Pecco & Jorge's dynamics at the Australian GP
(me trying to put my "expert" 🤓 glasses on and overanalyzing what happened? more than likely. you're free not to read and just enjoy the gifs as well!)
Cool room in Australia
Preface would be to say that of course Jorge and Pecco have different dynamics. You could think that they don't regret no longer having a relationship, but their past friendship, and the fact that they have known each other well, probably played a role in how their championship rivalry is right now. There's no animosity, they joke and chat a lot.
We know Jorge to be very talkative, and pretty chatty, and as we could see in their previous interactions, he's often the one that talks the most whenever they're together, but Pecco listens to him, or even adds to the conversation, they often try to debrief their races together. What's more rare is the opposite of that happening, namely, Pecco talking the most and trying to engage the most, searching for Jorge's attention, which is something that I found to be happening in Australia's cool room.
As we can see in his gestures, Pecco is really trying to interact with Jorge here, he's trying to show him what happened to Marc, despite the fact that Marc is explaining it, he even makes hand and body gestures (which I found cute tbh).
He also tries to engage in the conversation. Jorge and Marc battled for most of the race, so they are very chatty with each other, which can be seen as unusual. Most of the time when Jorge and Pecco are together in a cool room, it can create a lot of thirdwheeling situation for the third person, but here it's far from the case. Hence Pecco trying to talk about himself and to take the focus, his body stays turned toward Jorge, and not toward Marc.
Here another example where Pecco intervened to also talk about his own race. His body is still slightly turned toward Jorge, and Jorge does pay attention to what he's saying.
And the last one about this cool room, where Pecco more explicitely shows that he's trying to get Jorge's attention, turning his head toward him as he's speaking and gesturing, and they truly talk for a bit (it's Jorge who says "it was incredible", not Pecco for example).
Now, Pecco could have ignored the talk or just shrugged it off, but he tried to monopolize the attention, and not just anyone's, but Jorge's. It's typically a case where their dynamics are reversed, and it really shows how they do still care about each other's, about interacting, despite "no longer having relationship".
Pre press conference (post race)
In terms of interactions, their relationship uses a lot of teasing, a lot of moments where they test the limit of whatever they call what they have now (I guess the most accurate would be rivalry as they fight for the championship, but it does feel weird when you compliment your rival H24 about his skills and else *side eyes at Jorge*).
The teasing is mostly done by Jorge, as he's more of an extrovert, but Pecco can also answer to it. In general, Pecco shows more of care about Jorge in the way he keeps information about him or his races. You can, however, see some longing in the way they act toward each other.
The way Jorge is so leaning forward, attentive to what Pecco is saying, and the way it makes them both smile and laugh about what they’re saying, is another example of how they get along well. You'd almost think that their friendship was never lost in those extracts, and yet it's two men who aren't supposed to be even friends.
It's debrief in a similar way that they couldn't do before. But we can see that Pecco still vividly remember what corner Jorge was wide, and Jorge just admits to it. In general from Jorge's gestures here, or even Pecco's gestures before, we can see that they're pretty expressive in terms of body language whenever they're talking (read: yapping) at each other. The conversation started with Marc, but it's an instance where he somehow ends up in the background while the both of them are focused mainly on each other. It also appears to me that Jorge is waiting for Pecco to be ready and then clap his hand (not his ass this time).
Press conference (post race)
So like we could establish before, they are seeking for the limits of the non relationship that they now have, but they also often try to reaffirm if the other still cares about them by asking questions, doing teasing, or simply interacting.
The next gifs show how they both are trying to tread on their relationship cautiously, to get some attention, in different ways. First Pecco and then Jorge.
The conversation starts between Jorge and Marc about where Jorge is going. We can see that Pecco is moving his head to try to see Jorge better but also to establish eyes contact with him. The fact Marc is in between them is a bit of an obstacle, we can also observe that he tries to talk first but only manages to ask his question after this. He stares pretty long at Jorge, his attention directly went to him, and to what he just said. (If I was going further, I'd say he almost stares at him longingly, waiting to be seen, waiting to be able to grab Jorge's attention and to redirect the conversation.)
It's an interesting scene as well. So first Pecco finally manages to ask his question and to get Jorge's attention. Then he says "careful hey" but when Jorge doesn't get it, and he even leans forward to listen to Pecco, showing his interest for him, Pecco changes what he said and tells him that he'll get there quickly. I've been trying to ponder on why he would change what he said, it's nothing scandalous, nothing that had to be changed. There's no apparent reason, so I'm going to mostly interpret it. The way he looks, a vacant look, makes it appear like he isn't thinking much about what he's saying, maybe that he didn't even mean to say that out loud. Him telling Jorge to be careful does seem like he cares about him, but it doesn't seem like it was his intention for it to be heard. When Jorge goes "huh?", Pecco's eyes immediately snaps to him, in an almost frantic manner and he blurts out something else, like he can't be this vulnerable to him. He doesn't know if he can be this vulnerable to him, admit so freely he cares, when he doesn't know where their relationship stands at.
Jorge is notably afraid of heights, and he confesses his fear of doing so. However I’m uncertain whether Pecco knows about it, as we don’t know when Jorge developed this fear and it could have been after their moto3 years. When he said he's scared of going by helicopter, Pecco doesn't seem to believe him, he seems to think he's teasing/mocking him, with the way he shakes his head in disbelief with a smile. With Jorge's body language, the way he's leaned forward, you can guess that he meant to tell that in particular to Pecco. He has no real reasons to go on about how he's scared of height, but with the way he's looking at Pecco, you can clearly think that he's trying to get a reaction out of him, to interact with him but also to see him show some concern. However with the tone with which he brings it, with humor, while slightly laughing to deflect it, as he doesn't want the topic to be too heavy, it also fails to convey seriousness to his words.
In this last bits of discussion, Jorge is very dramatic. He's playing on his own fear of heights within it. But he also chooses to use it in a way that he can bring back to what his current relationship with Pecco is composed of, namely the championship. So he asks Pecco if he'd die, would he let him win. We can see that Pecco is confused by the question, and Jorge details it by saying that he wouldn't race, and Pecco goes no! in a what are you even talking about kind of way, a smile on his face. Now you may wonder why Jorge is bringing that up. We've seen how earlier, he tried to get a reaction from Pecco, hoping for him to show some concern. It's somewhat similar here, it's almost a "do you still care about me enough" wrapped under jokes and dramatization. "Do I still count enough for you to let me win it if I die? Am I still in your thoughts and in your heart enough so that if something that dramatic would happen, taking away any chance of reconciliation, you'd do that for me?" The body language is also pretty interesting here. Although we can see Marc is in the middle of them, he is slighty out of it, as the conversation ended up being about the two of them. Jorge even adjusts his position so he can slightly turn his body, and his head is entirely turn to his left, eyes on Pecco. And Pecco's head is turned toward Jorge, with his eyes totally on him as well, and when he turns his head back in front of him, the conversation ends.
My take from all of this
Pecco and Jorge are of course pretty different in terms of personality. Despite it all, they were able of forming a strong bond during their years when they were teammates in moto3, although that friendship has withered through time. So how do you go from a time where they would even share a bed to one where they aren't even close? Jorge said that it's mainly because of the separation (so a probable lack of effort to bridge the gap).
I do find it a bit weird that it's supposedly the only cause, because I feel like you don't fall out this intensely from someone you used to get along so well, without something bigger happening.
Plus, we can see that even as of now, they still get along well. Despite the fact that they are rivals, they aren't hateful toward each other, they aren't annoyed by each other or getting pissed every weekend.
More than that, we can see that they interact a lot, talk a lot, debrief their races together, tend to make whoever is on the podium with them third wheel, and we can observe that they seek each other's attention, to the point where their dynamics can reverse, and what you'd expect less (Pecco taking the initiative, imposing himself in the conversation, trying to get Jorge to talk with him) happens as well.
They still care for each other; hints of bitterness or of fondness in their tones, teasing, jokes, trying to gauge where their relationship is at and if there are still some feelings, or not at all.
They really do seem like they're missing each other, but do not know how to overcome what their relationship has become, so they try to live with it, finding familiarity in the ways they can interact.
