The Race

New Martin bombshell + MotoGP’s mad French GP (ad-free)

Added 2025-05-12 15:35:06 +0000 UTC

MotoGP’s French Grand Prix at Le Mans was a completely crazy race - but then even crazier news emerged the morning after.

Here’s a special double episode of The Race MotoGP Podcast starting with Simon Patterson and Val Khorounzhiy on the bombshell news that Jorge Martin is seemingly looking for a way out of Aprilia having barely even raced for it.

How that’s even possible, where he would go and what Aprilia would do are all debated in an emergency mini-episode recorded as Simon was about to get on a plane out of France.

And then we’re onto the episode we actually planned to bring you - as Johann Zarco’s outstanding victory in MotoGP’s bizarre 2025 French Grand Prix gave Simon, Val and Matt Beer a LOT to debate.

Has MotoGP underestimated a rider who just left Marc Marquez standing in wet conditions? Why did so many other riders who had the chance to match Zarco’s strategy choose not to?

Did the new rules prompted by Marquez’s dash off the Austin grid work on their first appearance and was this actually a great race (Matt thinks so and Val sort of agrees) or a rubbish and processional non-spectacle? (Simon thinks so).