Raul Fernandez slams ‘frustrating’ Aprilia decision that ‘didn’t help’ Trackhouse MotoGP rider

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Raul Fernandez will return to the MotoGP grid for a third year aboard an Aprilia bike in 2025 but the Trackhouse Racing rider is hoping that one thing never happens again.

The Spaniard is currently spending the winter preparing for his fourth season in the premier class on the back of his best year in MotoGP to date. Fernandez secured a personal best P16 in the riders’ championship in 2024, having also registered a personal best tally of 66 points.

Fernandez only scored 14 points en route to a P22 finish as a rookie with satellite KTM team Tech3 in 2022. His first season on an Aprilia bike in 2023 for satellite outfit RNF, which would become Trackhouse in 2023, marked a slight improvement with his 51 points returning P20.

Raul Fernandez regrets Aprilia upgrading his Trackhouse bike to a 2024-spec RS-GP

Yet despite continuing to improve once Trackhouse took over the RNF operation, Fernandez believes Aprilia put him and the US-based team on the back foot. The 24-year-old struggled to maintain the promise he showed during the first half of the season following the summer.

Fernandez sat as high as 14th in the riders’ standings entering the summer break after a run of seven points-scoring finishes through the first 12 Grand Prix of the year. His form also saw Trackhouse give Fernandez a new contract for the 2025 MotoGP term in the summer break.

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But as Fernandez was then the only rider returning on an Aprilia bike for 2025, with factory pair Aleix Espargaro retiring and Maverick Vinales joining Tech3 plus Trackhouse teammate Miguel Oliveira moving to Pramac, Aprilia upgraded the Madrid native to a 2024-spec bike.

Fernandez was the only Aprilia rider to start the 2024 season with a 2023-spec RS-GP bike. But Trackhouse would field two 2024-spec Aprilia bikes for Fernandez and Oliveira from the British Grand Prix in August. Yet Fernandez hopes to never change bikes mid-season again.

“At the end, it was super difficult,” Fernandez said, via quotes by Crash. “We didn’t improve. Maybe we tested a lot of things and we didn’t have a lot of time for us. So, we were focused on improving the project and trying to understand a lot of things.

“I tried many, many things with the bike from last year. I changed a lot of things, we tried, we had to understand a lot more things. But, in the end, we understood nothing. It’s frustrating. Yeah, we understood a lot of things but, in the end, I couldn’t use them.

“So, this is the frustrating part. I don’t want to do this next year or in my life. I would like to not repeat this. It’s really difficult to change all of the bike in the middle of the season.

“If you change small details, ok, but the bike is completely opposite. So, you need to change a lot of things on your riding style. So, it didn’t help us.”

Riding Aprilia’s 2024-spec MotoGP bike curtailed Raul Fernandez’s run of results

It is clear to see why Fernandez regrets Aprilia deciding to upgrade him from a 2023-spec to a 2024-spec RS-GP bike mid-season and also task the Trackhouse rider with directing most of their developmental work for the 2025 season with the Italian crew’s other riders leaving.

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After taking points in seven-straight races from the Grand Prix of the Americas to the Grand Prix of Germany – including his season-best result of P6 in the Grand Prix of Catalunya – the Trackhouse pilot failed to score points in four races before Fernandez scored in four in a row.

A run of three races without a point also rounded off Fernandez’s season to see Oliveira stay above him in the riders’ standings in P15 on 75 points, despite the 2025 Pramac rider having to miss five Grand Prix after fracturing his right wrist after a highside in practice in Indonesia.