Raúl Fernández equalled his best result of the year at Mugello and appears to be regaining confidence after a difficult start to the season.
Raul Fernandez Is he starting to get his head above water? Having been very far down the standings since the start of the season, the Spanish driver had a bright spot at the French Grand Prix, with his first two top 10 finishes of the season, before experiencing another complicated weekend at Silverstone. Two weeks later, he scored two more top 10 finishes at Aragon before having a good day of testing the following day.
The momentum continued in Italy, despite a crash on Friday that left him with arm pain. He finished 14th on the day, but made it through Q1 on Saturday to qualify 11th, before finishing eighth in the sprint race.
This Sunday, despite having missed his start and dropping back to 14th place, he gradually climbed the rankings, reaching seventh position just before the halfway point. Taking advantage of Franco Morbidelli's long lap penalty, he even moved up to sixth for three laps, before being overtaken again by the Italian.
In the end, the Trackhouse rider equaled his best result of the season by securing seventh place. This boosted his confidence after a difficult start to the season, and just before the Dutch GP, which will take place this weekend. "I'm really happy! The pace was good, but on the first lap, I was still 15th. We have to find a solution for the start. After that, I felt we could fight and it was easy to compete with the other manufacturers.", did he declare.
“After Friday’s crash, I had a strange feeling in my arm and the last ten laps were quite difficult to manage. I tried to salvage the result and I think, without the pain, I had the pace to fight with Franco Morbidelli for the top six. I’m really happy with this result after all the difficulties I had at the beginning of the season. Also, this race gives me a lot of confidence for the future. At the moment, I’m probably using 6% of the bike since the upgrades arrived, so I need a little more time to adapt to all the changes and get the most out of them. Aprilia is working very well and we’re moving in the right direction.”
Results Grand Prix of Italy :
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
