Heading into what will be his fourth season with Team HRC, Ruben Fernandez finds himself at a pivotal point in his MXGP career. The Spaniard has shown flashes of genuine front-running speed over the past few years, including impressive outings on Honda’s prototype machinery late last season, but he is the first to admit he wants more. More consistency, more podiums and, ultimately, more race wins.
After an “okay” 2025 campaign by his own standards, Fernandez has overhauled key parts of his preparation in a bid to take the next step. From training at home with a new mechanic to refining his approach to starts and race management, the goal is clear: convert raw pace into regular silverware. Add in further development of the Honda prototype that showed real promise toward the end of last year, and there’s a renewed sense of belief within the HRC camp.
Fernandez opens up about the changes he has made during the off-season, the importance of stability within the same team environment, the evolution of the new bike, and what it will take to challenge consistently for moto wins and overall GP victories in the fiercely competitive MXGP class.
Host: First we have Ruben Fernandez, who’s been with the team the longest. So Ruben, you’ve been with the team a long time, but what changes have you made to try and be more successful this year, to try and be more consistently up on the podium?
Fernandez: Well yeah, I think that it might be the fourth season on the—the team HRC. So yeah, it’s been a long journey but very enjoyable as well. Obviously last season was okay but I still wasn’t really satisfied with it, you know I think I’m capable of more and I definitely want more, so this season I’ve been changing some stuff on my preparation, I’ve been training at home, I have a new training mechanic and a lot of things have changed, new bike as well. We just came out of the first test with the team and a lot of improvements have been made there, so yeah feeling confident, feeling motivated, feeling happy which I think is an important part of the job, so, definitely looking forward to this season and to see how it develops.
Adam Wheeler: Ruben, what do you need to do this year to be challenging for regular moto wins, GP wins, podiums? And secondly what with your experience on the Honda last year, do you think that will be advantage coming into this year?
Fernandez: Well first of all I believe the starts, now we already know the starts are the biggest or the most important thing on MXGP these days. They can change the race completely, so getting good starts will help a lot. So yeah we’ll start on that, and yeah afterwards you know taking the experience that I’ve had on the previous years on MXGP, I believe I’m missing—I’ve been missing consistency at a time so I will try and focus on that, you know try to stay every moto every race on the—on the first positions and then obviously with a good start and when with consistency staying on the bike and you know I know I can be fast so I think that will bring the good results and fighting for moto wins, fighting for podiums and hopefully I can be doing that more regularly this year and that’s pretty much it I think.
Lorenzo Anelli (MX Report): Ruben, how important is it to stay on the same team for several years to be able to improve by knowing you’ve got consistency with that aspect of the riding?
Fernandez: Well I believe staying on the same team for long years is always helpful, especially here I’ve been feeling like a family, it’s been always since the day one very welcome here, very warm and you know I have a good relationship with everyone on the team so that’s one thing less that you have to think about now. You’re already comfortable with everyone, you already know everyone so you just have to focus on riding and that’s it and to develop on bringing results and developing during the season so yeah like I said four years I think it’s going be the fourth one and feeling at home.
Jonathan McCready (GateDrop): Ruben, the prototype bike that you made look really good at the end of the year, can you talk about the development it’s gone through this year already and the improvements you’re expecting coming into this season from what you rode last year?
Fernandez: Yeah, so as you might know during last season I had I switched bike and then I started riding with prototype bike. There was a lot of positives in there on from the 2025 bike to the prototype bike. It was a completely new bike, a lot of things changed but I was feeling comfortable. We gained on many aspects, but it was still a little bit early for the bike to jump on GPs maybe. But at the end it was a lot of good information that we bring into this season. Some things were where the team could work on, so we found out a lot of improvements on the latest test. Right now, the bike is feeling strong. I think the team has done an amazing job and I’m pretty excited and happy and motivated to see where we can even improve more. I’m pretty happy and I’m feeling comfortable with the how the bike is feeling right now.
