MotoGP | An error message stopped Raul Fernandez on the grid

Raul Fernandez failed to demonstrate what he is capable of doing in Lusail. After taking 14th place in the Sprint, he hoped to do better in the main event, taking advantage of his 12th place on the grid, having entered Q2 with the fastest time of Q1. A few moments before the start, however, Fernandez had to interrupt operations due to a problem with his Aprilia.

“Raul had an error message on the dashboard shortly before the start,” explained Trackhouse team manager Wilco Zeelenberg. “After two or three seconds later the bike started again, but at this stage you want to start as quickly as possible. With this problem, we had to switch to the second bike because it was too difficult to start with the error message.”

“I saw the lights on the dashboard and knew something was wrong,” confirmed Raul Fernandez. “We tried to find a solution in the pits, but it wasn't possible to ride with this bike.”

With his second bike, Fernandez was able to start from the grid, but from last position. The Spaniard managed to climb up to 17th place in the first laps, but began to struggle because his Aprilia was equipped with used tyres, on a weekend in which tire degradation was high. Fernandez began to lose positions and eventually retired.

“I'm really frustrated. After the Warm-Up, I thought we had a lot more potential than what we showed. We had an electrical problem on the grid and I couldn't use the bike. I had to switch to the other one, which had one tire used. It was really difficult to manage, but I'm really happy to see that we are achieving excellent results. In any case, day by day, we have to improve and hopefully we won't run into similar situations in the future.”

According to Zeelenberg, the situation was becoming critical due to tire degradation: “With the second bike, we had to start from the back of the grid and unfortunately, after a few laps at a good pace, the rear tire had enormous degradation and also the The front tire was at its limit. He was attacking and pushing hard to try to get up from last place, but he had to retire.”

For Davide Brivio, in his first race as team principal of Trackhouse Racing, the situation in which Fernandez found himself is “a real shame”, and the Italian believes that his driver “had the pace to fight for a good result” in competition.