Two Wheels

The 2024 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix weekend from Victoria’s Phillip Island race track may be over as MotoGP has already stopped by in Thailand ahead of their next race this weekend. But there’s still a few other things to look back such as the event’s first ever sprint race on Aussie soil as well as two separate thrilling battles up front both on race day and the riders’ championship. Plus, there’s off-track manufacturers and riders’ talk through a mix of current form, silly season stuff and many more with none other than veteran two wheel and four wheel commentator Toby Moody.

Here’s the interview both in written and video/audio form below:

1. Looking back from that incredible Phillip Island weekend of 2024, how good was seeing the best of Marc Marquez and Jorge Martin upfront through the best of Ducati bikes while we finally saw a Sprint race for the first time?

To see Marc getting better and better weekend by weekend, race by race – yes!! First of all, he won a sprint race a couple of races ago & now he’s won a Grand Prix proper. It’s not spoken enough in my view that he’s on a bike that’s not the same specification to Francesco Bagnaia (No.1 Ducati factory bike) and Jorge Martin (No.89 Ducati satellite bike for Pramac Racing), which makes it even more brilliant.

Of course, Marc goes well at Phillip Island where it’s the whole left handed nature of the racetrack that suits him like it does at Motorland Aragon. But he’s just brilliant, isn’t he? You know, he had a bad start, a bit of drama at the start. I could see him looking around even before the red light went off and I thought, something’s going on, something’s happening.

And then I thought, oh, he didn’t turn the launch control on. But of course we now know it was the tear off that was underneath the rear tyre. But isn’t he just brilliant? He’s just brilliant. And you know what, it’s his demeanour when he gets off the bike in that parc ferme.

Surely the celebrations he did, they were just fantastic, weren’t they? And it’s a return to seeing Marc on what he was all about before he had his accident at Jerez back in July 2020. He’s just brilliant, He’s different. And it sets us up so well for what he’s going to be like on a factory Ducati alongside Bagnaia next year as there’s going to be some fireworks between those two. But in the meantime, we’ve got a championship to be decided (with three races to go) between Martin and Bagnaia.

2. When I was looking back on the 2024 MotoGP season so far on the Network 10 TV broadcast from this year’s Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix weekend, I heard about Jorge Martin defecting to Aprilia next year? Will this be a huge risk since their bikes have rarely been good up front or it’s a matter of should we wait and see?

He didn’t have much choice as he had to go (by leaving Pramac Racing & also his manufacturer contract with Ducati) where he’s been let down by Ducati, the factory Ducati team, twice. And the last time he did get let down (by Ducati) in 2024, I think he was at Mugello, wasn’t it?

You know, he got let down thinking that he was going to get the (Ducati) factory ride next year and then they gave it to Marc [Marquez]. He feels wrongly treated, badly treated I suppose directly by the personnel in Bologna. He didn’t really have much choice than to go elsewhere and it happened to be in the Aprilia. Would this be his first choice? No, but it’s the choice he’s got with the cards on the table than he had at that particular time.

So it can win Grand Prix races? They’ve got good management there of the Aprilia. I like [Massimo] Rivella (sporting director) with his style, his way (of management) & I also like his out of the box thinking. Yes, he’s come from Ferrari who’s got a bit of that F1 thinking as a foundation & that has proven so good for Aprilia to get to where they are now. He has made the difference of that reduction (by closing the gap to the frontrunners), no doubt.

So it’s going to be interesting to see how Martin gets on to motivate people because a lot of people at Pramac [Racing], they get out of bed in the morning and they go to the racetrack with a spring in their step because they know they got a chance of winning a race in getting success and maybe even a championship this year. Can you imagine how much that’s going to lift Aprilia next year? yet Aleix [Esparagro] has done it for Aprilia in the past, but he’s not doing it at the moment.

And Maverick Vinales is just too uphill down Dale, isn’t he? You don’t know which Vinales you’re going to get until you get to Sunday afternoon whereas Martin, you know what you’re going to get? You’re going to get 100% out of him with 100% of the time, so it’ll lift Aprilia.

3. What are your thoughts on Honda not being at their best this season? Will 2025 be the year they can live up to their full potential again? or should we wait until at least 2027 when MotoGP updates their technical regulations?

It won’t happen overnight where they [Honda] won’t just suddenly start winning again. They can’t go any lower to where they are now, unfortunately. You look from the bottom of the power on the left hand side of your screen to find out where the Hondas are, which is a sad state of affairs.

Johann Zarco (at LCR) has been a bit vociferous in his media debriefs about where they’re at & such like [Luca] Marini hit the wall (who rides for their factory team), etc. Meanwhile, [Marini’s team-mate] Joan Mir doesn’t exactly look through the joys of spring, but they got to change something and they’ve needed to have changed something quite a while ago. You know, the direction of the team is completely wrong, isn’t it? based on their results where they had all their eggs in one basket with Marc Marquez.

Marc Marquez injured himself at Jerez back in 2020 and it was never the same again. Manufacturers have got to be careful when you got all of your eggs in one basket & you know [Pedro] Acosta is one of those risks that KTM have got at the moment. He’s been out injured who did not ride in Australia and is he going to be recovered before fully before the end of the season and for the post Valencia test? That’s a big question mark at the moment.

But to get back to your question with Honda, they’ve got a lot of work to do. They need to Europeanize their factory racing team and be more reactive to what is prototype racing.

4.  I was wondering the same thing too for Jack Miller when it comes to his performance who may not be on the same standard as the top riders at the moment but what does the future hold for him, especially when he’s set to step down from a factory KTM to a satellite Yamaha bike for Pramac Racing at season’s end?

Well, he turned up at Le Mans last year & said, when I win my next race I’m going to get a bonus and I’m going to go out and buy a boat. It hasn’t shaken out quite, quite well, has it? He’s a marketer’s dream but at the moment it’s not worked out with KTM’s Factory team which is why they didn’t renewed his contract. How he’s going to get on with a second string Yamaha with Pramac, I don’t know. That’s for him to work out.

5. Will we also see Suzuki come back in the fold also at some point and what about Kawasaki who hasn’t been present in the MotoGP paddock for a long time?

We won’t see Suzuki for a while who ran off in a horrid rush a couple of years ago ironically winning two Grand Prix races towards the end of the 2022 season including Australia and Valencia.

But when they’ve won two of the last three Grand Prix that they did and then they went home, I mean what a waste of a good team with good people and a winning bike that’s pulling out of a championship where it should’ve been reversed in some shape or form. Unfortunately, the decision made by Suzuki management got the best of it & it’s a crying shame to people working there because they didn’t want to leave from a team whose been decent enough to score points and win races which was a ridiculous scenario as well.

If a boardroom decision has been made, it’s going to take a while for them [Suzuki] to return these manufacturers & race at MotoGP level once again. They’re not selling a lot of bikes at the moment as they’re not selling fast plastic rockets as well for the road and the fast sports bikes.

So where the other GP teams are getting their budget from in the shape of R & D (Research and Development) on the premise that it’s making sports road bikes go faster and better. But they’re not selling those sports road bikes no matter how fast now, no matter how better they are is also a problem for the future. Where are the teams going to get their budget from?

But MotoGP is going to grow, so hopefully the teams will come back sooner rather than later. Suzuki have left before and they’ve returned while Kawasaki have also left but yet to return to the sport. But it depends where they’re at with their road bikes and what they want to get out of being on the race track because it’s a 50-60 million euro problem a year to go motorbike racing at the moment in a prototype – that would take a couple of million euros to produce a MotoGP spec bike.

Who knows what the Japanese are going to do?

6. What about BMW? Even though they’re currently the sport’s safety car partner.

They did say that BMW would only even consider going to MotoGP if they won the World Superbike Championship and they’ve done that last weekend, so they’ve got to take the step up. They’ve been dancing around MotoGP for over 20 years since they’ve had a safety car involvement there.

Remember when they had a one leg championship race as well with the Boxer Cup and then the Power Cup? That was 20 years ago which was the two wheeled version of the Porsche Supercup as it were for Formula One as a support race & it had all the hallmarks of continuing [a one-make BMW bikes series]; But unfortunately it didn’t after having a successful six, seven, eight years or so.

Are they going to come back with what Liberty Media (the new majority owners of MotoGP) are probably going to do? I think so or should BMW appear, should I say? I think so. I think they’d be foolish not to.

7. I saw your Twitter post the other day as it’s been 13 years since Marco Simoncelli lost his life at the Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix on race day Sunday. What was it like when you were commentating that unfortunate scene? And how much did the sport improve on its safety with their bikes compared to the Formula One cars we see today?

We were recording the race for it to be broadcast an hour later – that’s the way that it worked with British Eurosport at the time because the BBC showed the race live. We did show the Moto3 and Moto2 live where the BBC didn’t have those rights other than the premier class races. So it was a trade off between the two channels here in the UK and as soon as the accident happened, I turned the microphone off. I just turned it off and we knew it was off.

We weren’t being broadcast live when we actually never said anything else ever again and obviously the broadcast was never made it on-air. The race was never broadcast on British Eurosport here in the UK and it was deleted from the computer hard drives. Horrible day, Horrible day; Very upsetting.

But how has it improved? Ironically, there was two races remaining in the 800cc era when [Marco] Simoncelli lost his life and then we turned to the bigger bikes again with a 1000 cc formula which is where we are now & arguably it would’ve suited him better. Was he a multiple world champion in a MotoGP? No. Would he have won races? Yes. Would he have won more Hearts of fans the world over? Undoubtedly, Yes. You don’t have to win lots and lots of races like a metronome to be a hero.

Heroes are people that you want to be no matter how many races you do or you don’t win. If you’re cool, people like you where he had that magic – so we got robbed of what he would be like on a bigger bike.

Been thinking about the good times today. pic.twitter.com/Gdr5h9CYJB

— Toby Moody 🎙 (@TobyMoody) October 23, 2024

Has the safety improved? Yes, it has. The tech with race suits, the tech with airbags but there are still some decisions that are a little bit questionable, particularly in Moto3 qualifying. They’re not exactly blessed with the hindsight of what it’s like to have huge accidents with the difference of speed.

But unfortunately, the majority of lives that have been lost to people at a MotoGP race track in whatever class over the last 15 years is because they’ve been struck by a following rider and you can’t plan for that. So what we can do as a sport is to make it as safe as possible & all the circuits including the circuits of motorsport need to play the game.

We don’t want to have accidents at some circuits because the safety is not very good because then the whole of motorsport will get blamed for it and you don’t want to have that headline on a national news or an international news channel like such and such has lost their life at a racetrack because we all get put into the same box, don’t we? It’s not that motorsports is dangerous but there are some racetracks out there that are significantly safer than others.

8. Going into the last two Asian rounds in Thailand and Malaysia, as well as the traditional Valencia finale. Who would be your champion in 2024? And once Marc Marquez goes into a factory Ducati and up to date bike. Will he win another world title?

Who do I want to be the world champion in 2024? it’s going to be Jorge Martin. Who do I think is going to be the world champion? It’s not clear cut one that, it’s not a clear cut.

And the only way I would say the clear cut, that hot favorite is not but he made that Misano mistake. What was in his head when Pramac didn’t do on the Saturday night because arguably he’d have a plan – that plan should have been all the scenarios being discussed about whether it rains or not.

Whatever you do, you copy the bloke in front of you being Francesco Bagnaia.

Yes, Bagnaia was in front of him but if Bagnaia made a mistake, Martin had a few metres to correct his line or whatever. All you’ve got to do is shadow the opposition & he threw 20 odd points away that day.

Is Marc Marquez going to win the world championship in the future on the factory Ducati? Yes. It’s a no brainer isn’t it?

Post-Notes

So there you have it, the title race is still on towards the road for mid-November’s season-finale race in Valencia with either Bagnaia retaining his crown for the possible three-peat or Martin finally able to end Bagnaia’s long-running dominance by tasteing his first premier class championship – going to be one thrilling storyline that you don’t wanna miss before we turn turn our attention to post-season testing and the 2025 season.

As Toby said, there has been some safety improvements over the last 10-15 years since Simoncelli’s death with still a long way to go. Although also looking back from that late Sprint race crash from last weekend’s Phillip Island premier class event, yes it was scary when Marco Bezzecchi made heavy contact at the back of Maverick Vinales going into Turn 1 and Bezzecchi had to be taken to hospital as a result that went flying over 300km/h. Fortunately, good to hear that both riders were given the thumbs up though as lets hope the sport can look at more into it that would make MotoGP both more safer (as they possibly can) and also entertaining to watch.

And lastly, thank you Toby for agreeing to chat for around 10 or so minutes to talk all things MotoGP. He is someone who always know best about the sport that goes back from forming a successful commentary partnership with Julian Ryder when it was broadcast on British Eurosport much like Simon Crafar who also formed a brilliant connection with the MotoGP’s world feed audience over the last couple of years it comes to the technical side of things as Simon was also a former rider himself.

Like Toby and most others when things come and go after a certain period of time, Simon will be swapping his time reporting on pit road for the Head Stewards’ role beginning next season. Hope is all well for Simon and so does Toby as the world’s best riders will be back once again for the next Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix edition at Phillip Island on the weekend of Sunday October 19, 2025.