In early February, Raúl Fernández suffered a serious accident on the first day of MotoGP testing in Sepang. Despite the injuries, including three fractures, the Trackhouse Racing rider recovered enough to be able to ride in the Qatar tests.
The Spanish rider revealed to the press that it was a strange crash: ‘For me was strange, honestly, because I saw Pecco [Bagnaia]. He crashed on the first lap, I crashed on the third one. It’s something that honestly I don’t understand very well. Yes, I understand, but what I don’t understand is I was slower, I was just on the correct line – because the first two laps, in the first I was really, really slow because I saw Pecco; in the second one I was wide and in the third one that I did slower and on the correct line, I felt both tyres sliding and I did the highside’.
Fernández added: ‘It’s really strange, because I didn’t expect, I didn’t see any parts, I didn’t see oil. It was super strange. But we saw on the data that also the crash was really strange – it wasn’t just an highside for have a lot of gas, something like that or that I was aggressive with the throttle. We saw both tyres sliding and in that moment I flew’.