After a long day this Tuesday, during the Official Test in Barcelona, Raúl Fernández appeared greatly relieved in front of the media to testify to the progress made by Aprilia throughout this day of testing, while he was the only rider from Noale not to discover the bike for the first time.
After the departures of Maverick Viñales and Miguel Oliveira, and the retirement of Aleix Espargaro, only Raúl Fernández (Trackhouse Racing) will continue the adventure with Aprilia in 2025. This Tuesday, it was therefore for Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi to discover their new machine, they who have until now only ridden Ducati in MotoGP. Ai Ogura was to discover MotoGP in general, he who has just been promoted to the premier class after his title in Moto2.
During this day of testing, which lasted from 10:00 to 17:00, Raúl Fernández was the only one who could compare the progress of his machine. The Spaniard worked a lot on the disturbing aspects of his RS-GP, and in particular the electronics. On the evening of the Barcelona Test, he arrived in front of the media with a smile on his face, and the satisfaction of having solved some problems.
"To be honest, now I'm destroyed, confides the latter after a day of work. It was a very positive day overall. We didn't have a spare [RS-GP] 25 in the box, so we focused a lot on the 23 and 24 with a lot of stuff. For me, the 2024 was a little bit better, but we tried a lot of things on the bike. We worked a lot on the electronics during the day, it was the worst for me in the last two years.
Today, at the end, I felt something different with the bike, continues Raul Fernandez. I feel like I can use my riding style more with the electronics, and that's one of the good points of today. Of course, in the future we'll still have problems with the electronics, but now we've found a base that we can use on almost all circuits. A base to work on. It was a very important day."
©Michelin
While his collaboration with the Noale factory took on another dimension at the end of the season, when it became official that the latter was the only one to keep his seat with Aprilia, Raúl Fernández says he is confident for the future. The debut of Fabiano Sterlacchini in the team, as new technical director, also reassures him a lot.
"Now we have two or three people in the box, it was good to see them, especially on my side of the garage. So I'm happy with their arrival, adds Raúl Fernández. For me it was a very positive day. After the race on Sunday I was destroyed, and I was in my bed trying to cry like a child. But anyway, I can tell you that we have improved a lot with the electronics. I see something different, and I think that in the future, with Fabiano, we can improve even more."
“I don’t know the 2025 bike. I didn’t see anything, I didn’t talk to them. I was very, very focused on myself. I was trying to focus on the electronics to find something.” concludes the Trackhouse Racing driver before winter.
