Trackhouse Racing’s 2025 MotoGP riders Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura are taking different approaches to the upcoming season, but for both the goal is the same: To learn, adapt and improve.
Fernandez and Ogura spoke to members of the international MotoGP media as Trackhouse unveiled its 2025 liveries for NASCAR and MotoGP, with each talking about their preparations for the upcoming season.
The two are approaching 2025 from different perspectives. For Fernandez, it’s his first year starting out with the same team he raced for in the prior season, and the first time he’s starting with a factory bike at his disposal. Fernandez raced for KTM Tech3 in 2022, rode for the CryptoData RNF MotoGP Team on an Aprilia RS-GP in 2023, and when Trackhouse bought up the remnants of the imploded RNF team, Fernadez stayed on board for 2024, but started the season with a 2023-spec bike. Fernandez switched to a 2024-spec machine halfway through the season, a change that left him struggling; he cut a despondent figure in the post-race media debriefings after the season finale in Barcelona.
The post-season test saw Fernandez further evaluating the 2024 bike and learning to work with new crew members, and he said he spent a lot of time over the break working with Team Principal Davide Brivio on his mental fitness.
“We changed the staff. We didn’t try the new bike, we wanted to see how the new people would (work) with the team,” Fernandez said. “It was a different preseason for me. I was really focused on myself. I changed the personal trainer to try to feel fit. I was working on myself in the mentality area. Never in MotoGP have I started the season with a factory bike. Overall, I am really happy.
“I want to be fit, focused and try to do my best. Davide helped me a lot. Maybe this is my problem. I want more than we have in the moment.”
Fernandez is the only rider continuing with Aprilia into the 2025 season. World Champion Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi are joing the factory Aprilia squad from Ducati, while Ogura arrives as the reigning Moto2 World Champion. Yet Fernandez says he does not consider himself a leader of the team, and he is most interested in learning from his teammates. Martin and Ogura are World Champions and Bezzecchi is a three-time MotoGP Grand Prix winner.
“It is super clear to me. I have a lot of things to learn from them,” Fernandez said.
Ogura is at the beginning of a steep learning curve. The Michelin slicks in MotoGP are dramatically different than the Pirellis used in Moto2, and the RS-GP makes twice the horsepower of his Triumph-powered Moto2 Boscoscuro.
But in his first outing, Ogura said he didn’t find the bike over-taxing, and said he was spending the off-season training mostly by riding on the track. During the Barcelona test, Ogura did 10 to 12-lap stints, and his times were comparable to Somkiat Chantra and Fermin Aldeguer, the other Moto2 rookies moving up to MotoGP for 2025.
“If it’s really necessary to work on the physical side, I will. I don’t really feel – it sounds strange, but it didn’t feel so hard on the physical side in Barcelona,” Ogura said, while acknowledging that the upcoming tests in Malaysia and Thailand will be more physically challenging.
“There’s still a lot to understand. I have eight days until I start on the first race,” Ogura said. “Clearly, I’m in the position to learn from all of the three (Aprilia) riders.”
