Raúl Fernández remains discreet but has achieved another top 10 finish in Japan and now hopes to do even better.
Raul Fernandez has been quietly evolving within the Aprilia clan, but is gradually gaining momentum. While Marco Bezzecchi has established himself as leader, Jorge Martín has grabbed the spotlight with his return after months of injury, and Ai Ogura has had a thunderous start to the season, the Spanish rider hasn't made any big splashes but is increasingly appearing in the top 10.
This weekend in Japan, he secured his spot in Q2 on Friday, then qualified tenth before finishing eighth in the sprint race on Saturday. After a good start on Sunday, he gained two positions and finished the race in eighth place, before finally crossing the line in seventh position due to a mistake by Pedro Acosta in front.
He thus equaled his second-best result of the season, after his top-5 finish in Brno. The key, according to him? Having finally moved up a gear in qualifying, even if he now wants even more. “After my crash on Friday morning, my team reacted very quickly to get the bike ready for Practice and for me to secure this direct entry into Q2. This was one of the key points of this weekend and we will try to do the same in Indonesia.”, did he declare
"We need to understand how we can be a little further ahead in qualifying, because if we gain two or three places on the grid, we might be able to do it in the race as well. I think we did a good job. I'm very happy. We once again demonstrated our good work from the weekend in the race."
"We saw that we had the potential to fight for these kinds of positions and I felt very comfortable during the race. Especially at the halfway point, I felt I had a bit more than Álex [Márquez] and I tried to close the gap, but when I found myself three or four tenths behind, it was difficult to close the gap," he continued.
Results Grand Prix of Japan 2025 :
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
