Some in MotoGP didn’t want to offer Raul Fernandez a contract: the inside story of his renewal with Trackhouse

An important victory for the Spanish rider at Silverstone: he redeemed himself after the Sprint crash and once again confirmed that he deserves to stay on the MotoGP grid.

A perfect 10/10 performance from Raul Fernandez in Sunday’s race in Great Britain. At the start he quickly took the lead and held it to the end without making mistakes. Early on he pushed hard and more than a few thought he was over-stressing the tires and would pay for it after mid-distance, but his strategy worked flawlessly and brought him 25 very important points for his morale and for his standings.

After crashing in Saturday’s sprint race, he was eager to bounce back. He did it in the best possible way, giving himself and the SuperFile Trackhouse team a wonderful gift, fresh off a renewal for the 2027–2028 biennium. There is no longer any doubt that the Madrid-born rider deserves to keep racing in MotoGP.

Paco Sanchez, the rider’s manager, told AS that there was a moment when it looked like Fernandez might truly not have a seat on the 2027 MotoGP grid: "At the start of the season he was doing well, he was convinced he would earn a contract renewal or even that a factory would take notice of him. But then we ran into a reality that was new to me. I had never experienced a situation like this with a rider of this caliber, who was getting the results he was getting. Every time we approached someone, we were denied a contract or a renewal for the following year".

Despite the positive results, no doors were opening for the Madrilenian, understandably disheartened and inclined to think he wouldn’t be able to continue racing in the premier class of the World Championship: "When you find yourself in such a situation—explains Sanchez—you start to doubt everything. He started to worry, and there was a moment when he seriously thought he already had one foot out of the championship".

More than a few people wondered why the Trackhouse team hadn’t started talks to renew the contract of a rider who was performing well. After Davide Brivio decided to leave the team principal role in 2026 to go to Honda, a “power vacuum” emerged and only the arrival of Francesco Guidotti as team manager allowed Fernandez to once again have a concrete chance of not leaving Justin Marks’s squad.

Sanchez confirms the Tuscan manager was pivotal: "From the first moment I met Guidotti, he told me: ‘I don’t understand why Raúl doesn’t already have a contract.’ He never doubted Raúl for an instant and was as surprised as I was. He spoke with Justin and told him there was no better option on the market than Raúl and that they absolutely had to renew his contract. So it was Guidotti who really pushed for Raúl’s renewal".

There were also rumors about an offer to return to the KTM Tech3 team, now run by Guenther Steiner, but Fernandez prioritized Trackhouse and managed to secure a new two-year deal. Having his future settled certainly makes him calmer and allows him to focus solely on the track. The overall standings say he is sixth, 56 points behind leader Jorge Martin. Considering there are ten Grands Prix left in the championship, he is absolutely entitled to believe he can fight for the 2026 MotoGP world title.

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