe the last 10 laps of the race. But to see it happen on the last lap, I mean, absolute heartbreak for those guys, wasn't it?
00:02:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, can you imagine the feeling in the garage?
00:02:37
Speaker 3: We got some television pictures of it, but as the realisation happened, not when they saw the car stop, because of course that was clearly devastation, but the realisation did dawn during that last stint, because of course we heard the messages for fuel saving. That's not super unusual in Bathurst in a competitive race, but obviously we didn't realise until later how aggressively they had to fuel save. So actually, just as we recorded this, Team 18's released a little statement about it. They've done an investigation, of course they have, and I'll read you just the pertinent part of it. The investigation identified an issue with the team's fuel strategy software, which resulted in the final fuel field being less than the amount required to finish the race. The issue has been resolved. This was the team's responsibility. No single individual is to blame and no one is being relieved of their position because of course it wasn't that long ago. We did have some turnover at this team over strategic mistakes at Bathurst.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: It makes sense.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: It's sort of what was always probably going to be the conclusion of this, isn't it? Because it wasn't, there didn't appear to be any kind of, finger travel of the kind we sometimes see with refueling, where the hose doesn't go on properly, but you're aiming for a certain time stop. And the baffling part of this, as we heard in commentary, and as anyone would have seen at the time, is that they weren't actually under that much pressure, as little pressure as you can at Bathurst. Anyway, they had a comfortable lead. I think by the time all the pit stops shook out afterwards, they were in the lead by about seven seconds off the top of my head, maybe even 10 seconds. So it clearly wasn't a technical problem or a nerves problem, if you like, in pit lane. It had to have been a calculation issue. Now they've identified... It was in the software, but just heartbreaking. Also, I say, can you imagine what it must have been like as they realized it in the pit lane? Can you imagine what it must have been like when that safety car came out?
00:04:10
Speaker 2: And then it lasted only two laps.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: I think they were saying even one more lap may have been enough for him to complete, I don't know what, it's a 6K lap, maybe the last five kilometers. I have to go back and actually measure from exactly where his car stopped and ran out of fuel.
00:04:24
Speaker 2: Pretty much a whole lap anyway. Just heartbreaking. But this is the thing. I was talking about this the other day.
00:04:30
Speaker 5: This is.
00:04:32
Speaker 3: This is obviously not why some people love Bathurst. I think Andrew DiPasquale and Liz Holdworth probably don't love Bathurst for this reason. But it's because there's so many decisions to make in this race. You know, take or leave the fact that it's, well, this was the quickest one ever, wasn't it? Less than six hours. But the length of it is one element. But it's the number of connected decisions teams have to make to win this race that makes it such a high stakes event, makes it the one that everyone wants to win and makes it such a valuable victory. They've proved that it's very easy to get even one small thing wrong and the whole day blows up, like you said.
00:04:59
Speaker 2: 160 of 161 lands. That's brutal.
00:05:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely brutal.
00:05:06
Speaker 4: But of course, on the other side of this, for every pigeon, there needs to be a statue, Michael, or whichever way you would like to spin that analogy. But obviously, Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood, they were the beneficiaries of all of this, of course, because they sweep through to win for the second time, first time for DJR. And they had their own poor pit stop for different reasons, obviously, down to fifth at one point. But In retrospect, does this look like one of those results we probably should have seen coming regardless? Because there is a school of thought that maybe, yeah, maybe that was a little more obvious.
00:05:36
Speaker 3: Than perhaps we thought. Well, he clearly had the pace. Well, both of them did. They're an expert pairing, aren't they? Having won it together. They were the only combo on the grid that had won it together previously among all of the Bathurst winners there.
00:05:48
Speaker 2: Albeit for a different team.
00:05:49
Speaker 3: I think that's what's part of the impressive element of this, that they've translated that to a new team, obviously. But Brodie Gostecki in that final part of the race, having dropped down to fifth after that bungled brake change or the slow brake change, having led pretty comfortably after that was just incredible. And I think it's, It's sort of interesting because he went into the finals campaign. He's been in generally good form this year. He's clearly been a front runner, but there's a little dip just before the Enduro, sorry, not the finals. And, you know, he's always going to be the mix at a place like Bathurst, but you never know if he's peaking at exactly the right time or if it's going to come in those finals races when there's so much focus on, you know, making sure you nail your timing like Chas.
00:06:27
Speaker 2: Mostert did last year. There was none of that.
00:06:29
Speaker 3: They absolutely obliterated the field in terms of pace and then found another level in that final chapter to make up ground.
00:06:35
Speaker 2: Safety car did help, of course. Don't think he would have.
00:06:37
Speaker 3: Well, it would be interesting, but I don't think he would have won without the safety car. I don't think he had the laps in him. But that just closed him up and then he was able to unleash. And then, of course, the fuel stop drama ensured that he was going to win this Grand Prix. But I just can't think of anything more intimidating, probably at Bathurst, but almost any track than Brodie Kostecki chasing you down. Like, I think he's very much... that character, like the new enforcer of supercars, if you like. Every sport's got one. Every form of motorsport's got that one driver or rider that you never want to see in your mirrors or when you turn your head to see who's chasing you. I think he's the absolute driver in that sense. I don't think there's anyone who comes close to him. So as he was cutting through, I mean, he only passed a couple of cars to get there, but once you could see the pace he had, I think it was a done deal. And the experience counts. I think consistency does count for something at Bathurst because it just smooths over a lot of the decisions that teams can get wrong. And clearly they made the most of that opportunity and they come away a winner a second time.
00:07:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's one of those radio messages when you're told that he's behind you, you sort of double-check, say, can you just say that again, please?
00:07:37
Speaker 5: Because you kind of know what's coming, if it is.
00:07:39
Speaker 4: Look, I mentioned before that we probably should have seen the result coming to some degree. Something we probably didn't see coming, Zach Bates and Aaron Seaton started from pole. They were in it the whole day. Where did that come from? Because that's not something we would necessarily have expected from that pairing.
00:07:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely remarkable.
00:07:55
Speaker 3: This is one of the great things about Bathurst is that There's obviously a lot of teams and drivers by the time we get to this point of the season who aren't in title contention, who knew they weren't going to be in Sprint Cup contention either pretty early on. And during Cup's a bit of a wildcard event. And so the only thing you've really got to focus on at that point, obviously you want to go out and do well in every race, but you want to then try and win the big one, Bathurst. It's the same value of points as every other weekend, but it's much more challenging. It's a very specific circuit in the context of supercars as well. And Matt Stone Racing here has turned up with a car that was just perfectly honed for these conditions. Also really good for General Motors. I mean, it's been a pretty bruising year for the brand, and they needed someone to step up. I mean, it was very close to, you know, to be fair, it was very close to being Team 18, the homologation team, but they had MSR there the whole way. Topped qualifying, so had Provisional Pole, did Zach Bates, then took the top 10 true down, which is a real surprise.
00:08:43
Speaker 2: I think it's not that.
00:08:43
Speaker 3: Unusual to see Provisional Pole go to for want of a better word, a little bit of a wild card entry. But then Provisional Pole just cemented that they really were there on pace.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: Obviously beat everybody.
00:08:54
Speaker 3: And then the race, I was actually very impressed because I was expecting, you know, we had a couple of teams and more fancy pairings starting out of position, but they just really held it there at the front, were very cool and collected. Maybe helped by this was not a particularly wild Bathurst ride until the end. No safety cars. The pace was very high, so it'd be a long sprint. So you could just put your head down and get focused. But the pairing also did very well. You know, Aaron Seaton there was, well, really stepped up to the occasion. Probably not surprising. Just want to run you through a couple of these in case anyone hasn't heard them. I mean, Aaron Seaton's case, I mean, it's a name we've known. He's been a wildcard earlier this year. He's been floating around supercars now or circling supercars. He's the son of a two-time supercars champion, Glenn Seaton. He's the grandson of a Bathurst winner, 1965 winner, Barry Seaton. So he's got the pedigree. But then even Zach Bates, you know, he's from motorsport family, practically royalty, really. He's the son of Rick Bates, who's a former supercars driver and a four-time Bathurst 12-hour winner. And he's the nephew of Neil Bates, who's a four-time Australian rally champion. So maybe in retrospect, it's not that surprising that this thing did so well, even if Matt Stone Racing doing so well was a little bit of a change in form this year. I mean, he hasn't finished, has Zach Bates higher than ninth all season or in his career. I mean, this is the first season of his career. So incredible result for him to stand on the Bathurst podium. Huge breakthrough. He was, of course, the triple eight, wildcard entry last year. They were pretty keen on him. He's found a permanent home now in supercars or a full-time home. And big results like this usually lead to big careers. So we'll have to wait and see how that unfolds.
00:10:24
Speaker 4: Turns out bloodlines are important in this whole motorsport thing, which kind of rules you and I out for any great success in the future. But let's move swiftly along from that. I've got one more on my interested list for Bathurst. Look, Will Brown and Scott Pye, they win the Enduro Cup. Triple Eight's still a bit tricky to read. I mean, Brock Feeney, Nick Perkett, they're kind of nowhere. 11th, pretty miserable weekend all in all. So how does this set us up for finals? Because they were a bit of a disappointment, weren't they?
00:10:51
Speaker 3: It's really bizarre because we have the Sprint Cup and the Enduro Cup winner who get, I mean, they're already qualified, Brock Feeney and Will Brown. They get bonus points, but they, well, by definition, Brock Feeney was the best performer in the Sprint Cup, obviously, but they're going to enter.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: The finals in really unusual form, particularly Brock.
00:11:05
Speaker 3: I mean, Will Brown's probably on the up since they discovered that car problem in time for Ipswich, and obviously, Shody ultimately had the pace in Bathurst, but... They are still a little bit all over the place, and I think that really does open things up.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: I'd read you the points.
00:11:18
Speaker 3: Well, they finished second and fourth in the championship in the end, but the points are about to be reset, so the points are not indicative of anything other than their position. But you have to say, look, if we go through the top five, it's Matt Payne, then Brock Feeney, Brodie, Kostecki, Will Brown, and Kai Allen. I mean, I'd say Payne, notwithstanding, a really anonymous weekend for him, although Grove said they had the pace, just didn't end up in the right place at the right time. He's probably still favored, but Brodie, as we've talked about, is clearly coming in in good form. And Kyle and obviously Grove again didn't have a great weekend, but I think he's been in really good form, looked really good at the bend, for example. Cam Waters may be a little bit of a dark horse, but Triple Eight's really hard to want to bet on at this point because they just haven't had no consistency this season. Now, maybe they'll pick at the right time, but this didn't feel like the springboard you would have wanted into the Gold Coast, which is just two weeks from now. And all the finals are separated by two weeks as well. So there's not a lot of thinking time. Triple Eight's needed thinking time this year. That could be a bit of a struggle going into this final part of the title deciding part of the season. Let's go now, though, Matt, to Move of the Week. We've got no shortage of action this weekend, plenty to choose from. Where are you going to take us?
00:12:22
Speaker 4: Well, I know we're going to talk about F1 Singapore in a minute, but I'm going to slightly jump the gun here. I'm going to do also something very unusual for this segment. I'm actually going to be sensible. This might be the first time. I'm not sure I'm feeling well, but the left viewer has been left.
00:12:36
Speaker 5: For you this week. I'm going to go.
00:12:38
Speaker 4: Move of the week, it's more preventing a move or keeping a position, I guess. But I re-watched Max Verstappen's first corner of the Singapore Grand Prix when he held off Charles Leclerc multiple, multiple times because of just how clinical and simplistically brilliant it was. It was something that was very, very hard and the margins were very, very fine. I just loved the way the car control and the aggression that he tipped out on the edge of but didn't go over the top of And it was clean and it was clinical. And it just, look, we don't need a reminder of how good this guy is, but because of the way 2026 has played out and he has been a bit anonymous at times, it was just one of those things that when you see someone doing something really, really good with great pedigree like him, it just kind of makes you smile and go, you know what? I just don't trust too many other drivers to be able to do something as just brutally efficient as that. I really, really enjoyed it before because of it's just this execution, it's precision. It set the race up because we know that Singapore is a race where you can't really pass, which we're going to discuss in the next segment. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. And just a reminder of someone's class and whether it's preventing a move or making a move to keep your position, I'm saying it's my move of the week and I will not be swayed on that.
00:13:49
Speaker 2: No, I like it.
00:13:50
Speaker 3: We've named it move of the week for a purpose anyway, mostly to let us talk about things that are a bit on track often.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: But this case, it certainly qualifies. I think it is a sensible option. And it was so important, wasn't it?
00:14:00
Speaker 3: Because he'd lost a position at the start of a sprint to George Russell, and he's been lamenting that car's start ability for quite a while. Did the same thing in Malaysia a couple of weeks ago now. So it wasn't just the fact that he had to get a good start in the Grand Prix, but it was the fact that he had to make sure he had a better one than Charles Leclerc.
00:14:17
Speaker 2: Leclerc, for all.
00:14:19
Speaker 3: His ability, and I don't think he's bad in wheel-to-wheel racing, but he was always going to be the driver who backed out there, I think. Not least just because it's probably the sensible thing to do anyway. You don't want to crash out on the first lap. In general, when they did think for a little while, at least they had a shot at victory through other means. But I think Verstappen, you know, in his roller decks of drivers who he can push around a little bit. I don't want to say he pushes around Leclerc, but I think he knows that Leclerc is going to be sensible enough to back out. You know, you don't pull that move necessarily on everyone. Lewis would have been interesting if he was in that position. maybe a little bit more so, but I think he judged it perfectly. And as a result, Cruise took a pretty comfortable victory, as I think he probably would have anyway, though, to be honest, even if he'd been behind in second.
00:14:59
Speaker 2: We will talk about it in Formula 1 in just a second, but let me give you my move of the week.
00:15:01
Speaker 3: I'm taking us back to Supercars land. Of all the highlights in the race, obviously the Bathurst 1000, I think the best single lap, actually, I should have written down what single lap it was, but it was Will Brown versus Brodie Kostecki for what ultimately ended up being second.
00:15:15
Speaker 2: It was third place at the time. It was about a full lap, maybe a full lap plus a corner, more or less.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: Now, Kostecki had better tyres, so he was always going to get past Brown and was also just the quicker car in general.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: But what I really liked about this was that it was probably over the.
00:15:31
Speaker 3: I mean, Will Brown did get a bad sportsmanship flag, which maybe should disqualify him from this segment. But what I liked notwithstanding that is that these two drivers get along very well. They've got their own podcast together. They're great mates. And so I think that there's a little bit of gray area you can play in when you know both drivers are on board with bumping in this case, with a little bit of moving in the braking zone. I think because there's probably a little bit less unpredictability between them because they really know what each other are like. So it's not as dangerous as it might be to have two other random drivers. The way Will Brown fought to keep ahead for that one lap in a car that was clearly slower, really clever maneuvering at the first turn. Yes, this is what he got the flag for, I think, but moving in the braking zone, still ended up behind, but then did what you're just about allowed to do in supercars, which is gave Kostecki a little hip and shoulder, slow his momentum, get the side draft up to Griffin's bend to take back the lead, and then couldn't do it for another lap because at some point you've just got to accept that the other car's faster. But it was just such a great lap of racing you could really tell the way they were trying to work each other out and think through what they thought the other driver was going to do and because it's supercars not open wheel racing you can get away with a bit of contact and that just adds a little bit of exercise to it probably the best lap of the race I think notwithstanding again that it did raise the eye of race control but I really liked it.
00:16:50
Speaker 4: The thing you just mentioned there about knowing your enemy in this situation I'll use air quotes around the word enemy it always makes wheel to wheel stuff in any form of motorsport just that little bit better and Sometimes it can be complete animosity and these two guys absolutely hate each other. But when there's respect or guys who are veterans, I've just literally written about this in the last few days. You remember the Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, O'Rouge overtake where it was one of those ones where I think I hit by on the couch as Mark lined that one up because you're thinking, oh my God, this is going to be an aeroplane accident. But afterwards, I remember him saying that, well, the reason I did it is I could completely trust and respect the guy that I was doing it with wheel to wheel and you wouldn't do that with several other people. And that sort of falls, you know, this Bathurst one kind of falls into that same category for me. It's better when you know that there's respect and or history between the two combatants. And I do like it, but yeah, the side-by-side stuff that goes on for multiple, multiple corners, particularly when someone is kind of fighting a bit of a losing battle as they were in Brown's case is super fun.
00:17:47
Speaker 5: Love it.
00:17:50
Speaker 3: Let's move on now though to Formula One, the Singapore Grand Prix, the final race in Asia for the season, just six rounds probably to go for the year. And this felt a little bit out of the playbook for most of this season, other than the Malaysian Grand Prix, of course, which Max Verstappen also won. But Verstappen won this one. First time he's ever won the Singapore Grand Prix. He did win the sprint as well. And I did enjoy him saying, well, it doesn't really count. I still haven't won the Singapore Grand Prix.
00:18:12
Speaker 2: And he's right.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: Same went for pole position as well. But he ticked them all off this weekend. And that is important, not just in the context of his career record book, if you like, but it does feel like a subtle change maybe not so subtle, realignment of the form guide in this final part of the season. Feels very much like last year, in fact. Red Bull Racing did exactly the same thing. A little bit nowhere, a little bit up and down for the first three quarters.
00:18:35
Speaker 2: Of the season, I guess.
00:18:36
Speaker 3: Then figured out the car finally. Last year was almost just in time to win the title. This year it's much too late to win the title. But it's certainly not too late to, I think in his words, have fun for the last six rounds. I mean, I could maybe it's too ambitious to say because Mercedes is still obviously a very good car and they're starting to understand that upgrade. But it wouldn't be that surprising to me if he won the vast majority of the final races, because it just looks like the car is in that spot where he can get just enough out of it to, well, as was the case this weekend, and in Malaysia, dominate races.
00:19:07
Speaker 4: I wrote four words on my notes for this segment. He will finish second. I think he's going to be runner-up in the World Championship to Kimi Antonelli. Yeah, I mean, he's gone from sixth to fourth in one weekend. It's got that feel about it, irrespective of not knowing how many races there are to go, but The funny thing about this is that there's kind of two things for me. It's amazing how it just felt so normal to see Verstappen doing this again. And it's not been like this the entire season. It sort of felt like it had echoes of that 2023 season, of course, when he didn't win in Singapore. It was the only race that Red Bull didn't win that season. But there's just something about this might be more meritorious, I'd say, for Red Bull this season for two reasons in my mind. A, it's a brand new race. regulation set, which we know of all the complexities with that. But this is their first year, as we've talked about multiple times, as a supplier of their own engines. They make their own engines for the first time. It feels they've come back from further to get to this particular spot. And it feels like when it's happened, it's crystallized very quickly and it feels sustainable.
00:20:08
Speaker 5: And I mean, obviously this year's.
00:20:09
Speaker 4: World championship is done and dusted, but you don't want to overreact to three races in three weekends where he was about what, half a second from winning all three of them. But it does feel that if you were framing a market for next year's world championship, it'd be pretty hard to go past him because just him and that team. And when he's in this sort of form, there was no, there's never any doubt that he was not going to clean up in Singapore, which is a strange thing to say because he hadn't ticked that box there before, but yeah, You could argue just from how far they've come back from and the fact that this is such a new year for them as well as everybody else within Formula 1. Arguably more impressive, but yeah, he will finish second. I'm saying it right now. You can timestamp this because I'm finding reasons to not put other people in the runner-up place behind Kimi Antonelli for this year's World Championship. And I guess we'll find out in however many races time we have.
00:21:01
Speaker 3: It's 17 points between Verstappen and George Russell, which is really remarkable. When you just consider not only the car Russell's had. Now, Russell has had a lot of bad luck. I'm not a full subscriber. I'm not a subscriber at all to the idea that luck's cost him the title, but it certainly cost him a lot of points. But it also speaks to how good Verstappen's been, even in those occasions when, for a long time, wasn't even on the podium, and then for a long time wasn't winning. And now that he's really firing, he's done just enough to keep him there. Lewis Hamilton's just ahead of him by eight points overall. I mean, I don't even know how to make a Ferrari. Obviously, Hamilton cost himself quite a few points this weekend by deciding not to pit at.
00:21:35
Speaker 2: The virtual safety car.
00:21:36
Speaker 3: A little bit of contention around whether or not he refused or whether or not he missed the pit lane or what happened there. But the long story short is that he didn't pit and, as a result, lost quite a few places. And that might see him demoted to probably at least fourth in the championship.
00:21:50
Speaker 2: Probably.
00:21:50
Speaker 3: We've still got quite a few races to go. We'll have to wait and see. But Verstappen, I think, very much is, for me anyway, the favorite and for you, clearly. to finish second in the championship, which would be a remarkable result. And if they can actually keep that going, unlike the way they have in the last couple of years into the following season, then yes, you'd have to be considered a title contender next year. We've got to talk about McLaren. Not a great weekend for them overall in terms of pace. They were the fourth fastest car out there. But in the sprint, of course, they lost a bucket of points. They lost about eight points. On track for nine, scored only one with Lando Norris in eighth after Norris tipped Piastri into a spin.
00:22:21
Speaker 2: I actually didn't realize until afterwards.
00:22:22
Speaker 3: Now, Andrea Estella, I can tell you, was very unhappy in the atmosphere at McLaren. It was quite tense. But I didn't realize how close it was in the championship for them. And I think that's certainly part of the reason. They're now only at the end of this weekend seven points ahead of Red Bull Racing to try and hold third place.
00:22:36
Speaker 2: They're more than 100 points behind Ferrari already.
00:22:38
Speaker 3: So the idea that they could finish second as the closest Mercedes challenger seems to have faded a little bit. You know, the more I think about the Norris-Piastri clash, okay, in one sense, as it fades into rearview mirror, it seems relatively minor. It's a crash in a sprint and only so many points were available and it wasn't massive argy-bargy afterwards. But this was the biggest coming together or maybe the most consequential in terms of the way it happened in For their entire teammate time together, they had some conflict last year, but nothing as big as this or more to the point, nothing in which a driver, in this case Norris, made such an error of judgment in terms of the context of the battle that was going on. All the drivers have made mistakes, but to make a move like that on the last lap in the wet against your teammate with one point on the line for you and none for the team is exactly the kind of thing the team really thought it had ironed out of them and perhaps hasn't done enough.
00:23:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, the most interesting thing that's happened in a sprint ever, you could actually argue. So Max just happened to say sprints aren't important.
00:23:39
Speaker 5: It was important.
00:23:39
Speaker 4: But you know what's interesting about this one is that it feels that when they had their flashpoints last year, it felt like someone would put their hand up for it. Like the one I'm thinking about is Montreal when Norris ran straight up the back of Piastri and immediately just went, oh boy, that was my bad. And I mean, as much as the commentary was, oh, was Lando alongside Oscar?
00:24:02
Speaker 5: No, it wasn't. put your union jack down.
00:24:07
Speaker 4: There was a part of it where Norris's response outshouted the issue itself in that he was just like, well, it's a race, isn't it?
00:24:15
Speaker 5: I was going for a gap.
00:24:16
Speaker 4: And we know that 24 hours later, he pulled a lot of that back. And it was interesting to hear some of the radio communication. I mean, you were in the press room there in Singapore, I'm sure, when Lando's on the phone saying, oh, would you like me to drop back and Help Oscar, I was... Yeah, the disingenuous scale was going off here, that's for sure. Look, I mean, it's a bit of an indictment and a bit sad on McLaren's season that it's taken us 17 rounds to even talk about something like this because they haven't really been fighting for a great deal. And the point you made about Andrea Stella probably just doing the sigh, oh, my God, we're having to do this again, are we? When this year they're not even fighting for anything meaningful in the Drivers' and Constructors' Championship. I think the key point you made there... they would have had aspirations to think, all right, you know, we've won the last couple of constructors. If we finish second to Mercedes this year, then that's probably a pass mark. Right now, you would be way more, they feel way more susceptible to losing third to Red Bull than they do to ever catching Ferrari for second. And when you consider where they've been the past couple of years, and obviously with the double crown last year, that is a significant step back. So I think, you know, the fact that it's taken us until Singapore in October to get to a point where they tripped over each other, they would have taken that based on what happened last year, but he's certainly not going to take the reduction in points and how vulnerable they seem now. And something else that Stella said on the weekend that you may be about to tee up, but I'm going to preempt you anyway, was that he, and quite rightly, we've talked about this on the podcast too, the championship form line this year, if you were to plot it on a graph, is all over the place. Because it seems that when teams bring upgrades to races, it's not that you make a small jump, you make a massive jump. And You think that before we went to Azerbaijan, McLaren had come off that good sequence of races, how good they were in Hungary. And it's like, all right, you know, they've really brought a performance gain here. And now Red Bull's come up with its performance gain and they've jumped way ahead. There's no real sort of linear progression of teams rising and falling. It's very abrupt. And you can really make a big gain in a short period of time. And look, I mean, every team is bringing upgrades at this point, but it does feel that McLaren is... on the back foot, but very suddenly on the back foot against a couple of these opponents. And that's probably why Stella was as annoyed as he was about the points lost and the taking away of the focus, I guess, from what should be happening given how many races we have left.
00:26:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is interesting, the suddenness of it. Like, that's the thing that's caught me off guard by McLaren's Yes. Yes, Red Bull Racing brought an upgrade. There have been a couple of tracks that also just haven't suited the car, including Singapore as well, to be honest.
00:26:47
Speaker 2: So maybe that's exacerbated things. But Malaysia should have been better.
00:26:50
Speaker 3: But then everyone seems to have thought that because of the roughness of that track, it was just such a big outlier. So maybe there's been a little bit of an exaggeration there. And Stella on Sunday night in Singapore did seem relatively happy with the car's pace in that context, knowing that these tracks didn't really suit the car. What I did think was interesting, though, was that he said, well, yes, we've got more upgrades coming. They might get us back onto the podium. Certainly, there'll be better tracks for the team coming up, at least the next couple, I suppose. But in terms of victories, they'll have to wait probably till the last couple of races because the upgrades are all now focused on understanding what they need to do for next year's car because the rules are stable. The upgrades can keep coming without compromising next year's project if you're not doing a massive turnaround like Red Bull probably wants to. So it does suggest that there'll be a little bit of, defensive work in terms of the title table required here if they do want to hold third. That said, Red Bull's not bringing any more upgrades. So maybe that does rebalance over the last couple of races as well. Mercedes is obviously underperforming a little bit at the moment, but they felt relatively optimistic by the end of the weekend that they knew where they were going with this upgrade.
00:27:53
Speaker 2: They'll get three hours of practice as well.
00:27:55
Speaker 3: In Austin the next weekend to sort of do those final bits and then Ferrari, who knows what to make of Ferrari from week to week. So it's sort of maybe cautious optimism at best from McLaren, but it is a little bit of a complex situation. And the bottom line, I think the Dems, that they really could have used the points that they lost in the sprint one way or another. And before we move on to MotoGP though, let's look at the title picture because Kimi Antonelli, Did what he's increasingly doing. This is like the final phase of his championship challenge, I guess, is to just get good results when the biggest results aren't really available to him.
00:28:28
Speaker 2: And he did that again.
00:28:29
Speaker 3: Now, as much as Russell has bad luck and obviously took an engine penalty this weekend, missed what would have been a very convenient VSC for his pit stop that might have ensured he finished seventh for only a couple more points anyway.
00:28:39
Speaker 2: Antonelli has benefited from some good luck.
00:28:40
Speaker 3: Obviously, he benefited from the McLaren drivers crashing out, benefited from Norris going off the track trying to fight Hamilton in the final stages of the race, got himself onto the podium. As a result, can win the championship next weekend. It is a little bit against the odds, I suppose. But then again, tell me if this result sounds unusual based on the last couple of weeks.
00:28:59
Speaker 2: Antonelli wins, maybe.
00:29:01
Speaker 3: That's probably the most unusual part, actually. Hamilton no higher than fifth, Russell no higher than ninth. I mean, Russell and Hamilton were in those positions in Singapore. It's just a matter of whether or not they're going to win. If it doesn't happen, then it's going to happen in Mexico or it's going to happen via a press release between Austin and Mexico if they cancel one of the last two races, which is one can only assume if they're going to do that, they'll hold off another week just to make sure that doesn't happen.
00:29:23
Speaker 1: But.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: We're here. We're at that moment. We're at the moment where everyone's going to get its youngest world champion.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: It is going to happen in the next, I guess, three weeks from now, almost certainly short of real catastrophe. And he's going to grind it out, not by dominating in the way he did in the middle, in the start of the year, but by um doing those kind of mature races that are indicative of someone who can find that balance between risk and reward and bringing home to car for points.
00:29:48
Speaker 4: That's the word you just said the word mature he seems with all of the chaos and the tumultuousness of this year It's almost like he's the biggest grown-up in the room, like he's the most adult person in the.
00:29:59
Speaker 5: Room right now.
00:29:59
Speaker 4: He's winning a world championship in a way that you would expect a driver six, eight years older to win a world championship. Get a lead, methodically build points, win when you can, take the best results you can when you can't.
00:30:12
Speaker 5: And there's just an.
00:30:12
Speaker 4: Inevitability to it. And you have to keep reminding yourself he has not been here before. And he is the age that he is. It's just so, so impressive. And maybe the most impressive part about it is it's predictably impressive at this point. And yeah, whenever he gets this world championship, Austin, Mexico, an email in my inbox at 3.40am. I don't mind when it is because it's very, very deserved. And yeah, Singapore was just one of those drives that sums up why.
00:30:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, and, well, only a couple of weeks now until he gets it. I actually enjoyed after the race when he was told, and he seemed genuinely surprised and excited by it. You know, maybe the moment that he was finally allowed to believe it, he's sort of got one hand on it now, certainly. But he also brings great energy to the sport, I think, so it'll be a great moment when he does lift the trophy, as he inevitably will.
00:30:58
Speaker 2: But I'm interested in what happened elsewhere, not actually.
00:31:01
Speaker 3: Far from Singapore, really, far in terms of the weird time zone the Singapore Grand Prix has run on, but geographically not so much. The Indonesian Grand Prix, where, well, the Prilia riders went one, two, three, four for the first.
00:31:13
Speaker 2: Time in their history.
00:31:15
Speaker 3: But considering everything, how this weekend panned out, was Mark Marquez actually the biggest winner, considering he left Indonesia with the same points deficit he arrived with, just two points, so practically nothing, despite this being, as was certainly evidenced by the time we got to Sunday, the weakest track, well, probably for the rest of the season, right?
00:31:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:31:33
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, definitely.
00:31:33
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a classic case of winning from losing. I mean, the fact that Aprilia went one, two, three, four was probably not a surprise. They made a mess of the sprint on the Saturday, but this particular track, the nature of the corners, a lot of the fast flowing corners here are right-handers, which is, you know, for a guy riding with one and a half shoulders as Marquez is this year, he's not, he's not a great result for him. And the Ducati just doesn't work as well. And so yeah, Look, for him to basically... You could have just... There was a lot of sweating going on on a 62-degree track for no points gained or lost in the World Championship. They could have just sat on the beach at the long block for the weekend. But for Marquez to get out of this with the same deficit that he came in after Mateghi is a massive victory for them because there will not be a worse circuit for Ducati the rest of the way and there will not be a circuit where Aprilia's characteristics are enhanced as well as they are.
00:32:26
Speaker 5: So.
00:32:27
Speaker 4: He won the sprint, which was because of a few Aprilia-owned goals and a pretty controversial first corner accident.
00:32:32
Speaker 5: A bit of a surprise.
00:32:33
Speaker 4: But for him to finish sixth in the Grand Prix and only have a very, very small deficit going into the next round in Australia is a massive win for him. But that said, the fact that we're kind of talking down a little bit, Aprilia has never known success like they have this year before. The fact that they have four riders that annex the first four spots is just not a sentence I expected to be saying about Aprilia and MotoGP ever. And they found numerous ways to sort of trip over themselves a little bit this year, but it is so genuinely impressive that in the last year of a really, really mature rule set that a brand other than Ducati is capable of doing something like this. Hugely commendable, meritorious, hats off to them. However, probably a little bit of a bitter taste because, uh, the rider that you most fear in a world championship fight is no further behind you than when you arrived.
00:33:25
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about the winner of this one, who wasn't an Aprilia, Marco Bettecchi, first since round seven in Italy in May.
00:33:31
Speaker 5: Crazy.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: A long time ago. He's won in five.
00:33:34
Speaker 3: Grand Prix this year, which is only one fewer than Marquez, but he's 46 points off the lead with a maximum of 185 to play. Qatar, I don't know, that's a subject for another podcast, I guess, whether that's happening or not. It seems like it probably will at this point, doesn't it? Is he a title contender still? I think we asked about this a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? Mathematically, obviously he is. Or is it now, and this is like the politically interesting situation, isn't it? Is he now in a position where he'll be required to support his teammates' title ambitions, knowing that his teammate is quitting the team and he'll presumably see himself as the team leader for next year?
00:34:07
Speaker 4: This is the hard one for Aprilia now because I mentioned how good it is that they have had this season and they are leading the world championship at this point. But they're new to this whole, you know, trying to win a world championship business. And this is the conundrum now because, I mean, realistically, the point swing that would have to happen to get Buzzecki really back into championship contention, the swings at this time of year, and I would say also particularly at the end of a rule set where a lot of people have got their eye on 2027 at this point, there's.
00:34:34
Speaker 5: So many riders leaving.
00:34:36
Speaker 4: The pool of potential sort of impediments on track to get in the way of Prulia fighting against Marquez are few now. And so as unpalatable as it is in bike racing, I don't know if Jorge Martin by himself with everyone acting independently is going to be able to beat Marc Marquez in a head-to-head championship fight. And that's not just because Marc's won seven of them and Jorge's won just the one of them. Martin's won one Grand Prix this year.
00:35:03
Speaker 5: It was round.
00:35:03
Speaker 4: Five in France. It's so long ago now. He's got this lead. He hasn't fluked this lead. It's not that he's undeserving. He's just been remarkably consistent, and he's just been there. But over the course of the weekend in Mandelica, he was the third fastest to Prillia.
00:35:19
Speaker 5: Really, it was.
00:35:20
Speaker 4: Raul Fernandez was probably the quickest guy over one lap, and Bozeki obviously won the Grand Prix.
00:35:24
Speaker 2: And so.
00:35:25
Speaker 4: are you going to have to start asking other riders to let Martine through? And the curious part about this is, of the other three riders on Aprilia's, Iogura's also leaving. He's going with Martine to the Factory Yamaha team next year. So you've got two riders that are leaving the brand, as you said, Bizecki staying. Are they going to have to sort of pull their resources to beat Marquez, who's kind of on his own there for Ducati, the only other Ducati rider in the top seven mathematically but not realistically in contention for the world title is Fabio Di Gianantonio, whose season's really tailed off a bit. So can Martin beat Marquez by himself with no assistance from his stablemates? I would suggest not. But then there's two factors here. When do you start evoking team orders and suggestions here? I mean, we had two Aprilias take each other out at the start of the sprint on Saturday, so that clearly can't happen again. And because of this uncertain finish line with the season, right? I mean, we could have four rounds to go. We could have five. Obviously, the points situation for Bizecki goes from being probable to almost impossible if you just take a round off the table, because that's 37 points that are off the table all of a sudden. Marquez versus Martin is so close as to be negligible, though. it's not really going to impact their title fight, taking one round off the table. You take one off the table for Bozeki, he's basically out of it. So I wonder if, I wonder which decision comes first. Do they make the team orders decision before we know about Qatar? Or do we make a team orders decision, Qatar notwithstanding, and just stick with it? But it's certainly a conundrum. And Davide Tardozzi at Ducati said on the weekend, and probably stirring a little bit, but he just said, if I was a prunier, I'd have team orders in right now. And he has got a point. Do Caddy know how to win these things? Aprilia don't. So that's going to be the interesting part for me.
00:37:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, the experience thing is always a fascinating element of a championship. You know, someone has to win a title for the first time and often they have to beat someone who's already done it. And that's what makes it that much more impressive. But from the market's perspective, I mean, he's done it so many times before it is the defending champion, but we know, I mean, the physical limitations, I guess, are at their greatest, not just because obviously the injuries have accumulated, but also because he's just getting older and he's a little bit more beaten up every time he comes off the bike and all that kind of stuff. He's also on an inferior bike, which adds an extra element of the mystique around it. Where would this title rank? I mean, we haven't delved into this too much, considering you don't want to jinx it, I guess, if you're a Marquez fan. But how significant a title win would this one be in the context of his career, if he does pull it over the line?
00:37:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting.
00:37:49
Speaker 4: In all the championship fights that he's been in, he's won them all. And that's something that's quite foreboding for Aperulio going.
00:37:55
Speaker 5: Down the stretch here.
00:37:56
Speaker 4: But I mean, last year was this fantastic redemptive tale of an injury and a decision that he made back in 2020 that put him in such a compromised position physically and Honda and everything that went from there.
00:38:07
Speaker 5: We know the story.
00:38:09
Speaker 4: Maybe a title we thought was never going to happen again. This year, I reckon he's way more injured than he's letting on. And he's not going to give anyone any ammunition for this. And he's not going to use it as an excuse. And so there's, you know, you mentioned the intimidation factor before earlier in this podcast. There's just something about him when he has the cards in his hand that makes him formidable. When he's the one fighting from a disadvantageous position, as he is this year, there's more Aprilias in the mix. The bike isn't as good. None of the other Ducatis are anywhere to help him. He's missed two Grand Prix and he's still only two points off the championship lead. So To my mind, I think with all the stuff that's going on behind the scenes, which we'll only ever learn about in retrospect, this would be his least likely and perhaps greatest, most meritorious title if he's able to pull it off. Just because of the age and the injury history and the machinery that he's on. I mean, he should not really be in this championship fight, but because he's Marc Marquez, he is. And I just hope that whether it's four rounds or five rounds, I really want this thing to come down to a final round where You have two very, very feisty combatants going at it at a Spanish track in Valencia. You can just imagine what that joint's going to be like in late November if it comes down to that. And yeah, there's a million reasons for Marquez not to win this world championship, but he only needs one reason to win it. And if I had to put my money down, maybe I'll put yours. money down because it's probably I'm not spending my own at this point but I still think it's going to be Mark but that's mostly just on pedigree and knowing how stubborn he is but one of those rare situations where either would be a worthy winner but you know I'm just cheering for the narrative at this point while we all are.
00:39:45
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
00:39:46
Speaker 3: There's one more thing I want to ask you before we look forward and then wrap up this podcast. It's my favorite phrase in MotoGP, which is rider declared fit. The most ambiguous, I think. Much more ambiguous than those words should be when they're strung together in that way. Raul Fernandez, in this case, he finished second in the Grand Prix.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: Good for him. riding with a broken right index.
00:40:05
Speaker 3: Finger from his sprint crash with Betseki, which meant he was breaking with his middle finger on his right hand for the first time in his life on Sunday. This is the most physically punishing, not just track, but just entire circumstance on the calendar.
00:40:17
Speaker 2: 62 degrees was the track temperature. I mean, you'd hope he really was fit for this one, wouldn't you? How can this be?
00:40:23
Speaker 5: Oh, my God.
00:40:24
Speaker 1: I mean.
00:40:25
Speaker 4: I love the rider declared fit. Every time it pops up, I instantly think of you and giggle because I know it is one of your favourite sayings. But you could just put this into perspective. So he breaks his right index finger in the accident in the sprint with Bozeki on the Saturday. That's the finger he's used to slow his MotoGP missile down through the entire part of his career. It is wild to think, by the way, that you can stop these things by breaking with one finger, but that.
00:40:50
Speaker 5: Shows you how good the brakes are on these things.
00:40:52
Speaker 4: So completely have to relearn how to... just the feeling and the tension in your fingers and use a different finger to break a bike and you get 10 minutes of Sunday warm-up to try this out to see if it's going to work.
00:41:05
Speaker 5: It's kind of wild in some respects. And the fact that, I.
00:41:09
Speaker 4: Mean, the strategy was pretty clear in the Grand Prix in that he got the whole shot from pole position and he just tried to clear off at the start because, there was clearly going to come a point where the pain, the effect of the painkillers was going to wear off and the adrenaline can only carry you so far. And when you're being absolutely cooked by a bike on a 62 degree track, there was a point where, you know, you knew that at some point in the 27 laps, he was going to wilt a little bit. And Bizecki just stalked him, bided his time, came past on lap 19. And then you could, you could see Fernandez just go, well, that's done. Then I'm just trying to get this thing to the finish and finish second at this point. But, Just remarkable to make a complete change to your riding style because you've broken a finger and have to deal with it and still finish second. Hugely meritorious, probably not legal, very, very silly, and God, I like motor shipping.
00:41:59
Speaker 3: Just out of total curiosity, 62 degrees track temperature. You can get a beef steak to medium temperature. Even if you sous vide it at 62 degrees. So there you go. Just thought that was an interesting stat for you. I had to search that one before anyone asked if I knew that off the top of my head. Finally, next race. It's in a couple of weeks. It is the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.
00:42:18
Speaker 2: Phillip Island.
00:42:18
Speaker 3: Last dance for Phillip Island. We've talked about this quite a few times. And I imagine we're going to talk about it quite a lot over the next fortnight. But why don't you give us a brief setup for this most significant occasion for Australian motorcycling.
00:42:32
Speaker 4: I'm going one cast iron prediction here. The track will not be 62 degrees of Phillip Island. Hold your stakes. But look, I mean, this is a, the great thing about this particular track is all the tracks that are remaining on the calendar here. This is such a rider's circuit in that, Yeah, the layout should suit Aprilia more than Ducati, but it is one of those rare tracks in MotoGP these days where the rider can genuinely make a difference. And Marcus won there on the best bike, on not the best bike, on races where he's completely balls up the start. He should have won a couple of others, but has crashed in some strange circumstances with Honda. There was that weird year where they had to make the mandatory pit stop because the track was tearing the tyres up and his team couldn't count to nine or ten and he came in a lap late. He's qualified, so there's definite history there, but It's a track where the rider makes a difference. And I think coming here for the last time, it's going to be super emotional for a whole bunch of reasons. This is a track that the riders will unprompted just tell you that is like nowhere else on earth. I mean, you imagine if you've come from somewhere like Spain or Italy and you get plopped onto this little island tacked off the south of Australia, this race track, like what on earth is this thing? You can't create a track like this. It's going to be memorable. It's going to be historic. It's going to be emotional. It's going to be absolutely pivotal in this world championship. And there's always a drama here. Something always happens. And in the context of a super, super tight title fight, the place will be rammed with people. It'll be a massive occasion. let's hope we get a MotoGP race that lives up to the billing that we're giving it. I think we will. And the fact that you had a championship that's so finely poised in the middle of all of that, it is going to be a super, super fun weekend, I think.
00:44:16
Speaker 3: Well, after the last couple of years, let's hope we get a MotoGP race there. I think sometimes the weather has other plans, but fingers crossed it all goes well for this finale for Phillip Island, at least for now. But that's all the time we have for Pit Talk this week. You can subscribe to Pit Talk wherever you get your favourite podcasts and you can leave us a rating and review as well. This weekend, there's nothing. Nothing that is in our main three categories of motorsport. Anyway, the last such weekend of the entire season, though, I believe, if I'm right. So, you know, embrace it. Go and do your gardening now. Get your seeds planted for spring.
00:44:46
Speaker 2: Sorry, spring. You probably missed some of them. And get ahead of the curve. But you can keep up.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: To date with all the latest F1 supercars and MotoGP news in the meanwhile at foxsports.com.au.
00:44:56
Speaker 2: From Matt Clayton and me, Michael Laminato, thanks very much for your company. We'll catch you next time.
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00:00:17
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannon's.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: On today's episode, Brody Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood win the Bathurst 1000 for the second time, and this time for Dick Johnson Racing, after Team 18 bungles its last fuel stop. Max Verstappen wins in Singapore for the first time, while Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri clash in the sprint. And Marco Bettecki wins in Indonesia to help teammate Jorge Martin retain a two-point title lead over Marc Marquez.
00:00:45
Speaker 2: Ahead of next weekend's Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: My name's Michael Laminato. It's great to have your company and the company of my co-host. He's just filled up his car with fuel. It's Matt Clayton.
00:00:57
Speaker 4: There's never a bad time to do that, is there, in 2026, Michael? Speaking of fuel, there's one of those weekends where there was so much going on in so many different time zones that I needed like a 36-hour day, not a 24-hour day, just to try and get life in amongst all of the motorsport that was going on. But, yeah, four wheels and two, different parts of the world, day and night. It's one of the bigger weekends of the year. And, yeah, we all need a bit of a contemplative light out afterwards. But there is certainly plenty to discuss, isn't there?
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:01:28
Speaker 3: Well, when you have three categories on the weekend, you know there's going to be a lot to discuss. Why don't we start with an old favourite subject of ours, old favourite segment of ours even, expert versus interested, There was only so many hours in a day for us to watch all of this sport. I've been to the Singapore Grand Prix. You've had your eyes on Indonesia. We've both been trying to keep tabs on Bathurst, but we can only do so much with our time. How should we start this one?
00:01:52
Speaker 1: All right.
00:01:53
Speaker 4: How about I kick this off here because Bathurst is the one where, I mean, it's the one that attracts the most eyeballs and the most of the public consciousness over the course of the weekend, let's be perfectly honest with respect to F1 and to MotoGP, but I guess if putting you in the expert chair here, I mean, the logical place to start here, I mean, look, the drivers that came up one lap. We needed a 160-lap race for these guys, not 161, for Anton DiBasquale and Lee Holdsworth. I mean, just absolutely heartbreaking watching that thing run out of fuel, going up mountains straight there.
00:02:22
Speaker 5: How did that happen?
00:02:23
Speaker 4: Because my understanding was they felt this could be an issue coming into maybe the last 10 laps of the race. But to see it happen on the last lap, I mean, absolute heartbreak for those guys, wasn't it?
00:02:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, can you imagine the feeling in the garage?
00:02:37
Speaker 3: We got some television pictures of it, but as the realisation happened, not when they saw the car stop, because of course that was clearly devastation, but the realisation did dawn during that last stint, because of course we heard the messages for fuel saving. That's not super unusual in Bathurst in a competitive race, but obviously we didn't realise until later how aggressively they had to fuel save. So actually, just as we recorded this, Team 18's released a little statement about it. They've done an investigation, of course they have, and I'll read you just the pertinent part of it. The investigation identified an issue with the team's fuel strategy software, which resulted in the final fuel field being less than the amount required to finish the race. The issue has been resolved. This was the team's responsibility. No single individual is to blame and no one is being relieved of their position because of course it wasn't that long ago. We did have some turnover at this team over strategic mistakes at Bathurst.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: It makes sense.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: It's sort of what was always probably going to be the conclusion of this, isn't it? Because it wasn't, there didn't appear to be any kind of, finger travel of the kind we sometimes see with refueling, where the hose doesn't go on properly, but you're aiming for a certain time stop. And the baffling part of this, as we heard in commentary, and as anyone would have seen at the time, is that they weren't actually under that much pressure, as little pressure as you can at Bathurst. Anyway, they had a comfortable lead. I think by the time all the pit stops shook out afterwards, they were in the lead by about seven seconds off the top of my head, maybe even 10 seconds. So it clearly wasn't a technical problem or a nerves problem, if you like, in pit lane. It had to have been a calculation issue. Now they've identified... It was in the software, but just heartbreaking. Also, I say, can you imagine what it must have been like as they realized it in the pit lane? Can you imagine what it must have been like when that safety car came out?
00:04:10
Speaker 2: And then it lasted only two laps.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: I think they were saying even one more lap may have been enough for him to complete, I don't know what, it's a 6K lap, maybe the last five kilometers. I have to go back and actually measure from exactly where his car stopped and ran out of fuel.
00:04:24
Speaker 2: Pretty much a whole lap anyway. Just heartbreaking. But this is the thing. I was talking about this the other day.
00:04:30
Speaker 5: This is.
00:04:32
Speaker 3: This is obviously not why some people love Bathurst. I think Andrew DiPasquale and Liz Holdworth probably don't love Bathurst for this reason. But it's because there's so many decisions to make in this race. You know, take or leave the fact that it's, well, this was the quickest one ever, wasn't it? Less than six hours. But the length of it is one element. But it's the number of connected decisions teams have to make to win this race that makes it such a high stakes event, makes it the one that everyone wants to win and makes it such a valuable victory. They've proved that it's very easy to get even one small thing wrong and the whole day blows up, like you said.
00:04:59
Speaker 2: 160 of 161 lands. That's brutal.
00:05:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely brutal.
00:05:06
Speaker 4: But of course, on the other side of this, for every pigeon, there needs to be a statue, Michael, or whichever way you would like to spin that analogy. But obviously, Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood, they were the beneficiaries of all of this, of course, because they sweep through to win for the second time, first time for DJR. And they had their own poor pit stop for different reasons, obviously, down to fifth at one point. But In retrospect, does this look like one of those results we probably should have seen coming regardless? Because there is a school of thought that maybe, yeah, maybe that was a little more obvious.
00:05:36
Speaker 3: Than perhaps we thought. Well, he clearly had the pace. Well, both of them did. They're an expert pairing, aren't they? Having won it together. They were the only combo on the grid that had won it together previously among all of the Bathurst winners there.
00:05:48
Speaker 2: Albeit for a different team.
00:05:49
Speaker 3: I think that's what's part of the impressive element of this, that they've translated that to a new team, obviously. But Brodie Gostecki in that final part of the race, having dropped down to fifth after that bungled brake change or the slow brake change, having led pretty comfortably after that was just incredible. And I think it's, It's sort of interesting because he went into the finals campaign. He's been in generally good form this year. He's clearly been a front runner, but there's a little dip just before the Enduro, sorry, not the finals. And, you know, he's always going to be the mix at a place like Bathurst, but you never know if he's peaking at exactly the right time or if it's going to come in those finals races when there's so much focus on, you know, making sure you nail your timing like Chas.
00:06:27
Speaker 2: Mostert did last year. There was none of that.
00:06:29
Speaker 3: They absolutely obliterated the field in terms of pace and then found another level in that final chapter to make up ground.
00:06:35
Speaker 2: Safety car did help, of course. Don't think he would have.
00:06:37
Speaker 3: Well, it would be interesting, but I don't think he would have won without the safety car. I don't think he had the laps in him. But that just closed him up and then he was able to unleash. And then, of course, the fuel stop drama ensured that he was going to win this Grand Prix. But I just can't think of anything more intimidating, probably at Bathurst, but almost any track than Brodie Kostecki chasing you down. Like, I think he's very much... that character, like the new enforcer of supercars, if you like. Every sport's got one. Every form of motorsport's got that one driver or rider that you never want to see in your mirrors or when you turn your head to see who's chasing you. I think he's the absolute driver in that sense. I don't think there's anyone who comes close to him. So as he was cutting through, I mean, he only passed a couple of cars to get there, but once you could see the pace he had, I think it was a done deal. And the experience counts. I think consistency does count for something at Bathurst because it just smooths over a lot of the decisions that teams can get wrong. And clearly they made the most of that opportunity and they come away a winner a second time.
00:07:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's one of those radio messages when you're told that he's behind you, you sort of double-check, say, can you just say that again, please?
00:07:37
Speaker 5: Because you kind of know what's coming, if it is.
00:07:39
Speaker 4: Look, I mentioned before that we probably should have seen the result coming to some degree. Something we probably didn't see coming, Zach Bates and Aaron Seaton started from pole. They were in it the whole day. Where did that come from? Because that's not something we would necessarily have expected from that pairing.
00:07:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely remarkable.
00:07:55
Speaker 3: This is one of the great things about Bathurst is that There's obviously a lot of teams and drivers by the time we get to this point of the season who aren't in title contention, who knew they weren't going to be in Sprint Cup contention either pretty early on. And during Cup's a bit of a wildcard event. And so the only thing you've really got to focus on at that point, obviously you want to go out and do well in every race, but you want to then try and win the big one, Bathurst. It's the same value of points as every other weekend, but it's much more challenging. It's a very specific circuit in the context of supercars as well. And Matt Stone Racing here has turned up with a car that was just perfectly honed for these conditions. Also really good for General Motors. I mean, it's been a pretty bruising year for the brand, and they needed someone to step up. I mean, it was very close to, you know, to be fair, it was very close to being Team 18, the homologation team, but they had MSR there the whole way. Topped qualifying, so had Provisional Pole, did Zach Bates, then took the top 10 true down, which is a real surprise.
00:08:43
Speaker 2: I think it's not that.
00:08:43
Speaker 3: Unusual to see Provisional Pole go to for want of a better word, a little bit of a wild card entry. But then Provisional Pole just cemented that they really were there on pace.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: Obviously beat everybody.
00:08:54
Speaker 3: And then the race, I was actually very impressed because I was expecting, you know, we had a couple of teams and more fancy pairings starting out of position, but they just really held it there at the front, were very cool and collected. Maybe helped by this was not a particularly wild Bathurst ride until the end. No safety cars. The pace was very high, so it'd be a long sprint. So you could just put your head down and get focused. But the pairing also did very well. You know, Aaron Seaton there was, well, really stepped up to the occasion. Probably not surprising. Just want to run you through a couple of these in case anyone hasn't heard them. I mean, Aaron Seaton's case, I mean, it's a name we've known. He's been a wildcard earlier this year. He's been floating around supercars now or circling supercars. He's the son of a two-time supercars champion, Glenn Seaton. He's the grandson of a Bathurst winner, 1965 winner, Barry Seaton. So he's got the pedigree. But then even Zach Bates, you know, he's from motorsport family, practically royalty, really. He's the son of Rick Bates, who's a former supercars driver and a four-time Bathurst 12-hour winner. And he's the nephew of Neil Bates, who's a four-time Australian rally champion. So maybe in retrospect, it's not that surprising that this thing did so well, even if Matt Stone Racing doing so well was a little bit of a change in form this year. I mean, he hasn't finished, has Zach Bates higher than ninth all season or in his career. I mean, this is the first season of his career. So incredible result for him to stand on the Bathurst podium. Huge breakthrough. He was, of course, the triple eight, wildcard entry last year. They were pretty keen on him. He's found a permanent home now in supercars or a full-time home. And big results like this usually lead to big careers. So we'll have to wait and see how that unfolds.
00:10:24
Speaker 4: Turns out bloodlines are important in this whole motorsport thing, which kind of rules you and I out for any great success in the future. But let's move swiftly along from that. I've got one more on my interested list for Bathurst. Look, Will Brown and Scott Pye, they win the Enduro Cup. Triple Eight's still a bit tricky to read. I mean, Brock Feeney, Nick Perkett, they're kind of nowhere. 11th, pretty miserable weekend all in all. So how does this set us up for finals? Because they were a bit of a disappointment, weren't they?
00:10:51
Speaker 3: It's really bizarre because we have the Sprint Cup and the Enduro Cup winner who get, I mean, they're already qualified, Brock Feeney and Will Brown. They get bonus points, but they, well, by definition, Brock Feeney was the best performer in the Sprint Cup, obviously, but they're going to enter.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: The finals in really unusual form, particularly Brock.
00:11:05
Speaker 3: I mean, Will Brown's probably on the up since they discovered that car problem in time for Ipswich, and obviously, Shody ultimately had the pace in Bathurst, but... They are still a little bit all over the place, and I think that really does open things up.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: I'd read you the points.
00:11:18
Speaker 3: Well, they finished second and fourth in the championship in the end, but the points are about to be reset, so the points are not indicative of anything other than their position. But you have to say, look, if we go through the top five, it's Matt Payne, then Brock Feeney, Brodie, Kostecki, Will Brown, and Kai Allen. I mean, I'd say Payne, notwithstanding, a really anonymous weekend for him, although Grove said they had the pace, just didn't end up in the right place at the right time. He's probably still favored, but Brodie, as we've talked about, is clearly coming in in good form. And Kyle and obviously Grove again didn't have a great weekend, but I think he's been in really good form, looked really good at the bend, for example. Cam Waters may be a little bit of a dark horse, but Triple Eight's really hard to want to bet on at this point because they just haven't had no consistency this season. Now, maybe they'll pick at the right time, but this didn't feel like the springboard you would have wanted into the Gold Coast, which is just two weeks from now. And all the finals are separated by two weeks as well. So there's not a lot of thinking time. Triple Eight's needed thinking time this year. That could be a bit of a struggle going into this final part of the title deciding part of the season. Let's go now, though, Matt, to Move of the Week. We've got no shortage of action this weekend, plenty to choose from. Where are you going to take us?
00:12:22
Speaker 4: Well, I know we're going to talk about F1 Singapore in a minute, but I'm going to slightly jump the gun here. I'm going to do also something very unusual for this segment. I'm actually going to be sensible. This might be the first time. I'm not sure I'm feeling well, but the left viewer has been left.
00:12:36
Speaker 5: For you this week. I'm going to go.
00:12:38
Speaker 4: Move of the week, it's more preventing a move or keeping a position, I guess. But I re-watched Max Verstappen's first corner of the Singapore Grand Prix when he held off Charles Leclerc multiple, multiple times because of just how clinical and simplistically brilliant it was. It was something that was very, very hard and the margins were very, very fine. I just loved the way the car control and the aggression that he tipped out on the edge of but didn't go over the top of And it was clean and it was clinical. And it just, look, we don't need a reminder of how good this guy is, but because of the way 2026 has played out and he has been a bit anonymous at times, it was just one of those things that when you see someone doing something really, really good with great pedigree like him, it just kind of makes you smile and go, you know what? I just don't trust too many other drivers to be able to do something as just brutally efficient as that. I really, really enjoyed it before because of it's just this execution, it's precision. It set the race up because we know that Singapore is a race where you can't really pass, which we're going to discuss in the next segment. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. And just a reminder of someone's class and whether it's preventing a move or making a move to keep your position, I'm saying it's my move of the week and I will not be swayed on that.
00:13:49
Speaker 2: No, I like it.
00:13:50
Speaker 3: We've named it move of the week for a purpose anyway, mostly to let us talk about things that are a bit on track often.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: But this case, it certainly qualifies. I think it is a sensible option. And it was so important, wasn't it?
00:14:00
Speaker 3: Because he'd lost a position at the start of a sprint to George Russell, and he's been lamenting that car's start ability for quite a while. Did the same thing in Malaysia a couple of weeks ago now. So it wasn't just the fact that he had to get a good start in the Grand Prix, but it was the fact that he had to make sure he had a better one than Charles Leclerc.
00:14:17
Speaker 2: Leclerc, for all.
00:14:19
Speaker 3: His ability, and I don't think he's bad in wheel-to-wheel racing, but he was always going to be the driver who backed out there, I think. Not least just because it's probably the sensible thing to do anyway. You don't want to crash out on the first lap. In general, when they did think for a little while, at least they had a shot at victory through other means. But I think Verstappen, you know, in his roller decks of drivers who he can push around a little bit. I don't want to say he pushes around Leclerc, but I think he knows that Leclerc is going to be sensible enough to back out. You know, you don't pull that move necessarily on everyone. Lewis would have been interesting if he was in that position. maybe a little bit more so, but I think he judged it perfectly. And as a result, Cruise took a pretty comfortable victory, as I think he probably would have anyway, though, to be honest, even if he'd been behind in second.
00:14:59
Speaker 2: We will talk about it in Formula 1 in just a second, but let me give you my move of the week.
00:15:01
Speaker 3: I'm taking us back to Supercars land. Of all the highlights in the race, obviously the Bathurst 1000, I think the best single lap, actually, I should have written down what single lap it was, but it was Will Brown versus Brodie Kostecki for what ultimately ended up being second.
00:15:15
Speaker 2: It was third place at the time. It was about a full lap, maybe a full lap plus a corner, more or less.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: Now, Kostecki had better tyres, so he was always going to get past Brown and was also just the quicker car in general.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: But what I really liked about this was that it was probably over the.
00:15:31
Speaker 3: I mean, Will Brown did get a bad sportsmanship flag, which maybe should disqualify him from this segment. But what I liked notwithstanding that is that these two drivers get along very well. They've got their own podcast together. They're great mates. And so I think that there's a little bit of gray area you can play in when you know both drivers are on board with bumping in this case, with a little bit of moving in the braking zone. I think because there's probably a little bit less unpredictability between them because they really know what each other are like. So it's not as dangerous as it might be to have two other random drivers. The way Will Brown fought to keep ahead for that one lap in a car that was clearly slower, really clever maneuvering at the first turn. Yes, this is what he got the flag for, I think, but moving in the braking zone, still ended up behind, but then did what you're just about allowed to do in supercars, which is gave Kostecki a little hip and shoulder, slow his momentum, get the side draft up to Griffin's bend to take back the lead, and then couldn't do it for another lap because at some point you've just got to accept that the other car's faster. But it was just such a great lap of racing you could really tell the way they were trying to work each other out and think through what they thought the other driver was going to do and because it's supercars not open wheel racing you can get away with a bit of contact and that just adds a little bit of exercise to it probably the best lap of the race I think notwithstanding again that it did raise the eye of race control but I really liked it.
00:16:50
Speaker 4: The thing you just mentioned there about knowing your enemy in this situation I'll use air quotes around the word enemy it always makes wheel to wheel stuff in any form of motorsport just that little bit better and Sometimes it can be complete animosity and these two guys absolutely hate each other. But when there's respect or guys who are veterans, I've just literally written about this in the last few days. You remember the Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, O'Rouge overtake where it was one of those ones where I think I hit by on the couch as Mark lined that one up because you're thinking, oh my God, this is going to be an aeroplane accident. But afterwards, I remember him saying that, well, the reason I did it is I could completely trust and respect the guy that I was doing it with wheel to wheel and you wouldn't do that with several other people. And that sort of falls, you know, this Bathurst one kind of falls into that same category for me. It's better when you know that there's respect and or history between the two combatants. And I do like it, but yeah, the side-by-side stuff that goes on for multiple, multiple corners, particularly when someone is kind of fighting a bit of a losing battle as they were in Brown's case is super fun.
00:17:47
Speaker 5: Love it.
00:17:50
Speaker 3: Let's move on now though to Formula One, the Singapore Grand Prix, the final race in Asia for the season, just six rounds probably to go for the year. And this felt a little bit out of the playbook for most of this season, other than the Malaysian Grand Prix, of course, which Max Verstappen also won. But Verstappen won this one. First time he's ever won the Singapore Grand Prix. He did win the sprint as well. And I did enjoy him saying, well, it doesn't really count. I still haven't won the Singapore Grand Prix.
00:18:12
Speaker 2: And he's right.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: Same went for pole position as well. But he ticked them all off this weekend. And that is important, not just in the context of his career record book, if you like, but it does feel like a subtle change maybe not so subtle, realignment of the form guide in this final part of the season. Feels very much like last year, in fact. Red Bull Racing did exactly the same thing. A little bit nowhere, a little bit up and down for the first three quarters.
00:18:35
Speaker 2: Of the season, I guess.
00:18:36
Speaker 3: Then figured out the car finally. Last year was almost just in time to win the title. This year it's much too late to win the title. But it's certainly not too late to, I think in his words, have fun for the last six rounds. I mean, I could maybe it's too ambitious to say because Mercedes is still obviously a very good car and they're starting to understand that upgrade. But it wouldn't be that surprising to me if he won the vast majority of the final races, because it just looks like the car is in that spot where he can get just enough out of it to, well, as was the case this weekend, and in Malaysia, dominate races.
00:19:07
Speaker 4: I wrote four words on my notes for this segment. He will finish second. I think he's going to be runner-up in the World Championship to Kimi Antonelli. Yeah, I mean, he's gone from sixth to fourth in one weekend. It's got that feel about it, irrespective of not knowing how many races there are to go, but The funny thing about this is that there's kind of two things for me. It's amazing how it just felt so normal to see Verstappen doing this again. And it's not been like this the entire season. It sort of felt like it had echoes of that 2023 season, of course, when he didn't win in Singapore. It was the only race that Red Bull didn't win that season. But there's just something about this might be more meritorious, I'd say, for Red Bull this season for two reasons in my mind. A, it's a brand new race. regulation set, which we know of all the complexities with that. But this is their first year, as we've talked about multiple times, as a supplier of their own engines. They make their own engines for the first time. It feels they've come back from further to get to this particular spot. And it feels like when it's happened, it's crystallized very quickly and it feels sustainable.
00:20:08
Speaker 5: And I mean, obviously this year's.
00:20:09
Speaker 4: World championship is done and dusted, but you don't want to overreact to three races in three weekends where he was about what, half a second from winning all three of them. But it does feel that if you were framing a market for next year's world championship, it'd be pretty hard to go past him because just him and that team. And when he's in this sort of form, there was no, there's never any doubt that he was not going to clean up in Singapore, which is a strange thing to say because he hadn't ticked that box there before, but yeah, You could argue just from how far they've come back from and the fact that this is such a new year for them as well as everybody else within Formula 1. Arguably more impressive, but yeah, he will finish second. I'm saying it right now. You can timestamp this because I'm finding reasons to not put other people in the runner-up place behind Kimi Antonelli for this year's World Championship. And I guess we'll find out in however many races time we have.
00:21:01
Speaker 3: It's 17 points between Verstappen and George Russell, which is really remarkable. When you just consider not only the car Russell's had. Now, Russell has had a lot of bad luck. I'm not a full subscriber. I'm not a subscriber at all to the idea that luck's cost him the title, but it certainly cost him a lot of points. But it also speaks to how good Verstappen's been, even in those occasions when, for a long time, wasn't even on the podium, and then for a long time wasn't winning. And now that he's really firing, he's done just enough to keep him there. Lewis Hamilton's just ahead of him by eight points overall. I mean, I don't even know how to make a Ferrari. Obviously, Hamilton cost himself quite a few points this weekend by deciding not to pit at.
00:21:35
Speaker 2: The virtual safety car.
00:21:36
Speaker 3: A little bit of contention around whether or not he refused or whether or not he missed the pit lane or what happened there. But the long story short is that he didn't pit and, as a result, lost quite a few places. And that might see him demoted to probably at least fourth in the championship.
00:21:50
Speaker 2: Probably.
00:21:50
Speaker 3: We've still got quite a few races to go. We'll have to wait and see. But Verstappen, I think, very much is, for me anyway, the favorite and for you, clearly. to finish second in the championship, which would be a remarkable result. And if they can actually keep that going, unlike the way they have in the last couple of years into the following season, then yes, you'd have to be considered a title contender next year. We've got to talk about McLaren. Not a great weekend for them overall in terms of pace. They were the fourth fastest car out there. But in the sprint, of course, they lost a bucket of points. They lost about eight points. On track for nine, scored only one with Lando Norris in eighth after Norris tipped Piastri into a spin.
00:22:21
Speaker 2: I actually didn't realize until afterwards.
00:22:22
Speaker 3: Now, Andrea Estella, I can tell you, was very unhappy in the atmosphere at McLaren. It was quite tense. But I didn't realize how close it was in the championship for them. And I think that's certainly part of the reason. They're now only at the end of this weekend seven points ahead of Red Bull Racing to try and hold third place.
00:22:36
Speaker 2: They're more than 100 points behind Ferrari already.
00:22:38
Speaker 3: So the idea that they could finish second as the closest Mercedes challenger seems to have faded a little bit. You know, the more I think about the Norris-Piastri clash, okay, in one sense, as it fades into rearview mirror, it seems relatively minor. It's a crash in a sprint and only so many points were available and it wasn't massive argy-bargy afterwards. But this was the biggest coming together or maybe the most consequential in terms of the way it happened in For their entire teammate time together, they had some conflict last year, but nothing as big as this or more to the point, nothing in which a driver, in this case Norris, made such an error of judgment in terms of the context of the battle that was going on. All the drivers have made mistakes, but to make a move like that on the last lap in the wet against your teammate with one point on the line for you and none for the team is exactly the kind of thing the team really thought it had ironed out of them and perhaps hasn't done enough.
00:23:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, the most interesting thing that's happened in a sprint ever, you could actually argue. So Max just happened to say sprints aren't important.
00:23:39
Speaker 5: It was important.
00:23:39
Speaker 4: But you know what's interesting about this one is that it feels that when they had their flashpoints last year, it felt like someone would put their hand up for it. Like the one I'm thinking about is Montreal when Norris ran straight up the back of Piastri and immediately just went, oh boy, that was my bad. And I mean, as much as the commentary was, oh, was Lando alongside Oscar?
00:24:02
Speaker 5: No, it wasn't. put your union jack down.
00:24:07
Speaker 4: There was a part of it where Norris's response outshouted the issue itself in that he was just like, well, it's a race, isn't it?
00:24:15
Speaker 5: I was going for a gap.
00:24:16
Speaker 4: And we know that 24 hours later, he pulled a lot of that back. And it was interesting to hear some of the radio communication. I mean, you were in the press room there in Singapore, I'm sure, when Lando's on the phone saying, oh, would you like me to drop back and Help Oscar, I was... Yeah, the disingenuous scale was going off here, that's for sure. Look, I mean, it's a bit of an indictment and a bit sad on McLaren's season that it's taken us 17 rounds to even talk about something like this because they haven't really been fighting for a great deal. And the point you made about Andrea Stella probably just doing the sigh, oh, my God, we're having to do this again, are we? When this year they're not even fighting for anything meaningful in the Drivers' and Constructors' Championship. I think the key point you made there... they would have had aspirations to think, all right, you know, we've won the last couple of constructors. If we finish second to Mercedes this year, then that's probably a pass mark. Right now, you would be way more, they feel way more susceptible to losing third to Red Bull than they do to ever catching Ferrari for second. And when you consider where they've been the past couple of years, and obviously with the double crown last year, that is a significant step back. So I think, you know, the fact that it's taken us until Singapore in October to get to a point where they tripped over each other, they would have taken that based on what happened last year, but he's certainly not going to take the reduction in points and how vulnerable they seem now. And something else that Stella said on the weekend that you may be about to tee up, but I'm going to preempt you anyway, was that he, and quite rightly, we've talked about this on the podcast too, the championship form line this year, if you were to plot it on a graph, is all over the place. Because it seems that when teams bring upgrades to races, it's not that you make a small jump, you make a massive jump. And You think that before we went to Azerbaijan, McLaren had come off that good sequence of races, how good they were in Hungary. And it's like, all right, you know, they've really brought a performance gain here. And now Red Bull's come up with its performance gain and they've jumped way ahead. There's no real sort of linear progression of teams rising and falling. It's very abrupt. And you can really make a big gain in a short period of time. And look, I mean, every team is bringing upgrades at this point, but it does feel that McLaren is... on the back foot, but very suddenly on the back foot against a couple of these opponents. And that's probably why Stella was as annoyed as he was about the points lost and the taking away of the focus, I guess, from what should be happening given how many races we have left.
00:26:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is interesting, the suddenness of it. Like, that's the thing that's caught me off guard by McLaren's Yes. Yes, Red Bull Racing brought an upgrade. There have been a couple of tracks that also just haven't suited the car, including Singapore as well, to be honest.
00:26:47
Speaker 2: So maybe that's exacerbated things. But Malaysia should have been better.
00:26:50
Speaker 3: But then everyone seems to have thought that because of the roughness of that track, it was just such a big outlier. So maybe there's been a little bit of an exaggeration there. And Stella on Sunday night in Singapore did seem relatively happy with the car's pace in that context, knowing that these tracks didn't really suit the car. What I did think was interesting, though, was that he said, well, yes, we've got more upgrades coming. They might get us back onto the podium. Certainly, there'll be better tracks for the team coming up, at least the next couple, I suppose. But in terms of victories, they'll have to wait probably till the last couple of races because the upgrades are all now focused on understanding what they need to do for next year's car because the rules are stable. The upgrades can keep coming without compromising next year's project if you're not doing a massive turnaround like Red Bull probably wants to. So it does suggest that there'll be a little bit of, defensive work in terms of the title table required here if they do want to hold third. That said, Red Bull's not bringing any more upgrades. So maybe that does rebalance over the last couple of races as well. Mercedes is obviously underperforming a little bit at the moment, but they felt relatively optimistic by the end of the weekend that they knew where they were going with this upgrade.
00:27:53
Speaker 2: They'll get three hours of practice as well.
00:27:55
Speaker 3: In Austin the next weekend to sort of do those final bits and then Ferrari, who knows what to make of Ferrari from week to week. So it's sort of maybe cautious optimism at best from McLaren, but it is a little bit of a complex situation. And the bottom line, I think the Dems, that they really could have used the points that they lost in the sprint one way or another. And before we move on to MotoGP though, let's look at the title picture because Kimi Antonelli, Did what he's increasingly doing. This is like the final phase of his championship challenge, I guess, is to just get good results when the biggest results aren't really available to him.
00:28:28
Speaker 2: And he did that again.
00:28:29
Speaker 3: Now, as much as Russell has bad luck and obviously took an engine penalty this weekend, missed what would have been a very convenient VSC for his pit stop that might have ensured he finished seventh for only a couple more points anyway.
00:28:39
Speaker 2: Antonelli has benefited from some good luck.
00:28:40
Speaker 3: Obviously, he benefited from the McLaren drivers crashing out, benefited from Norris going off the track trying to fight Hamilton in the final stages of the race, got himself onto the podium. As a result, can win the championship next weekend. It is a little bit against the odds, I suppose. But then again, tell me if this result sounds unusual based on the last couple of weeks.
00:28:59
Speaker 2: Antonelli wins, maybe.
00:29:01
Speaker 3: That's probably the most unusual part, actually. Hamilton no higher than fifth, Russell no higher than ninth. I mean, Russell and Hamilton were in those positions in Singapore. It's just a matter of whether or not they're going to win. If it doesn't happen, then it's going to happen in Mexico or it's going to happen via a press release between Austin and Mexico if they cancel one of the last two races, which is one can only assume if they're going to do that, they'll hold off another week just to make sure that doesn't happen.
00:29:23
Speaker 1: But.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: We're here. We're at that moment. We're at the moment where everyone's going to get its youngest world champion.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: It is going to happen in the next, I guess, three weeks from now, almost certainly short of real catastrophe. And he's going to grind it out, not by dominating in the way he did in the middle, in the start of the year, but by um doing those kind of mature races that are indicative of someone who can find that balance between risk and reward and bringing home to car for points.
00:29:48
Speaker 4: That's the word you just said the word mature he seems with all of the chaos and the tumultuousness of this year It's almost like he's the biggest grown-up in the room, like he's the most adult person in the.
00:29:59
Speaker 5: Room right now.
00:29:59
Speaker 4: He's winning a world championship in a way that you would expect a driver six, eight years older to win a world championship. Get a lead, methodically build points, win when you can, take the best results you can when you can't.
00:30:12
Speaker 5: And there's just an.
00:30:12
Speaker 4: Inevitability to it. And you have to keep reminding yourself he has not been here before. And he is the age that he is. It's just so, so impressive. And maybe the most impressive part about it is it's predictably impressive at this point. And yeah, whenever he gets this world championship, Austin, Mexico, an email in my inbox at 3.40am. I don't mind when it is because it's very, very deserved. And yeah, Singapore was just one of those drives that sums up why.
00:30:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, and, well, only a couple of weeks now until he gets it. I actually enjoyed after the race when he was told, and he seemed genuinely surprised and excited by it. You know, maybe the moment that he was finally allowed to believe it, he's sort of got one hand on it now, certainly. But he also brings great energy to the sport, I think, so it'll be a great moment when he does lift the trophy, as he inevitably will.
00:30:58
Speaker 2: But I'm interested in what happened elsewhere, not actually.
00:31:01
Speaker 3: Far from Singapore, really, far in terms of the weird time zone the Singapore Grand Prix has run on, but geographically not so much. The Indonesian Grand Prix, where, well, the Prilia riders went one, two, three, four for the first.
00:31:13
Speaker 2: Time in their history.
00:31:15
Speaker 3: But considering everything, how this weekend panned out, was Mark Marquez actually the biggest winner, considering he left Indonesia with the same points deficit he arrived with, just two points, so practically nothing, despite this being, as was certainly evidenced by the time we got to Sunday, the weakest track, well, probably for the rest of the season, right?
00:31:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:31:33
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, definitely.
00:31:33
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a classic case of winning from losing. I mean, the fact that Aprilia went one, two, three, four was probably not a surprise. They made a mess of the sprint on the Saturday, but this particular track, the nature of the corners, a lot of the fast flowing corners here are right-handers, which is, you know, for a guy riding with one and a half shoulders as Marquez is this year, he's not, he's not a great result for him. And the Ducati just doesn't work as well. And so yeah, Look, for him to basically... You could have just... There was a lot of sweating going on on a 62-degree track for no points gained or lost in the World Championship. They could have just sat on the beach at the long block for the weekend. But for Marquez to get out of this with the same deficit that he came in after Mateghi is a massive victory for them because there will not be a worse circuit for Ducati the rest of the way and there will not be a circuit where Aprilia's characteristics are enhanced as well as they are.
00:32:26
Speaker 5: So.
00:32:27
Speaker 4: He won the sprint, which was because of a few Aprilia-owned goals and a pretty controversial first corner accident.
00:32:32
Speaker 5: A bit of a surprise.
00:32:33
Speaker 4: But for him to finish sixth in the Grand Prix and only have a very, very small deficit going into the next round in Australia is a massive win for him. But that said, the fact that we're kind of talking down a little bit, Aprilia has never known success like they have this year before. The fact that they have four riders that annex the first four spots is just not a sentence I expected to be saying about Aprilia and MotoGP ever. And they found numerous ways to sort of trip over themselves a little bit this year, but it is so genuinely impressive that in the last year of a really, really mature rule set that a brand other than Ducati is capable of doing something like this. Hugely commendable, meritorious, hats off to them. However, probably a little bit of a bitter taste because, uh, the rider that you most fear in a world championship fight is no further behind you than when you arrived.
00:33:25
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about the winner of this one, who wasn't an Aprilia, Marco Bettecchi, first since round seven in Italy in May.
00:33:31
Speaker 5: Crazy.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: A long time ago. He's won in five.
00:33:34
Speaker 3: Grand Prix this year, which is only one fewer than Marquez, but he's 46 points off the lead with a maximum of 185 to play. Qatar, I don't know, that's a subject for another podcast, I guess, whether that's happening or not. It seems like it probably will at this point, doesn't it? Is he a title contender still? I think we asked about this a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? Mathematically, obviously he is. Or is it now, and this is like the politically interesting situation, isn't it? Is he now in a position where he'll be required to support his teammates' title ambitions, knowing that his teammate is quitting the team and he'll presumably see himself as the team leader for next year?
00:34:07
Speaker 4: This is the hard one for Aprilia now because I mentioned how good it is that they have had this season and they are leading the world championship at this point. But they're new to this whole, you know, trying to win a world championship business. And this is the conundrum now because, I mean, realistically, the point swing that would have to happen to get Buzzecki really back into championship contention, the swings at this time of year, and I would say also particularly at the end of a rule set where a lot of people have got their eye on 2027 at this point, there's.
00:34:34
Speaker 5: So many riders leaving.
00:34:36
Speaker 4: The pool of potential sort of impediments on track to get in the way of Prulia fighting against Marquez are few now. And so as unpalatable as it is in bike racing, I don't know if Jorge Martin by himself with everyone acting independently is going to be able to beat Marc Marquez in a head-to-head championship fight. And that's not just because Marc's won seven of them and Jorge's won just the one of them. Martin's won one Grand Prix this year.
00:35:03
Speaker 5: It was round.
00:35:03
Speaker 4: Five in France. It's so long ago now. He's got this lead. He hasn't fluked this lead. It's not that he's undeserving. He's just been remarkably consistent, and he's just been there. But over the course of the weekend in Mandelica, he was the third fastest to Prillia.
00:35:19
Speaker 5: Really, it was.
00:35:20
Speaker 4: Raul Fernandez was probably the quickest guy over one lap, and Bozeki obviously won the Grand Prix.
00:35:24
Speaker 2: And so.
00:35:25
Speaker 4: are you going to have to start asking other riders to let Martine through? And the curious part about this is, of the other three riders on Aprilia's, Iogura's also leaving. He's going with Martine to the Factory Yamaha team next year. So you've got two riders that are leaving the brand, as you said, Bizecki staying. Are they going to have to sort of pull their resources to beat Marquez, who's kind of on his own there for Ducati, the only other Ducati rider in the top seven mathematically but not realistically in contention for the world title is Fabio Di Gianantonio, whose season's really tailed off a bit. So can Martin beat Marquez by himself with no assistance from his stablemates? I would suggest not. But then there's two factors here. When do you start evoking team orders and suggestions here? I mean, we had two Aprilias take each other out at the start of the sprint on Saturday, so that clearly can't happen again. And because of this uncertain finish line with the season, right? I mean, we could have four rounds to go. We could have five. Obviously, the points situation for Bizecki goes from being probable to almost impossible if you just take a round off the table, because that's 37 points that are off the table all of a sudden. Marquez versus Martin is so close as to be negligible, though. it's not really going to impact their title fight, taking one round off the table. You take one off the table for Bozeki, he's basically out of it. So I wonder if, I wonder which decision comes first. Do they make the team orders decision before we know about Qatar? Or do we make a team orders decision, Qatar notwithstanding, and just stick with it? But it's certainly a conundrum. And Davide Tardozzi at Ducati said on the weekend, and probably stirring a little bit, but he just said, if I was a prunier, I'd have team orders in right now. And he has got a point. Do Caddy know how to win these things? Aprilia don't. So that's going to be the interesting part for me.
00:37:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, the experience thing is always a fascinating element of a championship. You know, someone has to win a title for the first time and often they have to beat someone who's already done it. And that's what makes it that much more impressive. But from the market's perspective, I mean, he's done it so many times before it is the defending champion, but we know, I mean, the physical limitations, I guess, are at their greatest, not just because obviously the injuries have accumulated, but also because he's just getting older and he's a little bit more beaten up every time he comes off the bike and all that kind of stuff. He's also on an inferior bike, which adds an extra element of the mystique around it. Where would this title rank? I mean, we haven't delved into this too much, considering you don't want to jinx it, I guess, if you're a Marquez fan. But how significant a title win would this one be in the context of his career, if he does pull it over the line?
00:37:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting.
00:37:49
Speaker 4: In all the championship fights that he's been in, he's won them all. And that's something that's quite foreboding for Aperulio going.
00:37:55
Speaker 5: Down the stretch here.
00:37:56
Speaker 4: But I mean, last year was this fantastic redemptive tale of an injury and a decision that he made back in 2020 that put him in such a compromised position physically and Honda and everything that went from there.
00:38:07
Speaker 5: We know the story.
00:38:09
Speaker 4: Maybe a title we thought was never going to happen again. This year, I reckon he's way more injured than he's letting on. And he's not going to give anyone any ammunition for this. And he's not going to use it as an excuse. And so there's, you know, you mentioned the intimidation factor before earlier in this podcast. There's just something about him when he has the cards in his hand that makes him formidable. When he's the one fighting from a disadvantageous position, as he is this year, there's more Aprilias in the mix. The bike isn't as good. None of the other Ducatis are anywhere to help him. He's missed two Grand Prix and he's still only two points off the championship lead. So To my mind, I think with all the stuff that's going on behind the scenes, which we'll only ever learn about in retrospect, this would be his least likely and perhaps greatest, most meritorious title if he's able to pull it off. Just because of the age and the injury history and the machinery that he's on. I mean, he should not really be in this championship fight, but because he's Marc Marquez, he is. And I just hope that whether it's four rounds or five rounds, I really want this thing to come down to a final round where You have two very, very feisty combatants going at it at a Spanish track in Valencia. You can just imagine what that joint's going to be like in late November if it comes down to that. And yeah, there's a million reasons for Marquez not to win this world championship, but he only needs one reason to win it. And if I had to put my money down, maybe I'll put yours. money down because it's probably I'm not spending my own at this point but I still think it's going to be Mark but that's mostly just on pedigree and knowing how stubborn he is but one of those rare situations where either would be a worthy winner but you know I'm just cheering for the narrative at this point while we all are.
00:39:45
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
00:39:46
Speaker 3: There's one more thing I want to ask you before we look forward and then wrap up this podcast. It's my favorite phrase in MotoGP, which is rider declared fit. The most ambiguous, I think. Much more ambiguous than those words should be when they're strung together in that way. Raul Fernandez, in this case, he finished second in the Grand Prix.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: Good for him. riding with a broken right index.
00:40:05
Speaker 3: Finger from his sprint crash with Betseki, which meant he was breaking with his middle finger on his right hand for the first time in his life on Sunday. This is the most physically punishing, not just track, but just entire circumstance on the calendar.
00:40:17
Speaker 2: 62 degrees was the track temperature. I mean, you'd hope he really was fit for this one, wouldn't you? How can this be?
00:40:23
Speaker 5: Oh, my God.
00:40:24
Speaker 1: I mean.
00:40:25
Speaker 4: I love the rider declared fit. Every time it pops up, I instantly think of you and giggle because I know it is one of your favourite sayings. But you could just put this into perspective. So he breaks his right index finger in the accident in the sprint with Bozeki on the Saturday. That's the finger he's used to slow his MotoGP missile down through the entire part of his career. It is wild to think, by the way, that you can stop these things by breaking with one finger, but that.
00:40:50
Speaker 5: Shows you how good the brakes are on these things.
00:40:52
Speaker 4: So completely have to relearn how to... just the feeling and the tension in your fingers and use a different finger to break a bike and you get 10 minutes of Sunday warm-up to try this out to see if it's going to work.
00:41:05
Speaker 5: It's kind of wild in some respects. And the fact that, I.
00:41:09
Speaker 4: Mean, the strategy was pretty clear in the Grand Prix in that he got the whole shot from pole position and he just tried to clear off at the start because, there was clearly going to come a point where the pain, the effect of the painkillers was going to wear off and the adrenaline can only carry you so far. And when you're being absolutely cooked by a bike on a 62 degree track, there was a point where, you know, you knew that at some point in the 27 laps, he was going to wilt a little bit. And Bizecki just stalked him, bided his time, came past on lap 19. And then you could, you could see Fernandez just go, well, that's done. Then I'm just trying to get this thing to the finish and finish second at this point. But, Just remarkable to make a complete change to your riding style because you've broken a finger and have to deal with it and still finish second. Hugely meritorious, probably not legal, very, very silly, and God, I like motor shipping.
00:41:59
Speaker 3: Just out of total curiosity, 62 degrees track temperature. You can get a beef steak to medium temperature. Even if you sous vide it at 62 degrees. So there you go. Just thought that was an interesting stat for you. I had to search that one before anyone asked if I knew that off the top of my head. Finally, next race. It's in a couple of weeks. It is the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.
00:42:18
Speaker 2: Phillip Island.
00:42:18
Speaker 3: Last dance for Phillip Island. We've talked about this quite a few times. And I imagine we're going to talk about it quite a lot over the next fortnight. But why don't you give us a brief setup for this most significant occasion for Australian motorcycling.
00:42:32
Speaker 4: I'm going one cast iron prediction here. The track will not be 62 degrees of Phillip Island. Hold your stakes. But look, I mean, this is a, the great thing about this particular track is all the tracks that are remaining on the calendar here. This is such a rider's circuit in that, Yeah, the layout should suit Aprilia more than Ducati, but it is one of those rare tracks in MotoGP these days where the rider can genuinely make a difference. And Marcus won there on the best bike, on not the best bike, on races where he's completely balls up the start. He should have won a couple of others, but has crashed in some strange circumstances with Honda. There was that weird year where they had to make the mandatory pit stop because the track was tearing the tyres up and his team couldn't count to nine or ten and he came in a lap late. He's qualified, so there's definite history there, but It's a track where the rider makes a difference. And I think coming here for the last time, it's going to be super emotional for a whole bunch of reasons. This is a track that the riders will unprompted just tell you that is like nowhere else on earth. I mean, you imagine if you've come from somewhere like Spain or Italy and you get plopped onto this little island tacked off the south of Australia, this race track, like what on earth is this thing? You can't create a track like this. It's going to be memorable. It's going to be historic. It's going to be emotional. It's going to be absolutely pivotal in this world championship. And there's always a drama here. Something always happens. And in the context of a super, super tight title fight, the place will be rammed with people. It'll be a massive occasion. let's hope we get a MotoGP race that lives up to the billing that we're giving it. I think we will. And the fact that you had a championship that's so finely poised in the middle of all of that, it is going to be a super, super fun weekend, I think.
00:44:16
Speaker 3: Well, after the last couple of years, let's hope we get a MotoGP race there. I think sometimes the weather has other plans, but fingers crossed it all goes well for this finale for Phillip Island, at least for now. But that's all the time we have for Pit Talk this week. You can subscribe to Pit Talk wherever you get your favourite podcasts and you can leave us a rating and review as well. This weekend, there's nothing. Nothing that is in our main three categories of motorsport. Anyway, the last such weekend of the entire season, though, I believe, if I'm right. So, you know, embrace it. Go and do your gardening now. Get your seeds planted for spring.
00:44:46
Speaker 2: Sorry, spring. You probably missed some of them. And get ahead of the curve. But you can keep up.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: To date with all the latest F1 supercars and MotoGP news in the meanwhile at foxsports.com.au.
00:44:56
Speaker 2: From Matt Clayton and me, Michael Laminato, thanks very much for your company. We'll catch you next time.
