The only Aprilia race rider to test 2025 parts provides his feedback
“We are not just working for the rest of this year, but also for next year and I gave a lot of feedback to Aprilia.”
As the only current Aprilia rider who will remain with the brand in 2025, Raul Fernandez took on testing duties for the Noale manufacturer at today’s one-day Misano MotoGP test.
The Spanish rider, like all of the Aprilia riders, has suffered poor results in the last couple of races, but he was enthused by what he found at the test.
“We had a good day,” Fernandez said. “We understood many things and now we need to analyse the situation that we are in, especially after the last two races, in which we haven’t been very competitive.
“We now need to understand what we worked through today for the future.
"We are not just working for the rest of this year, but also for next year and I gave a lot of feedback to Aprilia.
“We see two different ways to come back again at the moment and I’m really happy to be able to have had this test here and to get some ideas.
“I’m very satisfied, also very pleased by Aprilia for all the work they are putting in to improve the bike. Overall, it was a really good test for us.”
Fernandez was testing an underseat diffuser, among other parts.
While Fernandez’s work was looking beyond 2024 and into 2025, his current Trackhouse Aprilia teammate, Pramac Yamaha-bound Miguel Oliveira, was focused on improving his performance in view of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Misano in just under two weeks.
“We had a slow start this morning because of the track conditions, but then we put in some work, gathered important data to especially understand the direction to take for the second round here,” Oliveira said.
“Not everything we tried was positive, but it gave us a clearer idea of the direction to follow. We tried a few things on the engine brake side, just a little touch on the electronics to help us to get more consistency. And that’s pretty much it.
“Of course, it’s not all smiles because we wanted to find more performance today and put everything together, but for sure we will be able to do it in the right moment, which is next weekend.”
