Motegi wasn't an exciting weekend, but it was a fascinating one. A brand new track surface, a Michelin rear tire that came apart in the sprint, and a hard-carcass "safety tire" that not one rider mounted until Sunday warm up, which turned out to be the tire they should have been on all weekend.
Dave and Brian dig into why that happened, how Marc Marquez played cat and mouse with Jorge Martin in the Grand Prix, and what the on-screen rider data shows about how the fastest riders in the world really enter a corner.
That leads into a full riding breakdown: what "brake to the apex" really means, how trail braking trades brake pressure for lean angle, why you want the fork to stay loaded at tip-in, when to pick the throttle back up, and where your eyes should be the whole time. It all applies on the street as much as the track.
We wrap up with MotoGP's plan to add a Friday sprint qualifying session next year, why we think it's about selling Friday tickets and will cost riders, and Brian's idea for a better way to set the grid.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome back
2:07 Motegi preview and the championship fight
4:28 New surface and Michelin's tire gamble
6:05 Sprint: first-lap crash and Martin's shredded tire
12:51 The hard tire nobody tried
18:28 Grand Prix: Marquez's cat and mouse with Martin
24:17 Why MotoGP gets better the more you know
29:39 Riding tip: do you really brake to the apex?
38:03 Anatomy of a corner: braking, tip-in, throttle
43:37 Vision, and using track skills on the street
50:10 MotoGP's new Friday sprint qualifying
59:32 Brian's fix for the sprint grid
1:00:54 Dave's Moto Guzzi video
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