After a highly successful MXGP of Patagonia-Argentina, Team HRC’s Ruben Fernandez heads to the island of Sardinia, Italy, for round two of the 2023 MXGP World Championship where the deep sand of Riola Sardo awaits.
Taking the overall with five-one results, for his first ever MXGP victory, Fernandez will now look to try and take hold of the championship-leaders red-plate after a change to scoring system now means that qualifying races count for the title, but not for the weekend’s overall. Sitting just two points off the lead, the Spaniard knows it won’t be easy as the deep sand track isn’t his favourite surface for riding. However, with a solid week of testing in similar conditions under his belt, and with renewed confidence after the excellent result in South America, this weekend could well provide him with the opportunity to show everyone that he has improved his riding in every type of terrain.
Unfortunately, teammate, and reigning MXGP World Champion Tim Gajser won’t be joining this weekend as he still recovers from a broken femur sustained at a pre-season Italian International race at Arco di Trento. His recovery is still going well though and everyday the leg gets better, so there is hope that we’ll be seeing ‘Tiga’ at a race track in the near future.
So, this weekend, all eyes will be on the #70 and to see whether he can repeat his race and overall-winning exploits from a couple of weeks ago and cement himself further into the fight for this 2023 world motocross championship.
Ruben Fernandez: Normally, I wouldn’t be so excited to head to Sardinia, as it isn’t my favourite track, but after winning the opening round in Argentina, I can’t wait for another race. The support and messages from everyone has been amazing and it is just a dream come true to have won an MXGP. This is the thing that when you are a young boy, you grow up dreaming about, to stand on top of the podium, and to hear the national anthem playing for you. And now that I have experienced it, my aim is to make that happen as many times as possible.
Marcus Pereira de Freitas – HRC General Manager – MXGP: Argentina was just an amazing event for us at Team HRC. Ruben went there and just rode superbly, and to win the second moto was a big achievement, but to then take the overall was just a massive boost of confidence to him and everyone in the team. I am really proud of how hard everyone has worked and we are all really motivated to help Ruben out in the sand of Riola this weekend. This track hasn’t provided the best of memories since it entered onto the GP calendar but we are hoping that this weekend can change that.
