Raul Fernandez had his first contact with the 2024 RS-GP. The Spanish rider received the latest version of the RS-GP today on the first day of testing at Jerez and finished the first part of the tests in 9th position and second best Aprilia in the overall standings.
In a debrief, the Trackhouse Racing rider spoke about the new sensations of the 2024 version and the course of the morning.
– ‘We were focused on our bike. I’m honestly happy with the work we’ve done. Riding the 2024 bike was like being given a piece of candy, I only made two exits onto the track and I was even fast inside the second 37, the bike has potential but it’s not easy. We need time to understand the bike’s performance yet, but Aprilia wanted to give me a lot of information about the new bike. We have to focus on our bike now, but the new bike was like being given a piece of candy.’
Asked about the differences between the 2023 and 2024 versions, Raul replied: ‘It’s a different way of riding the new bike, we need time to understand the bike, but for me the bike is better and has more potential than the 2023. The important thing is that we took important information from the new bike to compare with the 2023 bike. We did 8/9 laps, it wasn’t enough to understand the bike, now I can’t tell if I’m going to be fast or not. I want to see where we are, with exactly the same bike, in America I was fast with the same data as last year so we’ll see. Today we saw two or three different ways to approach the future.