The stopwatch doesn’t lie, I wrote last night. So what does the stopwatch say about the times Augusto Fernandez’ first public outing on Yamaha’s brand new V4 machine? It’s complicated, so you’ll have to bear with me a little, but the short version is that it is very promising.
First, how do you measure how fast the V4 is? You look at the times Augusto Fernandez set and where he finished. In FP1, the Yamaha test rider finished 21st of 23, with a time of 1’32.537, 1.195 behind the fastest rider, Franco Morbidelli. In Practice in the afternoon, Fernandez ended 19th with a 1’31.678, this time 1.198 behind the fastest rider, Marc Márquez (more of Márquez later).
Remarkable consistency, but how to interpret finishing 21st and 19th? We need context to interpret the times. And the best way to do that, in my opinion, is to compare his times with his previous appearances this year, all of which were aboard Yamaha’s inline four. Fernandez has raced five times so far this year, in Austin, Qatar, and Jerez replacing Miguel Oliveira, out through injury, and at Aragon and Brno as a wildcard for the Yamaha Factory Racing test team.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
