Grand prix winner Jeremy McWilliams joined Keith Huewen as a special guest on this week’s Crash.net MotoGP podcast.
Huewen is in Northern Ireland to commentate on this week’s North West 200 road race, where McWilliams, at the age of 59, is competing in the Supersport and Supertwin classes.
But McWilliams is best known for his grand prix exploits, carrying the flag for the UK in the 250cc, 500cc and MotoGP classes from 1993-2004, when he celebrated six podiums, three pole positions and one win.
Alongside his vast racing experience, the Ulsterman also does R&D and brand development work for KTM.
McWilliams was quizzed by Huewen, Crash.net’s Pete McLaren and podcast host Harry Benjamin on topics such as the Austrian factory’s impressive MotoGP form after a slow winter, the penalty controversy at Jerez, the influence of aerodynamics, plus the floundering fortunes of Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo and Honda’s Marc Marquez.
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25 Comments
The current formula is so terrible, it’s surprising Honda and Yamaha haven’t already pulled the plug. Hydraulic ride height? Really?
SBK isn’t in much better condition. Fun to watch most of the time, but the current 1000s are basically being regulated out of existence, like the 600s before them. It will be interesting to see how SBK adapts if several Japanese manufacturers drop Superbikes in Europe. Suzuki is already gone.
Good to hear from Jezza; kept racing up to the 50 year age limit and still looking good at 59.
Make your mind up Keith, first of all when Yamaha announced Fabio as their rider, you and all the BT commentators said Yamaha were making a massive mistake, huge mistake, think you wanted Bradly.
Then is was genius this guy was outstanding and someone in Yamaha knew what they were doing
Now according to you Fabio “just lucked out” he can’t develop a bike now it’s not working
Would you say the same about Marc Marquez as Honda are in the same position
The European Manufacturers have taken bike development in such a different direction the Japanese have been left blind sided and are miles behind
Ducati couldn’t get a (normal) bike to be competitive nor could Aprilia so had to do something radical and here’s where we are today
Another great pod cast but we need sub titles for the interview 😂
Awesome i VOTE FOR Jeremy McWilliams should be on the stewards panel without a shadow of a doubt with Keith .👌👍
Switch on subtitles if you want a good laugh. Google's AI cant even decipher these guys. 🤣🤣
Nice to listen to someone who knows what they are talking about rather that Drivel that KH bangs on about
Mr. McWilliams is 100% correct, we need different manufacture all on the same level, without electronics and aerodynamics, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Aprilia, Ducati, Yamaha and Honda with a factory team with a satelite team, – we need to see Binder Miller Oliveira Pecco, Fabio, Marc ext to race elbow to elbow.
It is because of the lack of pace at Honda and Yamaha, that Marc and Fabio is taking huge risks – hence the crashes and negativity.
Quality that one, with the added wisdom of McWilliams explaining the whys an reasons. Can other experienced ex riders be involved in some future episodes. ?
Makes sense that they all need to run v4 configuration, there were zero il4 engines in the 2stroke era gp bikes.
I don't think you can blame Quartararo or Morbidelli about Yamaha's situation. Rossi and Viñales were complaining about the same things from all the way back in 2019 or so. Lorenzo before them too.
Yup, riders can now fake it to get an opponent a bigger penalty than should be … where does this stop
did Jeremey change spots 4 times haha
Bloody hell does Kieth work for BBC 😡😡what watch him anymore
Not wishing bad for Pol, but I think he may be out for most or all of the year. Maybe career-ender at his age.
Sprint race:
1. Bagnaia
2. Binder
3. Bezzecchi
GP race:
1. Miller
2. Martin
3. Marini
Rossi publicly commenting on a possible switch to Yamaha for the VR46 team in '25 is interesting. Ducati is easily the best package and his rider was leading the championship and may again.
Two thoughts if Rossi moves to Yamaha
1. Yamaha definitely staying with a competitive package (on paper). He would not burn a bridge with Ducati if he was unsure.
2. Yamaha desperately needs Rossi and his two bikes. Rossi holds all the leverage unless Ducati starts getting greedy to lease their bikes.
Imagine being some hotshot kid racer, won a few races, maybe even a few pro races in smaller classes. You are pretty fast, maybe the fastest in your area and you have a high opinion of yourself. Then this soft-spoken pensioner named Jeremy shows up and kicks your butt.
Honda is lost. I think there is going to be 3 different chassis this weekend
European manufacturers never had concessions when they were developing and the Japanese were out in front.
If Fabio (and Franky) was not able to develop a bike he would have never won even a single race…despite the known inferiority of Yamaha he managed to almost win the championship even in 2022. The problems of Yamaha have their roots at least 7-9 years ago already… Now it's way clearer because the other manufacturers have done a massive step forward (Ducati since a while, KTM has an "aggressive" development strategy from Red Bull, as we have seen in F1 as well), while Yamaha is stuck to their conservative approach. You can be a great rider (as Fabio is) but you can make fire only with the pieces of wood you have, and if you have little, what you can do?…
If the MotoGP bikes continue to have faster corner speeds because of the aerodynamics, then they will not be able to race at the usual circuits because of the lack of run off. If they were removed, along with most of the electronics then yes, they would be unrideable but not for long, the technicians would soon reduce the power accordingly. The way they are going it will be as Phil Read said, a monkey could do it. What's next automatic braking & throttle opening. I'll stick to watching real racing in Moto 3.
Yamaha are doing better than Honda in the last 3 years across the motorsport world as a whole. However the Europeans have stolen a march on the Japanese in both MGP & WSBK. JW99 said what a lot of people are thinking or wishing about both FQ20 & MM93 could be like on another Bike other than their current options. Anyway good Podcast keep them coming please. 👍👍
Sadly Yamaha doesn't have KTM money….
Keith loves a mouthful, who knew ? 😂