Raul Fernandez: Intrigued by The Newest Aprilia Bike

RiderTua.com – Raul Fernandez, who races for the Trackhouse satellite team, is the only Aprilia rider still using a 2023 machine. Aprilia has promised to upgrade him to the latest bike this season, a promise made possible by slight engine modifications to the RS-GP24.

But with only one aero update permitted, Raul is patiently waiting until the factory introduces its final fairing in 2024 so he can use the same aero package as team-mate Oliveira and factory riders Aleix and Vinales.

Raul Fernandez: Intrigued by The Newest Aprilia Bike

The fairing update is also due to improved rider cooling features for flyaway laps, after the bike ‘burned’ its riders on tracks like Buriram last season. He said that riding the new Aprilia bike (RS-GP24) was like tasting candy. He only did two laps on the new 2024 bike and it was good, he set a time of 1:37 minutes. He’s happy and he thinks there’s more potential, Raul Fernandez said.

The 2021 Moto2 world champion continued that it was not easy to adapt to this bike quickly, especially to understand the new aerodynamics. That’s better, but it will take time because you still have to wait a few laps before getting a new one. So Raul is fully focused on the 2023 RS-GP.

Team manager Wilco Zeelenberg revealed that braking was the main area of improvement felt by Raul Fernandez, but he underlined that it would not be possible to make the switch until around mid-season.

Raul was quite surprised by the 2024 RS-GP, he said there was a lot of potential and the braking was better than his current bike. The positive thing he felt and of course, he wanted to go faster with this machine. He needed more time to ride it, but it was certainly interesting to look at, Zeelenberg said.

“He really wants to do better, but he won’t have the bike until around the middle of the season so he has to be patient. Aprilia is still developing and they want 4 exactly the same bikes for the end of the year which I think is a good target.”

Raul Fernandez finished 12th on the timesheets for Monday’s Jerez test just 0.5 seconds off the test’s fastest rider Fabio di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) with a best lap of 1:36.905 minutes. “I’m happy with my bike at the moment, most of which we worked on today, especially in the electronics area. And the information we gathered today will definitely help us in the future,” concluded Fernandez.

“The laps that Raul did on his bike today showed improvements in qualifying trim and new tyres, with fine tuning of the electronic settings,” emphasized Zeelenberg.

BTW, in seventh position (+0.339 seconds) Aleix Espargaro was the fastest Aprilia rider.