Raul Fernandez: “Time to change something”, after Ogura MotoGP podium

On a day when Aprilia celebrated an historic MotoGP podium sweep at Le Mans, the other RS-GP of Raul Fernandez took the chequered flag in eighth place.

The Spaniard finished almost twelve seconds from Trackhouse team-mate Ai Ogura, who took his first premier-class podium in third behind factory riders Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi.

Fernandez, winner of last year’s Phillip Island round, kicked off this season promisingly with a double podium in Buriram.

However, he hasn’t finished higher than sixth since, a position he also holds in the world championship, albeit now as the lowest-ranked RS-GP rider.

"Time to change something"

“I feel that we are working well, but we're missing something,” Raul Fernandez told MotoGP.com. “I think maybe it is time to change something on how we prepare for the race.”

Although Fernandez only qualified 13th, his Qualifying 1 lap time was a fraction faster than Ogura set for ninth on the grid in Q2, and only 0.25s behind Bezzecchi’s front row.

However, Fernandez is unable to repeat that kind of performance in race situations.

“In terms of pace, I am always quite close to all Aprilias. In terms of time attack here, especially, I was very close to Jorge Ai, and Marco,” he confirmed.

“But when I am in a race and I have a slipstream, I cannot make what I want with a bike.

“So maybe for the future we need to try to understand what we have to change and how we have to prepare the race, because maybe right now this is the key.

“Of course, I'm happy for Aprilia they are making a super good job. I think we are not far from there, but we have two different ways: [either] we can make a better qualifying and we are in third or second row, or we need to find something to overtake.”

Fernandez starts this weekend’s Catalan round five points behind Ogura.