Raul Fernandez details MotoGP return plan after Portugal crash

Raul Fernandez has detailed his return plan after being forced to miss the Portuguese MotoGP.

Fernandez was forced out of the Portimao MotoGP race after a crash in Practice on Friday afternoon.

The Spaniard went down at turn one in a crash he described afterwards as “one of the biggest crashes I ever experienced”.

The Trackhouse Aprilia rider, who won the Australian Grand Prix in October, suffered a shoulder dislocation in the crash, and withdrew from the weekend on Saturday morning after riding in FP2 before qualifying.

He said on Sunday in Portugal that he is aiming to be back on-track at the Valencian MotoGP next weekend (14–16 November), with a particular focus on the post-race Valencia test on 18 November.

“Now I feel much better,” Raul Fernandez told the MotoGP world feed broadcast on the grid at Portimao ahead of the Portuguese Grand Prix.

“But it’s true that on Friday I had a very big crash and I felt super-bad with the shoulder because I had a [disclocation] on the shoulder.

“It means that the recovery is minimum three or four days. 

“Maybe to think to race here was possible, with a lot of pain, but we were thinking more on Valencia to try to be there to make the test on Tuesday that will be very important. 

“At the end, we were thinking about Valencia and about the Valencia test.”

Fernandez’s teammate, Ai Ogura, scored a top-10 finish in Portugal, finishing seventh after passing Johann Zarco late on.