10th for Raul Fernandez in #IndianGP, Miguel Oliveira 12th

The Buddh International Circuit hosted the first-ever Indian Grand Prix of the MotoGP World Championship this weekend and although some delays and the hot and humid temperatures made life hard for riders and teams, the Indian Grand Prix turned out to be successful. Also, for the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team duo, that scored a total of ten points in P10 and P12 today despite a tricky Friday and Saturday.

Raul Fernandez started the main Race on Sunday, that was reduced to 21 laps, from the tenth position on the grid. He didn’t get off to a great start and was caught with some riders in the rush of turn one causing him to lose some positions in the beginning pushing him back in 14th. Although conditions were very tough, the young Spaniard managed to find a decent pace that enabled him to keep a strong position. Staying upright, he made up several places, especially in the second part of the race to finally cross the line in P10, which is his second top 10 result in a row.

On the other hand, Miguel Oliveira was struggling a bit more throughout the weekend. He started only from P17 on the grid and was pushed wide in the first corner straight after the start. He still managed to keep his 17th at the end of lap one. Throughout the first laps he already made some progress and worked his way through to P14 on lap eighth, but went backwards to P16 again with a mistake two laps later. From there on, he just kept his head down, made up ground again and eventually finished in 12th position, taking home four World Championship points.

Now the entire paddock, including the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team is packing up and moving over to Japan for round 14 of the 2023 season that just starts in five days’ time.

RAUL FERNANDEZ

In general, I am happy with how the weekend went. But the race was super difficult, at the start I went wide and lost some positions and in MotoGP it’s quite difficult to overtake. We have some areas to improve on the bike but I am happy that I can understand the bike and ride it how I want. My weekend was constant, in the races, I was always in the top 10. I had time to prepare well during the summer break, and from Silverstone, I always did one step ahead, but it is not enough because I always want more. Now, we are on a really competitive level which I think myself, the team and Aprilia can work to improve together further.

MIGUEL OLIVEIRA

Probably, it’s the first weekend where I was not competitive. In any case, all the Aprilia struggled a little bit somehow this weekend but I would have liked to still be a bit better. We could see clearly where our weak points are and where we would need to work and push more to find solutions, especially the acceleration out of the slow corners which seems to be one of the points we need to focus on. I’m just looking forward to turn things around a little bit in Japan and to be able to get a good performance there.