Trackhouse Racing faced a tough weekend at the 16th round of the MotoGP World Championship, held at the Motegi Circuit in Japan. With variable weather and a challenging track, riders Raul Fernandez and Lorenzo Savadori, who was called in last-minute to replace Miguel Oliveira, encountered difficulties throughout the event.
For Lorenzo, he had to take his time adapting to the track, combined with a different setup on the bike, which proved to be a complex task. However, the Italian made some progress during the free practice sessions, staying close to his teammate. Raul Fernandez struggled with the setup of his Aprilia, and despite a strong recovery in qualifying, he failed to break into the top 10.
Davide Brivio, Trackhouse Racing’s Team Principal, expressed his frustration with the weekend: ‘Sunday has not been a good day for us. Unfortunately, we had an issue with Lorenzo – some problems on the bike forced him to retire. Raul was never able to keep the pace that we could have achieved and it looks like we couldn’t put power on the ground. We did not have enough performance for whatever reason, so the race was very difficult for him, which is a pity’.
The italian then pointed his focus on the next round: ‘Anyway, we scored a point and now we’re looking forward to the next round in Australia. In the meantime, we need to check what happened on both sides of the garage – Lorenzo’s issue and why Raul couldn’t perform as we thought he could, so we can try to be better prepared for Phillip Island’.