An interesting thing happened in the last race organized by MotoGP, the Australian GP. Spanish driver Raul Fernandez completed the race without using wings on his Aprilia. The driver started from sixth position and had a bad start, but later found his rhythm.
Fernandez was 10th, less than three seconds behind Maverick Viñales’ winged RS-GP24 in eighth. The reason for racing without wings was the fact that Phillip Island is a track with few re-acceleration and braking areas.
“It was a nice surprise,” Fernandez said.
“We understand a lot of things about the bike that we are struggling with a lot now. So it was a good test for the future.”
“I did 5 laps in the morning without wings and then I went straight into the race. I was 17th on the first lap because starts aren’t the best thing on a bike. But after that, the pace was very good, very competitive.”
“The distance to the top 4 was the same, the pace to get there was more or less the same. But because of the bad start, I couldn’t fight there, but the pace should have been there. So, very happy.”
Fernandez, who will make his MotoGP debut with a Tech3 KTM in 2022, has never ridden a wingless MotoGP bike before.
“It was kind of a joke in the middle of the season to say, ‘Maybe in a test we can test a bike without wings.’ But in the end, on Phillip Island, it was no joke. Riding a bike is different. Because of this, lap by lap I felt better. And the last part of my race was really fast.
“Always after weekend races and after long races, I feel extremely tired. But I finished the Phillip Island race and I said to the team, ‘I can do another race if you want.’ This is unbelievable. ‘This physically ‘zeroes’ the bike down and is something we may need to work on more in new aerodynamic designs in the future.’
