EPISODE-2-PORTUGUESE GRAND PRIX

In the Rookie Fans MotoGP Podcast, the hosts discuss the results of the sprint and main race in the Portugal Grand Prix. They highlight Pedro Acosta as the most impressive rider, praising his learning ability and podium finish as a rookie. They also discuss Maverick Vinales' unfortunate mechanical failure and his potential podium finish. They mention other riders who didn't perform as well, such as Franco Morbidelli and Luca Marini. The hosts also discuss the incident between Eko Vignales and Marc Marquez, where they took each other out while battling for fifth and sixth place. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Rookie Fans MotoGP Podcast, I'm your host Garrison Gentry and I'm here with my first guest, yes this is Zane, this is Sunday the 24th right after the Grand Prix in Portugal, when we are recording right after we watch the race. First thing I want to go over real fast is the results for the sprint and the race. I completely missed the sprint last episode, I don't think I mentioned it, but real quick the sprint results were first place Maverick Vinales, second place Mark Marquez and third place Jorge Martin. The race results were first place Jorge Martin, second place Eneo Bastionini and third place Pedro Acosta. Pedro who? Pedro Acosta, MotoGP's only rookie this year, I think we probably should go ahead and start talking about Pedro Acosta. The podium results are not unexpected, I guess we've been seeing Jorge Martin do really well, but I'll be honest, we had a small list of questions we were going to go over for the episode and the number one question on the list, the first one was the most impressive rider for the race. I would say that that kind of goes without being a question, what do you think? You mean we're not going to talk about Jorge Martin? No, I mean we will, but because I know you're going for Pedro Acosta, there's something to be said about what was the most impressive rider out there. Obviously Pedro showed some stuff, but there's some maturity level here that I think could maybe surpass what Pedro did. You think you're saying that, you think Jorge Martin's maturity as far as the win is concerned of just kind of managing the race is more impressive than rookie debut on a podium? I would absolutely say it's something to talk about. Well, of course, of course, I definitely think it's something to talk about, but, um, so the most impressive rider, who do you think your most impressive rider was? The most impressive rider, for you, the most impressive rider this weekend was none other than what we expected was, not who we expected, but it was Pedro Acosta. The reason why I brought up Jorge was because it can't always be just by the flash of the pan that we talk about what was the most impressive, which at this point is Pedro Acosta just a flash in the pan. Okay, well, I already, last episode, that was already my hot take, my hot take last episode was Pedro Acosta's season this year is going to outshine Mark Marquez's season this year on the Ducati. And I, I'm going to be honest, like, I don't, I don't think what we've been seeing is a flash in the pan. I think that this kid is learning at an incredible rate and I think he's just going to get better from here. Oh yeah. I absolutely agree. We're seeing that the kid's learning and we see that he is daily trying to improve his craft and while he's out on the racetrack, he's actually taking in his data and learning while in the middle of a race. That's pretty impressive and you know, it shows because where did he work himself up from? Was he like started in like a ninth place or where did he start from? I have the results right here for the poll or for the grid position. He started from seventh. So he was from seventh, managed to work himself through the field. But again, you know, let's back up to a little bit of what we saw on the sprint though. You know, he wasn't necessarily the big contender on the sprint, but at the same time, when you see improvement and go to the full length, you know, GP itself, I think it shows that it was a daily improvement. Oh, 100%. We watched the press conference right after the race and as you've mentioned before, I mean, he's learning on the track as things are happening and while we were watching the race, we were actually sitting there watching it together and we looked at each other like, oh yeah, he's following Peko and learning from Peko. And then, you know, he talks about that exact very thing in the press conference, you know, confirming what everybody can see that he's sitting there watching his rivals and the people that he knows are better than him, watching them, how they race, how they perform. And then, like you mentioned, you know, he wasn't necessarily in a distinguishable position in the sprint. He still did really good. For a rookie, anything inside the top 10, consistent like he is, is absolutely phenomenal, especially in this day and age of MotoGP when everything's so close, down to the wire. And you know, he was talking about learning the tire, I think he said he was on the hard front, soft rear for the sprint. Yeah, he said that that wasn't necessarily the right option, you know, and they changed it up, I think, to the medium front, soft rear for the main race. Yeah, because, I mean, again, remember that this is the first time that he's really gotten to experience the compounds on Michelins because he wasn't racing these before. And so, if you're looking at improvement and learning how to make changes on the fly, I think him and his team are doing a fantastic job, because, if I'm not mistaken, a third place podium puts him as the leading KTM for the weekend, you know, so that's pretty impressive. For the weekend, for sure. I think, oh, yeah, I think, I don't remember what, what did Brad do? I'm drawing a blank. What did he do in the sprint? I think he, I think he is, let's see, Brad wiped out in the sprint, didn't he? I don't recall. I mean, there was so much going on. Yeah, Brad Bender wiped out in the sprint race, so you're 100% right. This third place put him as a lead KTM for the weekend, which is absolutely bonkers for a, you know, a rookie. I mean, I guess that kind of plays into some of our next questions. I'll guess, I guess we should go with least impressive rider, least impressive rider in the race today. I mean, it's kind of easy to sit here and look at these guys and be like, oh, yeah, he isn't that good, or, you know, it's all in comparison, you know, everything's extremely relative to the, their, their competition. You know, these guys are the best of the best, but sometimes you have to pick on them because, you know, we can, we're fans, we can do what we want. Oh, of course. But that, without being said, you know, all of them are extremely quick, but I definitely feel like there's a couple of riders here that I don't feel like they performed a par. Well, I mean, we're still following the eels here. We're talking, I mean, the short list here. I mean, I'm still wondering what's going on with Franco Morbidelli. Still wondering where Luca Marini is, you know. Luca Marini's on a Honda. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's on a Honda. That's, that's, I, well, let's even take like, you know, we're talking like, you know, higher finishes, you know. Benseki, Benseki, you know, he, he kind of got a boost into his, into his point totals over this weekend, more so because of people not being able to finish that were ahead of him. He finished sixth? Yeah. Well, you had three of the top five riders wipe out in the last, last of the, of the main race, so it's easy to promote when that happens. I know it's easy to promote, but I, I thought Benseki was cruising around the back of the grid because I, he was nowhere in the sprint. I think he finished almost dead last. Oh, no, he finished 11th in the sprint. So here, here, here's the thing. I mean, we're jumping around quite a bit, but it needs to be told. I mean, for those that didn't see the race, you know, Maverick Vinales, he, he looked to be securing for himself a second place podium win for the main race. Then suddenly mechanicals happened and he was pinched from his bike and, you know. It goes, he went down into turn one and, um, he couldn't, he couldn't make the turn down into turn one on the very last lap and then high sided. Yeah. And again, this was a mechanical failure issue with the bike's drivetrain or... There's something in the gearbox. Gearbox. Yeah. So, so, uh, again, uh, we're looking at, he, he should have had a, uh, a podium. Easily. Easily for this race. Yeah. And that's supposedly with the news of him having gastrointestinitis or some sort of terrible something where he had been sick and apparently he's, he lost quite a bit of weight, uh, wasn't doing good, but he had performance that, you know. Well, he said that, you know, that he said that, um, that gearbox issue had started coming around like the six laps to go, something around there. And he said that he was losing pace or felt like he was losing pace. And we did see Anaya start catching him, but, um, and that was partially due to Anaya, uh, having a little bit of a speed boost. He was starting to go pretty fast. But if he had a mechanical error and I immediately, whenever we saw, or at least for me, uh, whenever I saw him stick his leg out real early on the, on the straight and all that, it looked weird. It looked like the bike kind of locked up. I think you said you saw it too. Yeah. Um, come to find out, yeah, it was his gearbox. He said something about it switching down into neutral and down into second. And I mean, if you know anything about riding motorcycles, if you're not in the right gear, then you're not going to be able to make the turn. And I think he even said that it went back up into sixth or something by the end of the straight. And it's all sorts of weird. I mean, it literally threw him to the moon. So, um. Yeah. So, you know, we, we see that happen. And then of course we also saw that, uh, Eko Vinyaya, he didn't even finish this race. No, neither did Mark Marquez. Actually, Mark did finish. Oh, well that is true. Mark did finish. Yeah. He followed right behind, uh, Juan Zarco. So he did finish. And again, uh, this was looking at, uh, uh, the battle for fifth and sixth place at this point. Uh, and Mark made a move in on, uh, on Eko Vinyaya. It looked like he had won the position. And then of course, just how racing happens. Neither one of these two guys wanted to relinquish a yard of space. And, uh, basically they took each other out. So, uh, Eko retired for the race, but Mark, uh, somehow managed to continue and get back on and, uh, not finish dead last, which is quite impressive in itself. Okay. So that, that perfect transition here. I'm gonna, okay. Well, I guess, I guess this is a hot take. Um, I'm most disappointed in Mark Marquez in this race. Uh, I think, well, let me, let me preface this by saying going into the race, I was sure of one of two things that Peko or Mark Marquez was going to win the race or the sprint or something. You know, I was partially right. I wasn't surprised to see Mark on the, um, the podium for the sprint. Last year, Peko did the double. He won the sprint and the race, the Grand Prix. But last year we forget Mark Marquez put that crummy Honda on pole. And, um, that's not an easy feat, let alone on a crummy bike. So we go into this race and I'm sitting there thinking, okay, well, one of these two guys has got it. And I was hoping it would be Mark Marquez because I, I really want to see him win some more races. And so I feel like I'm disappointed with him because I wanted to see him in a higher spot. And I feel like maybe if he was a little more patient trying to make a move on Peko, then he would have been able to make it stick because Peko was losing time, losing time fast. And where I definitely, I still think the opinion on the move that he made on Peko and the other way around Peko made on him. I think it was a racing incident. And I think that's, I, in fact, I think that's what race direction, uh, ruled it out to be. It was just a racing incident. There's no penalties handed out. You know, two, two riders going for the same piece of tarmac and they end up taking each other out. Well, I think the, the hot take is, you know, I don't completely agree with you on the, him being underperforming or being a disappointment, uh, cause I clearly saw that he was managing, uh, his, uh, his style, managing his moments to release. And I think that, uh, if, when he first took a chance and looked like he was showing some wheel for, uh, to get in front of Peko, uh, you know, maybe that was something that stunted his, uh, his, his, uh, overall race performance, but it looked like he had momentum enough to, uh, even regain the top three or get close to them. Uh, maybe he didn't start soon enough. That could be another, uh, another argument to be had that maybe he should have started making moves a little bit quicker, but, uh, that all the, all in all being said, um, he still, uh, to me was showing that he had enough that he could have possibly even reeled back in Pedro Acosta, uh, even though Pedro had put a huge jump on him before, uh, he made the move on to Peko Benyai. So there is that, um, I will say this though. I, I think that, uh, um, Peko and everyone else on, on, on the grid is going to have to re-remember this is something they already know. Um, Mark's is not going to give an inch. Oh, and to be clear, I'm not, I don't think Mark's performance wasn't there over the weekend. I just, I'm disappointed because I wanted to see him actually put it on the podium for the main race, you know, actually win some points. I, I agree a hundred percent, you know, he definitely looked like he had the pace to maybe start making back some time. I, I don't think he was going to catch Pedro though. I, I don't think that I, he was a second and a half down the road after he passed, uh, sorry, not Peko, uh, Pedro. Pedro. I don't think he was going to catch, pass Pedro. He was the second half down the road after he made that move on Peko. And he, he started putting down fastest laps, if I'm not mistaken. He made a fastest lap right after he passed it. So he did, but again, you know, we can't deny the fact that we saw Mark, uh, Mark, Mark Marquez, um, throwing in, uh, on the sprint showing that he has, uh, speed with his aggression. And I think he was basically waiting, uh, for those last five laps. I think that was really what he was going to try to showcase. A hundred percent. And so that's where we, I was, I was mainly disappointed that he got wiped out more than anything else. I hate seeing guys in the gravel trap. Yeah, for sure. Um, okay. So who was your, who were you most disappointed in this, uh, for this, this race? So, you know, who do I have the biggest bone to pick with right now? And, and, and again, kind of bringing it back up and let's, let's look at this. When you have a good team, like, uh, the Prima Primac racing team and, uh, you find yourself basically dead last at the end of a race. Yeah. Um, there's something to be said that we need to know what's going on. I say we, as fans, it'd be nice to know, but something's not right. And of course I'm talking about Franco Normandelli. I don't understand, uh, I don't understand how he's riding with this team and other writers haven't, you know, basically weren't promoted up into it, so to speak, uh, with him and his, his poor performance. And I still, I still think that goes from last year. There was nothing that impressed me enough consistently, you know, and of course, you know, it's really easy to say, we're talking about the fastest men on motorcycles in the world here, you know, there's still their talent for miles, but Hey, that's what we get to do on a podcast, right? We get to nitpick absolutely everything. Well, he's been a back marker for all of two seasons and now that he is on like, okay. Again, I think I may have mentioned this before. He's on the best bike on the grid, bottom line. I mean, you're on a Ducati. Yeah. And performances you're required to perform. Well, you know, it's like, it's kind of like what we're talking about when you have like last year's test writers outperforming you on a, on a kind of like an untested bike at the same time. Uh, and then, you know, you don't seem to show that you've got, you know, overall speed after, you know, what we would call an off season and time to train, trying to refocus and you're on the previous, you're on the world leading bike. You are on the best that there is. So, uh, I mean, this is, this is not good. Let's put it that way. And any, any Ducati rider that's falling out of the, I mean, let's say the top 12 at this point, it's embarrassing. It's kind of embarrassing. Yeah. Um, yeah, there was, there was Japanese bikes that had. I was going to say, if you're losing to Japanese bikes, I mean, yeah, if you're losing to Japanese bikes, then it's, it's, it's not you or sorry. It's not the bike. It's you, you know, um, especially if you lose to Takanakagami, um, but I definitely think that we're going to be seeing, seeing some changes next year with, with his spot. I don't think he can recover. You want me to tell you, here's a hot take. This is a hot take. There's a, there's a world champion that needs to be racing with Premack. And, uh, that's, that's, you know, something I think we need to see happening. And I'm talking about Fabio Guattararo. You think Fabio would take a dump on Yamaha at this point? Oh, we all know he's going to take a dump on Yamaha. But like, you think he'd take the, you think he could take the lead he bought? You think he'd bump down to Premack off of a factory bike? You don't think he'd want to? No, I don't think it. Yeah. Because I think here's the deal. What we see, what we see is a guy that is probably still the number three, number four top talent racer. Yeah. Week for week. Yeah. The stuff that he's pulling off. Look, he's got what, a seventh place finish to this week, obviously the race. Obviously, like I said, it still goes to, he was still promoted because of, uh, three major incidences right at the end. Well, he still finished, he finished ninth in the sprint. And that, that's still pretty good. Yeah. We're talking, I mean, we're talking about he's being squandered right now. Yeah. Sitting with Yamaha. And I think he knows it. And I think he would take a non-factory team. And here, here's the interesting thing. I mean, I can throw that out there and ask anybody else that's interested to, uh, to you know, what they think. But I mean, I don't see the, the Premac team as being a less than team anymore, uh, especially with, uh, you know, the performance. Jorge Martin and just, yeah. I mean, what are we talking about here? And again, that's what I'm saying. It's like Jorge Martin is probably not going to be staying with them if he performs like he's doing now. He's going to snipe somebody else's spot. Yeah, that's the big rumors and, and especially, I mean, I say big rumors, if I'm not mistaken, last week, the, um, team boss for Premac said something about, you know, Jorge and their time is going to have to come to an end at some point. Yeah. It's because he's going to move to Lenovo. No, there's no way. There's no way. I, I think, and I think that's from the cutthroat point of view of the Lenovo team, just as much as it is the fact that. Kind of like they hate him, sort of, kind of, because he's like always up their rear. Maybe, maybe, but I think that they, I think that, depending on how, I mean, like, because think about who, who the last Lenovo team member was, aside from Anaya. It was Jack Miller. Yeah. Jack Miller was like, and still is, at least whenever he's competitive, uh, one of like the best guys to have as your teammate on the grid. And. Oh, because he plays the role as teammate. Yeah. He defends for you and he defends for Brad Bender, of course. And I'm not saying that Anaya Bastianini is that guy. In fact, I don't think he is remotely that guy. And he's not that guy. He's not that guy. But especially last, no, no, sorry. 2022, we saw him fighting down to the wire against Peko. Oh yeah. And then he still got up into the factory spot. But I think that Anaya is a little bit of a known variable when it comes to what you're going to get. Maybe what you're saying will pan out because this again goes into what you said before about the maturity of his win here. If Jorge Martin can prove to Factory Ducati that he's not, you know, uh, he's not the bullheaded Terminator robot killing machine that does not think twice before sending it up the inside of somebody on a, you know, corkscrew. I think, I think that there's something to be said that if he can improve his race craft to be a little smarter, then he could have a, he could have a shot at it. Yeah, for sure. I mean, because I was not a fan. I, I see this very light heartedly, so I don't have anything against Jorge Martin. But like last year, let's just say I really wasn't a fan of his because he was too sporadic, too out of control. He made too many bad race decisions that cost him wins, again, cost other people's chances to podium. And then, but look what he ended up doing while being basically that wild man wild card. He almost got the championship. And so what I saw from the past four outings, the two sprints and the two main races from him was a reservation and I could obviously keep using the word maturity. He was making good choices. Yeah. And he was not all about just full throttle and slinging it. He wanted to stay in control. Well, for the, for the sprint, he definitely, you know, picked his teeth clean of what he needed to do. But the main race, he kind of just, he just had a grip on it from the beginning and he knew what he needed to do and just, he just squeezed it out. He didn't, I don't think he, did he lead from the very beginning? Pretty much from the very beginning. Or turn like four or something like that. He was already up to the first, I think. But yeah, because Anaia Bastanini had a really good start initially. Initially. And that may have only lasted to the end of the first turn. Oh yeah, that first turn in Portugal is ridiculous. That is, that's where Paulo Sbargo had his career-ending crash, basically, if I'm not mistaken, there in Portugal. Well, yeah, Portugal has eaten a lot of people up on the racetrack itself. But for those of you guys that never even get to see it, basically from the beginning of the, of the release from, from the start, it's a super steep downhill into a hard right-hand turn. And it's pretty nasty when you have to turn. Pretty nasty when you have four or five guys going wide on it. So, exciting as well. I, I, I've heard that it's actually a rider favorite. I wouldn't be surprised because of how flowing, I mean, it looks. And just the elevation, I've only been out to the track one time, and it wasn't, it wasn't, obviously not in Portugal, to a track, I should say. And the change in elevation, like the, the downhills were pretty cool to go into, because they, they're just, they're just thrilling. So I can, I can see how a track with that much elevation would be absolutely phenomenal. Well, Garrison, I do have a question for you then. I mean, since we're talking about it, I mean, the most underrated performance of the weekend, you had mentioned it, are you still going to stick with it being Marc Marquez because of the incidents? Because of his lack of just, is there somebody else that you think, you know, underrated performance, that, that, that's a loaded... Maverick Vignola is, I feel like Maverick Vignola, I mean, he, he got a... You're going the other way with the underrated performance, somebody that outperformed their rating. Is that how you're going? Well, I mean, in general, like whenever I think, I mean, underrated, you know, you don't get a, he didn't get the payoff that he wanted with a second place finish in the main race. Yeah, he did win the sprint, but I feel like the crash was just absolutely unfortunate. It was just completely unfortunate. Yeah. And if it really is just what he was talking about, and I'm sure Aprilia, of course, excuse me, Aprilia know the absolute truth. They have the data, so they'll be able to see what happened. And if it isn't just a gearbox issue, then they took an L on that one, and they let him down big time. Yeah, for sure. I feel like, you know, his race... Last lap we're talking here. It was the last lap. I mean, it was turn one of the last lap. And, you know, luckily, he was slow enough to where the high side was... Only hurt really bad. Yeah, right. I can't think of anybody else that performed... Yeah, no, I definitely think he is the one most underrated performance of the weekend. Everybody else wasn't really anywhere close to the action. Yeah, we didn't get to see a lot of the other guys. I heard that Franco Morbidelli apparently had some sort of weird run-in with Juan Mir, or something like that. I haven't seen any of that, but Juan Mir is already talking about it. But I know Fabio did do very well, but I don't think that... You know, we've actually been seeing him do this for a while, so it's not really unexpected. He's been outperforming the rest of the Japanese teams for a while. And the person we have not seen do well for a long time is Maverick. Yeah, Maverick, basically, for us here in the States, he definitely seemed to be only living up to his name as far as how it relates to Top Gun. Where if Peko Benyaya was Iceman, definitely Maverick has been Maverick. He's probably one of the most raw, talented, super fast guys that's on the grid. But he was absolutely untrustable. Completely. Because you just didn't know if he was going to show up, that same guy. So, you know, it's good to see him perform as well as he did. And of course, we made the joke, maybe it's because he lost some weight. And then you were talking about him complaining, or always mentioning how much he prefers less gas in the tank for his performance. Maybe losing some body weight really did help him out. That would be funny, because that is definitely something he always, he's been known to always perform better and prefer a lighter, like half full tank of gas. And so that being said, also, it's been disappointing not seeing him do well in the sprints, because if I'm not mistaken, it's a half tank of gas. But well, you know, tomorrow, yesterday, he just won the sprint. So maybe we'll see that change. And I don't know, I still think it's just actually, as they would say, it's a crying shame. It's a crying shame that if it was a gearbox issue, that that's what brought him down. Because he fought a hard race. Well, Aprilia has a lot to answer for. I mean, at the same time, we did not see Aleix in this weekend. No, we didn't see him at all. And is this a bike issue? Is it an M issue? Because at the sprint, the first sprint of this season, he showed, yeah, he showed he was, you know, again, one of the phenoms. And something immediately started after that. We have not seen, let's just say a complete performance from him. Makes me wonder, is it really has something that they need to work on? Well, we kind of, I mean, we always know that they have stuff they need to work on. It's a small factory. I didn't realize it, but last year, Maverick was fifth in the sprint. Let's see where... Because that fits, because he was always known as being like one of the fastest guys on the grid. I'm not even seeing Alicia Spargo on here. Alicia Spargo was sixth. Okay, so a 5-6 for Aprilia in the sprint last year. I mean, the gap this year is big, way bigger. I think, I definitely think that, I mean, this is one of Maverick's stronger tracks, but, sorry, Alacia hasn't necessarily been, you know, the top dog on this track. But because it's a smaller factory, they've been known to have technical problems. It's not really a surprise. 2022, you'll remember, Alicia had a little bit of a decent charge for the championship. Oh, yeah, she sure did. In fact, I think he had several, I say podiums, I know he was like inside the top four, like four or five times in a row. Yeah, there was a pretty good time when him and Marco Bazzecchi were both kind of chasing, having a chance, you would say, for the championship early on. Well, that was, Marco Bazzecchi was last year. Alacia was part of it in 2022. Oh, well, okay, I follow what you're saying now. Right, am I screwing that up? You may not be. I was just knowing that it was a, basically, it was a moment where it was, last year was like a day-to-day, you knew that Alacia had a chance to challenge for the podium. Correct. Other people that you know will never, that are just never going to really show up for that. Again, anybody that's on Honda, regardless, but that's something that can be talked about. How much of what we're seeing, day-to-day racing, is 100% the problem of the manufacturer? Have any of these manufacturers, in your mind, made any big improvements, showed that they've made any changes, that they are going in the right direction? Well, that's a, I mean, the only one that I can see that is at least making its riders happy, which is a lot being said, considering the abysmal season they had last year as Honda. And on the other hand, though, I mean, as you already touched on earlier, Fabio Carraro has been taking a dump on Yamaha for, well, let's see, this is going to be the third year in a row that Fabio Carraro has not been happy with Yamaha. He won in 2021. They did not bring him a bike that had that last little bit of juice in 2022. 2023, it was a POS, and then this year, he's done with it. He's sick of it. And Honda, on the other hand, though, John Zarco, John Muir, and, to some extent, Luca Marini, and, I mean, we haven't heard too much from Takanaka Gomi, but he's always putting his nose in the grindstone, grinding away. They seem to be fairly happy with the direction that Honda's going, and they're listening to them to make improvements, whether they actually collect on those improvements, time will tell, but... Well, yeah, we're definitely seeing what I feel like Honda is in a better position this year than they were last year. I mean, Zarco, he's Mr. Consistently, his racing's always the same, and I think his job at Honda is probably not about trying to hit the next podium ever, really, at this point, but to give them consistent feedback on what they have to do to give them a chance to charge forward with guys that actually take more risk. Zarco just doesn't take the risks. He still is one of the fastest men in the world, but he doesn't throw the bike around. He's never been that guy. No. And that's why he's a good, I mean, shall we say, professional test rider position right now. I mean, yeah, he's on a team there, but I think it's more about him communicating where the improvements need to be than almost anything else. Oh, yeah. He's been on a couple different bikes, if I'm not mistaken, as well, so his experience just on riding different machinery is going to be very important for just some little improvements, Matt. I mean, we can't forget he was on the Primack team for quite a while, so he rode, you know, the top-tier bike for a couple of years, for a few years, and just knowing what a good motorbike is supposed to be like... I guess that sounds dumb to say when you're talking about trying to prove your bikes, because it's like, oh, no, no crap. You have to know what it's like to be able to prove it, but no joke, when you know what the best bike is like, then it'd be really easy to nitpick everything out of a heap of garbage that's brought to you, you know? Well, their lead team in that, you know, Repsol Honda is a legacy. Of course. And so, what are we talking about, help me out here, Juan Mir, and who else is riding on the... Luca Marini. Luca Marini, right. So, we're looking at, you know, guys that have shown good performance in the years past, and... Juan Mir is a world champion. And so, we have, here we have the... Where's Suzuki when you need it? You know what I'm saying? Let's forget that one. What I'm getting at is, these guys are sitting in the middle of the pack at this point, and their talent definitely is enough to show that, man, they should probably be outperforming that. And so, I still say that quite a bit of limitation is with the bike they have. But my take on it is, when it comes to all the bikes out there, I think the manufacturer that I think has made the biggest jumps overall, not necessarily this season, because it's basically just getting started, but I mean just overall, I still have to say it's KTM. They are a young team in the sense of the history of being with MotoGP overall. But they've already got a bike that is bringing the bacon home. You watch how fast Brad Bender is on that machine. Give him those tracks that he loves. There's nobody faster, unless we're just talking about consistency, but we're talking just pure speed and agileness. I mean, we're looking at bikes that are outperforming something over the Ducatis. Whether it's the tight turning ability, maintaining the speed into the turns, to hooking up really well enough that they're not just losing ground like they did before to the Ducatis in the straightaway. Out of the corner. Yeah, and so that's why I think my big take on this is that KTM is surely why they've been so dominant in the dirt track industry, showing how that they just get bikes and that they're showing it here on the hard surface. So, pretty impressed. For sure. And I think if they keep going at the rate they're going, then they'll have somebody on the top step of the world podium before they know it. And I don't think it's going to be Brad Bender, but it will be a KTM rider. Tell me, what did we rename this podcast to? No, no. I was excited. Rookie fans, ironically enough, right? Definitely a fan of the rookie Pedro Acosta. Pedro Acosta. Welcome to another episode of Pedro Acosta Fandom. We are your hosts. Yeah, that's for sure. I think Brad has the talent maybe to do it, but I think that KTM has a more talented rider in Pedro than they do in either of their factory riders. And I think at this point that the only person on the grid that probably knows where they're going next, or sorry, I should say where they're not going to be next year is probably Jack Miller. I don't want to pick on him too much. I have a picture of Jack Miller in my room right now, actually. And I'm a huge fan of Jack Miller's, but he is not going to be on the factory KTM next year. If he is, I'll eat my hat. No, it's going to be clear. It's going to be Pedro Acosta. He's going to lead the Gas Gas. If Pedro doesn't go somewhere else. Oh, there's no way. There's no way. KTM is going to butter his britches. It's going to be Brad Bender and Pedro Acosta next year, just because we're seeing this kid just blossom into an amazing- Two races in. Two races in. I mean, in the overall standings, he's sitting fifth currently. So we're looking at the rookie chasing the points. Sure, he's quite a bit behind. It's the second race in the season. Yeah, but we're looking at, there's a possibility that a non-factory lead team could be vying for the world championship here. Well, I mean, we saw that last year with Jorge Martin. Yes, and it's exciting to see. Oh yeah, it's extremely exciting. It kind of harkens back to older days in racing when you could buy a Honda five-cylinder, or what were they, the V5 Hondas and beat the factory teams on them because the bikes are that good. It's cool being able to see satellite teams that are customers of the factory, if you want to call them that, be able to outperform and at least compete for something. I mean, what do you think this has done for fandom of the sport? What specifically? Well, we're already seeing, just like this last race, that there were more attendants for the race. Clearly, I would love for us to have more than just one race here in the United States. That's a possibility next year, by the way. Is this sport starting to take a massive increase in attention? It's hard to do, but I mean, of course, I'm sitting here on your podcast, so clearly I'm a fan of the sport itself. So, you know, I think it's the best motor sport in the world. Talk about that for a second. Here in the States, I thought it was supposed to be NASCAR, but no, there's nothing more exciting than what I'm seeing right now. F1 is not even close. It's too long. It's too long. It's too boring. It's not the same. No overtaking. You know, it's not. Now I'll have some hate mail with that one. That actually reminds me, and that's an interesting point. In fact, maybe this would be a good segue into kind of introducing yourself a little more, but like, as fans and some things I've heard other like long-time fans talk about the sport. Actually, it's the opposite for some of these long-term fans. They think that now the sport has kind of become a little boring because they don't feel like there's as much overtaking. They don't feel like the racing is as exciting as it used to be. And I can, I already went over it. I started watching in 2020, but I watched, I've watched a lot of the old races and old footage and old film. And yes, it's exhilarating and there'll be nothing like the bygone eras of MotoGP and, you know, going even farther back to the 500 and 250cc classes and et cetera, et cetera, you know, but, but I think the product that, that Dorna has now is still absolutely S tier. And I think that they, I think that they're on the cusp of being able to make a massive breakthrough with their fan base. They just need to, they need to shake something up. I mean, is there a question that you were going to ask me about? Oh, well, I was going to say, so, so, you know, from a, from a complete, like, so when I mean new, I mean, like, I mean, you have only been watching for a couple of years as well. What is your perspective on the, like when you came into this, into the sport, what was the, your main feeling and what grabbed your attention the most and what, what keeps you watching the races today? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, you know, obviously there is the general excitement of, of all the happenings that go on, on the, on the track. You know, I mean that, of course, but let's, you know, we, when we're talking about just because we couldn't watch it didn't mean that we didn't know about, you know, Nikki or, you know, the greats of the time, Casey Stoner. The heyday of Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo. Everybody knows this stuff, you know, that it was something that was out there. Anybody who ever followed anything to do with racing at all knew these guys existed. Yeah. So, what I saw was like, you know, you know, when you saw Suzuki winning a national championship, you see Yamaha. A global championship. A global championship. You see Yamaha win. You see Suzuki decide to pooh-pooh themselves out of racing anymore. It was, you know, you see all this stuff. Then you see Ducati come out of nowhere and just become the most dominant manufacturer that's on the grid. And this is within a very short period of time. And, you know, those things are exciting. But what this, what modern MotoGP racing has is every racer is showing a different level of polish. You know, we were talking about Jorge Barrentino being a wild man there last year and, you know, the year before. But it's kind of, that's in comparison to the other riders are out there. But we're looking at extreme polish. We're looking at, you know, experts taking lines, you know, lap after lap exactly the same. And now what we're getting in with Dorna's product is the most exhilarating camera angles and experiences by getting to watch it than any other sport. I mean, they are able to send drone cameras right with the parts of the race. We're seeing, you know, slow motion moments live in race, seeing wear on tires, you know, seeing overtakes immediately happening. I mean, it's like getting to play God as far as your point of view. And there's no other place, there's no other racing sport that is showing it like this. I feel like there's also not another racing sport or another, not another. I don't think there's one that comes close to having the just the spectacle itself of a man sitting on top of a fire breathing dragon, putting his knees down on the ground. You know, I, excuse me, that alone, I feel like is what gets people or what can get people hooked into watching it is just looking and watching these guys defy what normal people or at least normal, you know, everyday fans would be as like, you know, defying the odds, defying what they know about going fast going fast with anything. I mean, with a car, excuse me, I've always felt like with car racing, a lot of people, they, everybody drives, so everybody knows what it's like to drive a car. And so I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, yeah, I could do that. But then you watch a motorcycle, you watch a motorcycle race. And I seriously don't think even close to 25% of the viewers or 15% of viewers would remotely think to themselves, oh, yeah, I could do that. No, no, they're like, in awe, you know, I think I think there's, there's a level of mysticism. When you watch what's happening, I think that's, again, the big draw to this particular moto sport that other ones don't have. I 100% agree with what you say. All I'm doing is just reiterating your point. I think that's, I think that's true. But to kind of do a little bit of the opposite of what we were talking about, or sorry, what we had talked about ended an era that ended. We haven't touched on it yet. But the characters that we have in MotoGP right now are have been and noticeably been a lot different than what they used to be back in the day. Most notably, in the sense that they mind their P's and Q's a lot more. They're not as maybe brash as they used to be. There are exceptions, but they don't have as many beefs with each other. They don't have as many beefs with each other. That's a good point. I mean, it'll sports, there will always be beef and drama between right, you know, but you generally like most of the guys, maybe all the guys on the grid. Oh, all of them. Yes. These days, it's hard. There's not very many people on the grid that are like, hated one way or the other. And the only person that I could think of that still has that, like, he has his own fans, but there are fans that like hate him. And that's that's Martin Marquez. Oh, yeah. He's a throw. You know, he's a he's from the old age. He's from the old regime, as it were. Yeah, sure. But now, we have a new character in MotoGP. And he is quite the caricature, as it were. And as in Pedro Acosta, he not only is he entertaining on the racetrack, but he says some funny stuff. And, you know, I can't, I'm not going to try and quote any of the things he said he's said on, you know, press interviews and stuff like that. But if you go and dig up anything he said, he said some really funny things. And he's also explicitly stated that he kind of misses the old days of the big rivalries between, you know, Valentino Rossi, Mark Marquez. Oh, right. Of course. Max Biaggi, etc, etc. He likes the throwback ways, you know, and we might be seeing a little bit more of an old school kind of approach to the media and etc. from from him. And that will be something I feel like will be good for the sport because it draws attention to it. Yeah, he definitely doesn't care who he bumps up against when it's definitely on the race circuit. So you're bound to see some tempers fly at some point just because, you know, oh, he shouldn't have done such and such because that's the two-time world champion, or that's the blah, blah, blah. You know, we might be seeing some of that come out to play. But hey, he's earned his spot on the grid. And, you know, he seems to start backing up his performances. And luckily, he doesn't necessarily come across having like a big mouth, but he's not afraid to be. He's extremely intelligent. Yeah, extremely intelligent. And he's not afraid to say what he wants to say. Exactly. Yeah. And even if he did have a big mouth, he has the brain to back it up. So yeah, I'm excited to see what else is going to happen. See, you know, who's going to be where on what podium. I don't like the fact that we get a three week stay between the next event. Makes me sad. But hey, at least we kicked this season off pretty good. Oh, yes. These first races have been pretty great. This race in particular, I feel like was pretty dramatic and exhilarating to watch. A lot of a lot of stuff happened. It did not go at all what I was expecting. Not at all. And I mean, that goes to show and what they all say everything, anything happens on a Sunday. So we're wrapping up here. But before we kind of say our goodbyes, let's I would like to go over our fantasy MotoGP standings for this week. I appreciate you being gracious and letting me be on the podcast today. With that, I think I will go ahead and check out. No, no, no, no. You got to you got to talk about your fantasy. It's all right. You know, we all, me included, did very poorly this week. Well, it was really looking good for me to begin with. That was for sure. Off of the sprint. From starting from the sprint all the way to how this was starting to shape up, nobody was expecting that Mark was going to get taken out. He, you know, being my gold rider, him and Enea Bastagnini, you know, silver riders. Hey, you know, I had one perform pretty well. So, you know, it is what it is. You're still in dead last in our league, though, which is unfortunate. Which is dumb. It's, you know, again, it would not have been that way probably if Mark had just not crashed out. Things would have been completely different. But whatever. I don't really care as much about fantasy as much as I care about, you know, the overall sport. Wow. For fantasy this week, I got absolutely pwned. My gold riders took themselves out. My gold riders, Rebecca Benyai and Mark Marquez. And yeah, they wiped each other out. So that was an L. So I went from being first with a sizable lead to being third. I'm not as far back as anybody else was for my point gap. But the sloppy back slicks, that's the team. He just got lucky because he has been monitoring what my changes were, just so you know. Of course he has. Of course he has. He has a name I shouldn't even bring it under, which is a decent pick. It's a good one. And he picked Pedro Acosta, so that's pretty smart. Nothing. I might get rid of Raul Fernandez as far as strategy is concerned. He has yet to score me a single point, I think. But I'm kind of confused at what's going on with the prices on these guys this season. Nothing's changing. Nothing's changed so far. Pedro Acosta should already be worth like four million dollars, you know. Well, if I wasn't making the game, excuse me. Anyway, I think I don't have anything to touch on other than fantasy crap this weekend. Is there anything else you wanted to bring up that we need to talk about? No, we covered up pretty much everything. I think next time you have me on, hopefully there'll be a little bit more progression all the way around, and we can get a better sense of what the rest of the field is doing. Because the guys in the middle, I mean, they're just not even being talked about. Yeah, it's been a little bit of a... this season has already been a little bit of a rehash of the end of 2023. Absolutely. It's, you know, not really a surprise that we are still only talking about the big names, with just the way it's been going. I think, funny enough, the only one that we've been talking about more now is Eneo Bastionini, who should have been there last year, last season, all along. But he got injured, ironically enough, here in Portugal last year, and that really set off the rest. Anyway, that's a... we can go down that rabbit hole later. I think we're going to wrap it up here. My voice probably sounds like crap over the radios, but I'm feeling a little sick today. But as Freddie Mercury best puts it, the show must go on. Oh, I thought you were going to say, who wants to live forever? Oh, no! But yeah, I will see you, for sure, in three weeks' time. Maybe sooner. In fact, there's a good chance you'll hear me sooner, because I've got some Moto 3 and Moto 2 to watch, and there's a lot of Moto 2 and Moto 3 content to talk about this season for Moto 2 and Moto 3. It's going to be pretty cool with these new Pirelli tires. Fact check myself from last episode, they just switched to Pirellis. They haven't been on them before. I can't remember what they were on before. Anyway, again, I'm your host, Garrison Gentry, and this is Zane, and this is Rookie Fans Moto GP Podcast. We will see you guys next week in Austin, Texas. Well, talking about Austin, Texas. All right.