Lusail Pre-Season Testing With Martin Darlington

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long, and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk To Motopod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode 759 and my name is Martin Darlington. It's been a while folks.

So the reason that we're putting out this special show in addition to the normal regular output is because I'm still out in Qatar and we've just had the MotoGP test and you're about to hear a series of interviews I was fortunate enough to be able to make and these are going to be in the order in which I recorded them. So first up is Red Bull Gas Gas Tectoir rider Augusto Fernandez followed by Repsol Hondas Juan Mia and Luca Marini. So I hope you enjoy it and over to me talking to Augusto Fernandez. So it's Martin from Motopod and I am with Red Bull Gas Gas Tectoir rider Augusto Fernandez. Thank you so much for making some time for us.

Augusto, you were rookie of the year last year. No, okay, you were the only rider but we all watched your progression through the year and it seemed really positive. What are your feelings for the season coming up? Yeah, well, hello everybody. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it was a tough one but positive one I have to say. The end of the season especially I felt strong, I felt that I had the speed and I always compare myself to our bikes. So I was comparing a lot to Brad and Jack also what they were doing and we got closer the last part of the season in terms of speed but not in results. So that's what I'm looking forward to this season to put all together, use the experience we had from last year. We build a good base with the team and the bike is working good also this year so we are ready to take the next step because I want to, in the end I want to win, I want to make podiums, I want to win races.

Of course, you're a Moto 2 world champion. Once you've tasted that. I've been at the back last year so I want to get back on top as soon as possible and as I said we showed some speed last year, some very good speed but we need the results so we need to put all together so that's the plan. In recent years there seems to have been a route that a rider has to take, Red Bull Rookies or Talent Cup, Moto 3, Moto 2. Now you did an unusual route, you came straight into Moto 2.

Do you feel that missing out on Moto 3, certainly in the days of 125 and 250s, riders would learn set up, working with their crews and then the early Moto 2, people felt that maybe the Moto 2 they lost out a bit. Do you feel you missed out by not doing Moto 3? I felt it maybe in terms of in my early years in Moto 2, experience of travelling around the world, tracks and working with a professional team. I came straight away from home to the world championship in Moto 2. I felt like the first year I had to say I had to pay a lot of attention and work a lot to convert this year or the first year in like the three or four years in Moto 3.

So gain experience in one year. But after that I'm proud of my career, I'm proud of what I did and I had to work hard for every year, for every contract but in the end it made me the rider that I am today and it's good. I'm really confident about myself now and all my team around so thanks also for these strange years. It's strange that we see so often with riders at your kind of level that you had good results, you had some difficult years, you went to KTM I.O. everything just clicked and that season was incredible to watch.

Now obviously you beat Ayagura who was your closest rival by the end but Pedro Acosta and now your teammate for this season. Been a lot of attention on Pedro but you beat him that year. Now do you feel that maybe some of the attention being taken off you by his arrival, is that going to help you? Yeah, I don't pay attention to the media things. I've lived this in Moto 2 with him.

He came last year as Moto 3 world champion and the expectations were the same as this year in Moto UP. Not to be at the front again in his first year so that's a lot of pressure to him but he can do it. What I want to use is his ability, he's silent so he will be fast. He's been already fast in Sepang so as he was in the first test in Moto 2 I remember he was first, he was leading the class in the first test so it's what I want to use. I want to learn from him as I learned from Brad and Jack during La Raja and Paul.

So we are four competitive riders in the same bike so that's very good for everybody and that's what I want to take. The other thing that clearly has changed is when KTM came into the premier class they were known to have the steel trellis frame. It was a KTM trademark and other people said can you make it work and clearly they did but now they've moved to the carbon chassis. How much of a difference is that for you and are you having to almost learn again how to ride the bike or how to ride the bike fast? I have to say yeah, it's different in terms of riding but we have a better bike so everything is better, you adapt quicker and it's easier to adapt.

I think the work of the last years from KTM and from all the group and from Danny and Stair Riding and Paul this last winter has been amazing. Since I'm on the team every new thing that they gave me was better. So we've been improving all the time so I have huge trust on what we have this year and I think we are going to show our potential this year. I don't know if we will fight for the championship or not but for sure we will arrive. So we're doing a good job.

We've seen it with KTM in every series they enter. They want to win like us as riders and like anybody here in the pub. So they want to win. Last year you just missed out on a podium at Le Mans and yet I believe your favourite circuit is Assen. So which are you looking forward to more?

I have some tracks that I really like and that have been always fast like Le Mans, Assen, also Misano, Barcelona. There's a lot of tracks that I'm looking forward to this year but my goal is to be consistently up there, not only these highlights. I want to have a consistent season, being at the front, fighting to be the first PM We did the KTM Gas Gas Bike all the year, not only in some practices. I think it was the last part of the season. I won the results, I won the Sundays.

So that's the plan. Brilliant. Augusto, thank you so much. I won't keep you any longer. All the very best for the season and I really mean that.

It's not just because I'm talking to you. Thank you. We want to see you do well. Thank you very much. Thank you.

So it's Martin from Motopod and I am joined by Juan Mir, Reptile Honda rider for the second year, MotoGP World Champion 2020, Moto3 World Champion 2017 with an incredibly dominant performance. It feels as if everything's changed in HRC. Obviously the team have been with Martin Marquez for so many years, they've had many titles, he's gone. It feels like a fresh start and I was just wondering what your take on it is. We know how hard Honda are working, you've got a whole bunch of new ideas and new technicians coming in it seems.

You've been joined by a new team mate in Luca Marini. Does it feel to you that almost you have a blank sheet of paper on which you can start to write a new chapter? Yeah, probably I feel like that. I think that this year is like a new era inside Honda. Like everything is new, I feel like a restart at the moment.

It also is something that I needed because last year was a horrible year for all of us and we didn't enjoy anything and it was honestly very tough. But it was tough for a rider that used to get good results in mostly every race. There's a lot of time without that motivation, without that great results. But as you said, I see a big change inside of Honda, a lot of new faces. The bike is completely different.

In terms of lap time feeling, more than lap time, the bike is faster. I'm able to ride quite in a better way, enjoying more. But it's true that I'm very cautious. Last year we had the worst bike on the grid and we cannot pass from that to the best one. So we have to be first in the middle and then make the correct steps to be with Ducati in this case.

So I think we are in the process. Honestly, I feel like that. One of the things that we've seen in the past, for example, when Ducati was struggling and Valentino Rossi goes there and he came up against Filippo Prezziosi, who'd won them success with Casey Stoner. Looking back, we now know Casey Stoner was an extraordinary talent. But it was almost that they needed that immovable object of Prezziosi being met by the force of Valentino Rossi.

Does it feel that now, even if, as you say, you don't find instant success and be right at the front straight away, being able to put your input in makes it easier to ride the bike, even if it has some difficulties, because you feel you're being listened to more? At the end in the factory team, you've always been listened by the engineers, no? It's always like that. Here it's not like probably in the past that one rider is more important than the other. I didn't feel like that last year.

And on the other hand, this year, that should be different. But as you said, Ducati was struggling in the past. In that time, he was the best one. Now it's a bit the opposite and it's part of the history that these things happen. The important thing is that we overcome from this situation.

I'm sure that Honda will be back and probably stronger than how it was before. Because... It's Honda. Yeah, because it's Honda, as you said. The difference also is that when you said this about 2007, Stoner was winning at that time.

Then he leaves and then comes Valentino. But last year, Mark, that is the one that won everything with this bike, he wasn't able to win. So the situation was very, very difficult. Because in some races I was there with Mark, another one in front. And I was thinking, if this happened in another year, probably 10 years ago, we would be first and second.

And last year it was 15 and 16, or 10 or 11. So it was tough. Sure. I mean, it was difficult to watch because... 2020 was a difficult year for the whole world in every sense.

But it was amazing to watch you come through that year in such a difficult circumstance, doing back-to-back races where it changes the whole dynamic. Everyone has all the data from the weekend before to race again at least double-head as we did. That year, what we did was fantastic because we didn't have the best bike of the grid. The Suzuki wasn't the fastest bike of the grid. It was the best looking.

Sorry, sorry, Harry, I know you. I agree with you on that time. But we won the title for doing the things correctly, being constant, don't make mistakes. Win when it was the moment to win, not before. Be patient.

And then the year after, we fought with the Ducatis with that bike that was very good, but it was not the best one. So, yeah, I have very, very good memories from that year. Sure. On a more general question, before we start recording, it's a very windy day here today. Testing starts tomorrow.

It's going to be less windy than today, we hope, but it was to be windy. The aero now on MotoGP bikes, they're so different from anything that any of us have seen before. And it seems very, very specifically designed to help you control the bike into corners and then around and preventing wheelie and everything. When you have a crosswind, is the aero now more difficult? Does it change the whole dynamics?

It's more challenging now. The wind always was difficult to ride with wind with a bike with 250 horsepower and being the front on the ground with lateral wind, this is a nightmare. But it's true that now the bike with the winds are heavier in terms of handling. If you have wind, you feel more. You feel more the wind than before.

Right, yeah. It makes sense. So yeah, and also for testing, it's a nightmare because you have wind and the wind normally is not constant. You know, it blows fast, then stops, then another one. And to try things that make you improve one tenth per lap, sometimes you don't understand because you say, in this corner I'm turning more, but probably the wind changed.

So was it me or the bike? Was the bike, was me? You know, you don't understand so much. So I hope that tomorrow the wind is a bit less, we are able to try the things properly and then we have a normal day. It's true that.

This test is not important because it's as important as Sepang, but it's not... We have four hours. We have four hours. We don't have much time because here the condition changes a lot. So you have to be with the homework done here.

You have to arrive here with the homework more or less done. We have to confirm a couple of things. We have to see if we are still fast as in Sepang and that's it. Here it's like this. I've heard before that the Qatar test is very good for helping you with the Qatar race and not much else.

Exactly. I guess as well with wind conditions, which are often quite strong here at this time of year, that on a fast sweeping corner is it harder than somewhere like Mategi or Le Mans where it's go, stop, turn? Because you're turning slower there, but with a high speed corner it must be really difficult. Normally the Honda, the character in the past was stop and go. Yeah.

So what is corner speed and grip? We don't have a lot of grip or we don't have the same grip than the others. But on the brakes we can make some difference and so that's why in this track the Honda wasn't super competitive in the past. But it's true that this concept is completely different. The bike changed a lot and I believe that we can be stronger.

OK, I'm nearly done. Don't worry. I know Harry sat there glancing as well. This is going to sound really wild, but me growing up, I'm very old, I'm 58, so growing up from the 80s, 90s watching bike racing when I could, when the Spanish started to arrive we had Privia and then we had the Asparga brothers and Marquez and Vinaldi. It seemed that all the Spanish racers, most of them came from Catalonia in the same way that most of the Italians came from Rimini.

But now we've had Jorge Lorenzo and yourself from Mallorca for quite a small island. I know two guys is not a big sample group, but is there a big racing scene on Mallorca? Can we expect to see more? In Mallorca, true, we have a private track. The government is not that we have a public track and huge resources.

We don't have that. But Lorenzo, when he started to be 15 or 16 he moved to Barcelona. So he started his career in Mallorca but straight away he moved. In my case, I've been in Mallorca since the beginning of my career. And also you mentioned Ethan Guevara that is in Moto3, now in Moto2, Augusto Fernandez, we have another one in KTA in Tec Draw.

He's not Mallorcan born, is he? No, but he grew up there. He feels like one of yours? Yes, we grew up together. We trained in the same school and all this stuff.

So it means that for some reason we are a lot of riders there but if I have to give you an explanation, I don't know why. But it may be that you guys will inspire the next group. They may have gone to the same school as you ten years after you left, but they think wow, I could be a MotoGP world champion maybe. And then they try. We show that you can do it.

My last question is, in 2027 we're going to see a big rule change. There's going to be a big change. There's lots of room, bringing the capacity down. If you were asked you could have one change that you can choose, what would it be? If I have to give one, I will...

A technical rule change? A technical rule change. If I have to choose one, I will choose a big one because I can start to say the start device, out. This is the first thing. I will probably remove the wings.

I'm not surprised to hear that. Listening to the journalists and other interviews... It's a big change, yeah? It's a big change. Because it's not just removing the wings.

It will change completely MotoGP. We have to go back in terms of tyres. We will need softer front tyres. Now, with the wings, we load a lot the front. We always go harder and harder in terms of compounds in front.

We remove this, we go back. We will need softer compounds in front. If not, we will start to crash very easy. The wings, in terms of... For the spectator, it's not positive.

But in terms of safety for the rider, for small crashes, it's more safe. This is true. Because you have more load on the front part of the bike. This makes more stability. The front tyre is always on the ground.

It's warmer. You don't have this type of crashes that we saw in the past in MotoGP, especially in 2020, 2019, 2017. All these crashes that you come from a slow corner, then the fast one, and straight away you lose the front in a high speed. We don't have that type of crashes. We have on the last part a boos from the front brake.

This we have a lot. But it's true in terms of safety, we improve it. Maybe don't remove completely, but not limit. That is what I will say. Brilliant.

Thank you. Juan, I wish you the very, very best of the season. It will be fascinating to see how you get on. We'll be cheering for you. Thank you so much.

It has been a pleasure. I'm not going to ask you about the process of how long it went on. I'm sure talks took place, but how difficult a decision was it to leave the team you'd been with since you joined MotoGP and come to a huge team with an incredible history, but one that in the last few years had struggled? Thank you for the invitation, the presentation. Well, I think that I never saw it like it was difficult, something difficult.

It was one of my dreams on my target, riding for a factory team. This in particular HRC is something really, like you said, it made the history of our sport, so it's something really unique and I'm pleased to be here. I know that past seasons were not so good, but I take this like a challenge also. I'm trying to battle myself, try to be here for development back to the top with the bike, with this factory, because I think we can do it. I trust in them.

And since the beginning I feel really comfortable in the garage. Talking with the Japanese was really nice and I had very good vibes. So for me it was never something difficult. I just tried to catch this opportunity for trying a new challenge and for being part of the title contenders in the future. Sure.

It certainly feels that Honda are starting a new chapter and is part of the appeal of the good idea of coming here, being part of that, being able to start, not from scratch, obviously there is an existing bike that will be developed, but that part of being in the factory team that you and Juan between you will be able to have a major input in how the bike develops. Exactly. Yeah, this is for me the correct moment I arrived in a good moment and I think that together we can grow up a lot and develop a very good bike in the future because I trust in my feelings of myself a lot and I am really sensitive on the bike and also I'm quite clear on giving my feedback to all the engineers. We can understand very well also with the Japanese that it is not so easy. Many people told me that the communication with them maybe can be a limit.

So you have to adapt on this, it's a little bit different compared to talking with Italian engineers, it's a different culture but sure that I respect them and I love them their culture. So this is a good moment. Sure. But sure that we start from very far from the top and this maybe can be a problem if our target for this season maybe are put too high. We need to be calm and patient and wait at the moment that the bike will be ready for try to make podiums and victories and then as a rider I need to be there and ready for achieve it.

It's certainly been interesting watching your journey that in recent years it seemed that there's a route to MotoGP, you go Red Bull Rookies or Talent Cup, then Moto3, Moto2, MotoGP for those few that make it. But you came straight in at Moto2 didn't you? Yeah. Yeah I was too tall. I was too tall.

For Moto3? Yeah exactly. Sure. And I jumped in Moto2 in the European Championship and was really a correct changes following also the advices of my brother because I wanted to go in the Moto3 World Championship because I think it's really good category that teach you a lot of good things that help you also in MotoGP. But for me it was not possible because it was too tiny the bike and this was a really good move and then arriving in Moto2 in the World Championship I start my journey maybe a little bit.

I did some time at the beginning but not so much because at the end after just five years arriving in MotoGP so it's good. Yeah and you had some really good years in Moto2. So 2027 there's going to be a big shake up of the rules. I asked your teammate earlier and I'd like to ask you as well if you could change one rule if Dawner came to you and the FIM and the and everybody and they said okay Luca you can have one rule, what would you change? Well this is I think a difficult question to answer because I don't have the power to change it but if I have to imagine sure that the aerodynamics is the first thing that come in my mind.

But I don't think that just limit is the way because then when you limit something there is every time something to avoid the limitation. Yes. I would like to have a very clear and precise regulation for don't have grey areas and don't have somebody that can find a hole. Yeah, find a way to agirare regolamento. Agirare the regulation.

I don't know the correct word in English, sorry. Find a liberal. Yeah. Okay. So you mean Gigi De Lina and Ducati, who would find a liberal?

No, no, no. I think that in a lot of construction, in a lot of factories there are very good engineers Gigi is one of the best sure but also in the other part also in Honda we have very, very strong people very smart and clever. So just more clear regulation and if I need to choose something about the technical side, sure there are aerodynamics because in my opinion as soon as the aerodynamic come, the overtaking was more difficult. Yeah. And every year it becomes more difficult and we stress a lot the tyres so we complain a lot for the tyres.

But all the problems are started with aerodynamic in my opinion. That maybe is not also a bad thing for the development of the bike and the technology is something interesting to see. But in my opinion the show is less. Sure. It's difficult for you to say I guess after just one test it's a pang on the new bike but is there a track you're particularly looking forward to, either one that you like anyway or that you think yeah this bike on this track will do well?

Impossible to say this. Impossible because now the bike is completely different to the past. So maybe in the past with the same experience of the past years of Honda I can tell you maybe Austin can be good because last year won Prince and in the past Mark won every time. So maybe the track would be good for us but I think that in this moment the bike is so changed that maybe it's not so easy that we are going to be fast there. So we need to wait and understand because also Austin is just the third race of the year so we will not be at our 100%.

Sure. And finally the concessions that Honda have been granted for this year it could make a very very busy year for all you guys, the test team and especially for you and Juan. Do you think that's going to be a big help with the busiest year we've ever had, although Argentina's now dropped off but it's still going to be at least as busy as last year. Are you looking forward to it or is there some how this is going to be hard work? I think I'm a little bit in the middle but not for the busy part.

It's not busy. I like it. For me I can go on the bike every week. It's not a problem like in all the other sports. If you see football players play football every day.

So it's just a pleasure to be here and ride a MotoGP bike. For me if I can do it every week it's perfect. But on the other hand I don't think that the concessions is something so big for use it because maybe you have a little bit more tests and everything but you need also to work a lot to invest a lot of money. The engineers have to do a great job and a busy job also for them. So it's not so easy that you have the concession and the results will arrive in one year.

It's not so true. We need to use our potential in the best way and these concessions in the best way. But I think that it will be not so easy. It's not just we have the concession so we'll improve a lot in an easy way. Sure.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for giving us your time. It will be fascinating to watch your progress through the season. Wish you the very best of luck.

Thank you so much. Have a good day. Thank you.