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Aki Ajo is one of the most significant figures in the Grand Prix paddock. The Finnish manager has seen a long string of talent pass through his team on their way to greater success.

Ajo explained how he goes about identifying talent in the first part of this two-part interview. In the second part, he gives more insight into the process of building a winning team.

Ajo talks about how he nearly ended up working with Romano Fenati in 2017, and some of the factors which prevented it. Ajo also explains why he believes Moto2 is the toughest category in motorcycle racing, and the daunting challenge stepping up to the intermediate category can be.

The Finnish team manager also dives more deeply into the importance of a team, and surrounding a rider with the right pieces to help him get the best out of himself. 

With just ten days to go until the winter test ban comes in to force, on December 1st, teams in both world championships are busy doing their last tests and collecting as much data as possible to take into the winter break.

Testing is already happening on Monday, with some of the World Superbike teams gathering in Jerez. Kawasaki, the SMR Aprilia squad, Althea BMW, and Ten Kate (soon to be Red Bull) Honda are at the Jerez circuit, though the wet weather means there is little going on on track.

Ten Kate are without Nicky Hayden, who has twisted his knee while practice dirt track. The WorldSBK teams are due to stay for a couple more days, and will hope that the better weather forecast for later in the week arrives sooner rather than later.

Episode 37 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and covers the fantastic racing at the British GP in Silverstone. Helping us dissect through all the racing news, we have Neil MorrisonScott Jones, Steve English, and David Emmett on the mics, giving their great insights from their trackside perspective.

Obviously a good bit of time is spent on the show talking about Maverick Vinales and Suzuki Racing’s first win back in the MotoGP Championship. The guys also talk about Cal Crutchlow’s new-found form on the LCR Honda, giving an insight into how both of these racing machines have evolved over the season.

We also can’t talk about the British GP without discussing the hard racing between Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi, with the embers between the two riders clearly getting fanned into some flames at Silverstone.

The show wraps up with some talk from the Moto2 and Moto3 classes, which were just as eventful as what was happening in MotoGP. All in all, we think you will find it a very interesting show.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on FacebookTwitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

This is truly a golden age of motorcycle racing. The Silverstone race was proof of that. A stunning contest, with positions fiercely fought over. A new winner added to MotoGP’s pantheon.

Five riders doing battle over second place, including some of the greatest riders of their respective generations. Bikes from four different factories in the top six.

And Silverstone is hardly unique this season. 2016 has seen two different satellite riders win races. It has seen seven different winners this season, and the last seven races each won by a different rider.

It has seen relative newcomers win, and seasoned veterans win. 2016 is the culmination of a long period of rich results, with four riders all capable of winning on any given day over the past four or five years. Margins of victory have never been tighter, nor has the gap between the front and the back of the grid.

This cornucopia is not just in the premier class. Racing is returning to Moto2, after a drought of processional contests. Moto3 is overflowing with young talent, with rookies quickly challenging the older guard, who are in turn off to fatten the field in Moto2 next year.

At Silverstone, the Moto2 race was hard fought between a small group of riders, with incidents that had serious long-term effects on the championship. The Moto3 class produced a customary thriller, Silverstone’s long straights and high winds making escape impossible, but making staying out of trouble imperative.

The year of weird weather continues. After a fine Friday, and a foggy but dry start to Saturday, the rain moved in during practice for Moto2, and increased in intensity for qualifying, varying on and off during MotoGP FP4 and then the two qualifying sessions.

Tomorrow will most likely be dry, though there are threats of a very light rain at various points throughout the day.

Then again, we are at Silverstone in September. It can be hot and sunny, or cold, wet, and windy, sometimes all on the same day. But, add a wet qualifying to the rain in Assen, the Sachsenring, and Brno, and the weather is having a serious effect on the championship. Saturday was no exception.

With FP4 wet, the MotoGP grid lost its main practice session, where the teams work solely on the race without worrying about whether they would get through to Q2 or not. But the session was useful nonetheless. Michelin had brought three different front wet tires, and a couple of wet compounds for the rear.

Aragon was a busy time for the riders and managers in all three Grand Prix classes. Wrapping up contract negotiations before the circus heads east for the Pacific Ocean flyaways was high on the list of priorities, though not everything ended up getting sorted before the teams packed up at Aragon. Plenty of agreements were reached, however, as we shall see below.

Though most of the loose ends have been tied up in MotoGP, a few question marks remain. The Aspar team was one of those question marks, which came much closer to a conclusion at Aragon.

The original plan was to have Jack Miller join the team, bringing his crew with him, and covering most of the cost of riding, but various obstacles prevented that from happening.

Money was a major factor, in part the amount Aspar were willing to pay to have Miller in their team, but perhaps a bigger factor was being left with Hondas.

The Open class Hondas have both been a huge disappointment for all of the teams that have run them. The 2014 RCV1000R was massively underpowered, and was getting blown away by the factory bikes along the straight.

To remedy that situation, Honda offered the RC213V-RS, a cheaper version of the factory RC213V, but without the seamless transmission and using the spec electronics.

That bike has also not been competitive, perhaps in part because it is a stripped down version of the original. “This bike was designed to use a seamless gearbox,” Nicky Hayden explained last weekend. “You can’t get the best out of it without one.”