The Race MotoGP Podcast

The first days of 2026 MotoGP testing have been dominated by talk of who's going where for 2027. There's a LOT for Val Khorounzhiy, Simon Patterson and Matt Beer to unpack as The Race MotoGP Podcast dives into Fabio Quartararo, Jorge Martin, Pedro Acosta and Alex Marquez's big likely moves plus how Marc Marquez could blow it all apart and why Marco Bezzecchi just got married to a motorbike. Enjoy...

A pleasing but not-that-different MotoGP 2026 livery took centre stage in Ducati’s launch event ahead of its latest title defence - but there was a lot more to dig into from behind-the-scenes at its presentation. Senior figures shed some light on the hotly-anticipated GP26 and its main areas of design focus, while Marc Marquez offered a fresh update on his ongoing recovery from the shoulder injury...

MotoGP is another step closer to the start of its 2026 campaign with the start of the ‘launch season’, with team presentation events held by Yamaha satellite team Pramac, Ducati satellite team VR46 and the works Aprilia team. Simon Patterson was on-site for all three across three days, and joins Valentin Khorounzhiy for a special edition of The Race MotoGP Podcast to discuss the teams’ presentatio...

The 2026 MotoGP roster isn't all that different to how it looked last year - and the teams are all the same - but there's a lot of reason to feel differently about many of the pairings. The Race MotoGP Podcast panel of Matt Beer, Simon Patterson, Valentin Khorounzhiy and Megan White try to articulate those feelings - in the tried-and-tested form of a line-up ranking. They also discuss the news of...

Our usual end-of-year tradition at The Race MotoGP Podcast continues in 2025, as we select our aggregate top 10 of the riders in the premier class this season. Did all the race winners make the cut? How do we grade Pecco Bagnaia's season? Who comes out on top in the insanely close fight for second? And is Marc Marquez a unanimous first? Plus, we discuss why Marquez's dominance hasn't resonated out...

Ahead of his MotoGP race debut in 2026, three-time World Superbike champion Toprak Razgatlioglu faces a weight of immediate expectation most rookies are spared from. Val Khorounzhiy is joined by Simon Patterson - who just spoke to Razgatlioglu at the FIM Awards end-of-year event in Lausanne - to discuss the Turk’s start to life in MotoGP, while we also hear from the man himself in one of the first...

The 2027 rule changes mean MotoGP riders and teams are going to have to take massive early punts with their next deals. It’s kicking off already with reports that Pedro Acosta’s camp is already angling to get him onto a factory Ducati, but that certainly won’t be the only pre-Christmas plotting going on. Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer convene on The Race MotoGP Podcast to discuss t...

Yamaha is embarking on a bold new chapter with its V4 engine - but how hard should it work to make sure Fabio Quartararo is part of that chapter? The Race MotoGP Podcast crew (Matt Beer, Simon Patterson and Valentin Khorounzhiy) tackles this question as part of a major Yamaha overview, and also field questions about the impact of Marc Marquez's absence on the end of the 2025 season in this Q&A...

The traditional post-season MotoGP test at Valencia effectively kicked off the 2026 season, so Matt Beer has made an exhausted and hungry Simon Patterson and Val Khorounzhiy join him for an extra edition of The Race MotoGP Podcast to talk about it. Toprak Razgatlioglu’s public MotoGP debut and some particularly eye-catching Aprilia developments - some with a clear eye on the 2027 rule changes - fe...

Marc Marquez’s absence might make the end of the 2025 MotoGP season a deceptive picture, but Aprilia’s Valencia Grand Prix 1-2 and Ducati’s general woes since its new champion was hurt make for an intriguing winter. The Race MotoGP Podcast’s Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer debate how seriously we should take Aprilia’s late-2025 form and Ducati’s fluctuations since Marquez was hurt....

Marco Bezzecchi and Aprilia stole the show again in MotoGP, continuing their remarkable late-season run with an emphatic victory in the Portuguese Grand Prix at Portimao. But while Bezzecchi deserves to be seen as a legitimate challenger to Marc Marquez’s dominance coming into 2026, can the same be said about an ever-improving Pedro Acosta and a resurgent KTM - despite the fact they still cannot w...

Ducati's World Superbike star Nicolo Bulega is making his MotoGP debut in Portimão in relief of the injured Marc Marquez - and, even beyond him replacing the champion, it's more significant than your usual stand-in call-up. But does Bulega, who will be part of Ducati's MotoGP test team next year, have a real shot at a MotoGP future? And what does he need to show this weekend and in the season fina...

We’ve been reliving MotoGP’s extraordinary 2015 season all year long in The Race Members’ Club and have reached the big flashpoints - the trilogy of the Phillip Island accusations, Sepang clash and Valencia penalty that turned Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez’s simmering tension into an explosion that still echoes around MotoGP a decade on. We’ve done bonus-length in-depth episodes about both Phil...

Pecco Bagnaia’s yo-yo MotoGP 2025 season was back on the up at the Malaysian Grand Prix - at least until a puncture intervened - while Alex Marquez had even more to celebrate, but everything at Sepang was overshadowed by a terrible pre-race Moto3 accident involving champion Jose Antonio Rueda and Noah Dettwiler. Simon Patterson joins Matt Beer to report from the paddock with what we know about the...

Ducati had its worst MotoGP race since 2021 in the Australian Grand Prix sprint, while Aprilia dominated the whole weekend - with works rider Marco Bezzecchi and Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez splitting the race victories. So is the Aprilia now the best bike in MotoGP? Is it the bike to beat going into 2025? Is this all a mirage created by Marc Marquez’s injury absence? Where did this Fernandez perfo...

With Marc Marquez sidelined for at least the next two grands prix, the rest of the 2025 MotoGP field heads to the Australian Grand Prix with a much clearer shot at victory in the absence of the rider who’s had them all beaten for most of the year. Who’s best placed to benefit from that? Will Fermin Aldeguer double up? Can Marco Bezzecchi overcome the inevitable penalty coming his way for Marquez’s...

A week after Marc Marquez clinched the title and Pecco Bagnaia emphatically returned to form, everything went horribly wrong for the works Ducati MotoGP team at the Indonesian Grand Prix with Marquez suffering a new injury when taken out by Marco Bezzecchi and Bagnaia tumbling right to the back again. Val Khorounzhiy, Simon Patterson and Matt Beer discuss what happened to Marquez and how quickly (...

While Marc Marquez clinched a very early and emotional 2025 MotoGP title at Motegi, it was his Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia who actually dominated the weekend - a far cry from his terrible form in recent weeks. Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer attempt to unravel the Bagnaia form mystery on The Race MotoGP Podcast, but only after paying due respect to Marquez’s first championship wi...

As Alex Marquez gets upgraded to the same Ducati spec as brother Marc for the 2026 MotoGP season, The Race MotoGP Podcast delves into Ducati’s hierarchy, pecking order and bike specification puzzle with Simon Patterson, Megan White and Matt Beer. Might all six Ducati riders actually get the same bike for 2026? And will it be one that Pecco Bagnaia copes better with or is that now more about him th...

Marco Bezzecchi didn’t quite win the San Marino Grand Prix, but across the Misano weekend he made life much harder for Marc Marquez than the runaway championship leader has been used to in 2025 - and it showed when Marquez crashed from the sprint lead. Does Bezzecchi and Aprilia’s recent progress together signal a 2026 title challenge? Val Khorounzhiy, Simon Patterson and Matt Beer debate that on...

Marc Marquez finally lost a MotoGP race for the first time in three months at Barcelona, but it was his brother Alex who beat him rather than his double champion factory Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia. Bagnaia wasn’t even close to the podium in Spain, let alone victory, as his troubled season reached a woeful new low with a weekend spent mostly among the backmarkers. Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzh...

The final pieces of MotoGP’s 2026 rider line-up have fallen into place, even if those last deals haven’t yet been announced. Is Miguel Oliveira’s likely exit from the grid fair? What should we expect from fought-over rookie Diogo Moreira? Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer debate that on The Race MotoGP Podcast - and Matt also challenges the panel to cast an eye forward to 2027 in the...

A (contentious) new venue for MotoGP but exactly the same result, as Marc Marquez continued his dominant streak at Balaton Park. But with team-mate Pecco Bagnaia and erstwhile title rival Alex Marquez floundering, is Ducati getting a bit too reliant on Marc in the same way that proved Honda’s undoing? Simon Patterson, Val Khorounzhiy and Matt Beer debate that in the context of recent gains from Ap...

Is Pecco Bagnaia's latest MotoGP 2025 collapse - along with his post-race suggestion he is "running out of patience" - a sign his position in the factory Ducati team has been fundamentally damaged? The Race MotoGP Podcast panel - namely Val Khorounzhiy and Simon Patterson - discuss this and more live from the Red Bull Ring, a track Marc Marquez has now emphatically ticked off from his MotoGP 'yet...

As MotoGP 2025 prepares to resume from its summer break, the paddock looks poised to be joined by Formula 1 cult hero Guenther Steiner as his long-mooted deal to take over the Tech3 team moves closer to fruition. Val Khorounzhiy, Simon Patterson and Matt Beer go behind the Netflix Steiner stereotype to explain what he’ll actually bring to KTM’s second team and ponder Tech3’s wider future shape. An...