I used to watch a ton in the 125/250/500cc era before I moved from the UK to the US - big Mick Doohan fan. I missed most of the Rossi years, but I started watching again in 2021ish and I’ve been catching up on the races I missed via YouTube. Unfortunately, that means I missed Marc Marquez in his prime which sucks because he’s my favorite rider. (There is some hypocrisy here since I dislike Max Verstappen for some of the same reasons that I love Marquez.)
Anyway, I picked a fantastic time to get back in. I missed 2020, which was the last season where more than two manufacturers had a real shot at titles, but the field seems to be catching up with Ducati slightly. Bagnaia is a weak champion to me, and I think he was a bit lucky to win the last two titles (I think Quartararo is clearly the more talented rider, and was dragging Yamaha to relevance in 2021-2022 in much the same way Marquez did for Honda in 2018-2019).
But there are reasons to watch all over the grid - Marquez’ redemption arc is a fantastic story whether you like him or not, and the Martin/Marquez Ducati selection battle makes for great headlines. Pedro Acosta is the most exciting rider since… well, Marquez, and the Jorge Martin revenge tour is going to be great television. Quartararo, Brad Binder and Acosta all seem capable of championships given good enough bikes. DiGi is clearly “best of the rest” after Marquez out of the 2023 Ducati riders, and is only going to get better. This year’s rider signing season has been fascinating even outside of the Marquez/Martin choice, and even Pramac’s switch to Yamaha bikes is interesting.
That said, I do not care for the current aerodynamic aids, as the ability to battle closely has always been bike racing’s trump card compared to F1 and other car races. It’s also depressing to have Honda and Yamaha at the back of the field, and I don’t see that changing significantly before the regulations change for 2027.
I’m also not a fan of Max being the only streaming option in the U.S. Their search function is awful and you have to manually skip through hours of practice and Moto2/Moto3 sessions to get to MotoGP qualifying and races. (TNT’s commentary and analysis teams are fine.)
I used to watch for years, but haven’t in a while. Not even sure if it’s broadcast anywhere on Dish. Not a fan of watching stuff on my laptop. I don’t know any of the riders anymore. If I stumbled across a race, I’d watch. I really miss the Schwantz/Rainey battles. They were pretty epic.
I’m a big MotoGP fan and have been a Marc Marquez fanboy since his Moto2 season. Before that I was probably more likely to watch WSBK when that series seemed to have the stronger grids.
The key to streaming is just to pay for the MotoGP videopass. Only way to go IMO.
I’ve always meant to start a catch all motorcycle racing thread (MotoGP, WSBK, MotoAmerica) but I always forget. Plus, being a Honda guy, it’s been hard to get into the superbike stuff since about 2010. I miss the epic battles from the late 90s and early naughts between Honda v Ducati (WSBK) and Honda v Suzuki (AMA). We had a track in my backyard (Willow Springs) and short rides to Leguna Seca and Fontana. I really like the Moto2 and Moto3 classes - much tighter racing.
Not sure what you mean by Max issues. I have clearly marked Practice Sessions, Quals and the races themselves as seperate entities I can choose to record.
I just want to add how much I loved turn of the century SpeedVision. They showed all the races (MotoGP, WSBK, AMA) and the ones they showed on tape delay they edited down to just the race so they could add in commercial breaks without missing the actual race (typical race is about 40 minutes). They showed a lot of races live in the middle of the night, but DVRs were ubiquitous by then so TiVo picked up everything (sometimes my current Season Pass misses things if it is on another channel or has a slightly different name). I remember watching the Malaysian GP Sunday morning - the one where Simoncelli has his unfortunate accident. The broadcast exceeded the recording so I had to Google what happened. I remember thinking “He must be OK, or they wouldn’t show the race”…I had forgotten they were showing it live
Awww, SpeedVision. That era centered on 2000 was truly great. I loved watching AMA Superbike back then and was glad to be there for the start of Nicky Hayden’s career. Dave Despain was great as a commentator and host.
I was at Laguna Seca for one of the last rounds of WSBK there, a year where Carl Fogarty was there as a guest of Ducati. That was a fun flashback to that a just slightly earliear SpeedVision era of motorcycle racing. I paid the extra money to get to park my bike on Ducati Island, and part of that came with access to a hospitality tent. Carl hung out there for the better part of the day, shooting the shit with everyone. He kept busy signing bike parts and other memorabilia and eventually someone wheeled in a beautiful 916 for him to sign.
I remember the first time I saw this guy. Some weird local English backroad hillclimb thing. Never heard of him, he was strictly amateur at the time. Wet, narrow roads with 180 degree switchbacks…
Dude just shreaded it! People going off all over the place in the wet. Carl was sideways more than ever straight, and on the rear wheel more often than both. It was magical. I said to myself, “This guy is gonna be around for a while!”
Pretty boring race in Aragon, but amazing to see Marquez finally take a GP win for the first time in three years. I suspect this weekend will have put the fear of God into the rest of the field since we now know that - at least at certain tracks - he can do things with a Ducati that nobody else can do with any bike, the same way he used to with Honda.
I’m actually a bit disappointed that he is going to the factory team next season. I would have preferred to see him stay at Gresini with an updated bike. I think he really enjoys racing with his brother and the low-pressure atmosphere of an independent team.
Couple stand-outs from yesterday and the rest of the weekend…
Pecco said that Marc’s data shows that he was getting five more degrees of lean angle than any other rider.
“He’s doing 4-5 degrees more [lean angle] than me in some corners without losing the front, so this is incredible,” Bagnaia said. “He’s the only one able to do it, [with] his riding style.
”Just he is doing it. No other Ducati riders. But we already know what Marc can do.”
In the Parc Ferme interview yesterday, after winning by with more than a five second lead, he said that if Martín had tried to close that gap, he still had something in his pocket. He demolished those guys and wasn’t even pushing!
“…because when you have the pace, but then with the gap it was difficult to full focus on the riding – especially in the last ten laps. But, okay, I was able to manage well the gap, I had something more there in the pocket just in case as we’ve seen in the middle of the race. I’m happy, thanks Aragon.”
He was fastest by a lot in every practice session, Q2, and led both races start to finish, winning while still going away from the field. At a third tier satellite team, on a bike a year-and-a-half behind the factory bikes. That was something to see.
