Yamaha Factory Racing

Fernández Rides to P13 in Unexpected Flag-To-Flag Spanish Sprint

The Yamaha Factory Racing Team continued their testing programme at the Circuito de Jerez – Ángel Nieto. In mixed conditions throughout the second day of the Grand Prix of Spain, wild-card entry Augusto Fernández had his work cut out for him to collect comparable data. In the 12-lap Sprint, he took the chequered flag in P13.

Jerez de la Frontera (Spain), 25th April 2026

The Yamaha Factory Racing Team had planned to use the Grand Prix of Spain Saturday to collect further race-weekend setting data. However, the damp conditions in FP2, dry conditions in qualifying, and mixed conditions in the Sprint meant the team had to contend with a lot of variety per session. Augusto Fernández was still riding competitively in the first ever flag-to-flag Sprint and ended the 12-lap dash in P13.

Fernández had qualified in P16 as the top Yamaha, but lost ground in the opening stages of the race, falling back to 22nd place. When the rain started to fall, the Yamaha test rider made the most of the situation. The test team was ready to let him switch to his wet bike in this unprecedented flag-to-flag Sprint situation. The number-47 rider climbed as high as P12 but lost a position on the final lap and took the chequered flag in P13, 19.777s from the winner.

The Yamaha Factory Racing Team will be back in action tomorrow for Warm Up, held from 09:40-09:50 (GMT+2), and the 25-lap Race, which starts at 14:00.

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AUGUSTO FERNÁNDEZ
Yamaha Factory Racing Rider

"I had fun today. We had a bit of everything. It was not easy to manage, but I'm happy with my performance. In the quali, I managed to be the first Yamaha in the wet, so that was not bad. In the dry, I was able to improve the feeling a bit personally, but we still have to work on the bike. That said, I was a bit closer to the other Yamaha guys, which is my main goal as a rider. There's not much data to analyse today because of the wet sessions, but we were able to compare the feeling in the wet and the dry. In the Sprint, we focused on bringing the bike back to the box in one piece, having completed a full race-distance. This is also important for tomorrow so we have more data."