Raúl Fernández was one of the highlights of the day in the MotoGP tests in Valencia and even led the time chart, although he finished fifth. The rider, at the helm of the 2023 bike, was very happy with his feelings.
Looking back on his day, #25 didn’t hide his excitement: ‘Incredible. I don’t know why but I felt super good. When I saw the lap time this morning and we started with the old bike, we immediately saw that we were more or less within the lap time, in terms of the rhythm of my race, but when I jumped on the new bike I started to be fast, fast, fast’.
He then explained why he stopped testing, and went on to praise Aprilia:
– I stopped because it was a complicated day in terms of temperature, we had a lot of wind. We had the opportunity to work with the soft tire. Jorge [Martín] used the medium but it wasn’t safe… Anyway, I am happy, the pace was much better, the feelings with the bike, the feedback I had with the front tire was fantastic. Overall, I feel very comfortable with the bike and I feel that Aprilia has worked very well with this bike. For me, it’s the right way, and we know what we need to do to improve, and from that point of view, I believe I gave them very good feedback for the work they have to do this winter and be ready for Sepang [Shakedown], because I think it will be interesting to try so many things.
Regarding the less positive points, Fernández added: ‘I don’t like it when I accelerate hard, we need to corner a little better because it’s very difficult to turn the bike hard but that’s not a big problem for me, but maybe that’s where we need to improve to be closer to Ducati. But this was what I saw as the worst point of the bike. Overall, I felt very good and the pace was there’.
