Inside MotoGP Race Direction with Mike Webb

Mike Webb is the most senior official in MotoGP.

He is responsible for race control, safety decisions, penalties, red flags, and consistency across every Grand Prix weekend. When races stop, restart, or change direction, the final call sits with him.

In this interview, we go inside MotoGP race direction.
 We cover how decisions are made in real time, how technology and regulations shape modern racing, and how trust is built with riders, teams, and manufacturers.

We also explore Mike’s career path from New Zealand motorsport to the top job in the paddock, and what it takes to operate under pressure when every decision is scrutinized worldwide.

This is a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the role that quietly governs MotoGP.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Mike Webb
• 1:04 Mike's Journey into Motorcycle Racing
• 2:58 Growing Up in New Zealand's Racing Scene
• 6:25 Transitioning from Racing to Mechanics
• 9:53 From Racing to Race Direction
• 13:16 The Shift to Officiating in MotoGP
• 30:33 Misunderstandings in Officiating
• 46:03 The Role of a Race Director
• 48:19 The Impact of Technology on Safety
• 1:00:04 Future of MotoGP Regulations
• 1:10:48 Legacy and the Future of Women in Racing

Transcript

Angus Norton (00:01.868)
Well, hey, everyone. And as per the intro, I'm really lucky to have another Kiwi with us today, but not just any Kiwi. This is Mike Webb, and Mike is the MotoGP race director and works for Dawna. Is that right, Mike?

Mike (00:20.953)
Actually, I work for ERTA, the Teams Association, but we're all under the umbrella of Dawn in one way or another.

Angus Norton (00:24.301)
okay.

Angus Norton (00:28.81)
Awesome. Well, look, it's an absolute honor to have you here. We've had a few Kiwis on over the last year. It's Simon Kreyfar, we've had Paul Treveffin and also Cormac Buchanan, who I sponsor, actually. I sponsored him at Austin and I'm going to sponsor him again this year. yeah, yeah. So great to have you here. And, you know, I've been thinking a lot about meeting you and you know, I've been going back and forth a lot over the last few months. I really appreciate you making time.

because I know you're going to be on that really busy travel schedule really soon. hey, tell us a bit about Tell us a little bit about yourself, Mike.

Mike (01:07.705)
Well, obviously Kiwi from New Zealand and I got into motorcycle racing kind of by default. happened to, I was doing a degree at university and, you know, run out of money. you know, so as a part-time job, a friend of mine was working in a motorcycle shop. And so I went and got a job there and it happened that

The motorcycle shop was owned by Ginger Malloy, who's a famous Kiwi racer. And he finished second in the 1970 500 wheel championship on his own private bike that he ran himself and did the proper privateer thing and actually finished second behind Agostini and ahead of the second factory MV Augusta. So he did pretty well. And he came back to New Zealand and started a bike shop and I started working for him.

pretty much the year after he got back. So yeah, I just got introduced to racing because of that. And apart from that, I was just a dirt bike rider like everyone else in New Zealand.

Angus Norton (02:13.166)
Seems like a bit of a theme, know, Paul, same, Trevatham, same journey. Simon Crafer actually also same journey working in bike shops. And where was that bike shop? Where did you say it was?

Mike (02:20.601)
you

in Hamilton, New Zealand. I spent most of my growing up years in Hamilton. my parents were from Auckland and I was born a bit further north, but mostly Hamilton's hometown.

Angus Norton (02:25.792)
yeah.

Angus Norton (02:35.564)
I'm sure we have people in common. can talk about offline a little bit. Yeah. My family are all from that part of the world as well. So that's great. so, you know, what, what sort of, what kind of racing scene did you grow up in? mean, obviously, New Zealand's a long way. I'm not sure how many people understand the racing scene in New Zealand today, let alone when you got started, but what, kind of scene did you grow up in? And, know, when you got exposed to bikes.

Mike (03:01.881)
kind of two different areas, know, from the very young, you know, like just get, wow, I want to ride bikes. And that means dirt bikes in New Zealand, basically. So when I was, you know, 14, 15, 16, whatever, it's just a little dirt bikes and run around a paddock somewhere. And my parents hated motorcycles. They didn't want me anywhere near them, but you know, whatever, I managed to have a bit of a ride. then just through, you know, like...

into school and university and no money and I pretty much didn't ride bikes after that. So as I did this part-time job to get myself through university in a motorcycle shop that had people there, ginger, with a real racing history and I was sort of like, oh, what's this road racing? I never really paid any attention before and just soaked it all up and all these famous racers popping in to say hi and getting to know people like Graham Crosby and...

And the guy in the workshop was Ralph Hannon, who's the brother of Ross Hannon, who built the super bikes for Crosby. And there's all this racing background around. And other cool famous New Zealanders, Hugh Anderson, who was four times world champion in the 60s. And just that all rubbed off of it. But I couldn't do anything about it. I was poor. I was a student. I was just working. then Ginger sold the shop to a younger guy, Laurie Love, who was a

kind of famous motor cross racer in New Zealand. But what I didn't know is he, in his early years, was a really good road racer. And he just pushed and pushed and pushed and said, come on, Mike, we're going to race, we're going to race. And so he provided me a bike and I went racing, 250 production bikes. And off we went and Laurie pushed and I had that background from Ginger with this thing in my head going, wow, road racing's pretty cool. And suddenly I was there, but I was 25 years old because I'd taken a lot of time off.

to earn some money, to get through university, to finish the degree, and all of that. And so, you know, we all should start when we're five years old, but I started when I was 25, so, anyway, fairly short career. Oh, geology. It was a degree that the Waikato University specialty was earth sciences, so it was, you know, geology, hydrology, know, climatology, that sort of stuff. And the deal then, in the early 80s, was that all the graduates from that

Angus Norton (05:08.562)
And what did you study?

Angus Norton (05:12.701)
yeah.

Mike (05:27.801)
program instantly got a job in the oil industry because geology graduates were really well sought after. I, you know, it took me a while to get the degree finished finally. And that happened to be just, you know, when the oil industry, I think, was part of those oil shocks in the late 70s, early 80s. And the follow on from that was suddenly all the oil industry jobs dried up. So was like, oh, OK, I'll go and work in the motorbike shop then. That was it.

Angus Norton (05:55.982)
Interesting. Yeah, that was an interesting time in New Zealand. So you're 25, you've been working hard, saving money, you put yourself through school. And had you been riding dirt bikes and stuff before that, you said, as a young one? Yeah, yeah.

Mike (06:11.222)
yeah sure you know like trail bikes and then and then got more into you know actual motocross and enduro and you know competition stuff so yeah

Angus Norton (06:18.902)
Yeah, yeah. And so when did you first race? I know you won a New Zealand champ, one of the classes, right?

Mike (06:31.2)
Yeah, I've actually won two New Zealand championships in what is what we call Formula 2. So was 250 GP bikes. And I'd been riding production bikes up until that and had some successes. I think the first national race I won was in 1984. And then just carried on. And once I got hold of the TZ, the proper race bike, was like, this is much better. I don't care about production bikes anymore.

But we do the Castrol 6-hour race every year, so I'd always end up getting a, you know, like a 1000cc or whatever production bike the year to do the 6-hour on, and then ride it in some races as well alongside the TZ.

Angus Norton (07:15.022)
Oh, that's awesome. was that, yeah, I love the fact that you say TZ by the way, it's the proper way to say it. I live in America. They say, they say, yeah, they say it the wrong way. But was that, were you racing at Pukekohe?

Mike (07:20.792)
Yeah, sorry, yeah, for your audience, TZ.

Mike (07:28.376)
Yeah, yeah, Pukikoi. Actually, that I said my first national win was in 84, that was at Pukikoi. Kind of shocked the old guard, guys who were always winning, I beat them and they like, oh, what's going on here? So yeah, Pukikoi, and because Hamilton's sort of central North Island, so Manfield down at Fielding is where I've probably done the most racing at Manfield because the six hour every year, and it's 300 odd laps. So yeah, do a fair bit of racing there.

And then the national championships, go to South Island to do three rounds down there. So yeah, we've got, know, still, well, there was always six racetracks in New Zealand when I was there, and I think now we've got one.

Angus Norton (08:11.628)
Yeah, no, that's great. the Pukakohe is kind of almost, it's like pretty close to where Mr. Kreyfah was raised around that. Yeah. you ever, did you ever, did you guys, did you guys ever cross paths on the racetrack or?

Mike (08:19.212)
Very close, his parents live just down the road, yeah.

Mike (08:25.912)
I knew his parents before I knew him. because they organized a race in Tai Happy. Your Kiwi listeners will know that they were living in Tai Happy because as Simon has explained, know, they were pretty much tied up in the farming industry. And they arranged, they ran a street race around the streets of Tai Happy. went there to race and I was like, whoa. You know, so I met the parents and all of that. And there was this kid hanging around who was Simon. And I don't think he'd started road racing at that point.

Angus Norton (08:28.343)
Okay.

Angus Norton (08:33.602)
Yeah.

Mike (08:55.392)
And so in the very early years, I could actually beat Simon on the 250s. But within a year, he was kicking my ass. it was like, he carried on. I was at my level, and he surpassed that and went on and on. So yeah, I've known Simon since the early 80s and his parents for a few years before that.

Angus Norton (09:17.806)
That's so typical of New Zealand. We're all so connected. It's so small. Like I was telling you earlier, that's Simon's helmet right there from his MotoGP win in 99. And I actually watched that race again on TV, the British GP. And watching it, it's just so weird. It almost looks like a different sport. It's just so different. so, yeah, so you competed at the national level. then you tell me sort of what happened after that.

you kept the racing or you decided you love the sort of the, you know, the operating a race and we're going to want to get to that a little bit or were there a few steps before that?

Mike (10:00.409)
It's all kind of a, how can I say, natural progression. It's not like a target that I'm gonna be in in race direction. No, no, it all just happens. So I'm racing and got to the point where I know, got pretty good on a New Zealand level. And in that Formula 2 ride in the 250 GP bike, I won the championship twice in a row, 89 and 90. And then, one year I won,

every race except the one race where the gear shift broke and I finished the race anyway but in fifth place or something I won every other race and I thought I got this sorted I'm really good so I went and so then the Australian Grand Prix turned up in Phillip Island for the first time in 89 and it was like wow there's a Grand Prix just over there you know over the ditch I'm gonna do that so I got a wild card entry because I was New Zealand champion went over there didn't even qualify I mean the level was just oh

What's going on here? I thought I was doing pretty well. Couldn't even qualify for the race in that first year. I went back the next year and, right, a bit more determined, did qualify, still finished last. So the level was just unbelievably different. I'd been having loads of fun riding, heaps of fun, won a lot of races in New Zealand, and just having fun, not crashing, doing...

whatever and then realized the world championship was hey these guys are serious and no I was 30 you know nearly 35 by that stage so pretty obviously time to give it a miss so I just stopped after that second trip to the as a wild card in Phillip Island I stopped after that finished the New Zealand season finished second in the championship and and just said no I'm out of here and I

During all those years of racing, I got to know a bunch of people and one of them was Peter Clifford who's a journalist and is still in MotoGP, he's running Red Bull Rookies. And he was a journalist then, the editor of the MotoCourse book that comes out every year. And I got to know him, I got him to partner me in the six hour races we do in New Zealand because he could bring in bit of sponsorship, you know.

Angus Norton (12:20.152)
Wow.

Mike (12:20.503)
He wasn't that fast, but it was good to have as a teammate to help out with supply of tyres and a bit of money. So we'd do the six-hour together. We got to know each other. So when I was coming back home after the last race, and I just made up my mind that I wasn't racing, was a thing where during that last race event, I could see things on the side of the track that were dangerous, like a fence or whatever.

And I'd never seen them in the previous 10 years of racing. And I just don't realize straight away, time to stop. I can see danger here. I don't want to be here. So I stopped, told Peter, hey, I'm on my way and I'm selling my bike. I'm not going to race anymore. He said, that's funny. He said, me and my friend Bob, the American, Bob McLean, we're starting a race team in Europe. And why don't you come along and help out? Well, OK, I'll do that. So all just, things lead into one another.

So I went to Europe just for a year for fun. Never came back.

Angus Norton (13:22.09)
Interesting. That's a really common story too, by the way, those of us that go overseas and never come back. And those two names you just mentioned, it's clearly people you know really well and both names that I followed a lot throughout my life of loving motorsport. that's what a great experience. And you mentioned, obviously, early signs of you noticing safety problems on the track. I'm sure there's a story that leads on from that. one thing I found was also interesting is you

You mentioned you're doing like enduro racing and then you went over and did the Australian GP. Was it common for riders to move between disciplines in those days from enduro to GP?

Mike (14:04.424)
Yeah, moving between disciplines, mean, Enduro for me in my language is like off-road bike racing, which I did when I was younger. Then the endurance racing, the six hour road race, that's after, from the early 80s, I was just concentrating on road racing and only doing motocross and Enduro for fitness. But between disciplines as in riding,

Angus Norton (14:13.004)
okay, yep.

Mike (14:31.091)
a production bike in an endurance race and then a GP bike and yeah, we all rode whatever we had and the idea was to ride as many races as you could and occasionally head off to nearby overseas. in that last year when I was racing, did a thing called the Pan Pacific Championship, meant races in Japan, Malaysia, Australia, so a bit of a series. So that was the extent of the overseas racing.

and ride whatever we could.

Angus Norton (15:04.59)
So yeah, that's cool. So you decided to hang up the hat from racing. I assume you still did track days and had fun on the bikes, but you just weren't competing or?

Mike (15:15.223)
I stopped actually, I just stopped because that, you know, within a few months, I was heading off to Europe to be a mechanic in this 500 Grand Prix race team. And so, you know, I was gone, I was in Europe and there was not really any chance to ride anymore. And I was fine with that. I had my fun and my race career. Very clearly, I wasn't world class. you know, no problem. I was happy with that. And even though I went

for a very short time. By that time, during my early race years and after university and all that, I opened and owned three motorcycle shops at the same time and was running all those and being my own sponsor. And so I left to go and do this season in Europe and told my sales manager, young guy, said, hey, you can run the shops while I'm away. See you soon. And I never came back. I went back, sold him the shops and

you know, just went back to Europe. yeah, I quite enjoyed what I was doing that first year.

Angus Norton (16:20.942)
Wow, there's so much to unpack there. Wow, wow. So you did an apprenticeship clearly and got, a motorcycle mechanic amongst all this and opened three shops. Or did you not do an apprenticeship? You're one of a Kiwi guy like me and just sort of taught yourself. Okay.

Mike (16:33.143)
did not do an apprenticeship. All my mechanical training was working on my own bikes and obviously running the motorcycle shop. was doing a bit of everything in the early days. It was a tiny operation and know, built up, built up and became quite big. Hired a bunch of staff, bought another shop, opened another one. So ended up with three of them and yeah, it was just running a business. But the thing about me like leaving and to go and you know.

play race bikes in Europe. And then I came back and I had this, know, quite a little business empire going on. And in the time I was away and my very young sales manager who was an ex mechanic in the shop and he had a go at doing sales and he was pretty good. In the time I was away, he doubled my previous figures for the business. You he just set the thing on fire. It was great. And I was into racing and I really loved that. And I was doing the owning the bike shop.

kind of as a sideline, he was into business. He was a very good business person. So I just said, it's yours. He didn't have any money, he was young. I said, pay me when you can. And he just ran the business. It's a very successful business now. And I'm very happy doing what I'm doing. I'm clearly more cut out for the race team thing. So yeah, I've been doing that for quite some time.

Angus Norton (17:54.254)
Well, so you really paid it forward. Well, that's really cool. And I know those days, like a lot of X-Racers, like Graham Crosby had a shop in Auckland, Crosby Yamaha, and a lot of X-Racers had shops, which is also kind of interesting, but you made a jump to be a GP mechanic in the GP 500 class, right? So how does that happen? Like you go to Europe and...

Mike (18:03.095)
Yep. Yep.

Mike (18:14.784)
Yeah, that was it. Well, was that connection was from New Zealand, from Peter Clifford, who was living in New Zealand, still does. And we knew each other and he said, well, come with us and help out with a tiny little team. it all, everything kind of fell into place. So Dorner had just acquired the rights to Grand Prix racing from the FIM. So they changed the commercial basis of what used to be a total mess when the firm were running it.

Angus Norton (18:23.63)
Okay.

Mike (18:44.662)
to a proper commercial basis and a team could go into the championship, be guaranteed of an entry at every race, get paid and run a proper commercial operation. At the same time, Yamaha agreed to sell YZR 500 engines to privateers, first time ever. So suddenly we got a proper 500 engine, Serge Rosset from the Rock Company in France building chassis. Peter Clifford was a mate of Serge Rosset, so we...

lived and worked in Serge's workshop in France with rock chassis Yamaha engines and we're a proper Grand Prix team. And I'm working on these things, going, wow, 500s, they're really cool. And I'm out there going, hang on, this is exactly the same as my TZ250 inside. It comes from the same family. So I knew what I was doing and had a happy time running those first 500s in 1982. 92, sorry, 92, yeah, it good.

Angus Norton (19:42.818)
I might have seen a few of those. A couple of years ago, got to ride, I've done a couple of times, I've ridden from south to north in Italy, all over Italy. I went to Pesaro and I got to meet Mr. Morbidale before he passed away. You probably know who he is. Yeah, and he had a bunch of YZRs in his museum. And one of them he pointed at, it actually had Graham Crosby's name on it. One of his bikes.

Mike (19:53.386)
Yep. yeah, famous.

that's pretty cool. Yes, sure.

Mike (20:11.242)
Yeah.

Angus Norton (20:12.728)
But, and this is not related to the morbid alley, the duode GP racer. This is another guy and you know of him, you know, you've heard of him, the morbid alley family in Pesaro. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to some pictures up, but yeah, I got to meet him. I was absolutely honored to meet him and he showed me around. And I also went to the Benelli museum as well and saw a bunch of the old.

Mike (20:23.945)
yes of course, yeah.

Mike (20:36.021)
I didn't know there was one. Okay.

Angus Norton (20:37.518)
Yeah, there's one, I really like Pessaro, but it's a super non-pretentious kind of place in Italy. It's on the Adriatic coast, but it's not pretentious. It's really nice. so, wow. Okay. So as a mechanic, I've been studying a lot. I really liked Peter Baum. I really learned a lot from him. He's a real data guy, you know? And yeah, yeah. And I'd love to get him on the podcast one day. In those days, mechanics, tell me a little bit about the mechanic role.

Mike (20:55.712)
Yeah, he's clever, yeah.

Angus Norton (21:06.656)
in MotoGP in those days. I know a lot of it's all about data now and computers. But in those days, the mechanic and the rider were like, it was all about that relationship, right? Or am I wrong?

Mike (21:16.55)
yeah, there's, mean, through my mechanic career, you know, it's those early years with the WCM team, private team, just, you know, absolute bare minimum of everything. And then later I went to work for Wayne Rainey team, Yamaha team Rainey, after Wayne had retired after his accident and came back to manage the team and then onto the Marlborough Yamaha team. I've got these, you know, the first years as privateer just struggling away, you know, one or two mechanics and, you know,

fire everything into the, luckily we had Serge Rosset taking our bike to the racetrack, but we lived in a caravan. In fact, I slept in the workshop on a mattress next to the bike. It was great. So those years, and that was a real, as you say, the relationship of the mechanic rider bike was really, really close, because I'm building the bike and...

Peter Goddard, Australian guy, really nice bloke, was our first rider in 92. And the relationship was close. So we had two mechanics. The other one on the team was Bob Toomey, another famous New Zealand motorcycle racer. And so we worked on and built the bikes, looked after Peter, and we were GP racing. But completely different relationship to the end of my years in mechanic and crew chief.

Angus Norton (22:26.094)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (22:41.596)
in the Mowgli Yamaha team with lots and lots of people, full involvement from the Japanese factory and the electronics and stuff coming along. Well, was getting, at the very beginning, sorry, I'm getting out of whack here, but the privateer days, we were one of the very first people to put data logging on the bike, because I had a personal friendship with Dirk De Beus, who...

Angus Norton (22:58.038)
No, this is great. Yeah.

Mike (23:09.438)
is the 2D company that supplies a vast amount of the paddock with data logging. And he was this kind of young geek from university. You you put this on your bike, you know, and it's a really cool thing. And we were like, I'm not sure about that. But it was interesting, and we did it. And suddenly, we learned all these things. We're like, I didn't know that. And it was very early days, very basic. But it was pretty cool. It was the start of that. yeah, it was nice to be in at the beginning of all that stuff.

Angus Norton (23:36.428)
Yeah, you've seen, obviously seen a lot of transitions and you're super humble because you kind of slipped in there that you're a crew chief at one point as well.

Mike (23:44.214)
I was crew chief more or less from the beginning. Me and Bob Turmey turned up for the WCM, the privateer team, it was like we kind of shared doing the crew chief role, and in the end I ended up holding the clipboard. So from those first years I was, so we three years with WCM, did with, well actually four in total, first year with Peter Goddard, then two years with Neil McKenzie, and that was brilliant.

Mike (24:17.32)
Neil turned up, ex-factory rider who was kind of at end of the career but just still wanted to race. And he was super, super nice guy. And the first and probably only rider I've ever had that said, the bike's OK. It's me. having a bad day or something like that. He knew what he was doing. he was, we got a podium at the British Grand Prix on that cobbled together privateer bike.

Angus Norton (24:40.878)
Wow.

Mike (24:43.729)
I mean, it was a cool time. That was a really good thing. And Neil just rode very, very well. Almost never crashed it. Just had a really good time. then I had a year off and went and worked. was crew chief for Simon on the Muzzy Kawasaki in 96. He persuaded me to go and do that. That was a nice little sideline, but I really wanted to be in GP racing. So I came back with WCM and we had Neil Hodgson.

on the bike in 95. And Neil was good. He'd only ever ridden 125s before, and he jumped on the 500. Crashed the very first time. very first test we did, crashed it and got pretty hurt. And then got back on it. Then never crashed it again the whole year. Was qualified on the front row in Argentina and got given a factory bike by Kenny Roberts.

they recognized how good he was doing. And so we swapped our rock Yamaha for a factory Yamaha and finished the year on the factory rock. So yeah, was a good year. It was really, really nice in the privateer atmosphere. It great. Good times.

Angus Norton (26:00.398)
Yeah, wow, that was such an incredible time. I'm going to sort of peel the onion back on this before we get into the race director role, which is a whole nother onion to peel. It strikes me just being a club racer in the US and spending time with a lot of the young up and coming talent here. I can't name the names for some of these quotes, but it strikes me that America was producing some great writers.

Mike (26:10.441)
Yeah

Angus Norton (26:28.642)
in that time. the last great rider, I suppose, is Ben Speas. know, he was the last guy to really do well. And some of the young riders I meet here who are just fast as fast, they're like, yeah, well, to get into World Superbike, it's a million dollar entry fee, without, you know, basically it costs a lot of money. And then MotoGP, well, you have to be maybe one of the 10,000 that get accepted into the Rookies Cup to sort of path away in. I'm curious in your point of view, like,

I understand why Spanish and Italian writing has done so well because they put a lot of money into it. But what's happened to US racing to the extent you follow it? Do you have any input into that? What's your view? Because I'm just surprised that we're just not producing the champs we used to produce in the US.

Mike (27:15.401)
And I have, I would echo that. I'm actually at a bit of a loss to explain why. I have to say I'm not close enough to US racing, except that I keep in touch with Wayne Rainey, who's running Moto America. and, you know, not every day, but, know, occasionally, you know, we talk to each other a little bit. And I just, it's very hard to put your finger on it. I think it was very clear in the days when, you know, Kenny, Freddie, Wayne, Eddie, all those guys were on top of the world. It was about

the state of the bikes, the tire technology, all of that, lending itself to dirt track backgrounds. So the Americans particularly, and the Australians at that point, who'd grown up on their racing career, riding dirt tracks as well as road racing, that was the key. And so for that era, that golden era of 500 racing, those Americans were on top of the world. And since then, the...

bike technology, the tires, everything has got to the point where the European style, which isn't really dirt track based, comes more into its own. And now the deciding factor now is those feeder series. That those European kids, mostly Spanish and Italian, but all over, can go racing from five years old in a really structured, pretty safe environment. And there's enough of an industry there that they get backing as well if they're any good.

And yeah, only one in 10,000 makes it, but they're all going through that feeder series. the top two or three in that series go on to the next one and kind of get helped all the way. And Dawn has got a lot to do with that, funding these feeder series, but that's it. And it's a 10 year commitment of the sponsors and the organizers and the kids and their families that you get your way through the series. And at the end of it, bing, you've got a Motu GP rider. That's the...

big difference to me that I see in Southern Hemisphere racing and the US where that feeder series is not quite so strong. To me that's the difference now.

Angus Norton (29:24.62)
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. I've had Christian Daniels Jr. on. He's a 16-year-old Rookies Cup rider from the US. But his family literally moved him to Spain when he was quite young. And I've had Kenzai Masahura on, who's 14, and he won the US Motor America Mini Cup Championship. And he got to about a final 10 to be considered for Rookies Cup this year. Didn't quite make it.

And of course, I've had a few Kiwis. So Cormac was on. And now he has a dirt bike background in New Zealand and obviously won a bunch of New Zealand titles. And it's cool to see him coming out of New Zealand. And you mentioned Australia. I feel like Australia has had a bit of a leg up. They've produced a few more. think Cormac's the last, since I think he's the first Kiwi since Simon Craffar to actually compete at a GP level, Moto3 level. Yeah.

Mike (30:20.242)
Yeah, you're right.

Angus Norton (30:22.286)
He's pretty proud of that. He's working super hard. okay. So, wow. What a career. Well, just so many, I mean, it's so cool to hear about all these people you worked with. And I suppose that the transition from those fire breathing animal machines, they were so dangerous when you look back on it now. Those writers, just incredible. What was your first taste of officiating? Like, how did that happen?

Was that just kind of you kind of fall into it or?

Mike (30:53.588)
So that transition from, you know, mechanic and crew chief and all of that, and so that came about, again, another one of those things that just happened. So they decided to introduce MotoGP, so to change away from two strokes and into four strokes. And so I was crew chief for the Mulberry Yamaha team for the final three years of two strokes. And...

And so that change came about. So during 2001, the final year with Carlos Checa, we were doing development work on the M1, the four stroke. And just by the way, was from the first tests that we did on the first Yamaha was, I mean, it was almost like a mock-up. They were just proof of concept. It wasn't even a proper race bike. I mean, it was 800 and something CC, not, you know, not.

990 and it was, you know, I think the first one even had carburetors, whatever. had, it was just this thing that was never intended to be right. It was just a, and straight away, our riders, was Carlos Checker and Max Biagi and Brno were doing this test and they're roaring around and they're like, I mean, seconds a lap faster. On used tires that weren't even made for the bike, we were just taking worn out tires off the 500 and sticking it on this thing and they do a lap of the track and go.

I'm only using four gears around the track and I'm second lap faster on worn out tires. It was just so obvious that a two-stroke was never gonna win another Grand Prix race. Anyway, so we did all that development. at the end of that, so part of what our race engineers, our Japanese race engineers explained to us during that year is the race department, for all the time it was 500 GP bikes, was a shed down the back of

Angus Norton (32:29.462)
Wow. Yeah.

Mike (32:48.114)
somewhere that no one cared about. That was the race department. We thought it was like, wow, it's a really cool thing. And they said, no, it's an anachronism. It's two strokes. No one cares about it. As soon as it became four stroke, the factory was involved. And the race department just, you know, was night and day difference to what it was when it was two strokes. And that race department in the old days, they were kind of sneered at a little bit by the rest of the factory. Suddenly the factory was involved. The budgets went through the roof and everything got reorganized.

And at that point, the race team changed enormously. So, and I was kind of coming to the end of what I was doing there. So it was just the time where, okay, I'll stop working for the race team. And honestly, I was going home to New Zealand. I was going windsurfing, go with Mike Sinclair and go windsurfing, know, having a good time. And then I got a phone call kind of out of the blue, just, you know, people who know people. I was living in Andorra. One of my neighbors was a

Angus Norton (33:33.646)
Yeah.

Mike (33:47.209)
was an American guy who worked for American Honda way back in the 60s. He was the guy, he was a marketing guy, and he signed off on that advertising campaign from Grey Advertising, you meet the nicest people on a Honda that launched the C50. He was involved in all of that. He was a neighbor and we used to talk motorbike racing. He was a mate of Kenny Roberts and all of that. the technical director from

Angus Norton (34:03.0)
Famous.

Mike (34:15.24)
MotoGP was Jack Finlay, an Australian X-racer, super nice guy, and he was getting older, he said, I'm retiring. At the same time, I'd left Yamaha, I was going home, and then I get this phone call from, through my friend in Andorra, to, you know, the then race director Paul Butler, said, I hear you're leaving, we could do with the technical director, come and do this. I'm like, okay, I'll do that. So I just, you know, transitioned without even thinking about it from being.

to technical director for the Grand Prix. yeah, that was just work.

Angus Norton (34:48.622)
Well, there's some real nuggets in there. I love talking to people like you because a lot of us don't plan our careers. They just kind of happen. are there words of advice you could give people, like young people that are, it sounds like you networked really well. You built relationships. In terms of these up until this role now, which you want to get into because I want folks to understand it. Are there any nuggets that you

If your kids are really diverse and want to be in motorsport, any things you've learned, any nuggets along the way.

Mike (35:23.028)
I get, I often get emails or letters or even, know, face to face kids who say, I'm desperate. want to, want to, this is my target. want to do this. What should I do? You know, I'm studying this and whatever. And in my, my own experiences, I always say it just kind of happened, but you're right. It's about networking. It's about making connections. And there's a little bit of being in the right place at the right time, but it's because of those connections. And that's

what's happened to me. It's the being connected to people and having the skill set that fits in the right place. it's one thing I learned when I was crew chief with the Factory Yamaha team. And we'd be hiring mechanics, or in any team I was crew chief, hiring mechanics. And it's very quickly apparent that being a team worker, being able to work in a stress.

team environment and work together with people was way more important than being the best mechanic. So the technical skills were actually less important than the teamwork skills, the networking, all of that. And those things some people have and some people don't. And we ended up with mechanics who were very well qualified and were just horrible in a team environment and got rid of them. different skills are necessary and that teamwork and networking is actually a big one.

Angus Norton (36:48.59)
And in those days, did it feel like a really serious business like it does today? mean, it's obviously big business now. like, did it feel that way in the early days of MotoGP, you know, for transition?

Mike (37:02.332)
No, not at all, especially privateer days. was hilarious. I mean, we were just having fun. you know, literally I was working for, you know, enough money to buy a beer. was, you know, the team looked after me really well, you know, transport and hotels and all that. But yeah, it was just fun. And then it got a bit more serious than the factory team. And to me, that was like, well, because I'd grown up, you know, idolizing, you know, Kenny Roberts and Freddie Spencer and all those guys. And look at the racing and wow, it's so cool.

Angus Norton (37:08.152)
Yeah.

Mike (37:31.956)
professional. was not, no, it wasn't. I thought it was at the time in the factory team and looking back now, it was amateur hour. You know, it was, yeah, fairly basic. But you know, there was a bit of factory involvement and money and all of that. But now the difference is, it's not, you know, it's exponential. It's just a huge difference in professionalism. You know, the amount of money invested, all of that. It's, yeah, now it's

looks real professional. I guess in a few years with Liberty being owners now it might look different again but yeah the early days were pretty amateurish.

Angus Norton (38:10.894)
Yeah, I definitely have these visions in my mind of these young riders with cigarette hanging out of their mouths and out on the whiskey night after the race and all of that. Maybe some of that is not true. So, okay, I'm going to ask a two-year-old question. What does a race director do? I'm really curious how you would answer that question because it's a big job, I think.

Mike (38:37.583)
Yeah, it's a, there's a line in the rule book and it's just, one sentence and it says, the race director is responsible to ensure that the event takes place according to the regulations safely and on time. That's the sentence, that's my job. But that is an enormous, you know, it covers a load and a load of different things. So nowadays the race director, it used to be

complex, I can talk about that. But now I'm much more of a coordinator of a team of people that do all those specific jobs. So it's a coordinator. And until such time as a unilateral decision has to be made, red flag, we're stopping the race, we're not restarting or we are restarting, this is the schedule we're going to restart, you know, all of that, those decisions, that's down to me. But they're pretty rare. And all the rest of it is coordinating a bunch of really

talented people who are lots of very specialist jobs. So yeah, I'm a coordinator. That's it.

Angus Norton (39:43.766)
Yeah, you're obviously humble too. There's a lot of responsibility at the end of the day. I assume that at the end of the day, if all of those people coordinating can't agree, it's kind of down to you, right, to make the decision. that?

Mike (39:58.42)
Yes, yes it is. Again, in our, the rule book, but our structure, race direction is three people. A race director, a track safety officer who's in charge of making sure the track's up to standard, and a riders representative. So we've got Loris Caparossi, rider representative, brilliant, really good to work with. Tommy Alfonso, probably the best safety officer I've ever seen in my life. It was like he was born to that job.

He oversaw construction of some of the best circuits in the world. know, Aragon, Qatar, loads of circuits that he's been involved in building. He knows what a circuit is and how to do it properly. And he's our safety officer who takes care of that. And race director, me, who is the one to blame when it all goes wrong. Final decisions are down to me, but the three of us talk together, along with a cast of dozens who are doing specialist roles.

So yeah, it's a discussion every time and finally someone makes a decision and puts their name to it and that's me.

Angus Norton (41:02.19)
That's cool. And how do you work with the stewards? so I Simon's the new, what's his title as head of stewards?

Mike (41:09.735)
Yeah. Chairman of the stewards panel. And that used to be my title. So sorry, a little bit of background. Over the years, it's evolved. So when I was first told, because I've been technical director for 10 years, and then the race director was retiring and I just got told, you're race director. was like, okay, what do I do? And it was like that. I had no idea. No clue whatsoever. So I started out in race director. And at that time, again, it's back to these

Angus Norton (41:12.75)
Chairman of the stewards panel. really? Yeah.

Mike (41:38.929)
what we now look back on as amateur days. Race director was also in charge of race direction, the three people, was me, Franco and Cheney, and a guy from Dawn, Javier Alonso, were race direction. We did race directing, deciding everything, and the discipline, all the stewards role. And so I was doing both. was like, know, telling off the naughty boys, you know, handing out penalties, doing all of that, as well as being race director. And

It was, well, looking, I don't know, basically it burned me out. The reason for the white hair. It was unbelievably difficult. And finally I persuaded Dawner that, we need to split these roles. And we need a stewards panel who do that, and it's separate from race direction, and I can have some influence, and so we did that, it, phew, it was a huge step forward in making it more professional and doing.

correctly and it was very hard to find the right person to fulfill that stewards chairman role and we got Freddie Spencer and that was brilliant because previously here's me from my amateur racing background not very good at it and a bit of crew chiefing and all of that being around Grand Prix long enough and I'm trying to tell Valentino Rossi that he's done something wrong on track. Honestly there was some respect it was with all the riders it was fine but

You could tell, you know, I wasn't really equipped from a rider point of view. And then Freddie turns up and he's multi-wheel champion. And suddenly it was like, he knows what he's talking about. so splitting those roles so that I could be just race director and this Freddie and the stewards were doing theirs, that was brilliant. And the big thing just before we get off Freddie is his role in teaching the young riders, especially motor three, how to be a proper racer and not be a...

to kid and disrupt everything. That was, it made such a difference. I don't think Freddie got the respect he deserved for all of the things he did. And a lot of the older riders were a bit more, this guy's, it's been years since he's been a racer. But his teaching role in getting the younger riders to stop being idiots and to be future world champions was unbelievable. It's still going on today.

Mike (44:05.137)
the fact that he built that system of stewards, their own separate room with all the information they need that Simon inherited and has taken to another level. But that all came about because we split the roles and Freddie was our first guy there.

Angus Norton (44:21.246)
that's cool. Yeah. No, I am. So I've done Freddy's race school in the US. I've done a few of them and it's now called the Yamaha Champs school. But it's all Freddy's teaching. So Freddy is all his technique. Everything is, you know, everything about racing, not just on the track, but everything from having a ritual before you get on the bike. you know, Valentino used to get down and do this thing in front of the bike. All of that off the track. Freddy, Freddy built for the Yamaha Champs school.

Mike (44:26.716)
Yeah. Yeah.

Angus Norton (44:51.042)
That's a really cool story. so, okay, so now what you did is pretty unique because my understanding is in Formula One, the stewards are assigned race by race, depending on the circuit, right? And yeah, right, right. Yeah, I don't like cars much, but you know.

Mike (45:09.616)
Yeah, and we fought against that. Yeah. No, it's, it, it was, that was what the FIM wants to do because they're almost like giving it as a reward to their favorite people inside their organization. you can go and be a steward at ManuGP. It's a cool thing, you know? So we get these different people turning up and every week you've got someone else making a decision. it's like, this is impossible. So the first thing we did was make a

a permanent head of that department, which first was me and then was Freddie, someone who was there every race making the same calls and this rotating cast of stewards. finally, finally after fighting for years, we finally got it sorted. We've got permanent people, everyone in the room that Simon works in now, permanent staff. They all know what they're doing. They know the decision they made the week before and the reason why and the history of the rider and all of that. It's a huge improvement.

So yeah, we're happy with the way it is.

Angus Norton (46:11.15)
Yeah, mean, major kudos to you. To the extent you're allowed to talk about it, as we close out towards the end of the podcast, definitely want to, I'm going to ask you some questions and I know you won't be able to answer everything because I don't want to get you in trouble. But what do you think is something that people misunderstand about the role of officiating? It seems to me it's not super well understood by a lot of people I talk to.

Mike (46:25.927)
See you over there.

Mike (46:37.59)
It depends a little on what you're asking, but as race director, think people still think that race direction, me and Loris and Tommy, are in charge of the discipline and everything and all of that. And we're not. That's now a separate role which Simon's handling really well. And I even get current writers today saying, I have to go and see you, race director, and get told off. And no, that's not me. I don't do that anymore. Thank goodness. So that's one.

misunderstanding and one of the ones that's been a bit lingering and not so much these days is that Dawna, the commercial rights owner who owned the rights to the championship gets blamed for, Dawna did this or this decision or whatever. It's nothing to do with them. And it's structured, I said at the very beginning, I work for ERTA, the Teams Association. And that's a deliberate, has been for decades that the commercial rights holder, Dawna, is separated

from appointing and guiding or even employing any of the people who can make a decision that affects a race. So me, Simon, the stewards, all of our race control people. We work for ERTA, which is actually owned by the teams. It's the Teams Association. It's a nonprofit that the teams all join. And so we are completely separate from Dorna from that point of view.

Of course we work together with them day to day and it really works very, very well together, but we're not doing it. And Dorna isn't responsible for any of our decisions. And they're very good at that. They stay away.

Angus Norton (48:17.324)
Yeah, that's great. mean, we all know that our sport is incredibly dangerous and it has consequences. It doesn't matter if you're an old fat guy like me at the track or a GP level rider. And I think a lot about what those kids put themselves through. And I'm curious, when you think about things like ride height devices and the bikes becoming more and more technical and

People ask about, is Aero improving or hurting the sport? mean, do these developments like that make your job harder?

Mike (48:54.93)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a personal thing because having been technical director for 10 years and seen the rapid increase in complexity and technology and the things that we have to monitor to keep it fair, safe, know, all of that. Because one thing to say in the beginning is the engineers are 100 % focused on performance. I've got to make the fastest bike and they don't care whether the rider gets hurt. They don't care whether the championships are

Angus Norton (48:56.16)
Yeah.

Mike (49:25.01)
boring thing that nobody wants to watch and will fail. They don't care about any of that. All they're doing is making the thing go faster. That's their job. And we've got to force everyone involved, the factories, the organization, everyone, to take account of all these other things. Rider safety, number one. Secondly, what's the show like? Is racing actually reasonable to watch? Is it worth watching on TV? These are huge things that the engineers don't give a damn about.

So we've got to try and balance that. really hard. yeah, ride height devices cannot wait for them to be gone. They're just a disaster.

Angus Norton (50:03.694)
And that'll be gone in 2027, right?

Mike (50:06.096)
Yeah, 27 with our new tech rigs, which for proper reasons, they can only be changed in five year intervals. So that each set of regulations sort of goes through a new, through to maturity, and more or less all the factories end up being on a pretty similar level. Then we roll the dice and make new regulations and that shakes things up a bit. But if you change them too often, it's way too expensive and it's kind of a mess.

So we deliberately do it at five years. So that's why such a long time before we can change the ride height things, get rid of them. Nobody likes them. They were an advantage when Gigi Delinea first came up with it in Ducati. The others followed suit straight away. So the advantage is gone. Everyone's on the same playing field. The riders don't like them. mean, our, I'm probably not allowed to say it, but in our rider meetings we have every week, know, the riders, it's...

it makes their job a bit harder. The thing is, it's faster. So they can't elect not to have it because the other guys have got it. So it's a necessary evil. As soon as someone's got it, you've got to have it. they're waiting for the day that it's gone. And in certain circumstances, they're dangerous. So yeah, getting rid of that, that's good. And the overarching goal of all of that is the safety thing about the bikes are too fast for the circuit. We haven't got enough runoff area.

So rather than losing good circuits, we're actually trying to reduce the consequences of an accident. And part of it is bike performance. So all of that works together. Same with the aero. The aero, someone's got it, so you've got to have it, even though most of the riders, in most circumstances, would be happier without it. But there are some things that it's good at, the stability now. I don't know if you know, Mugello.

into the straight up over the hill it's know 350 K's on a MotoGP bike the front's coming off the ground and you're having to turn and then get on the brakes and in the old days of Simon says it really well he says over there without the aero it was like I'm gonna die I'm gonna die and now the bikes planted on the ground and you can get on the brakes so some things the aero is good at but it also makes it much harder to pass somebody

Mike (52:32.687)
makes a big difference to the tire temperature when you're following someone. All of those things are negatives. So we're working on getting less aero effect to try and minimize the bad things.

Angus Norton (52:43.81)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, we could talk for hours about this, but I want to respect your time. It's just interesting seeing, you know, Aero like on street bikes and stuff now. I mean, it doesn't do anything for a street bike. It's just like, it's just cosmetic, right? Yeah. I think one of the things that you probably take for granted, and I think a lot of even listeners don't always understand is a lot of what you were talking about, you talked about earlier too, was the various development phases of technologies and how you have to keep them for a certain amount of time.

Mike (52:54.929)
Yeah, it's marketing, yeah. Yeah, of course.

Angus Norton (53:10.306)
That's kind of the prototype thing, That's MotoGP is you're racing prototype motorcycles, right? So, but whereas World Superbike, which I'm also a huge fan of, like funnily enough, they're all owned by Liberty now, aren't they? I think, yeah, I think World Superbike's also.

Mike (53:17.339)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (53:27.365)
Yes, well, mean, Dona acquired the rights to supervise some years ago and now Liberty's own owns a majority of Dona.

Angus Norton (53:35.948)
What level of collaboration do you guys have with Superbike? You guys talk or just completely separate?

Mike (53:41.297)
Oh, no, no, no. I mean, because it's, know, we're all under the parent company, Dorna. We talk, we know the guys. A lot of the higher officials in Superbike I used to work with in GP, you know, and that being, you know, under Dorna's guidance, went, oh, we could do with you and Superbike go over there. I know the people writing the regulations. We're all, we all sort of sit on the same forums about approving regulations and all of that. So, yeah, it's pretty close. And yet there are those differences.

But one of the, it applies a little bit in Superbike too, but one of the things about our technical regulations that probably most people don't understand is, by and large, they are agreed beforehand by the manufacturers, and all we're doing is policing them. We're implementing the regulations and monitoring it. Those regulations that are able to be changed every five years, I mean, we've been working for three years trying to get the 27 regulations agreed, they're

pretty much done and it's been an ongoing negotiation with the manufacturers. Pretty much the manufacturers decide what they're going to build and within reason we tweak it to go, no, well, our aim is this and that. And we finally get to a point where we all agree on something. But they are supplying the machinery and we can't actually force them to build something that they don't want to build. So they're building the prototypes, which feeds into Superbike, is they're building stuff that is relevant to them.

so they can sell motorcycles. that's our agreement with them is that we'll work hand in hand with them to, we pre-agree all the technical regulations beforehand and then our job after that is just to monitor and enforce them.

Angus Norton (55:25.39)
This is so useful. I'm gonna ask you another two-year-old question that I know the answer to, but I know a lot of people don't know and they don't like asking it because they don't want to sound stupid. It's so funny. So I love about sort of like, what does homologation mean to get a homo? What does that mean to get a bike homologated?

Mike (55:39.985)
It means different things in different championships. So the super bike, the street bike class, homologation is a different meaning in that it's much more important in that the FIM homologates allows this standard road motorcycle to be used in this class of racing. And only those ones that the firm have said it's homologated. So, you know, we'll use all the super bikes, all the supersport bikes, all of that are pre-approved.

those production models are allowed to go racing. Homologation in that sense is, that's the real sense of the word. And it's to do with production motorcycles being allowed to enter this class. In the prototype sense, it's actually a misuse of the word. In fact, I write all the rule books and I removed the word homologation a few years ago because it's actually, it's now approval because we're not homologating production models.

we are approving technologies that are being used. our, what people call homologation, it's now in the rule book called approval of MotoGP engines, you the rules are, this is your design for the year, it cannot be changed, and this engine is approved, and you must use this for the rest of the year without any changes outside of the, sorry, inside of the engine seals. So all the internals are approved.

which used to be called homologated, they're approved and those ones must stay the same. So different in the word is different in different categories.

Angus Norton (57:13.678)
Man, yeah, there's so much there. You're so humble, because you talk about the coordinating. I I think about everything from the tire pressure being exactly, has to be exactly within this, can't be give or take, right? The fuel, the amount of fuel you'll have in the bike at the end. All of that stuff, man, you must have, it's a system there. I read the rule book, by the way, after the Austin race. was at Austin when Mark, Mark has did his thing, which you're probably not allowed to talk about.

Mike (57:39.002)
Yeah. No, it's fine.

Angus Norton (57:41.72)
But I read the rule book and I'm like, there's hundreds of pages. like, how did you do that? Like, I don't know. We probably not talk about that incident, but we just all these people running around doing stuff. That's amazing. I think a lot of listeners don't understand that and we won't have time to go into all of it.

Mike (57:59.428)
Well, time's up to you, I'm happily chatting, so whatever you want. I've got my glass of water on standby. Very good.

Angus Norton (58:03.243)
yeah, do you want to grab a drink or anything? Yeah, you're good.

Angus Norton (58:08.75)
Oh, sweet. Cheers. It's cool to chat. so, OK, so. And we don't have to go into all of this if you can't, but I'm curious, you know. Do you think the sprint or is the sprint format going to evolve again in 2027? I'm curious, maybe you just say, what's the one rule you'd love to see in 2027?

Mike (58:12.664)
Okay.

Mike (58:35.836)
that's out of the blue. What's the one rule I'd like to see? Yeah, but I mean, yeah, mean, it's a huge question because it can cover anything, There are different things. I mean, the technical rules are pretty much done and dusted. We pretty much know what they're going to be. And I would have preferred them to be dumbed down more, performance down more, mean. But we've agreed what we've agreed.

Angus Norton (58:40.322)
Is that okay? Is that a good one to ask or not?

Angus Norton (59:00.598)
Hmm. And what is that again? It's 849 now? Is that right?

Mike (59:06.028)
It's 850. The thing, just to get into that as an aside, that was agreed over a long period with the manufacturers and our director of technology, Corrado Cicchinelli, is ex-Ducati engineer from my time when I was involved, crew chief, he was Ducati guy, clever, proper engineer.

between them all that worked out to avoid the mistakes of the 800cc era of MotoGP, where they just made smaller, higher revving engines and corner speeds went through the roof and didn't achieve anything. It was horrible. That new formula is specifically based on forcing with a limited bore size to force them to make longer stroke engines that won't rev quite so high and will produce usable power through the rev range.

more rider friendly bike but with less power at the end. it's a pretty good compromise, a bit more nimble, you know, and without the ride height devices with a lot less aero. And the things that the manufacturers always like to have is the fuel limits, things that are a challenge for them to overcome. So they're happy doing that sort of stuff. And yeah, quite a good formula. So I would have liked it to

Angus Norton (01:00:30.552)
Yeah.

Mike (01:00:34.04)
know, force them to be a bit slower. But anyway, we are where we are. And having said that, as an aside, tyres pretty much dictate performance these days. That's the number one factor.

Angus Norton (01:00:44.044)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, jeez. Yeah, because I mean, I Simon saying like, this is before he was in his current job, like, he's looked at the new these new engine requirements, he reckons that these bikes aren't going to be much slower. In fact, it's like people get so caught up in horsepower, but the tire stuff Paul was talking about, I didn't know this. Help me understand like the difference. Was there a difference between? Obviously, you're on a gyroscope, you're riding a motorcycle, but

the, the way in which the rubber engages with the track and a motor GP bike versus a world super bike. I've heard that Michelin is track reactive or something. I don't understand all the rules, but, tell me what's your view on top, like help me understand tires a bit. cause I race on Pirelli slicks, you know, but you know, I'm a fat old guy. like we're going from Michelin to Pirelli's right? That's the first thing.

Mike (01:01:40.988)
Yes, exactly. Honestly, I'm a bit out of my depth here. I know I did, you know, crew chief and all of that for a while. And I was working closely with the Michelin engineers and all of that in those days. But it's evolved quite a bit since then. But I think something, one thing that is still fairly true, back then, we were swapping between Dunlop and Michelin. And this is kind of a bit of an explanation of what we think we're going to get with Pirelli.

is that Michelin is around, ultimate grip level is unbelievable and grip over a period of a race. mean, you can do the fastest lap on the last lap of a race and the tire's destroyed and the grip is incredible. But it's within a fairly narrow range. can I say, if the ultimate grip level is very, very high, but the curve of, know, like,

to get to ultimate grip. At the other side of that, going past the grip level is quite a fast transition. Whereas an old Dunlop, in my day, was much less total grip, but the feel was much easier for the rider because that curve of getting past maximum grip was a lot smoother. And you go, I've lost the front. OK, I'll back off a bit. And I think that's perhaps a little bit more like what a

Pirelli will be and what the sort of tyre that you know most fast riders can deal with and the Michelin is a specific thing that the very best riders can figure out how to use and and that's that's that's a very high level and not everyone can do it really well and it depends on machinery it depends on rider and all that but just a couple of anecdotes

A couple of years ago, Andrea Inoni turned up as a substitute rider to Philan Duquette in MotoGP. And he came to the rider meetings, even though the replacement riders don't normally come. He just came to see his old mates. And he said, front tire is unbelievable. Because when he was riding on Michelin's factory Duquette rider a few years before, was like, I could do this. And he said, every corner I go into, I break another five or 10 meters later than I think I should.

Mike (01:04:06.852)
And it's still working. still, he said, there's no limit. It's just incredible the amount of grip provided you treat it right to get to that point. Whereas I think on a super bike with a Pirellis, my understanding is you can just bang on the brakes and it'll slow down and go into the corner. Whereas the Michelin, you have to be a bit more persuasive with it to get the best out of it. And it's something that needs to be learned, know, but they're just different characteristics of tires.

Angus Norton (01:04:26.547)
yeah, yeah.

Angus Norton (01:04:35.168)
It's going to be interesting to see how Toprak does on them. He's a master on the Pirellis. Well, and back in your day, when you were racing too, even in Simon's day for Moteri Mimba, there was a battle of attire manufacturers too, because the teams would race whatever attire they needed to race. How long has standard tires been around? that a thing?

Mike (01:04:55.021)
Okay.

Mike (01:04:59.407)
It was, was, it was 20, woof, hard pick to, hard to remember the year, but 2010, 2012, something like that. Basically Bridgestone and Michelin and MotoGT were fighting it out and it ended up that Bridgestone at that point was a bit of an advantage and loads of riders, know, loads of teams been there, Michelin contract and went to Bridgestone and it just became obvious that.

that arms race of tires was kind of getting out of control. So commercially the easiest decision was just to impose a single tire. And it's good for the show too. you know, we had one memorable Laguna Seca race where, you know, half the field couldn't race because, you know, though with Michelin, Michelin had miscalculated the type of tires to bring to the event and they were just useless. know, they didn't fit the conditions on that day.

Angus Norton (01:05:42.146)
Yeah.

Mike (01:05:58.829)
And it was a debacle, it was horrible. Things like that actually got the commercial decision to say, we're having a single tire, that's it.

Angus Norton (01:06:07.47)
There'll be so many changes. I've raced at Laguna Seca. I had a massive off there actually at the bottom of the corkscrew. Yeah, yeah. I think about some of those tracks and like even Laguna Seca today, suppose, just would be too small for a modern MotoGP bike, I assume. Like, yeah, yeah.

Mike (01:06:26.895)
Yeah, we raced 500 there and it was sketchy anyway, safety-wise and all of that. But now, yeah, basically, we go to small race tracks, we go to Saxonering, it's tiny, but it depends on the infrastructure, mostly safety-related. And places like Laguna, from my understanding, the last time we were there, was quite a while ago, was that it's a parkland,

Angus Norton (01:06:41.219)
Yeah.

Mike (01:06:56.463)
The racetrack doesn't have the rights to extend runoffs in areas we need them because it's not their land or it's controlled by the Parks Authority or something like that. So there are restrictions that just mean no, we probably can't go there.

Angus Norton (01:06:57.336)
noise.

Angus Norton (01:07:11.278)
Well, I want to respect your time. I'm going to ask you a question about Liberty's impact and you don't have to answer it. I understand. like I know that in Formula One, you know, there's a lot of pressure to put on a show, you know, and you've found it more and more invasive in the cockpit with the, you know, being out of the here, the drivers talk and back and forth of each other and, you know, cameras everywhere and all of that. And as a motorcyclist, I worry a little bit that, you know,

know, Marquez is going to be shoulder down into turn one at Mugello. you know, if it's going to be, hey, Mark, you know, slow down or something like, if you can't answer is fine. you know, the rumors amongst all the fans are Liberty is going to make everything invasive. It's going to be more dangerous and it's going to be all about the show. And like, are you allowed to talk about that or comment on that at all? Like, do you see that coming over or?

Mike (01:08:06.607)
Well, yeah, to a certain extent, and it's no secret because it's been talked about, we are actively developing a radio communication with the writers. And it's got certain technical hurdles to get over before it's ready, but it's getting close. it's very, especially from Dorne's side, they're keen to do it. And I think Liberty, as late comers to this, can see,

there's some potential there and maybe it becomes a cool thing. But the final decision more or less comes down to the writers. During all the testing, is this viable? Is this going to make safety? Is it going to impact safety in any way? Because in some ways it could be better. The writers had a crash or whatever and he's lying there and he can tell his team straight away before any of our medics get there, hey, I'm...

my leg's hurting, whatever. There are things that could be good. But it's in development stages and final decisions will be, is it good for our sport? And one thing that Dawn has been consistent about over all the years, I've been there 35 years, well, this 34 years, I'm starting year 35, that they have been absolutely number one sport people, safety's number one.

The riders are like gods to them and they make decisions that are good for racing that are bad commercially. They're that into it. They are so into the racing that they'll do things that cost them money because it's good for the sport and they continue doing that. So I'm happy with the way it's going. I don't know whether it's going to be a good or a bad thing if we do get the communications. I'm skeptical, but it's being done carefully.

Angus Norton (01:10:02.574)
Yeah, I I suppose you point around the commercial side as, you know, obviously the reason these one of the reasons I think if one drivers get paid so much is this massive TV audience and just massive sponsorship and all of that. And I suppose that as I sort of as an outsider looking in, I think a lot of a lot of people in the audience don't realize that even at the MotoGP level, there are riders that aren't making millions, right? They might be making

high six figures, but they're not making millions. There's only a few that make, even Mark and others aren't coming anywhere close to a Lando Norris in terms of dollars. And so they're taking big risks, bigger risks, right, than an F1 driver takes, and they're not making as much. And maybe I'm just being too much of a pragmatist, but.

Mike (01:10:51.458)
No, it's exactly the way it is. our sport, I mean, it lives and breathes on TV, on media coverage. Fans going to a racetrack is much less of a thing. And in fact, that's up to the racetrack. That's their revenue stream. From our sport point of view, the business is solely media. So if Liberty can expand the media footprint of MotoGP as they've done for Formula One, I mean, that's...

good for everyone in the paddock. mean, we're way past the days of, it should be an amateur sport and it shouldn't be corporate or not. That's long, long gone. All we're now doing is trying to make it as good as possible for everyone involved. And as far as salaries go, as far as the presentation and the viability of long-term viability of teams, all of that, that can only be improved with a bigger media footprint. And I think Liberty are the geniuses at doing that. So yeah, great, let's do it.

The things that impact the writers on the track and what's happening there, that's stuff we've got control over and some input into. But how they are publicized, how the events are publicized, that's over to the commercial department.

Angus Norton (01:12:07.788)
Yeah, well, you know, have technically have four minutes left. like I think about, want to, I want, there's a couple of things I want to close on because you've had an amazing career and you're clearly all in. I'm talking about the Liberty stuff. You know, I interviewed Rocco Landers earlier last year. He's a young kid. He's won a bunch of Moto America titles. He did a rookie's cup, but it was during COVID. So was really bad timing. Anyway, he's racing in the bagger class, right?

as well as super sport class in motor America. When I first heard about Bagger, I'm like, what? they going to be wearing leather vests and tassels and open face helmets? But the more I talk to him, the more I realize, these, I think maybe people that aren't from the US think it's a bit of a joke, but these are proper race bikes, man. These bikes are going fast and you're going to be officiating those right next year. So any thoughts on that?

Mike (01:12:41.166)
Same as all of us.

Mike (01:12:59.66)
Yep, I've just written the rule book. I've just completed the rules. yeah. Yeah, I mean, clearly it's a commercial class like we've had other commercial classes, MotoE in the past, some of the Kitty Cups, our feeder series, they're all commercial things. it's the new, I mean, they're serious. The bikes and the people are very, very serious.

Angus Norton (01:13:03.436)
Yeah. Any thoughts on that? you been involved in that? Like who made the decision to approve it? Yeah.

Mike (01:13:27.692)
I'm the same as you. The first I heard about it, was like, it's a joke. No, no, no. It's very, very serious. And now, know, we're, as I said, I've just written the rule book for them and we're set to go. yeah.

Angus Norton (01:13:30.659)
Haha.

Angus Norton (01:13:39.854)
you have. that's cool. So I want to sort of sign off a bit on legacy and also sort of Kiwis and motorsport. And I sort of asked all the Kiwis I've had on this question. I had Avalon Lewis on too, by the way. She was great. She's she was great. Yeah. I asked him like, what is it about New Zealand? Obviously, I'm super biased about New Zealand. But, you know, you think back to Denny Holm, Bruce McLaren.

Mike (01:13:55.244)
Yeah, she's cool.

Angus Norton (01:14:09.036)
you know, some of the great motocross race races, the King brothers and others. Bert Monroe, like there's just yourself, Simon, know, Britton, John Britton, I've got one of his bikes on my wall here. What is it about New Zealand that, I don't know, produces people in motorsport? mean, you've got two Kiwis at the top of officiating and rider officiating and stewards, for example, but is...

Is there something there or am I just being too patriotic?

Mike (01:14:42.406)
I mean, it's hard to say it's this, you know, one thing, but to me, it's the general thing of Kiwi's way back to, you know, well, Ginger Bloy, Kim Yukim and all those guys who did cool stuff of you, end of the world, and you deal with what you've got, the machinery, and if you haven't got it, you make it and you tune it and you, and also that feeds into your writing and your mindset of...

I want to get better and so I have to go to the other side of the world where it's all happening and you do it fearlessly. do it like, this is just what you do. It's accepted. It's not like a daunting thing. It's like, well, I've got myself this far. I've done it all by myself because there's not much help in New Zealand. And that self-reliance thing means you charge off into Europe or wherever you're going without any fear. You tear in and do the best you can.

And along the way, having done all the stuff yourself, you've got a fairly broad range of abilities, of skills. See, that's where Simon comes in. He's done a bunch of things, and that suits his role perfectly. I've done a few different things, it happens to have worked in my role quite well. So you end up with quite a broad experience, as opposed to being a specialist in only one thing, plus that fearlessly go to the other side of the world thing. I think the writers in the old days, that was it.

Angus Norton (01:16:10.466)
Yeah, the way you catch that is great. I'm with you on that. The generalist versus specialist. There's only two more questions and then we're done. What do you personally want to be remembered for on the paddock? I know that you're very humble where you talk, but I think you're really probably understating the impact you've had on the sport. Clearly you've had a huge impact on the sport and congratulations by the way on that.

It's a real honor to have you on. like, you know, to the extent you care about legacy, like how do you want to be remembered in the paddock for your contributions?

Mike (01:16:50.189)
Well, mean, the way I would hope that I, I mean, I see myself and I hope others do, I'd like be remembered as, as you know, calm, fair and reasonable. It's the way I try to go about the job. And this, yeah, I mean, that's it. That's it. But in that is a lot of background stuff. There's been a lot of details that we've had to get right to get to the point where, you know, I think our, our

race direction our organization is running really well and I'm proud to have got it to that point. It's been hard.

Angus Norton (01:17:25.974)
Mate, yeah, I mean, it's just such a beautiful sport. It's just a, it's such a beautiful sport, isn't it? Now you may not want to show bias here, but if I could ask you like, who's the one rider, you know, you could sit and watch race forever. Like you think about all the riders you've watched, he's probably more than one. Maybe it's not a fair question. Maybe there's two, but yeah.

Mike (01:17:46.471)
Yeah. But also to preface that is, you know, I've been here a lot of years. I'm still a fan. I still sit in race control getting all the camera angles going, wow, look at that. Did you see that? So yeah, love it. So to answer the favorite, I mean, it's just as like, wow, rider thing. If I can, if I can choose to go back a bit in history and it's, it's like Freddie at his best. Freddie at his peak was just doing stuff that

Angus Norton (01:17:53.44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Angus Norton (01:18:08.802)
Yeah, yeah, cheers, too.

Mike (01:18:15.406)
no one else was doing, pushing the front end and just incredible stuff. When he was really on top, and I know personally, so he's a cool guy, but watching him doing his thing is really cool. And a little bit later, Casey Stoner, he, one of probably the most naturally talented guys to win a championship I've ever seen. We talked a lot, because I was race director all through his career.

not always on the same page, we're often at each other a bit, but to see what he could do, especially on that Ducati when it wasn't very good, I just, it's staggering. I've got a quote for you from Ben Spees. When Ben was racing and he turned up and he was, his first year and he's on the factory Yamaha and he'd just come from, you know, Superbite and he's talking to him and he's saying, I think we're at Donington, wherever we were, whatever it was, he said,

Angus Norton (01:18:46.158)
Yeah.

Mike (01:19:13.025)
I said, how are you getting on? You know, you're like figuring out the MotoGP bike. And he said, yeah, yeah, it's not too bad. He said, I can follow a few of the really fast guys, Valentino, the guys who are fast. He said, can follow them around. And I'm not quite as good, but I can see what they're doing and I can see what I need to do. He said, but I follow Casey. I have no idea what he's doing. There's no way on earth that you can do that with a motorcycle. And that was Ben just saying. I can't understand it.

cases. It was special.

Angus Norton (01:19:42.946)
Yeah, mate, I share that Casey's for me still. It was great to see him getting involved a little bit this year with Bagni. I could see he had been chatting to him and giving him a bit of advice. And, you know, it's funny you mentioned Ben. So I had Kayla Yakov on the podcast and she is, you've heard of Kayla?

Mike (01:20:03.041)
yeah.

Angus Norton (01:20:06.382)
OK, yeah, so I'm going to have her on again soon. In fact, I'm doing coaching with her. I've got two days of her on the track. And this year, she's going to take me out. Yeah, she's going to coach me, which is pretty cool. But know, Ben Spears is involved in RAL Racing, which is the team she races for. They're a NASCAR background team. oh, man, she's incredible. would just, OK, I'm going to ask one more question. I'm sorry, shit. I'm going to ask it, because I've asked this a few times as well.

For me as an amateur, a motorcycle is gyroscope, right? And the gyroscope only wants to go in one direction and you can get coached and you can learn all this stuff. And yeah, sure, you've some core strength involved and you've got to have a strong mind. You've to have a plan. Do you think that the reason women have not broken through, per se, or even got a seat at a MotoGP level race is because of history and the sport?

or because of limitations. I'm not trying to sound, you know, I'm trying to be clear, like I think women can do anything, but like, I feel like she has a real shot and it's just, she's so good. And she's already podiuming, beating the men here in motor America. Do you have a point of view on why women haven't made it to the next level in racing? Like, you know,

Mike (01:21:24.909)
For me, it's very clear. It's my experience in you know, feeder series, the Spanish Championship, the Rookies Cup, Asia Talent Cup, all of that, that those riders having been given the chance to compete for a very long time, and the good ones get to the top and they're the good ones. And that's the same with...

Sorry, what I'm saying is that's why so many Spanish and Italian writers are in MotoGP because they've had the longest career path through all of that learning. And that's what's happened with women. They haven't had that career path. They're not either by themselves or not encouraged in years gone by to be motorcycle racists. It's not been a passion for very many women. Now you've got, know, Kayleigh, those people in Avalon I've known for years who came

races and are getting help and now there are younger girls coming in because they can see the, you know, oh wow, this is a cool thing and yes, I can do it. And it's just the maturity of that system where girls can start riding at the early age like boys do and come through the same system. And that's the only difference. They are as capable, they must be. But it's that long period of learning and it's, I'm talking to so many generations where, you know,

this one gets to this level and then the young one, hang on, I can go better. And it's that, it's just, it's the, it's the, yeah, it's the local, it's the local racing that isn't, hasn't been friendly to women for over too many years. And the more friendly it gets to women, the more we'll see.

Angus Norton (01:22:56.75)
generation. Yeah.

Angus Norton (01:23:09.178)
I think that's a really good way to end it because it's something I'm super passionate about. Well, mate, it's absolute honor. I I've got a small little podcast here and I don't do this for a living. It's something I do because I love just giving back to the sport. I love the sport and I love people to hear stories about how they got where they've gotten. And I think it's really easy for us to take for granted how we've gotten where we've gotten.

It's just great to chat and I hope the audience got some pearls of wisdom out of this. if you've got any closing comments, welcome to say them. If not, we'll end.

Mike (01:23:46.349)
I'm good and I just appreciate you. Congratulations to you. I mean, I do a few interviews over the course of my career and it's nice to have someone who asks questions that can elicit a sensible answer as opposed to just someone not knowing what they're talking about. So you make a big difference and thank you.

Angus Norton (01:24:07.2)
mate, thank you. Well, stay on, because I want to talk to you offline a little bit, and I'm going to stop recording.

Mike (01:24:13.006)
of it.