Raul Fernandez was one of the highlights of the day at the MotoGP tests in Valencia and even topped the timesheets, despite finishing fifth. The rider, at the wheel of the 2023 bike, was very happy with his feelings.
Analysing his day, the #25 didn’t hide his enthusiasm: ‘Incredible. I don’t know why but I felt great. 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 my race pace, but when I jumped on the new bike I started to be fast, fast, fast’.
He then went on to explain why he stopped testing, followed by praise for Aprilia:
– I stopped because it was a complicated day in terms of temperature, we had a lot of wind. We had the chance to work with the soft tyre.Jorge [Martin] used the medium tyre but it wasn’t safe… Anyway, I’m happy, the pace was much better, the sensations with the bike, the feedback I got with the front tyre was fantastic. In general 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 have to do to improve, and from that point of view I think I’ve given them very good feedback for the work they have to do this winter and to be prepared for Sepang [Shakedown], because I think it will be interesting to try so many things.
On the less positive points, Fernandez added: ‘I don’t like it when I accelerate hard, we need to corner a bit better because it’s very difficult to turn the bike in hard, but that’s not a big problem for me, but maybe that’s where we need to improve to be closer to the Ducati. But that’s what I saw as the worst point of the bike. In general I felt very good and the pace was there’.