Raul Fernandez will return to the MotoGP grid for a third year aboard an Aprilia bike in 2025 but the Trackhouse Racing rider will be hoping something never happens again.
The Spaniard is enjoying his fourth season in the Premier League after last season. MotoGP Until today. Fernandez In 2024, he achieved a personal best of P16 at the Knights Championship.
Fernandez In 2022, as a rookie with satellite KTM team Tech3, he scored just 14 points to a P22 finish. Aprilia In the year Riding for satellite outfit RNF Cycling in 2023, which will be Trackhouse in 2023, he made a slight improvement by returning P20 with his 51 points.
Raul Fernandez regrets Aprilia upgrading his track house bike to 2024-spec RS-GP
However, while Trackhouse has continued to improve since taking over the RNF job, Fernandez believes Aprilia has put him and the American team on the back foot. The 24-year-old has struggled to keep his promise in the first half of the summer.
Fernandez entered the winter break sitting 14th in the riders’ standings after scoring seven points from the first 12 Grands Prix of the year. His form has also seen the track house sign a new contract with a 2025 MotoGP promise in the summer break.
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But with Fernández the only rider returning on an Aprilia bike for 2025, with factory pair Alejandro Espargaro retiring and Maverick Vinales joining Tech3 and trackhouse partner Miguel Oliveira joining Pramac, Aprilia has upgraded the Madrid native to a special bike for 2024.
Fernandez was the only Aprilia rider to start the 2024 season on a 2023-spec RS-GPB bike. But the track house will field two 2024-spec Aprilia bikes for Fernandes and Oliveira from the British Grand Prix in August. However, Fernandez will again hope not to change bikes mid-season.
“In the end, it was very difficult,” Fernandez said via quotes Crash. “We have not improved. Maybe we tried too many things and didn’t have much time for us. Therefore, we focused on improving the project and trying to understand many things.
“Last year I tried many, many things on the bike. I changed a lot, we tried, we had to understand a lot more. But, in the end, we didn’t understand anything. It’s disappointing. Yes, we understood many things, but in the end, I could not use them.
“So that’s the frustrating part. I don’t want to do this next year or in my life. I would like to repeat this. It’s hard to change all the bikes in the middle of the season.
“If you change small details, fine, but the bike is completely different. So, you need to change many things about your driving style. So it did us no good.
Riding an Aprilian 2024-spec MotoGP bike limited Raul Fernandez’s results.
It’s clear to see why Fernandez regretted Aprilia’s decision to upgrade from a 2023-spec to a 2024-spec RS-GP bike mid-season, as well as the decision to let the trackhouse rider lead most of their development work with the Italian for 2025. The other drivers of the team left.
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After taking points in seven consecutive races from the US Grand Prix to the German Grand Prix – including a season-best P6 at the Catalunya Grand Prix – the trackhouse driver failed to score in four races before marrying Fernandez. in four rows.
Although the 2025 Pramac rider missed five Grands Prix, Oliveira ended Fernandez’s season in P15 to see his rider stay 75 points ahead of him. Practice in Indonesia.
