The Spanish KTM rider, who will make his debut in the premier class riding a Tech3 team RC16 this season, was the fastest on the first day of the shakedown test in Sepang , the tests reserved for test riders and rookies, among the that he finds himself, which started this Monday and will end on Wednesday.
Raúl Fernández, just turned 21, got into MotoGP for the first time at the Jerez tests, held last November, where he was already the fastest rookie on the time sheet. After two months without getting on the orange RC16 with the number 25, Raúl completed 46 laps on the demanding Malaysian track, with extremely high humidity and a temperature that exceeded 40 degrees.
In very demanding conditions and with the track quite dirty due to the lack of activity, the man from Madrid managed to stop the clock in 2.00.898, far from the track record, 1.59.661, which since 2019 has been held by Valentino Rossi.
However, Fernández was clearly faster than the rest of the rookies, like his teammate and rival last year in the fight for the Moto2 title, the Australian Remy Gardner (who has just had surgery on his hand), who was fifth in the times at 0.954, finishing just ahead of Marco Bezzecchi, who is making his MotoGP debut riding a Ducati GP2021 from the VR46 team, who lapped 1.114 seconds slower than the Spaniard. Darryn Binder, with a Yamaha 2021 of the RNF team, was seventh at 1,248, closing the group of rookies the also Italian Fabio Di Giannantonio, who was 10th with the Ducati GP21 of the Gresini team, at 1,698 behind Raúl.
“It has been a very positive first day, remembering the sensations of the last test, since two months have passed without taking the bike”, assured Raúl on his social networks at the end of the day.
Despite the fact that he was the fastest and the fourth driver who did the most laps, the Madrid rider assures that “we are taking it easy because we have five more days ahead of us. There is a lot of work and we have to understand many things”, settled the runner-up of the world of Moto2.
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