Fernández victorious: MotoGP’s perennial underachiever finally achieves

MotoGP
Mat Oxley
October 20, 2025

Who is Phillip Island winner Raul Fernández and why have his four seasons in MotoGP been so complicated?

Raul Fernandez leads 2025 MotoGP round at Philip Island

Fernández out front and all alone at Phillip Island. Some would argue that the race fell into his lap but there’s no such thing as an easy GP win

MotoGP/Dorna

Mat Oxley
October 20, 2025

When Raúl Fernández graduated to MotoGP in 2022, many paddock people (including, I suspect, the man himself) thought he might be the next Marc Márquez. After all, he had broken Márquez’s rookie Moto2 victory and podium records the previous season.

Fernández’s 2021 Moto2 performance with Aki Ajo’s Red Bull KTM team certainly suggested he was another special one, because the jump from a Moto3 bike (60 horsepower, 80 kilos and skinny tyres) to a Moto2 bike (140 horsepower, 150 kilos and big, fat tyres) is so big it’s confounded many Moto3 champions.

Danny Kent, Lorenzo Dalla Porta, Izan Guevera and Jaume Masià all disappeared without trace when they moved up to Moto2. And that’s why Moto3 bikes will soon change from 250cc singles to 700cc twins, to narrow the gap between the two classes.

Thus Fernández’s eight Moto2 victories and four further podiums boded well.

Fernández certainly seemed to think so. There was a real cockiness about him at that time. Cockiness isn’t a bad thing in a motorcycle racer. In fact you won’t make it as a motorcycle racer unless you are cocky, even if you keep that cockiness merely burning on the inside, rather than glowing on the outside.

Perhaps the 21-year-old thought it would just happen for him in MotoGP. After all, he certainly has the talent, but talent isn’t the deciding factor that some people think it is, because many talented riders don’t make it in this sport, because talent is nothing without gritty determination and a pitiless work ethic.

Sure enough, while Fernández had happily jumped the chasm from Moto3 to Moto2 he was in trouble when he climbed aboard a MotoGP bike, a Tech3 KTM RC16. He hit his head so hard in a massive crash during 2022 pre-season testing at Mandalika that his head was visibly bruised.

Raul Fernandez and KTM team celebrate MotoGP victory at Philip Island

Fernández celebrates victory with his Trackhouse crew

Trackhouse

Incredibly, MotoGP’s medical team allowed him to continue riding. Only when he crashed again – “My speed reflexes were not good” – did medics withdrew him from the tests.

Fernández basically gave up after his first few races in MotoGP. Why? Because he hadn’t wanted to ride an RC16 in the first place. He had wanted to sign with the Petronas Yamaha team, but KTM enacted a clause in his contract to keep him in their colours.

The RC16 was less user-friendly than a YZR-M1, so Fernández soon told KTM bosses he would be going elsewhere in 2023, contract or not. He simply survived 2022, trying not to crash, never even bothering the top ten and finishing 22nd overall. His best results were 12th-place finishes at Sachsenring and Valencia, where he was nearly a second off the winning pace.

Fernandez’s 2023 Petronas Yamaha ride became an RNF Aprilia ride when team boss Razlan Razall switched bikes, from the struggling YZR-M1 to the burgeoning RS-GP, and his results improved, a bit. He completed his second year in the premier-class 20th, squeezing into the top a few times, and ending the season with an out-of-nowhere ride to fifth at Valencia, beating Fabio Quartararo, Maverick Viñales, Aleix Espargaró and others.

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Maybe he had it after all.

And yet, maybe not. During the Valencia weekend the RNF Aprilia team – the Italian brand’s first independent squad – went into financial meltdown, so Fernández’s 2024 ride looked in peril, until American NASCAR team Trackhouse moved in to buy the team and save the day.

Surely, 2024 would be the year Fernández really showed his talent on a MotoGP bike? Because while his team changed hands, for the first time he had continuity in MotoGP, riding the same motorcycle and working with the same crew chief, Noé Herrera, with whom he had worked in Moto2.

And yet he once again underachieved, ending his third premier-class season down in 16th, a poor result that put his ride in jeopardy.

Raul Fernandez leads in Moto2 race

Fernández in his rookie Moto2 season, when he broke Márquez’s rookie victories record

Red Bull

He was saved by flashes of brilliance – he led the Catalan sprint and scored a first front row at Sachsenring – and by the faith of Trackhouse team manager Davide Brivio and Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola, who both knew what he could do, via watching him from trackside and analysing his data.

Their faith came with demands, so last winter Fernández worked harder than ever on mind and body, upping his physical training programme and working with a sports psychologist to calm himself down, keep his aggression under control and avoid mistakes.

And then he crashed on the first day of pre-season testing at Sepang, fracturing a finger and immediately heading home for surgery. Not the best start to what was sure to be his make-or-break season.

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Fernández’s pre-season injury history is bizarre. This is his fourth year in the class and he has yet to start a MotoGP campaign uninjured. After that 2022 Mandalika smash, he also crashed and fractured bones at Sepang in 2023 and 2024.

The first five grands prix of 2025 were mostly a disaster. Once again he couldn’t even get into the top ten: DNF in Thailand, 15th in Argentina, 12th in the USA, 17th in Qatar and 15th at Jerez, where he was a whole second off the winning pace.

And once again, Fernández knew his future in MotoGP was under threat.

Fernández and his Trackhouse crew turned things around during the post-Spanish GP tests at Jerez, making crucial changes to set-up, which he might already have made if he hadn’t crashed out at Sepang. The transformation was dramatic – at the next eight GPs he only finished outside the top ten once, the highlight a great fifth place at Brno in August.

Raul Fernandez on KTM MotoGP bike

The year to forget – Fernández’s rookie MotoGP campaign with KTM

Red Bull

After the summer break, Trackhouse had its 2024 RS-GPs updated to latest-factory spec, with aero and electronics upgrades, so their bikes were the same as those ridden by Marco Bezzecchi.

The final push towards what happened at Phillip Island started at Motegi at the end of last month, where he finished seventh. Next time out at Mandalika he scored his first premier-class top-three in the sprint and followed that with sixth in the GP, nine seconds off the winner.

Finally, everything came together at Phillip Island. The Aprilia is at its best around flowing racetracks, so he chased home Bezzecchi in the sprint. Bezzecchi was favourite for Sunday too, except he had a double long-lap penalty to contend with.

Fernández got the better of KTM’s Pedro Acosta to take control of second place, so when Bezzecchi rode through the long-lap loop for the second time he was in the lead and from there he was inch-perfect all the way.

Some might say he wouldn’t have won if Bezzecchi hadn’t been hit with a long lap and that he wouldn’t have won if Phillip Island king Marc hadn’t been out of action, after Bezzecchi had taken him out at the previous race, the crime that had him penalised in Australia.

But a win is a win is a win. No MotoGP victory comes through luck, because there’s no way you’ll even find yourself in a position to fight for a MotoGP victory through luck. It takes years and years of hard graft to get to that point.

Fernández climbed the top step of the Phillip Island thanks not only thanks to his perseverance but to the perseverance of those around him at Trackhouse and Aprilia.

Now he must keep his head down and prove it wasn’t a one-off. He doesn’t need to keep on winning, he just needs more solid results, because he is still building towards his best. Hopefully he has learned from his mistakes and tempered that cockiness. Time will tell.

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