Miguel Oliveira was able to somewhat mitigate the struggles he faced on Friday during the MotoGP San Marino Grand Prix. He secured the 12th place in the sprint race and the tenth position on the starting grid. However, the rider from CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team continues to experience some issues.
The Portuguese rider confirmed that he had a better Saturday compared to the first day at Misano: ‘Today was a little bit better. I could at least do a fairly competitive qualifying. It’s not easy when you go through Q1 and you have another go twice in Q2, but I was happy that at least I could go through with a good lap time. I didn’t have much more in terms of speed in Q2 – maybe a tenth, but not something significant in terms of row progression’.
As for the sprint race, Oliveira explained that the performance of the rear tyre hindered him: ‘I had a good start, I had a good first couple of corners. Then, already after two or three laps I started to feel like the rear tyre was not getting up to a good performance level and a good grip, so I struggled to keep the pace. I also struggled a lot to turn in the afternoon in turn 11, in the fast section. I’ve lost basically all my race there in terms of lap time. So, it was like an «io-io effect» on the riders who were in front of me. So, hopefully with this we can make another step for tomorrow. From yesterday to today we made a huge jump, so hopefully tomorrow we can something similar’.
Regarding the issues with the rear grip, the Almada-born rider commented: ‘We came from the qualifying where the grip is obviously so high and then we kind of set-up the bike electronically to that. I think some is also due to the tyres, some to the conditions, some to our set-up. I think it wasn’t the best compromise we could find’.
Asked if he has any idea why he is not able to do the fast corners, Oliveira answered: ‘Yesterday I had more or less the same issue. Basically I miss more transfer for the bike to load the front and turn in. I have to anticipate a lot the corner so I can actually make the apex, but I’m just too slow to make the apex. So, I need to increase the speed, but also how the bike turns faster. So, it’s not working at the moment – especially when I’m behind the other bikes becomes even worse. So, there’s for sure something we can upgrade for tomorrow’.