Raul Fernandez: Best Aprilia rider in second place after ‘electronics disaster’

The winner of the last MotoGP Sprint at Assen had a brilliant first day on the 3.67 km Sachsenring circuit. Only Marc Marquez was 0.166 seconds faster than Raul Fernandez at the end of qualifying – making the Spaniard the strongest of the four Aprilia riders. However, they all put in strong performances – Bezzecchi, Martin and Ogura also took their RS-GP bikes straight through to the second qualifying session. Remarkably, things had gone even better in free practice. The Madrid-born rider was faster than Sachsenring king Marc Marquez – taking P1 in FP1.

And yet, despite finishing second, Fernandez was only partially satisfied. The Trackhouse rider had to go into some detail to explain why: “Of course I’m happy that I made it safely into Q2. But that doesn’t paint the true picture after Day 1. I had confidence in the bike over a single lap – but not over four or five. And that’s what it will come down to – the pace was anything but satisfactory.”

Fernandez: Bester Aprilia-Pilot zum Auftakt des Deutschland-GP

Foto: Gold & Goose

Raul Fernandez continued: “My problem started this morning. I had a rear tyre that wasn’t working very well. But we initially tried to sort it out via the electronics. Then, when we had a new tyre in qualifying, the set-up was completely off – an electronics disaster that, above all, cost us a lot of time. I’m very grateful that my team is able to get to grips with something like this, but it was still a real problem. At one point it was so bad, I didn’t know if I could even ride a MotoGP bike anymore.”

Looking ahead to Saturday’s sprint race, however, Fernández remained calm. “We’ve lost a lot of time – but my team will now be able to get the right things sorted for Saturday. If that works out – then we’ll be in a position to fight for a place on the podium here too.”

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Yet even the Madrid-born rider, currently sixth in the World Championship, acknowledged the Marquez factor: “The fact is, though, that Marc is a step ahead of us all. Our aim is to get as close to him as possible. Beating him here seems impossible at the moment.”

Raul Fernandez’s chances of improving his position in the World Championship standings are therefore likely to be limited. Ahead of the race at the Sachsenring, the customer Aprilia rider lies 15 points behind world champion Marc Marquez and 30 points behind his team-mate Ai Ogura, who finished a creditable sixth in qualifying at the Sachsenring.