Paddock Pass Podcast

The Paddock Pass Podcast returns after a brief winter layoff for the holiday period, and we still find plenty to talk about. Steve English, Neil Morrison, and David Emmett all go through what we are most looking forward to in the 2020 season.

The latest episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast sees Steve English, Neil Morrison, and David Emmett get together to take a look back at the 2019 season in both MotoGP and WorldSBK. We kick off the show with the three of us each running down our top five riders of the year, David and Neil looking at MotoGP, Steve giving his top five from WorldSBK.

We move on to talk about our highlights of the season. We each pick the best moment of the year, something which stuck in our minds from the 2019 season, and we also discuss what was the best event of the year, and why.

After the last MotoGP test of 2019, David Emmett sat down with Israeli TV commentator and journalist Tammy Gorali to discuss what turned out to be a rather tumultuous test at Jerez.

We kick off our discussion with what turned out to be the biggest story of the test, the news that Marc Marquez was to have surgery on his right shoulder, after having dislocated it a number of times during the 2019 season. We talk about how the news came out, and Tammy works out where Marquez picked up the injury originally.

On Wednesday morning in Valencia, Neil Morrison and David Emmett sat down to take a look back at a dramatic MotoGP weekend at Valencia, and to look forward to 2020 after the first day of the Valencia test. There was an awful lot to talk about in what turned out to be one of the craziest weekends in years.

The latest episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it, Neil Morrison and David Emmett take a look back at the MotoGP flyaways, and the fallout from those races. There was plenty to talk about as ever, and we take a deep dive into how they played out.

With strong Yamaha success, we discuss Maverick Viñales' resurgence, and his win over Marc Marquez, the only rider to beat the Repsol Honda man by more than a second, for the second time in a row. The win at Sepang came on the back of a thrilling Phillip Island race, which saw Viñales crash on the last lap behind Marquez.

With the WorldSBK season coming to an end under the floodlights in Qatar, Steve English and Gordon Ritchie sat down to look at the last weekend of World Superbikes, to look back, and to look forward.

Steve and Gordo start off with a look at Race 1 on Friday, in hotter conditions than either of them expected. Then they go on to take a longer look at the motivations of all concerned in the battle for third in the WorldSBK championship, with Alex Lowes, Toprak Razgatlioglu, and Michael van der Mark all having their own particular reason for wanting to finish third. (In the end, Lowes took it by a 14 point margin).

The WorldSBK round in Argentina skirted with disaster, as the newly-resurfaced San Juan Villicum circuit caused a rider revolt, with the WorldSBK riders judging the track too dangerous to ride on. Despite that, race 1 went ahead anyway, causing much bad blood.

Steve English and Gordon Ritchie were there on the ground, and saw it all at first hand. So in this episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast, Gordo talks us through exactly what happened in Argentina, what went wrong and why. As the only WorldSBK journalist on the ground at San Juan Villicum, he has a unique and full insight into events.

The latest episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it, Neil Morrison and David Emmett talk about the Buriram MotoGP round in Thailand. There was of course plenty to talk about, most of all, about what Marquez' victory and sixth MotoGP championship mean for the future of the series.

Naturally, Marquez wrapping up the title is the main subject of discussion. Neil and David discuss how he did it, just how determined Marquez was to clinch the title with a win, and whether this is as close to perfection as you can expect to see in a MotoGP season. We also take a deep dive into some of the background, including Neil and Peter McLaren's interview with Takeo Yokoyama, HRC Technical Director, on the development of the RC213V, and a reminder that Marquez had major shoulder surgery at the end of the 2018 season, and was a long way from being fit at the start of the season, a subject which Neil discusses in some depth here on On Track Off Road.

In the latest episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast, Steve English and Gordon Ritchie give their view of events after the first race of the French round of WorldSBK at Magny-Cours. With Toprak Razagtlioglu winning his first WorldSBK race, and Jonathan Rea about to wrap up his fifth WorldSBK title in a row, they had plenty to talk about.

Naturally, they start off discussing the race, and how the loss of due to the weather impacted the race on Saturday. That prompts Gordo to launch a Cunning Plan to improve the racing, which involves dropping practice on Friday altogether. Steve and Gordo talk how Toprak took his first win, by taking Rea by surprise.

On Monday morning after Misano, Neil Morrison and David Emmett sat down at a cafe in Borgo Panigale to discuss the events of the Misano round of MotoGP. As always, there was a lot to talk about. The big story was of course Fabio Quartararo and Marc Marquez, and the rekindling of the rivalry which has enlivened the 2019 season. So naturally, we had a lot to say on that subject.

There was plenty more to talk about, including the rekindling of a much older rivalry between Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi. There was the fact that Yamahas handled the extremely low grip conditions of Misano better than any of the other manufacturers, contrary to previous races. There was the Ducati riders making do with a miserable finish. And there was controvery on the last lap of the Moto2 race, and how Race Direction handled that.