Fernandez impresses on his way to a qualification sixth

At a track that Ruben Fernandez admitted wasn’t his favourite, the Team HRC rider put in an impressive ride in the MXGP of Sardegna qualification race to finish sixth and maintain his second place in the 2023 MXGP World Championship standings.

With a week of successful sand training sessions under his belt, the #70 headed to Riola Sardo, buoyed by both his victory at the MXGP of Patagonia-Argentina and how much he had improved in the deep dune sand. In the free practice session, he took his time to re-familiarise himself with the treacherous Riola Sardo circuit before going out in timed practice and immediately putting in a time to challenge those at the top. Having a ‘purple sector’ for a lot of the session, he was visibly more comfortable than he’s ever looked before and ended up fifth, which set himself up nicely for the qualification race.

Narrowly avoiding a first turn pile-up, Fernandez put in a great first lap to quickly move into fourth place, before settling into a pace with those around him. For the first half of the race, he rode a smart race, not taking too many chances on what is always a difficult track to negotiate. But a couple of mistakes by those in front, suddenly put him third place and with second within view, he twisted the throttle to close up and make his move. Unfortunately, as he went to pass the ride in second, he tucked the front end and dropped a few positions. Remounting in sixth, he still had work to do to hold off the chasing pack, but showing remarkable coolness under pressure, especially having just dropped some places, he brought it home in sixth to give him five valuable championship points.

It also gives him another good gate-pick for tomorrow’s races which count for the championship and the actual GP overall. This is where he was successful at round one, going five-one for the top step of the podium after a fourth place in qualification, and the hope is that he’ll be able to repeat that sort of performance here and continue his great start to the 2023 world championship.