Let's Talk About It

A sports fans attempt at putting into words all of the stories she loves coming out of F1, MotoGP and sometimes more

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  • The Dark Side of MotoGP’s Shifting Landscape

    By Victoria Taylor

    Over the last few months there have been significant complaints from much of Grand Prix motorcycle racing’s existing fanbase about the potential changes Liberty Media and Dorna Sports have been making to the sport. Things like changing championship counts, potential requirement to wear the number one plate as champion and making the riders stand for the national anthem have been ripped apart with allegations surrounding a lack of respect for the sports culture and history in an attempt to water it down and broaden the appeal for Formula one’s fanbase. 

    While these discussions have some level of merit it’s not what I want to talk about today because it has been acting as something of a smokescreen for a much more insidious issue that the commercialisation of the sport could bring about. For me, and I imagine many others, the awful Moto3 crash between Noah Dettwiler and Jose Antonio Rueda ripped off any and all blinders in the worst way possible. Is the watering down of sporting culture really that important when the rider’s health might be being put at risk for money?

    There are two main issues I’m going to be discussing here which have arisen from the accident at the Malaysian GP: the removal of Moto2 and Moto3 warmups and the content first mentality demonstrated on the Sunday. While there are still other safety issues which need resolved within the sport these two are directly related to attempts at expansion with a commercial incentive driving it. 

    To begin with the issue of the removal of the Moto2 and Moto3 warmups in favour of holding a MotoGP riders parade that benefits precisely no one. This isn’t exactly a new concept with the warmups having been gotten rid of at the start of 2022 and rider parades having happened on occasion since as early as 2014 but it is one that has become significantly more prominent, it is also one that is looked at in a very negative light. While none of the riders have stated it outright there have been suggestions recently that the increased demands on the MotoGP riders themselves during a weekend outside of racing related activities could end up being to a significant detriment to their ability to rest, focus and race well. 

    “I mean, always they are asking more, more and more, and someday will explode, let’s say,”1 is one such quote given by Marc Marquez, a man who is a highly respected veteran of the sport and has been openly against many of the more recent changes it has been experiencing. 

    While there is concern about how safe putting such a strain on the older riders is; the main point of danger here is with the lower classes and the young kids that populate them who are no longer being given a chance to test their bikes or the track conditions before they race.

    The Moto3 crash at Sepang was caused by Rueda hitting into Dettwiler’s back at high speeds while the young Swiss rider was riding slowly and attempting to pull off the track due to technical issues he was having with his bike and both of them had to be taken directly to hospital with Dettwiler being in critical condition for a period of days. 

    A warm-up session during race days allows for the riders to test out the functioning of their bikes, make sure everything is working as it should, make last moment set-up changes and get used to any differences post-qualifying in a way that’s more similar to a racing lap than the singular sighting lap at the start of the race which often requires specific management. 

    There is, obviously, no guarantee that the issues that occurred with Dettwiler’s bike would have been spotted during a warm-up but it is rather likely that him and his team would have at least suspected that something is off; if the riders had been given the extra track time on Sunday the crash might have been able to have been avoided entirely and we wouldn’t have two heavily injured twenty year olds. The presence of warm-ups cannot always prevent in race technical issues or crashes from happening but they do significantly reduce risks and every risk reduction measure that can be taken should be when dealing with the potential of these riders losing their lives because it has not been. 

    The second issue is what I referred to earlier as a ‘content first mentality’. What I mean when I use this phrase is the order of priorities that is obvious when those in charge of running a race weekend decide to hold a Moto3 race straight after a bad crash and make these riders compete without knowing whether or not their friends and gridmates are even going to be alive by the time that they have crossed the finish line. 

    Instead of taking into account the clear lack of focus that the younger riders would have which increases further crash risk as well as the no doubt detrimental effects racing in such a situation would have on their mental health it was decided that it was more important to have a Moto3 race with a podium and a winner for fans to watch despite the seasons champion being in hospital. 

    Of course some level of consideration should be taken for the organisers in that these weekends take a lot of work to run and it is difficult to make last moment changes but the aftermath from the crash meant that changes were having to be made anyway in the form of Moto2 being moved later in the day in order to allow the main MotoGP race to run at the correct time. The more reasonable and considerate move here would have been to, at a minimum, run the Moto2 race before the MotoGP as was originally intended and reschedule the Moto3 for afterwards though it would have been preferable if they did not run it at all.

    Increased safety in the sport benefits everyone; the rider’s in obvious ways, the fans because it is a heartbreaking tragedy when bad crashes occur and the people right at the top which want to expand the sport. Liberty Media and Dorna should be aware that the main reason I’ve received from fans of car racing and Formula One for not wanting to watch MotoGP is how scary and frequent crashes are and the levels of injury that the rider’s often receive. If expanding the sports reach is the goal then compromising safety standards like they have been is only going to be counterproductive. 

    1. The quote is sourced from a Crash article by Lewis Duncan dated 15th September 2025

  • Canadians vs Krakens: A Rookie Fan’s NHL Debut

    By Victoria Taylor

    If you’re into Hockey then you probably know that the NHL has recently started back for the 2025-2026 season. That fact is, for the first time ever, relevant to this particular sports fan because I’ve decided that this is going to be the year that I get into hockey curtesy of free tickets to a local game that got me immediately hooked on the sport. The grace of the players skating contrasted by the violence of the game and the insane speeds they play at; anybody would fall victim.

    My first step into the world of the NHL was to learn the basics of the game. If you’ve ever tried to watch a sports match from scratch you know how confusing they can be, I’ve found that things are a lot more fun if you know what’s happening.

    Let me tell you what I’ve learnt so far. The first thing you need to learn when getting into Ice Hockey is the structure of the games, they happen in three twenty-minute sections but don’t let that fool you they can run for up to three hours between stoppages mid-section, breaks in-between and possible overtime play. Speaking of overtime, there are three different ways in which it’s played to ensure that a game doesn’t end in a tie. They begin by adding an extra five minutes to the clock which ends when one team scores a goal and wins the game, if neither team scores they move to a best of three penalty shoot-out and if they are still on equal points after that then it goes to a sudden death shot, the first team to get a goal in wins.

    Other than the structure of the games I found it helpful to have some basic knowledge of the penalty systems and the different things the refs might call that cause stoppages in the game. There are a fairly wide variety of things that can get players sent to the penalty box so for the sake of simplicity I’m going to address how they work rather than listing every infraction. A player can be given a minor or a major penalty depending on how dangerous the referees view their action on the ice to have been; a minor penalty has the player in question sitting out for two minutes of gameplay while a major penalty caries a duration of five minutes. The time during which a player is off the ice is known as a ‘power play’ for whichever side isn’t down a man because they have a numbers advantage over the other team.

    There were two main calls that I heard a lot throughout my first NHL game and found myself grateful to have learned about in advance of watching, those were ‘offside’ and ‘icing’. An Offside is called when a player crosses one of the dividing lines into a new section of the ice before the puck does, so long as they are not in control of the puck at the time. Icing is when a player in the defensive zone shoots the puck up the ice and past the opposing teams goal line without it being intercepted. When either of these calls are made the game is paused and there is another face off for possession.

    While there’s a lot more for me to learn about how the sport works as I get into it this season those basics are enough to get the idea of what is happening while watching a game. So, with my newfound knowledge, I decided that it was time to actually try watching an NHL game… which was not as easy as I had been telling myself.

    There are often times multiple games being played at the same time, so I had to decide which one I wanted to watch. I imagine for long-term fans of the league this is an easy decision as they watch whatever game their favourite team is playing in but I don’t have a favourite team yet. I do, however, have a shortlist of potential favourite teams that I am currently audition before making a final commitment. One of these teams are the Krakens who were playing at 2am EEST (the other option was a 5am game) so I found a streaming platform and set myself up for a late night of sports.

    I was starting to get tired before the game even started but I was determined that I was going to give this a go, I had begun to fall in love with the game of Hockey during the few weeks beforehand and I really wanted to finally see a game at the highest level of the sport. I put the pre-match show on to keep myself awake and excited and was immediately smacked in the face with the difference in sporting culture that exists between American sports and European sports.

    Let’s start off with the positives of the pre-match content; they interviewed both the Krakens new coach and a few of the players which was a really cool way to get more of a view of the team culture and their thoughts heading both into the match and the season as a whole, the music choices are brilliant for building up hype and the intro for the Krakens is insanely cool, the teams theming in general is really well done. The commentators on the show were very complimentary about the other team while still backing their guys which was nice to see but I imagine doesn’t always happen like in any sport.

    Now for the less pleasant culture shock I experienced; in the span of about half an hour there were at least four commercial breaks which were a few minutes long each and cut into the middle of the build-up of energy pre-game. It was really hard to get into what was happening and what they were saying when they stopped what felt like every five minutes. I had heard of commercial breaks before going into watching a game but in no way did I expect them to have the level of prevalence that they do.

    When the first period of the match itself began my immediate thought was “Holy Shit, that’s so fast” these players are moving up and down the ice at lightning quick speeds and it can be really hard to follow what’s going on when you begin watching because of it. The level of skill that the game takes to play was immediately obvious to me as was the reason it’s valued so far above any other international hockey league.

    My next thought was how amazing it must be to watch the game in person, to feel the atmosphere, to see them close up, how the players move and their skates on the ice. It’s certainly been put on my bucket list to attend an NHL game at some point in my life and, fan of the game or not, I think it should be something that’s on everybody else’s as well.

    Unfortunately for me the Montreal Canadians appear to be a good team and the first period was less than ideal for the Krakens with the Canadians scoring a goal within the first five minutes of the game. I did note, however, that the Kraken’s defence game seemed quite impressive, especially their goalie Joey Daccord who is currently sitting in seventh place regarding overall statistics for the 2025-2026 season. The majority of the ice time in the first period was spent in the Kraken’s defensive zone and there were several shots taken at and blocked by Daccord.

    There was a break taken between playing the first and second period as is typical in Hockey games during which my exhaustion fully hit me as it was around 3am in the morning; existing European NHL fans I salute you because staying up for these games is not easy.

    Maybe it was my state of tiredness, maybe it’s just being new to the sport but after the second period of the game started up I had entirely forgotten that the two teams had swapped sides of the ice and was consequently confused as to why the commentators were saying there had been an improvement in the Kraken’s game before I remembered. When I did realise it was shortly before the Krakens scored their first goal of the game which I celebrated appropriately sedately for the time of night, and which tied them up with the Canadians.

    The tie up did not last for long as the Canadians scored a second goal on the Krakens during the first half of this period which was received very loudly and excitedly by the home crowd. I think that there must be something special in a home game over an away game with the roaring support of a crowd filled with fans of the team on familiar ice.

    There were not any more goals made before that halfway point of the game was reached and they took yet another commercial break. I am slightly ashamed to tell you that this is about as far through the match as I made it; it was 3:30am, the team I was watching for looked set to lose the game and I had university the next day. While I am glad for the extra sleep I gained I must admit that when I saw the next morning that the game was tied up and went into overtime I was slightly regretful I did not stay up to watch it play out as it sounded like an exciting ending to the match up.

    The parts of the game that I did manage to watch I found exciting and enjoyable enough that I have every intention to continue my endeavours of learning about Ice Hockey and becoming a fan of the NHL. In fact there is a game on Friday morning (EEET) between the Avs and the Blue Jackets which I will try my utmost to watch the entire way through as I ‘interview’ another team on my quest to find a favourite.

    If you were thinking about getting into Ice Hockey, whether it be your local league or the NHL, then let this be your sign to give watching a game a go. I think you’ll find the sport just as compelling as I have thus far.

  • Alex Dunne and Fionn McLaughlin; Ireland at The Highest Level of Motorsports

    By Victoria Taylor

    The last Irish driver to run a race in Formula One was Eddie Irvine. Born in Northern Ireland in 1965 Irvine was placed far from the ideal conditions to succeed in a notoriously elitist and nepotism driven sport like Formula one. Despite this he found his way into the sport and stayed there for a decade, at the height of his career driving for Ferrari alongside Michael Schumacher and coming runner up in the 1999 World Championship to Häkkinen.

    The situation in Ireland, especially in the North has improved from Irvine’s day but until this point we still have not seen another driver from the country compete at the highest level of motor racing. Ireland is small and has very little infrastructure in regard to things like training academies and tracks that allow children to get into karting competitively. To have any shot young talents must go to England or even further afield.

    On top of that the island has its financial struggles. The North’s economy depends largely on supplementary payments from the English government while much of the South’s industry is controlled by large American corporations. This means that young aspiring Irish drivers do not come with the same level of inbuilt monetary support and attractive investment from their home nation that other drivers often receive to help bolster their careers.

    Despite that Ireland has its own longstanding traditions in motorsports from TT racing to sports cars to rally racing and a loyal fanbase that have an immense amount of national pride and support to throw behind the young drivers looking to represent their country on an International stage.

    Recently these fans have been given new hope to see their countries talent on the biggest stage of all for the first time since Irvine. This hope comes in the form of Alex Dunne, who made his F1 debut during Practice at the Austrian GP this year and Fionn McLaughlin who won the British F4 title this year and has recently been announced to be driving for HiTech in Formula 3 for the 2026 season.

    Dunne is nineteen years old and from Offaly in the South of the Island. His climb up the ladder of single seater racing truly started in 2022 when he competed in and won the British F4 championship, he them competed in GB3 during the 2023 season where he finished runner-up with five wins to his name before progressing to Formula 3 with MP Motorsports. Dunne’s 2024 season was largely unremarkable with him finishing 14th overall in the driver’s standings, however, a few key moments such as a podium in the Barcelona sprint and a front row start in Spa were enough to convince Rodin Motorsports to promote him to Formula 2 for the 2025 season.

    It has been this F2 season that has really seen Dunne’s name become known in the wider motorsport’s community outside of just feeder series fanatics and Die-hard Irish fans. The nineteen-year-old won his second ever Feature length race in Sakhir with an eight second lead and quickly followed it with a second win in Imola after starting fifth which put him in the lead of the championship. It was immediately clear that Dunne was inherently fast and would be in contention for the title over the course of the season. Despite this his raw speed was tempered by several different racing incidents and a reputation gain for being ‘irresponsible’ after a ten-place grid penalty for an incident in Monaco followed by a ten second race penalty at Spa only a few races later.

    Even after the incident in Monaco Dunne, at the time a McLaren development driver, was offered the opportunity to make his F1 debut on the Friday of the Austrian GP during FP1. If you’re in the motorsports world and didn’t know his name before that session then you certainly knew it afterwards.

    The rookie managed to take fourth place during the session, only a tenth of a second behind the time of current championship leader Oscar Piastri, this is highly unusual. Normally during these rookie sessions we expect to see the stand-in drivers somewhere towards the back of the pack as far as timing goes, focusing on data collection and helping with set-up while gaining experience rather than doing fast laps. Alex Dunne’s P4 caught the eye of the racing world for its rarity as well as garnering praise both from McLaren team members and Lando Norris, the driver whose car he was borrowing.

    Most recently Dunne and McLaren have announced that they will be parting ways. This is a decision that makes sense for both parties as McLaren currently have two strong, young drivers capable of fighting for a WDC in their F1 team and there is unlikely to be a possible seat there for Dunne within the next few years, in fact it is a similar move to the one made by current Stake Sauber F1 driver Gabriel Bortoleto who is also ex-McLaren.

    There has yet to be an announcement from Dunne’s camp as to what the young driver will be doing going forward from the split, but we should be able to anticipate something exciting as he has shown a lot of pure pace and promise over the last season which has attracted a lot of positive interest within the paddock. Current rumours place Dunne’s future in the hands of the Red Bull programme which has quite the reputation both for success and brutality but could end up a good fit for a driver building a name based on both speed and aggression.

    Whether he ends up with a shot at an F1 seat, as a reserve for the year or participating in a second season of F2 with a different junior academy I think it’s safe to say we’re all excited to see what comes next for Alex Dunne.

    The path of our other young talent is, for the time being, a bit more clearly laid out as he follows in Dunne’s footsteps. At the start of last year Fionn McLaughlin was signed by Red Bull’s Junior Academy and competed in both the Formula Winter Series and the British F4 Championship with Hitech both of which he was extremely successful in. He finished the Formula Winter series in third place with three wins and six podiums in twelve races, he also took the rookie cup. However, it has been his British F4 debut which has drawn more attention.

    McLaughlin came into the series with a boom finishing an amazing P2 in his first race in the class, which also happened to be his first ever race out of karts, which he then followed up by podiums in the 3rd, 4th and 6th races of the season. The Irish driver had achieved his first pole position in British F4 by race seven and his first win by race nine. By the end of the season Mclaughlin had racked up five different race wins, 14 podiums and 363.5 points over the course of thirty races. This won him both the overall championship with two races to spare and the rookie championship.

    A keen eye might note that both in his British F4 championship and in his Formula Winter Series challenge McLaughlin was on the podium for roughly half of the races that he competed in during the 2025 season. Between this impressive statistic, and his championship winning performance for their British F4 team, Hitech were impressed enough to offer the young talent a chance to drive from them in Formula 3 for the 2026 season.

    Competing on F1 tracks, during F1 weekends is a big opportunity for any young driver; it draws a lot more eyes to their careers and with this comes more support and sponsorship opportunities which are essential to continuing to climb up the ladder as well as allowing for gaining experience with the tracks themselves and the structure and business of an F1 race weekend.

    Formula Three will certainly be a challenging move for Mclaughlin but it is also the first true step on his potential path to F1. Going straight from a national Formula 4 series to international Formula 3 certainly isn’t an easy job but it can, and has, been done with success in the past. Formula One’s own Ollie Bearman made a similar move with great success, though he was coming from Italian F4 which is generally considered a more competitive series. Nonetheless it is proof that the move can be done if the driver in question has talent to the level which is necessary to make it all the way up to F1, in that way Mclaughlin’s performance in the championship next year will be very telling of where his upper-ceiling might be.

    Of course, a driver’s own talent isn’t always everything when it comes to championship campaign but in Feeder series like F3 and F2 where the cars are built to be the same it is an extremely large factor. Mclaughlin’s team, Hitech, largely had a rough 2025 season with their highest finishing driver by a mile being Martinius Stenshorne in P5. Stenshorne did manage both a sprint race and a feature race win during the season which was evidently enough to secure him a F2 seat with Rodin Motorsports for next season. It would be prudent to suspect that Mclaughlin will be looking for similar results and a similar promotion.

    It is clear that after some time without any significant representation in Formula racing that Ireland now has a real shot with their two young talents but F1 is often more than just a competition of talent, as much a game of luck and timing (and of money) as it is anything else. So I wish both drivers the best of luck with their careers going forward, and I like many others hope to see them on the highest stage of all in the near future.

  • Hello World!