Raúl Fernández is "optimistic" despite the fact that his two motorcycles are not in Termas

April 1, 2022

Raúl Fernández found on Thursday when he arrived at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit, in Argentina, that his two KTM RC16s with which he competes in the MotoGP World Championship with the Tech3 team were neither in the garage nor expected in time to be assembled by the mechanics of his team.

The same Thursday, the promoters of the World Cup confirmed that one of the five cargo planes that were to carry the material from Lombok, where it was run two weeks ago, to Termas, had broken down, announcing the suspension of the day on Friday and condensing all training on Saturday, waiting for the plane to arrive.

“My two motorcycles are on that plane,” Raúl Fernández confirmed. “But hey, we are going to be optimistic, these are things that can happen and we have to trust Dorna, who does a great job so that it can be run outside of Europe, it is very nice to run so many races in such different places, we have to accept that this type of problem can happen and face them with a smile”, expressed the KTM.

Despite facing it with optimism, Raúl is not unaware that cutting a grand prix one day goes against the less experienced, as is the case with a debutant in the queen class.

“For all the rookies it is going to be more difficult than it usually is, because when you understand things it is precisely by adding laps on the bike. It will complicate things for us to have one less day of practice, but in the end Dorna I am convinced that that does the best possible job to be able to complete so many races outside of Europe, these are things that can happen and you have to face them in the best possible way”.

Despite the handicap that this entails, Raúl hopes to be able to adapt to a Grand Prix of only two days.

“It is clear that it will cost us a little more by condensing everything in a day of practice, but on Saturday we will have three free practices and the time trial, so we will be able to do quite a few laps and we will arrive more or less prepared for the race”.

“This is not the time to think about results and positions, now is the time to be calm and stay calm, we must assume that we are not going to be able to shoot all Friday and we must prepare ourselves psychologically for Saturday, we must be optimistic and have in the head the clear plan for Saturday”, he adds.

Despite the suspension, for a young runner Friday will be work.

“It will not be a day off, there are always things to do, races to watch, learn and read the telemetry, it will not be a day of disconnection, we are going to take advantage of it to sit down and analyze things to focus on small details that help us improve “.

Of the current riders on the MotoGP grid, Raúl is one of the least experienced in Termas, where he has only raced once, the 2019 Moto3 race, in which he started tenth on the grid, he crossed the first step to the finish line fifth and finished the race 15th.

“I think I’m the one with the least experience in Argentina, in fact I’ve only run here once and it was also a very nice but very hard race, one of the ones in which I’ve learned the most since I’ve been in the World Cup, in the absence of three or four laps I was sixth and I finished 15th, I have good memories, I like the circuit a lot and the Argentine fans are amazing. keep calm to improve little by little”, settles the one from San Martín de la Vega.

Raul Fernandez, KTM Tech3