Augusto Fernández will complete his second season in MotoGP in 2024 and, naturally, there are aspects he wants to improve – particularly in terms of qualifying and Sprint races, admitting that he lacks some explosiveness.
The Spanish rider has thus defined his goals for the start of the new season: ‘Put everything together. In the last races, although I crashed in Valencia, but I would say that since Qatar I have regained some of my race pace without losing qualifying. Okay, I wasn’t in Q2, but I qualified 13th in both Qatar and Valencia, so close to entering Q2. So I want to start again from that point and always be there from the first round – qualify with the objective of Q2 and have top ten results in the first races, I believe that’s where we should start. But we’ll see.’
Asked if he feels more comfortable in Sprint races or Sunday races, Fernández didn’t hesitate: ‘In the long ones. The first laps, also the qualifying on which the Sprint depends a lot. In ten laps, there is no time for me to catch the pace and move up positions like in the long race. But that’s what I’m working on, that’s what I worked on all winter, and I hope to show it from the first race: be there in qualifying and in the Sprint from the beginning, fighting for the top ten and above all, qualifying, which will help us for the long race where we always have a good pace. But coming from behind is difficult. So these are aspects to improve on which I have been working on all winter and I hope to demonstrate it soon.’
