MotoGP: The best of Mat Oxley from 2024
After a season-long MotoGP championship battle, and plenty more going on behind the scenes, here are the highlights from Mat Oxley in 2024
Dorna
Tyres, tech and aerodynamics: understanding what’s happening on track in MotoGP has rarely been so complex, but if you’ve been reading Mat Oxley during the year (and indeed in 2023), you’ll know exactly what was behind the increased number of crashes from the frontrunners; the multiple tyre woes; and why Ducati looks to have a baked-in advantage.
Not that the obscure pit garage workings detracted from an epic season-long title duel eventually won by Jorge Martin over the defending champion Pecco Bagnaia.
Mat has covered it all in typical fashion: delving deep into the heart of the big stories to explain what’s happening, and why, in plain English.
Expect to hear much more in 2025 about stories that Mat wrote about first and, as MotoGP enters an uncertain era with a Liberty takeover bid; KTM’s financial difficulties; and new regulations in 2027, Mat will once again be reporting the facts from the paddock.
Before then, scroll down to read his favourite five columns from 2024.
Anthony Gobert: 1975-2024
‘The Go Show’ was more talented than Schwantz and Spencer and a “genuinely nice kid” but he was unable to defeat his addictions
January 17
Gobert awaits one of his final GP rides, at Phillip Island in 1999. He had recently been sacked by US Superbike team Vance & Hines for failing a drugs test
Getty Images
Former Superbike and 500cc grand prix rider Anthony Gobert passed away today, following illnesses brought on by his addiction to alcohol and other drugs.
During his racing career Gobert shone brightly, brighter than just about any other rider of the last few decades, Valentino Rossi excepted. Like Rossi he had a rock-star persona and knew how to entertain beyond his racetrack performances. He was a hell of a lot of fun and he liked to get people excited. Fans adored him for that – hence his nickname ‘The Go Show’.
The 48-year-old Australian was perhaps the Shane McGowan of motorcycle racing – immensely gifted at what he did, great to be with, but ultimately doomed to lose his struggles with addiction.
Twenty years ago today: Rossi fixes Yamaha’s M1
People expected it to take a year – in fact Valentino Rossi fixed most of the Yamaha YZR-M1’s problems in his first hours on the bike on January 24, 2004
January 24
Rossi’s first few hours aboard Yamaha’s YZR-M1 fixed most of the bike’s chronic chassis and electronics problems
Yamaha had a disastrous start to MotoGP’s 990cc four-stroke era. The company won two races in 2002 and 2003, while Honda won 29.
In fact it was worse than that. Yamaha’s two wins came in 2002. In 2003 the M1 didn’t win a single race and scored only one podium all year, with Alex Barros at rainy Le Mans.
The M1 wasn’t only uncompetitive, it was dangerous. The bike was so hard to handle that Barros crashed 14 times during 2003; compared to Rossi who crashed just once as he cruised to his second consecutive title with Honda’s sublime RC211V.
There were rumours that Yamaha might walk away from MotoGP, rather than continue to suffer this ritual embarrassment.
Pitlane experts believed that the M1’s front end didn’t give riders the quality of feedback required to rush into corners at race-winning speed. In fact that was only half the problem, as Rossi discovered the first time he rode the M1.
How Italy’s MotoGP dominance goes back to Galileo and the Renaissance
Galileo studied the movement of planets at Padua University. 300 years later, it taught Ducati MotoGP chief engineer Gigi Dall’Igna a more terrestrial form of motion. Why is northern Italy — once home to Renaissance revolutionaries — now such a powerhouse of automotive knowledge?
April 24
Renaissance genius Galileo and Ducati genius Gigi Dall’Igna both studied at Padua University, one of the Italian seats of learning that power today’s MotoGP grid
Getty and Ducati
MotoGP’s five manufacturers – Aprilia, Ducati, Honda, KTM and Yamaha – all employ key engineering staff that were educated at a handful of universities in northern Italy.
How can this be? Why do Japanese and Austrian companies need Italian motorcycling brains?
The reason isn’t because Italian brands have come to dominate racing in recent years, because the reasons for that domination go much deeper and further back than recent history.
The universities and polytechnics of Bologna, Milan, Modena, Padua and Turin are the ancient seats of learning where scientists, philosophers and mathematicians like Galileo and Copernicus changed the world during the Renaissance and where Enzo Ferrari and Guglielmo Marconi helped forge the modern world during the 20th century.
How Toprak rides: ‘If the rear wheel isn’t up, I know I need to brake harder the next lap’
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu is the most exciting motorcycle racer on Earth right now, so what’s his riding technique and will it work in MotoGP? The Turkish World Superbike genius talks stoppies, breakdancing, riding MotoGP bikes and why he needs engine-brake more than anything
September 18
Razgatlıoğlu celebrates his tenth consecutive WSBK win, at July’s Czech round
BMW
The most entertaining motorcycle racing combination of 2024 is Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and his BMW M1000RR, because for various technical reasons you don’t see MotoGP bikes getting out of shape anymore.
The 27-year-old Turk, currently recovering from a nasty fall at Magny-Cours, makes magic aboard his M1000RR, locking the front tyre as the rear wheel spins above the asphalt and then diving to the apex of the corner. How is that even possible?
It’s possible because Razgatlıoğlu has lived his whole life in another dimension: breakdancing, acrobatics, gymnastics, stunt riding, racing and everything else. Therefore his inner gyroscope gives him remarkable balance, agility and motor coordination, so he feels natural in positions that are alien to the rest of us.
Razgatlıoğlu’s skills are so unusual that he demands unusual things from his motorcycle.
When a rider brakes the motorcycle pitches forward, which steepens the steering geometry. Every rider I’ve ever interviewed uses this to help them steer faster into corners. Except Razgatlıoğlu, who prefers the opposite, so it really does seem like he operates within alternative laws of physics.
MotoGP’s year of the rear
Nothing is more important than grip, which is why Michelin’s mega-grippy 2024 rear slick has transformed MotoGP – a blessing for Ducati, a curse for Aprilia and KTM. And Ducati has already worked out how to use the tyre even better next year…
October 16
Martin using Michelin’s 2024 rear to the max at Motegi – as a result this year’s average race-winning pace is a massive six tenths faster than last year’s
Pramac
This blog never tires (sorry, no pun intended) of trying to help people understand that tyres are more important than anything.
And I never tire of using this Valentino Rossi quote to illustrate the point, “If you have ten horsepower less you can still win the race, but if you have the wrong tyres you are f**ked”.
Tyres are often a deciding factor in championship outcomes, including Rossi’s first title success with Yamaha, when Michelin’s 2004 rear slick favoured Yamaha’s YZR-M1 over Honda’s RC211V, giving him a vital advantage.
In 2012, MotoGP’s fourth year of spec tyres, Casey Stoner’s hopes of a second consecutive title with Honda were dashed when Bridgestone introduced a new front slick halfway through the season – the softer construction suited Jorge Lorenzo’s Yamaha but caused big problems for Stoner’s RC212V. Lorenzo won the title.
The same is happening now, because Michelin’s super-grippy 2024 rear slick works better with Ducati’s Desmosedici GP24 than any other bike on the grid.