MONDAY AUGUST 11, 2025
Red Bull Ring, Spielberg. Austria
Red Bull Ring, Spielberg. Austria
Circuit Information:
Track length: 2.701 miles / 4.348 kilometers
Right Corners: 8
Left Corners: 3
Longest Straight: 0.503 miles / 0.810 kilometers
Constructed: 1997 / Modified: 2022
Time zone: GMT +2 / CET +1 / EST +6 / PCT +9
Notes & Quotes:
The summer break is done and we are back to racing at the Red Bull Ring for the Austrian Grand Prix.
Round 13 of the MotoGP World Championship roars back to life against the backdrop of the pine clad Styrian mountains which heralds the second part of the season and 10 race weekends in 14 weeks.
Trackhouse MotoGP Team, the only premier class team from the United States of America, has enjoyed a strong run of form over the last 6 races with #25 Raul Fernandez finishing in the top ten in each Grand Prix since Aragon. For #79 Ai Ogura, reigning Moto2 World Champion, his debut year on the Trackhouse Aprilia RS-GP25 got off to a stella start at the opening round, in Thailand, with 4th in the Sprint race and 5th in the Grand Prix but had his progress blunted by a heavy crash at Silverstone which left him with a fractured right Tibia bone and an enforced break on the side-lines. Both riders will be eager to get back into race mode in Austria with lots to go at for the remainder of the 2025 season.
The Trackhouse RS-GP25 bikes for both Raul and Ai will receive an aerodynamic upgrade for the Red Bull Ring – the one major aero adaptation allowed during the race season under the Championship regulations. With the upgrade the team will be hoping to have improved aerodynamic efficiency and stability, giving both riders greater performance potential and confidence at the limit of the bike’s grip and power delivery.
For Austria, both Trackhouse riders come to the track with past success on their logs for the Red Bull Ring. #25 Raul Fernandez took victory in Austria during his standout Moto2 campaign in 2021 – one of eight victories in a season that saw him take second place in the overall standings. Last year, in the team’s first season in MotoGP, Raul was forced to retire from the Grand Prix but, after his recent strong run of form, he will be looking to open the re-start of the 2025 season with a push for more points.
For #79 Ai Ogura, getting back to racing in Austria cannot come soon enough. He has suffered a bruising run since Silverstone with a series of confidence sapping crashes but, he has also showed that his natural speed and will to adapt to the nuances of MotoGP and his RS-GP25 are very much intact. Austria has been a happy hunting ground for the 24-year-old from Tokyo. In 2017, during his time within the Red Bull Rookie program, Ai scored a victory at the first Red Bull Ring round and a third in the second round at the track. In 2021, his rookie Moto2 season, he came home second at the Styrian track and went one better in 2022, recording victory in a campaign that saw him finish runner up in the season standings. Another third place podium finish in 2023 was the last time Ai contested a race in Austria as, ironically in 2024 having just signed his deal to join the Trackhouse MotoGP Team for this season, he crashed and was forced to sit out the Austrian Moto2 race. It was his only non-start in a campaign that saw him clinch the Moto2 World Championship title and Ai will arrive in Austria for this year’s event after a period of rest, recuperation and training in Japan.
Back to racing for the American MotoGP team and the opportunity to make its pair of newly upgraded Aprilia RS-GP 25 work well around the clockwise elevations and stop-go nature of the Red Bull Ring.
RAÚL FERNÁNDEZ
“After the summer break I’m happy to be back racing. Of course, the second part of the season will be very hard, but I prepared very well. We are very focused on these next two races, especially Austria as I know it’s hasn’t been a good track for me in the MotoGP class. But anyway, we come with really good progress in recent races and I would like to keep this going. We’ll have some tracks that are better for us and some that are a bit difficult. The Red Bull Ring is one that will be difficult but I aim to take the maximum, in the race and especially trying to do a decent job from Friday.”
AI OGURA
“I think the Red Bull Ring is a good circuit to start the second half. It’s a track I like and in past years I was riding quite OK there. The layout is stop and go and I believe it’s going to be really difficult to understand everything to go fast but I think once you understand all, I think it’s an easy track to go fast. So, I’ll try to be smart on Friday, use the sessions as much as I can. As everybody knows, Friday is an important day, so I’ll try to not miss anything, use the time to the maximum. Anyway, I like the country and the circuit, so let’s have fun for this first round of the second half. In this second half of the season there’ll be a lot of good circuits for me, so I’ll try to do the maximum for this Grand Prix and see which position we can get on Sunday.”
“It’s nice to come back racing after the summer break, hoping that everybody had the chance to recharge the battery for this end of the season that will be quite intense. We are looking forward to this round as we will get some further updates from Aprilia and hopefully, this will help our riders even more. Raul has been in a great moment and has doing great in the last rounds with a top 5 performance in Brno. This break I think has been quite useful for Ai to be fully recovered after the injury he had and the last races. We are really looking forward to Austria to hopefully be in best shape with the latest updates and see what we can do.”
- DAVIDE BRIVIO, TEAM PRINCIPAL
2025 MotoGP Championship Standings – after Round 12 – Czech Republic:
#25 Raul Fernandez - Championship position: 13th Total Points: 66
#79 Ai Ogura - Championship position: 16th Total Points: 51
Trackhouse MotoGP Team standing - Championship position: 8th Total Points: 117
Track action at the Grand Prix of Austria gets underway with FP1 – Friday, August 15 at 10.45 am (GMT+2)
