RAUL FERNANDEZ TURNS ANGER INTO BRITISH GP WIN AFTER SPRINT CRASH
9 Aug·
Raul Fernandez credited his dominant British Grand Prix win to redirecting his “anger” after a Saturday sprint crash left him feeling like an “idiot”. The Trackhouse rider had been badly let down when he botched his start from the front row, then compounded it by making another mistake on lap 4 that forced him out of the race. After that disappointment, he said he was able to channel those emotions into a winning performance.
Fernandez, who qualified second on the grid at Silverstone, described how his mindset changed heading into Sunday. He said he was “angry with myself” and that this translated into how hard he pushed the medium rear tyre during the morning warm-up. According to the Spaniard, the warm-up helped him understand where the limit of the rear tyre was, and he quickly applied that knowledge once the race began.
From the first corner, Fernandez took the lead and then broke away from the field. He said the race was “better than what we expected” because, after getting to the front, he was able to “manage” from there. When Jorge Martin closed in by “three or four tenths”, Fernandez admitted he had to “push a little bit” to restore the gap.
He also explained that his warm-up work gave him a clear target for lap times. Fernandez said he learned the tyre’s limit was “trying to make 1m58.4s, 1m58.5s”, and then immediately tried to stay in the “1m59s low” range. Importantly, he added that he did not focus on the rear tyre’s performance at the end of the race, because the key was understanding the threshold earlier.
Fernandez framed the contest as a “mentality race”, saying it was difficult to manage not only the tyre but also the fuel. In his case, he said he had to manage it “from the first lap”.
The win was also a milestone in his season and in his relationship with the team. Fernandez’s victory came after he signed a new two-year deal with Trackhouse, and he said he was “really happy” because, in some races previously, he had been “quite frustrated” not knowing his situation. He pointed to the progress since arriving in 2024, when he felt the bike was “not super competitive” and that there had been “too many problems”.
Fernandez said the “best thing for us was to stay here and not have too many changes”, noting that next year “almost everything will be new”. With that context, he described the result as his second MotoGP victory, adding that he was “more happy” to secure it than anything else.
After taking the chequered flag, Fernandez summed up his feelings simply: “Yeah, I am really happy. I don’t really know what I can say. Thanks to my team.”