MotoGP, Indonesia Day 3, Raúl Fernández (Aprilia/6) responds to Luca Marini: "He was the one who made a mistake"

Raúl Fernández did not hide his disagreement with Luca Marini, who considers him responsible for their contact during the race.

Raul Fernandez had his best Grand Prix in Indonesia since joining MotoGP in 2022. Qualifying on the front row, he secured the first podium of his career in a sprint race and hoped to repeat his performance on Sunday, in the main race, or at least to fight for it.

The scenario played out perfectly at the start. Despite a start that cost him two places, he quickly returned to fourth place, and waited in ambush, while Luca Marini tried to attack Pedro Acosta just in front of him. On lap 14, Fernandez tried his luck by overtaking Marini, but the latter responded and the two men ended up touching. The Italian lost big by dropping back to eighth position, while the Spaniard found himself fifth.

Ultimately, he was unable to overtake his rivals and finished in sixth position, overtaken at the end by Brad Binder and Marini, who returned to the front, while Álex Rins dropped down the rankings. During the post-race debriefings, Marini considered that the error came from Fernández, calling his maneuver a "not very intelligent", although he acknowledged that it was a racing incident.

For his part, number 25 gave his own version of events and disapproved of the Honda rider. "I think it was Luca who made a mistake because I had overtaken him well, but when he tried to pass me again, he immediately moved the bike and went inside. I hadn't even finished changing direction when we touched, and I lost two places. If, instead of overtaking me or changing line, he had let me pass at that moment, he would have stayed behind me. I think I could have overtaken Pedro or, at least, tried by setting my own pace.", did he declare.

"We need to find a way to get more power to improve overtaking. I'm not totally happy, because the race pace was quite slow and I think we had more up our sleeve. In the end, I couldn't overtake. I tried to be very clean, but Luca changed line and I didn't have room to change, so we touched."

Necessarily, Raul Fernandez could not be satisfied with this result after his podium the day before, but still confirmed the good dynamic he has been in for several Grands Prix. "It's MotoGP and sometimes small details make the difference, but you don't know what would have happened without that. I'm still happy, because I gave it my all but, honestly, I expected a little more after yesterday," he concluded.

2025 Indonesian Grand Prix Results :

Classification credit: MotoGP.com