00:00:02
Speaker 1: I have no other way of starting today's podcast other than saying two points. Two points is all that separates Jorge from Mark. And with six rounds to go, we're officially entering the crazy portion of the championship. Welcome back to Pit Talk. This is sponsored by Shutter's Insurance. As always, I'm your host, Renita Vermeulen. And joining me is our resident MotoGP guru. Mr. Matt Clayton. Matt, first of all, I'm going to apologize. I'm here in the media center and I'm sure you can hear and see everybody walking around me. Scrums are happening right now as well. Photographers are setting up behind me because it is chaos. We're about to get underway here in Indonesia and I haven't seen you since Japan.
00:00:44
Speaker 2: No, it is a bit of a strange one to have sat with you the entire weekend at Motegi and then be on the other side of the world back doing a podcast four days later. But such is the way of the MotoGP calendar towards the end of the season. And, uh, Yeah, as you said, I mean, here we are 16 rounds in. It's two points between first and second. And to give our listeners a bit of insight as to how unusual that is, this is the closest margin between first and second in the history of the World Championship after 16 rounds. And the best part of it from here is we know what's left. We just don't know how this ends. And you can make a million arguments for either either to win this World Championship, but none of them are super watertight right now. And that's the best part about this.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: I think it's crazy. If you look back, we was spoken about, we've posted on socials, you've written about it for Fox sports on the website. The fact that Mark was able to come back from 102 point deficit to a two point deficit right now is phenomenal. But then there's the other side of it. If we look ahead at this weekend, Menelik is not a track that he's done well in the past. Yeah.
00:01:49
Speaker 2: Not done well is a slight understatement from you. He's never even finished a Grand Prix here, which is absolutely crazy. There's this, um, Fantastic statistical database that I use to write half the stuff that I write. And there's just this gigantic hole in the center of it where it just says Mandalika and there's no stats at all. Because, you know, we've been here four years. You remember 2022 when Mark was at Honda, the massive, massive eyesight that he had in Sunday morning warmup the first time we were here. An accident that, you know, the double vision came back that had plagued him earlier in his career. And there was some discussion. I mean, he apparently said to his father that, you know, I don't know whether I want to keep doing this anymore. And then 23, you know, he basically has a couple of DNFs there. 24, the Grissini Ducati blows an engine. And then last year, of course, he gets taken out by Marco Buzzecchi on the first lap last year. And in some respects, that now feels to me like where 2026 started because Mark was super underdone coming into the start of this season because of the injury and the surgery that he had at this Grand Prix last year. And it kind of feels like that whole 102-point deficit that you were talking about and the comeback to being two points down now, it feels like Mandelica was where all this began because he missed the last five rounds of last year and that he clearly wasn't right when he came back. He had that subsequent operation. And yeah, it kind of feels that we've gone full circle here. The fact that he's still in a championship fight, given what he's gone through in the past 12 months, is kind of astonishing. And, you know, we've been all around the world since March and here we are with effectively like a six race championship to finish it. This is where we find ourselves.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really cool. It's really exciting. The fact that, you know, previously we've had championships won, like last year, Mark won it in Japan, right? That story in itself is phenomenal. But we still had a lot of races to go and continue on. Coming into this weekend, you know, you just said we've got six races still to go. It's Mark's 300th Grand Prix appearance this weekend as well. So he's hitting a milestone. It still seems like there's such a build-up happening in this championship, but also across all three because we haven't had a winner or a champion crowned yet out of all of them. So I think That's what's making this season in particular so good. Everyone's looking at next year. We know the testing. We know all that stuff in the background. But the fact that that is still happening right now I think is really cool. But this weekend, if we look at Indonesia in particular, it's hard to not look at the Aprilias this weekend. That is going to be the manufacturer to beat.
00:04:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely. It feels right now like we're sort of in this– it's like a tennis analogy in that Marquez was on serve last week at Motegi. He had the ball. He hit two aces. He won both races. That's fine. The ball is now very much in Jorge Martins' hands this weekend because, as you said, there's every possible things lined up for Aprilia this weekend. The nature of this circuit, it is an Aprilia-friendly track. Bozeki was awesomely fast here last year, qualified on pole, won the sprint after stuffing the start-up and probably would have won the Grand Prix if he'd stayed on. You add that, the fact that Mark has not been strong at Mandalika in the past, and then you've got the factor of this... stiffer construction rear tyre that the Ducati doesn't like. And we've seen it this year in Thailand, we've seen it in Austria, where they're kind of weekends where the Ducatis tend to survive as much as anything else. And you look at the remaining six rounds, including this weekend, this feels to me like the track where Aprilia and particularly Martin might have the biggest advantage over Ducati the rest of the way. And so in some respects, it kind of feels like, I don't know who you want to apportion more pressure to, but Martin really needs a good result here this weekend because this feels to me that he's going to have the biggest advantage from now to the end of the season. And, you know, we mentioned before about the Motegi thing with Mark winning the double, the Sprint Grand Prix double. It's crazy to me that Jorge Martin's even leading this championship. He's won one Grand Prix and Mark's won six. And the only times that Mark's been on the top step of the podium for Grand Prix this year, he's been on the top steps. He's six podiums, but they're all wins. And five of these weekends are double weekends. And Martin is, by virtue of just him being so consistent and he's always there, he's just managed to hang around in this championship fight. If he's going to win a race between now and the end of the year, it's not like it's either this or nothing. But this feels super important to me because this is where he and Aprilia shaped to me to have the best advantage from here. And it was interesting listening to Davide Tarozzi last weekend at Motegi. He was sort of intimating that this round in Indonesia is kind of a damage limitation round for Ducati in some respect in that I don't think they're expecting to go particularly well here, but it's one of those ones. If Mark finishes in the top five and doesn't ship too many points to Martine this weekend, that's almost a win of sorts because there's going to be other rounds between now and the end of the season where Mark is going to be stronger. So it's just super interesting to me that you've got these two, you know, they're almost on the same points, like you said at the top, but, they've come at it from such different perspectives. Martin's just like, he's not the tortoise, right? But he's always there. He's just there just churning out the results and churning out the podiums. And Mark's graph of his season has been much more spiky as I make a finger movement on an audio podcast, which is completely useless, of course. But, you know, Mark's had, you know, he's had DNFs, he's had races missed, and he's had these incredible highs of all these victories. So they're coming at it from two totally different angles. And here we are nearly at the end, and there's two points between the two of them.
00:07:14
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think Mark's really going to– what you spoke about before is something you've taught me a lot is, you know, when it's your– maximize what you can on the weekends where you know you're not going to be 100%. And I think that's what he's doing. And if we look back at Japan, I don't know if this is in– if there's a kind of thing at the word I'm looking for, like something similar there, but you know, if you look at the entertainment factor of the fact that Mark didn't come out for that go-kart race and everything like that, and then you come out afterwards and you wrote about it saying, you know, he's got a championship to fight for, blah, blah, blah. I think he's, he's focused because I genuinely think that he thinks, you know, Jorge Martin can beat him. And this is where we get to see that inside of Mark's mind and how he works of seeing the focus and, what he's going to start to put on Martin. So I would say for the listeners at home, when you're watching the interviews, reading the articles, look at the quotes of what Mark says, look at how he's saying it, because this is where we're going to start to see all the work that's going off track also start to come into play this year.
00:08:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely. I mean, I think it's two things for me. I think there's a very healthy respect for Jorge Martin because he knows, you know, this is the most, the two most recent MotoGP world champions going head to head in 2026. So, Mark knows that Jorge can do it. And so that's not that sort of, well, you're up against an opponent where they've never done it before. There's not that proof of concept. He knows Martin can win a world championship. So there's a sign of respect for Martin. I also think the way Mark's approaching this, whether he wins it or whether he doesn't, and let's just assume that he does at the end of Valencia, I think we will find out post season that he is way more injured than he's letting on. And he's not letting that become something that's being discussed in the public eye every weekend, because again, if he comes out and admits that he's a lot more beaten up and he's struggling a lot more physically than he is at the moment, every single weekend is like, oh, so how are you feeling, Mark? What percentage are you, Mark? Are you going to be compromised, Mark? He doesn't want to have to deal with all that. And so I get the sense that he's probably hosing down a lot of the discussion about that particular topic, but it does tend to manifest itself in things like, I'm not going out in a go-kart race two hours before the Grand Prix where I could be spending 15 minutes in the physio room getting work done on this shoulder. And, you know, we even saw it in Motegi before the sprint race. He's down on the tarmac doing shups before the sprint race now. And there's all these little sort of physical tells with Mark at the moment that he's clearly not right, but he's not going to talk about it, so you can't either. And I think it's one of those things that after the season, we'll actually find out that he's a lot more beaten up than he is. And every little moment he can take right now to try and help himself be better to deal with this, he's going to take it.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: Then you look at this week. right we've come from japan where the weather for for that race what was our air temperature somewhere around like mid 20s higher 20s during the day but you know it wasn't hot like Compared to where we are here in Indonesia, right now my watch is saying it's 30 degrees. I'm telling you, humidity is like well over 100%. It is so hot out there. So they've come into these flyaways where consistently in Europe, the weather's been like gradually going up because we were heading into summer. Everyone knew what to expect until we got to Austria. Even there, it was not too bad. Now we're coming into this tricky hot, cold, hot, cold kind of situation where And this is where we're going to start to see a bit of a difference. So I also think that's going to come into play because now we're going to see the riders' health and fitness levels. And if they're already dealing with these injuries and whatnot and then adding that on top of it, I think it's a whole other issue that they're going to have to come to play with.
00:10:54
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we know how fit these guys are, but these races turn into mental battles as much as physical ones because you know that you're just going to have to suffer to get to the result that you want. That's just a given. There's no way around that. And, you know, you look at it's interesting because we've got this grid that's scattering to a whole bunch of different addresses next year. You do wonder about the motivations of some of these riders right now. Like, are they really as locked in and want to push as much as they can for an employer that they're possibly leaving? So you've got people who are massively motivated that can win world championships or are staying with their current manufacturers. There's others that are sort of doing, you know, everyone's quit a job from time to time where they're serving out their three months mandatory notice. This is what they're doing right now. And so you get to 27 laps on Sunday. By the time you get to seven, eight, nine laps to go, you see the pit board come out and there'll be some of these riders going, my God, how were there nine laps still to go in this thing? I am just about done. And one of the things I do like to write is that this time of the season, it's a survival of the fittest as much as the fastest, right? There's two elements to that here. And this race, as well as Thailand, these are the two that if you're in any way underprepared, you are going to be found out.
00:12:02
Speaker 1: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Matt, one thing I wanted to bring up on the pod, I haven't done a post yet for Fox yet, but it's something I wanted to talk to you about. We saw the announcement come through about the new schedule changes for next year. And it's interesting because media scrums have been happening behind me all morning and we're starting to hear the feedback from the writers and what they think. But initially, and from what I've been reading online, there's a lot of kick up about it. A lot of people having their fair share of opinions, but It's something that's been definitely being talked about, that's been talked about for such a long time behind. What's your initial thoughts? Because you've come from the F1 world. It's very similar to that.
00:12:44
Speaker 2: It is to a degree. I mean, you can sort of break it down. I think there's kind of three elements to this. Like the fact that Friday is going to be a 45-minute FP1, a 30-minute FP2, and then a separate 15-minute sprint qualifying. To me, I don't really think that changes how Friday works that much to a degree because we know that the second half of that Friday practice session becomes a pseudo-qualifying session anyway. So, I mean, yes, the fact we've got two separate grids, but in terms of the way Friday works on track, I don't think it changes a hell of a lot. I personally, like two things can be true here. I have never liked the fact that one grid is, one qualifying session sets the grid for two races. I think they're two separate entities. The biggest issue I have with the sprint was probably two issues. I think there's probably too many of them in that we need to be a little bit more selective. And I don't know if the points that are on offer in the sprint are a massive incentive to push because we know that, you know, there's 12 points for a win, nine points for second and the sliding scale, so on and so forth. You do wonder whether people are going to take massive risks trying to get from seventh to sixth or from eighth to seventh when there's only one point at play. when you've got the big race the next day that pays the big points. And that's kind of my issue with the sprint in that, you know, yeah, you can't have full distance Grand Prix points for a half distance race. I get that. But there needs to be more incentive for the riders and the teams, particularly those who are on the fringe of the points or just outside of it. Other than that, you're just riding around having a data collecting exercise at this point. So I'm not really sure what the solution is there. But look, I mean, the Friday thing I'm not super bothered with. I don't mind the fact that... we're going to have separate qualifyings for the two races because I've never particularly been comfortable with the fact that your entire weekend can pretty much go in the bin on Friday afternoon at the moment if it doesn't work. If you catch a yellow flag at the wrong time or you just have a bit of a crap lap, you're going to be buried in the pack for both races. And I kind of note that aspect of it. The qualifying thing for the Grand Prix is interesting. So for those of you that haven't caught up on that, it's going to be still Q1 and Q2, but it's going to be very different. On the Saturday morning, all 22 riders will be on track for Q1 for 15 minutes, and then the fastest 12 of those go through into Q2, as we see right now. And I know there's been some discussion, it's like, oh, having 22 bikes on track at the same time in a Q1 could be a bit of a disaster. And there's certain tracks where, you know, you think Saxon Ring or, you know, tracks that are a bit tight and twisty and difficult to get out of the way. But then I'm also thinking, well, Isn't that just the same as the last 15 minutes of Friday practice anyway? We're just going for all 22 riders out there at the same time. So, look, I mean, I guess we need like any of these things. We need to see how it looks in reality before we sort of make too big of a judgment on it. I know there was some discussion they were talking about making Grand Prix qualifying like a Q1, Q2, Q3 thing like Formula One does. And that hasn't got over the line. I'm actually happy about that. I think that's probably just a step slightly too far for MotoGP. I don't know how we're going to go there, but the idea of having two separate grids, I don't mind simply because it gives you a chance to rescue your weekend if Friday doesn't go super well. I don't mind that aspect of it. But look, I mean, at the end of the day, we are in the entertainment business and it's interesting that you look at the people who are most upset about this whole change. They are people who are either in the sport, are fans of the sport, ride in the sport And if they're going to grow this sport to a wider audience, you're not necessarily trying to sell it to those people because they're already in. They've already decided they love MotoGP and they're in. They're trying to change the entertainment content product, if you like, for people that might be sitting on the fence. And that's who these are all aimed at. It's aimed at the people who haven't discovered MotoGP yet. And you hope that if those people discover it, then they realize what an amazing series this is and they want to be involved more. So, I mean, I guess I'm looking at it from a slightly different perspective, but just because of my background in both series. But, you know, at the end of the day, a little less practice time, a little more meaningful session time, sure. The one misgiving I have, and, you know, Alessia Spargaro is the 31st different rider to start a Grand Prix this year, this weekend, when he fills in for Joao Mir at Honda. A lot more pressure for riders in a lot more sessions over a lot more rounds. I think we're going to see injuries. And that's the only bad part about all of this, And again, it comes back to the fact that I don't think the sprints are necessarily worth enough points in and of themselves to be really incentivized to push from start to finish. And I just think it's one of those things like, you know, in any sport, right? Scarcity of something sometimes makes things more special. And if we had 10 sprints a year, great. You remember when Formula One started, I think they had three. You forgot that they existed half the time. Now Formula 1's moving to about 8 or 10, and that's kind of, you know, I mean, Formula 1 sprints are 100 times worse than MotoGP. Let's not even start about that. The MotoGP sprints are generally pretty good. But I just think there's slightly too many of them at the moment. And not every track makes for a good sprint. A lot of the time, the Saturday sprint in MotoGP is kind of just like watching half the Grand Prix. It's not super interesting. And so I reckon if you had fewer sprints and you had this format, that's almost a sweet spot. Now, what the number is, is it half the rounds? Is it two thirds? I don't know. But I just think there's a little bit too, there's too many sprints at the moment for too few points. And I think we could make them a bit more interesting if we just had them every second or third round. Because it just adds another degree of strategy and tactics to the championships. Like, oh, this weekend's a sprint weekend, as opposed to every weekend's a sprint weekend.
00:18:21
Speaker 1: The only thing that I would say, my opinion based on that, is I hear what you're saying, but I do think as trying to get new eyes onto the sport, if we're seeing the sprints and we're seeing the changes happen, because like you said, it's almost like the qualifying results are going to be the sprint and the Grand Prix results. We're not often seeing many changes. But if we are going to start to see the changes, then I think we're going to get more eyes, people tuning in on both days. That's from that entertainment sport. But I know the purists, I know the diehards are going to hate me for saying that because it's different. It's not what they're used to. And I get that that's just taking away from the core.
00:19:02
Speaker 2: One other thing I did think of, just as you were saying that, is that At the moment, the sprints in the Grand Prix can often be pretty similar because we know that the current 1000cc bikes with all the aero on them, overtaking is way more difficult than it used to be. That's just a fact. And I think the one thing that fills me with some sort of optimism for next year is because we are going into effectively a brand new formula, 850cc bikes, a massive reduction on aero and ride height and everything else. We don't yet know how these bikes are going to race each other because we've not seen it. We don't know. So maybe the sprints next year will be a bit more lively because you get the sense at the moment that because passing is hard and the incentive to really go for stuff in the sprint is reduced because the points aren't really there, the race is kind of, you know, people go for it for the first two or three laps and then they kind of just settle into a bit of a conclusion. You don't often have really interesting sprints. I do wonder if these bikes can race a bit more closely and there's more chance to overtake next year, whether that changes the way these are run.
00:20:00
Speaker 1: I mean, we're just going to have to wait and see. It's been a big talking point. You'll see it all over socials. I mean, we can only share our opinions on it, but. It is what it is. That's the new rules. That's what's coming in next year. So stay tuned for that, guys. But I'm not going to ask you your predictions because I already know what you predicted for this weekend. You sent that through to me. So that's going to come out on socials shortly. But you mentioned Marco Bettecchi, which I was really, really curious about. Now, we know Marco got a third of a teggy. What's he, 49 points behind Martin?
00:20:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker 1: Do you rule him out of the championship, Matt? No, I don't know. I mean, it's hard with those top two.
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:20:41
Speaker 1: But you put him in for your winner this weekend. So, Matt, take it away. There's the floor. Yeah.
00:20:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of feel that, you know, we're saying there's six rounds to go. For Marco, there's kind of like, you know, it feels like there's two rounds to go. Like, it's either now or never for him. Yeah. We know that he's had this really weird, uneven sort of a season in that the first seven rounds of the season, you felt like he was going to win the championship by 100 points. He was just absolutely dominating. Mark was injury compromised. Jorge hadn't quite got his head around the Aprilia yet. And Bozeki won four of the first seven Grands Prix. And despite the fact that he wasn't getting results in the sprints, he had a pretty decent lead. And you felt, okay, now he's had, you know, he's slapped a marshal. He's broken his collarbone. He's had all sorts of brain fades and injuries and other things. It's gone a bit off the rails. And at the moment, he feels like the third rider in a two-horse race, if that makes sense, in that it's either Jorge or it's Mark. And you go, oh, yeah, and Bozeki's the other guy on the podium because he tends to just finish third a lot at the moment. And so I kind of feel that the end of his season is approaching quickly and that he needs to change that narrative sooner rather than later. Last year at Mandalika, he was unbelievably fast. Like he was just in a completely different level. um broke the circuit record in qualifying absolutely stuffed the startup of the sprint i think he was eighth after the first lap and came back and passed out again to win the race on the last lap of the sprint and his race pace was crazy through practice last year and i have no doubt that he would have won that grand prix had he have not come up entangled with mark on the first lap so you know the fact that he's been here on the aprilia martin hasn't been here on the aprilia i think that's pretty significant The fact that Buzek is so quick here, and we've seen that in the past, and I just think that there's a bit of now or never about it for this weekend with Marco, and if he's going to be in this fight more than just mathematically for the remaining six rounds, it kind of has to start now, because if it's not here, then I'm not really sure where it is.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: For the listeners, I need to tell them the other two that you've picked, and you can go and tell us your comments on the social post that I'll do at Fox Motorsport. Guys, this is who Matt has picked for his podium, right? Winner, Marco Bazzecchi. Closest challenger, Ai Higura. Podium, Smokey. Fermin Aldeguerre. Honestly, when you sent that through to me, I was going, Matt, are you okay? You're still a bit jet-lagged from Japan. Yes.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: Look possibly we'll see we'll see how much of a genius or an idiot i look like by sunday afternoon but there is a little bit of method to the madness here in that it feels like agura like the thought the hand injury that he had in the motocross accident he obviously missed a couple of rounds it feels like that's not really a thing um it feels like he's kind of back we know the aprilia is a great bike around this circuit he's one of those guys and he even said it in track house's pre-event preview so he If it's going to be hot, I don't care. Bring it on. Because the Japanese riders train in some pretty brutal conditions with the humidity in Japan. So the heat's going to bother him way less than it bothers other people. He's been really strong here in the past in Moto2. So I can see him having a strong weekend. And then Aldergeir last year, I mean, other than Bizecki kind of throwing it away, Aldergeir's got this style on that harder Michelin rear that I was talking about. He still rides it a bit like a Moto2 bike, and then he's looking to slide the bike a lot. And I think you combine with the high track temperatures and the nature of the corners at Mandelica, he was awesome here last year. And it kind of got overshadowed a bit by Bozeki taking out Marquez and Marquez going into surgery and everyone yelling at each other on social media and so on and so forth. But Aldergeir last year, for a guy who was a rookie, was spectacular here. And I don't think he's the most consistent rider this year. We know he's been battling some injuries. But as a one-off for a guy to make a podium, I think, you know, we've seen him on this tyre in the past. He's been really good. The other Ducatis, Dejan Antonio's a bit beaten up and has kind of lost his way a little bit. Alex Marquez, you know, a bit of an erratic weekend for him last weekend at Motegi. And we remember how bad it was for Pecco here last year. So I think if another Ducati is going to step up, it could be Aldergeir.
00:24:40
Speaker 1: But.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have decided to push the boat out on the predictions this week. So come about, what, Sunday evening Australian time, I'm either going to look like a complete genius or an idiot and it'll be one extreme or the other.
00:24:52
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned the time zone because Australia, MotoGP is back in our time zone and it's bloody brilliant. I'm just looking at the schedule now. Saturday and Sunday, both the sprint and the Grand Prix are 3 p.m. local time. Now we know that daylight savings come in. So for all you guys in New South Wales and Victoria, that's 6 p.m. For you guys, 6 p.m. And in Queensland for us, 5 p.m., I think. Yeah, did I do that right? 5 p.m.? Yeah.
00:25:17
Speaker 2: You did.
00:25:17
Speaker 1: How bloody good is that? So you guys have no reason to not tune in this weekend because it's just on Cook a Barbie, Get Mates Over, Put on MotoGP. What else do you want to do on your Saturday and Sunday evenings, Matt? Nothing.
00:25:32
Speaker 2: I'm almost as impressed by the starting time for these two races as I am with you actually working out daylight savings time, being a Queenslander and not understanding how the other half of the east coast of Australia works. So here we are in October 2026. You finally mastered it. So congratulations. There'll be another test next week.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: Guys, numbers are not my thing. And when we're in Japan trying to work out the time difference and I'm like, Matt, is it this? And he's like, well, I'm not sure. Anyway, well, actually, you did know. You were the one who was able to help me. That's why I question you. Otherwise, it's a chat GPT. But... Guys, I'm going to wrap up this preview for Indonesia because we need to get those bikes out on track. Make sure you tune in this weekend, guys, because every practice, qualifying, sprint, and Grand Prix is live and ad break free. Fox Sports and KO. If you can't watch it, though, make sure you stay up to date with all of Matt's articles on our website at foxsports.com.au forward slash motorsport. And you can follow us on socials. We are at Fox Motorsport, at Fox Sports Oz, and at KO Sports. I try and take you guys behind the scenes as much as I can here at the Grand Prix. So make sure you tune in because we need to see if Matt's predictions come true this weekend. But for now, we're going to wrap up the Indoor Preview. Myself and Matt Clayton will be back real soon with more Roto-GP Pit Talk.
Speaker 1: I have no other way of starting today's podcast other than saying two points. Two points is all that separates Jorge from Mark. And with six rounds to go, we're officially entering the crazy portion of the championship. Welcome back to Pit Talk. This is sponsored by Shutter's Insurance. As always, I'm your host, Renita Vermeulen. And joining me is our resident MotoGP guru. Mr. Matt Clayton. Matt, first of all, I'm going to apologize. I'm here in the media center and I'm sure you can hear and see everybody walking around me. Scrums are happening right now as well. Photographers are setting up behind me because it is chaos. We're about to get underway here in Indonesia and I haven't seen you since Japan.
00:00:44
Speaker 2: No, it is a bit of a strange one to have sat with you the entire weekend at Motegi and then be on the other side of the world back doing a podcast four days later. But such is the way of the MotoGP calendar towards the end of the season. And, uh, Yeah, as you said, I mean, here we are 16 rounds in. It's two points between first and second. And to give our listeners a bit of insight as to how unusual that is, this is the closest margin between first and second in the history of the World Championship after 16 rounds. And the best part of it from here is we know what's left. We just don't know how this ends. And you can make a million arguments for either either to win this World Championship, but none of them are super watertight right now. And that's the best part about this.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: I think it's crazy. If you look back, we was spoken about, we've posted on socials, you've written about it for Fox sports on the website. The fact that Mark was able to come back from 102 point deficit to a two point deficit right now is phenomenal. But then there's the other side of it. If we look ahead at this weekend, Menelik is not a track that he's done well in the past. Yeah.
00:01:49
Speaker 2: Not done well is a slight understatement from you. He's never even finished a Grand Prix here, which is absolutely crazy. There's this, um, Fantastic statistical database that I use to write half the stuff that I write. And there's just this gigantic hole in the center of it where it just says Mandalika and there's no stats at all. Because, you know, we've been here four years. You remember 2022 when Mark was at Honda, the massive, massive eyesight that he had in Sunday morning warmup the first time we were here. An accident that, you know, the double vision came back that had plagued him earlier in his career. And there was some discussion. I mean, he apparently said to his father that, you know, I don't know whether I want to keep doing this anymore. And then 23, you know, he basically has a couple of DNFs there. 24, the Grissini Ducati blows an engine. And then last year, of course, he gets taken out by Marco Buzzecchi on the first lap last year. And in some respects, that now feels to me like where 2026 started because Mark was super underdone coming into the start of this season because of the injury and the surgery that he had at this Grand Prix last year. And it kind of feels like that whole 102-point deficit that you were talking about and the comeback to being two points down now, it feels like Mandelica was where all this began because he missed the last five rounds of last year and that he clearly wasn't right when he came back. He had that subsequent operation. And yeah, it kind of feels that we've gone full circle here. The fact that he's still in a championship fight, given what he's gone through in the past 12 months, is kind of astonishing. And, you know, we've been all around the world since March and here we are with effectively like a six race championship to finish it. This is where we find ourselves.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really cool. It's really exciting. The fact that, you know, previously we've had championships won, like last year, Mark won it in Japan, right? That story in itself is phenomenal. But we still had a lot of races to go and continue on. Coming into this weekend, you know, you just said we've got six races still to go. It's Mark's 300th Grand Prix appearance this weekend as well. So he's hitting a milestone. It still seems like there's such a build-up happening in this championship, but also across all three because we haven't had a winner or a champion crowned yet out of all of them. So I think That's what's making this season in particular so good. Everyone's looking at next year. We know the testing. We know all that stuff in the background. But the fact that that is still happening right now I think is really cool. But this weekend, if we look at Indonesia in particular, it's hard to not look at the Aprilias this weekend. That is going to be the manufacturer to beat.
00:04:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely. It feels right now like we're sort of in this– it's like a tennis analogy in that Marquez was on serve last week at Motegi. He had the ball. He hit two aces. He won both races. That's fine. The ball is now very much in Jorge Martins' hands this weekend because, as you said, there's every possible things lined up for Aprilia this weekend. The nature of this circuit, it is an Aprilia-friendly track. Bozeki was awesomely fast here last year, qualified on pole, won the sprint after stuffing the start-up and probably would have won the Grand Prix if he'd stayed on. You add that, the fact that Mark has not been strong at Mandalika in the past, and then you've got the factor of this... stiffer construction rear tyre that the Ducati doesn't like. And we've seen it this year in Thailand, we've seen it in Austria, where they're kind of weekends where the Ducatis tend to survive as much as anything else. And you look at the remaining six rounds, including this weekend, this feels to me like the track where Aprilia and particularly Martin might have the biggest advantage over Ducati the rest of the way. And so in some respects, it kind of feels like, I don't know who you want to apportion more pressure to, but Martin really needs a good result here this weekend because this feels to me that he's going to have the biggest advantage from now to the end of the season. And, you know, we mentioned before about the Motegi thing with Mark winning the double, the Sprint Grand Prix double. It's crazy to me that Jorge Martin's even leading this championship. He's won one Grand Prix and Mark's won six. And the only times that Mark's been on the top step of the podium for Grand Prix this year, he's been on the top steps. He's six podiums, but they're all wins. And five of these weekends are double weekends. And Martin is, by virtue of just him being so consistent and he's always there, he's just managed to hang around in this championship fight. If he's going to win a race between now and the end of the year, it's not like it's either this or nothing. But this feels super important to me because this is where he and Aprilia shaped to me to have the best advantage from here. And it was interesting listening to Davide Tarozzi last weekend at Motegi. He was sort of intimating that this round in Indonesia is kind of a damage limitation round for Ducati in some respect in that I don't think they're expecting to go particularly well here, but it's one of those ones. If Mark finishes in the top five and doesn't ship too many points to Martine this weekend, that's almost a win of sorts because there's going to be other rounds between now and the end of the season where Mark is going to be stronger. So it's just super interesting to me that you've got these two, you know, they're almost on the same points, like you said at the top, but, they've come at it from such different perspectives. Martin's just like, he's not the tortoise, right? But he's always there. He's just there just churning out the results and churning out the podiums. And Mark's graph of his season has been much more spiky as I make a finger movement on an audio podcast, which is completely useless, of course. But, you know, Mark's had, you know, he's had DNFs, he's had races missed, and he's had these incredible highs of all these victories. So they're coming at it from two totally different angles. And here we are nearly at the end, and there's two points between the two of them.
00:07:14
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think Mark's really going to– what you spoke about before is something you've taught me a lot is, you know, when it's your– maximize what you can on the weekends where you know you're not going to be 100%. And I think that's what he's doing. And if we look back at Japan, I don't know if this is in– if there's a kind of thing at the word I'm looking for, like something similar there, but you know, if you look at the entertainment factor of the fact that Mark didn't come out for that go-kart race and everything like that, and then you come out afterwards and you wrote about it saying, you know, he's got a championship to fight for, blah, blah, blah. I think he's, he's focused because I genuinely think that he thinks, you know, Jorge Martin can beat him. And this is where we get to see that inside of Mark's mind and how he works of seeing the focus and, what he's going to start to put on Martin. So I would say for the listeners at home, when you're watching the interviews, reading the articles, look at the quotes of what Mark says, look at how he's saying it, because this is where we're going to start to see all the work that's going off track also start to come into play this year.
00:08:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely. I mean, I think it's two things for me. I think there's a very healthy respect for Jorge Martin because he knows, you know, this is the most, the two most recent MotoGP world champions going head to head in 2026. So, Mark knows that Jorge can do it. And so that's not that sort of, well, you're up against an opponent where they've never done it before. There's not that proof of concept. He knows Martin can win a world championship. So there's a sign of respect for Martin. I also think the way Mark's approaching this, whether he wins it or whether he doesn't, and let's just assume that he does at the end of Valencia, I think we will find out post season that he is way more injured than he's letting on. And he's not letting that become something that's being discussed in the public eye every weekend, because again, if he comes out and admits that he's a lot more beaten up and he's struggling a lot more physically than he is at the moment, every single weekend is like, oh, so how are you feeling, Mark? What percentage are you, Mark? Are you going to be compromised, Mark? He doesn't want to have to deal with all that. And so I get the sense that he's probably hosing down a lot of the discussion about that particular topic, but it does tend to manifest itself in things like, I'm not going out in a go-kart race two hours before the Grand Prix where I could be spending 15 minutes in the physio room getting work done on this shoulder. And, you know, we even saw it in Motegi before the sprint race. He's down on the tarmac doing shups before the sprint race now. And there's all these little sort of physical tells with Mark at the moment that he's clearly not right, but he's not going to talk about it, so you can't either. And I think it's one of those things that after the season, we'll actually find out that he's a lot more beaten up than he is. And every little moment he can take right now to try and help himself be better to deal with this, he's going to take it.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: Then you look at this week. right we've come from japan where the weather for for that race what was our air temperature somewhere around like mid 20s higher 20s during the day but you know it wasn't hot like Compared to where we are here in Indonesia, right now my watch is saying it's 30 degrees. I'm telling you, humidity is like well over 100%. It is so hot out there. So they've come into these flyaways where consistently in Europe, the weather's been like gradually going up because we were heading into summer. Everyone knew what to expect until we got to Austria. Even there, it was not too bad. Now we're coming into this tricky hot, cold, hot, cold kind of situation where And this is where we're going to start to see a bit of a difference. So I also think that's going to come into play because now we're going to see the riders' health and fitness levels. And if they're already dealing with these injuries and whatnot and then adding that on top of it, I think it's a whole other issue that they're going to have to come to play with.
00:10:54
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we know how fit these guys are, but these races turn into mental battles as much as physical ones because you know that you're just going to have to suffer to get to the result that you want. That's just a given. There's no way around that. And, you know, you look at it's interesting because we've got this grid that's scattering to a whole bunch of different addresses next year. You do wonder about the motivations of some of these riders right now. Like, are they really as locked in and want to push as much as they can for an employer that they're possibly leaving? So you've got people who are massively motivated that can win world championships or are staying with their current manufacturers. There's others that are sort of doing, you know, everyone's quit a job from time to time where they're serving out their three months mandatory notice. This is what they're doing right now. And so you get to 27 laps on Sunday. By the time you get to seven, eight, nine laps to go, you see the pit board come out and there'll be some of these riders going, my God, how were there nine laps still to go in this thing? I am just about done. And one of the things I do like to write is that this time of the season, it's a survival of the fittest as much as the fastest, right? There's two elements to that here. And this race, as well as Thailand, these are the two that if you're in any way underprepared, you are going to be found out.
00:12:02
Speaker 1: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Matt, one thing I wanted to bring up on the pod, I haven't done a post yet for Fox yet, but it's something I wanted to talk to you about. We saw the announcement come through about the new schedule changes for next year. And it's interesting because media scrums have been happening behind me all morning and we're starting to hear the feedback from the writers and what they think. But initially, and from what I've been reading online, there's a lot of kick up about it. A lot of people having their fair share of opinions, but It's something that's been definitely being talked about, that's been talked about for such a long time behind. What's your initial thoughts? Because you've come from the F1 world. It's very similar to that.
00:12:44
Speaker 2: It is to a degree. I mean, you can sort of break it down. I think there's kind of three elements to this. Like the fact that Friday is going to be a 45-minute FP1, a 30-minute FP2, and then a separate 15-minute sprint qualifying. To me, I don't really think that changes how Friday works that much to a degree because we know that the second half of that Friday practice session becomes a pseudo-qualifying session anyway. So, I mean, yes, the fact we've got two separate grids, but in terms of the way Friday works on track, I don't think it changes a hell of a lot. I personally, like two things can be true here. I have never liked the fact that one grid is, one qualifying session sets the grid for two races. I think they're two separate entities. The biggest issue I have with the sprint was probably two issues. I think there's probably too many of them in that we need to be a little bit more selective. And I don't know if the points that are on offer in the sprint are a massive incentive to push because we know that, you know, there's 12 points for a win, nine points for second and the sliding scale, so on and so forth. You do wonder whether people are going to take massive risks trying to get from seventh to sixth or from eighth to seventh when there's only one point at play. when you've got the big race the next day that pays the big points. And that's kind of my issue with the sprint in that, you know, yeah, you can't have full distance Grand Prix points for a half distance race. I get that. But there needs to be more incentive for the riders and the teams, particularly those who are on the fringe of the points or just outside of it. Other than that, you're just riding around having a data collecting exercise at this point. So I'm not really sure what the solution is there. But look, I mean, the Friday thing I'm not super bothered with. I don't mind the fact that... we're going to have separate qualifyings for the two races because I've never particularly been comfortable with the fact that your entire weekend can pretty much go in the bin on Friday afternoon at the moment if it doesn't work. If you catch a yellow flag at the wrong time or you just have a bit of a crap lap, you're going to be buried in the pack for both races. And I kind of note that aspect of it. The qualifying thing for the Grand Prix is interesting. So for those of you that haven't caught up on that, it's going to be still Q1 and Q2, but it's going to be very different. On the Saturday morning, all 22 riders will be on track for Q1 for 15 minutes, and then the fastest 12 of those go through into Q2, as we see right now. And I know there's been some discussion, it's like, oh, having 22 bikes on track at the same time in a Q1 could be a bit of a disaster. And there's certain tracks where, you know, you think Saxon Ring or, you know, tracks that are a bit tight and twisty and difficult to get out of the way. But then I'm also thinking, well, Isn't that just the same as the last 15 minutes of Friday practice anyway? We're just going for all 22 riders out there at the same time. So, look, I mean, I guess we need like any of these things. We need to see how it looks in reality before we sort of make too big of a judgment on it. I know there was some discussion they were talking about making Grand Prix qualifying like a Q1, Q2, Q3 thing like Formula One does. And that hasn't got over the line. I'm actually happy about that. I think that's probably just a step slightly too far for MotoGP. I don't know how we're going to go there, but the idea of having two separate grids, I don't mind simply because it gives you a chance to rescue your weekend if Friday doesn't go super well. I don't mind that aspect of it. But look, I mean, at the end of the day, we are in the entertainment business and it's interesting that you look at the people who are most upset about this whole change. They are people who are either in the sport, are fans of the sport, ride in the sport And if they're going to grow this sport to a wider audience, you're not necessarily trying to sell it to those people because they're already in. They've already decided they love MotoGP and they're in. They're trying to change the entertainment content product, if you like, for people that might be sitting on the fence. And that's who these are all aimed at. It's aimed at the people who haven't discovered MotoGP yet. And you hope that if those people discover it, then they realize what an amazing series this is and they want to be involved more. So, I mean, I guess I'm looking at it from a slightly different perspective, but just because of my background in both series. But, you know, at the end of the day, a little less practice time, a little more meaningful session time, sure. The one misgiving I have, and, you know, Alessia Spargaro is the 31st different rider to start a Grand Prix this year, this weekend, when he fills in for Joao Mir at Honda. A lot more pressure for riders in a lot more sessions over a lot more rounds. I think we're going to see injuries. And that's the only bad part about all of this, And again, it comes back to the fact that I don't think the sprints are necessarily worth enough points in and of themselves to be really incentivized to push from start to finish. And I just think it's one of those things like, you know, in any sport, right? Scarcity of something sometimes makes things more special. And if we had 10 sprints a year, great. You remember when Formula One started, I think they had three. You forgot that they existed half the time. Now Formula 1's moving to about 8 or 10, and that's kind of, you know, I mean, Formula 1 sprints are 100 times worse than MotoGP. Let's not even start about that. The MotoGP sprints are generally pretty good. But I just think there's slightly too many of them at the moment. And not every track makes for a good sprint. A lot of the time, the Saturday sprint in MotoGP is kind of just like watching half the Grand Prix. It's not super interesting. And so I reckon if you had fewer sprints and you had this format, that's almost a sweet spot. Now, what the number is, is it half the rounds? Is it two thirds? I don't know. But I just think there's a little bit too, there's too many sprints at the moment for too few points. And I think we could make them a bit more interesting if we just had them every second or third round. Because it just adds another degree of strategy and tactics to the championships. Like, oh, this weekend's a sprint weekend, as opposed to every weekend's a sprint weekend.
00:18:21
Speaker 1: The only thing that I would say, my opinion based on that, is I hear what you're saying, but I do think as trying to get new eyes onto the sport, if we're seeing the sprints and we're seeing the changes happen, because like you said, it's almost like the qualifying results are going to be the sprint and the Grand Prix results. We're not often seeing many changes. But if we are going to start to see the changes, then I think we're going to get more eyes, people tuning in on both days. That's from that entertainment sport. But I know the purists, I know the diehards are going to hate me for saying that because it's different. It's not what they're used to. And I get that that's just taking away from the core.
00:19:02
Speaker 2: One other thing I did think of, just as you were saying that, is that At the moment, the sprints in the Grand Prix can often be pretty similar because we know that the current 1000cc bikes with all the aero on them, overtaking is way more difficult than it used to be. That's just a fact. And I think the one thing that fills me with some sort of optimism for next year is because we are going into effectively a brand new formula, 850cc bikes, a massive reduction on aero and ride height and everything else. We don't yet know how these bikes are going to race each other because we've not seen it. We don't know. So maybe the sprints next year will be a bit more lively because you get the sense at the moment that because passing is hard and the incentive to really go for stuff in the sprint is reduced because the points aren't really there, the race is kind of, you know, people go for it for the first two or three laps and then they kind of just settle into a bit of a conclusion. You don't often have really interesting sprints. I do wonder if these bikes can race a bit more closely and there's more chance to overtake next year, whether that changes the way these are run.
00:20:00
Speaker 1: I mean, we're just going to have to wait and see. It's been a big talking point. You'll see it all over socials. I mean, we can only share our opinions on it, but. It is what it is. That's the new rules. That's what's coming in next year. So stay tuned for that, guys. But I'm not going to ask you your predictions because I already know what you predicted for this weekend. You sent that through to me. So that's going to come out on socials shortly. But you mentioned Marco Bettecchi, which I was really, really curious about. Now, we know Marco got a third of a teggy. What's he, 49 points behind Martin?
00:20:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker 1: Do you rule him out of the championship, Matt? No, I don't know. I mean, it's hard with those top two.
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:20:41
Speaker 1: But you put him in for your winner this weekend. So, Matt, take it away. There's the floor. Yeah.
00:20:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of feel that, you know, we're saying there's six rounds to go. For Marco, there's kind of like, you know, it feels like there's two rounds to go. Like, it's either now or never for him. Yeah. We know that he's had this really weird, uneven sort of a season in that the first seven rounds of the season, you felt like he was going to win the championship by 100 points. He was just absolutely dominating. Mark was injury compromised. Jorge hadn't quite got his head around the Aprilia yet. And Bozeki won four of the first seven Grands Prix. And despite the fact that he wasn't getting results in the sprints, he had a pretty decent lead. And you felt, okay, now he's had, you know, he's slapped a marshal. He's broken his collarbone. He's had all sorts of brain fades and injuries and other things. It's gone a bit off the rails. And at the moment, he feels like the third rider in a two-horse race, if that makes sense, in that it's either Jorge or it's Mark. And you go, oh, yeah, and Bozeki's the other guy on the podium because he tends to just finish third a lot at the moment. And so I kind of feel that the end of his season is approaching quickly and that he needs to change that narrative sooner rather than later. Last year at Mandalika, he was unbelievably fast. Like he was just in a completely different level. um broke the circuit record in qualifying absolutely stuffed the startup of the sprint i think he was eighth after the first lap and came back and passed out again to win the race on the last lap of the sprint and his race pace was crazy through practice last year and i have no doubt that he would have won that grand prix had he have not come up entangled with mark on the first lap so you know the fact that he's been here on the aprilia martin hasn't been here on the aprilia i think that's pretty significant The fact that Buzek is so quick here, and we've seen that in the past, and I just think that there's a bit of now or never about it for this weekend with Marco, and if he's going to be in this fight more than just mathematically for the remaining six rounds, it kind of has to start now, because if it's not here, then I'm not really sure where it is.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: For the listeners, I need to tell them the other two that you've picked, and you can go and tell us your comments on the social post that I'll do at Fox Motorsport. Guys, this is who Matt has picked for his podium, right? Winner, Marco Bazzecchi. Closest challenger, Ai Higura. Podium, Smokey. Fermin Aldeguerre. Honestly, when you sent that through to me, I was going, Matt, are you okay? You're still a bit jet-lagged from Japan. Yes.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: Look possibly we'll see we'll see how much of a genius or an idiot i look like by sunday afternoon but there is a little bit of method to the madness here in that it feels like agura like the thought the hand injury that he had in the motocross accident he obviously missed a couple of rounds it feels like that's not really a thing um it feels like he's kind of back we know the aprilia is a great bike around this circuit he's one of those guys and he even said it in track house's pre-event preview so he If it's going to be hot, I don't care. Bring it on. Because the Japanese riders train in some pretty brutal conditions with the humidity in Japan. So the heat's going to bother him way less than it bothers other people. He's been really strong here in the past in Moto2. So I can see him having a strong weekend. And then Aldergeir last year, I mean, other than Bizecki kind of throwing it away, Aldergeir's got this style on that harder Michelin rear that I was talking about. He still rides it a bit like a Moto2 bike, and then he's looking to slide the bike a lot. And I think you combine with the high track temperatures and the nature of the corners at Mandelica, he was awesome here last year. And it kind of got overshadowed a bit by Bozeki taking out Marquez and Marquez going into surgery and everyone yelling at each other on social media and so on and so forth. But Aldergeir last year, for a guy who was a rookie, was spectacular here. And I don't think he's the most consistent rider this year. We know he's been battling some injuries. But as a one-off for a guy to make a podium, I think, you know, we've seen him on this tyre in the past. He's been really good. The other Ducatis, Dejan Antonio's a bit beaten up and has kind of lost his way a little bit. Alex Marquez, you know, a bit of an erratic weekend for him last weekend at Motegi. And we remember how bad it was for Pecco here last year. So I think if another Ducati is going to step up, it could be Aldergeir.
00:24:40
Speaker 1: But.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have decided to push the boat out on the predictions this week. So come about, what, Sunday evening Australian time, I'm either going to look like a complete genius or an idiot and it'll be one extreme or the other.
00:24:52
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned the time zone because Australia, MotoGP is back in our time zone and it's bloody brilliant. I'm just looking at the schedule now. Saturday and Sunday, both the sprint and the Grand Prix are 3 p.m. local time. Now we know that daylight savings come in. So for all you guys in New South Wales and Victoria, that's 6 p.m. For you guys, 6 p.m. And in Queensland for us, 5 p.m., I think. Yeah, did I do that right? 5 p.m.? Yeah.
00:25:17
Speaker 2: You did.
00:25:17
Speaker 1: How bloody good is that? So you guys have no reason to not tune in this weekend because it's just on Cook a Barbie, Get Mates Over, Put on MotoGP. What else do you want to do on your Saturday and Sunday evenings, Matt? Nothing.
00:25:32
Speaker 2: I'm almost as impressed by the starting time for these two races as I am with you actually working out daylight savings time, being a Queenslander and not understanding how the other half of the east coast of Australia works. So here we are in October 2026. You finally mastered it. So congratulations. There'll be another test next week.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: Guys, numbers are not my thing. And when we're in Japan trying to work out the time difference and I'm like, Matt, is it this? And he's like, well, I'm not sure. Anyway, well, actually, you did know. You were the one who was able to help me. That's why I question you. Otherwise, it's a chat GPT. But... Guys, I'm going to wrap up this preview for Indonesia because we need to get those bikes out on track. Make sure you tune in this weekend, guys, because every practice, qualifying, sprint, and Grand Prix is live and ad break free. Fox Sports and KO. If you can't watch it, though, make sure you stay up to date with all of Matt's articles on our website at foxsports.com.au forward slash motorsport. And you can follow us on socials. We are at Fox Motorsport, at Fox Sports Oz, and at KO Sports. I try and take you guys behind the scenes as much as I can here at the Grand Prix. So make sure you tune in because we need to see if Matt's predictions come true this weekend. But for now, we're going to wrap up the Indoor Preview. Myself and Matt Clayton will be back real soon with more Roto-GP Pit Talk.
