‘Error code’ caused Raul Fernandez grid chaos in Qatar

Trackhouse began its first MotoGP weekend already knowing Miguel Oliveira had a long lap penalty to serve in the Qatar Grand Prix, carried over from a clash in the 2023 event.

But the new team’s hopes then suffered another major setback before the red lights had even gone out when Raul Fernandez, third fastest in warm-up, suddenly raised his hand on the grid, forcing the start to be abandoned.

After some frantic exchanges with officials, Fernandez was directed into pit lane. After swapping bikes he then started at the back of the field, fought up to 17th, before pulling his RS-GP23 back into the pits and retiring.

“Honestly, I’m really frustrated,” Fernandez said. “After a really good warm up and a really good weekend in general, we were very competitive.

“On the grid I had an issue with the electronics… I saw the lights on the dashboard and there was something not right.”

“Raul had an error code on his dash just before he started,” explained team manager Wilco Zeelenberg. “After two or three seconds the bike came back [to normal], but at that point you need to leave the grid as soon as possible.

“[Then] we had to switch to the second bike because it was too tricky to start with the error code.”

But that wasn’t the end of Fernandez’s woes, since the spare bike was fitted with used tyres.

“I had to run [swap] to the other bike, that had used tyres and with that my race was almost done,” Fernandez said. “I tried to do the race, but the last five laps it was really difficult to manage the tyres, I couldn’t ride and entered the garage.”

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Oliveira meanwhile dropped from 15th to 19th after serving his long lap, then clawed his way back to the final point on the penultimate lap.

“The long lap really penalised us a lot,” said the Portuguese, who has a 2024 spec Aprilia. “I had to do the long lap early in the race when the group is more compact and I just lost time and track position. So, I had to regain a few positions while I was trying to conserve the tyre.

“A point for the effort, but we are not happy how the weekend finished. I believe we still need a little bit more time to get the best out of the bike. I think the team is able to do it, we just need some time, need to keep working and put our heads down to get the best out of ourselves.”

Team principal Davide Brivio said: “We go away from Qatar knowing that we have the potential to do much better than what we have done.

“Portugal will be a very important race for Miguel. Before then, we will analyse everything that happened here and try to improve, to do better.”