Miguel Oliveira finally had a promising start on a Friday. The Trackhouse Racing rider finished third in the practice session of the German MotoGP, consistently ranking among the fastest in both sessions of the day at Sachsenring.
The Portuguese rider confirmed that he felt good and everything went ideally, stating: ‘A good feeling. We managed to click very easily with the bike. We didn’t change many things, to be honest. I just worked a lot on the electronics. It seems to be working quite well. The time attacks went great, everything came out in a natural way, riding super clean, no mistakes, good pace, so hopefully tomorrow we can challenge for a good place in qualifying. It’s the best Friday I’ve had in long a time’.
Asked whether electronics were the only reason for this good performance on Friday, Oliveira explained that there are other factors: ‘Of course not. I think one of the reasons it’s… after Assen I had a good debrief with the team, with Aprilia. I tried to explain to them what I was missing. It was quite clear the few changes we needed to do with the bike – they are small, but make a big difference. Suspension-wise, not anything related to the geometry. And it seems to be working. It’s also true that I don’t suffer so much with the kind of corner speed problems I have in the right corners, as much on the left. On the left I struggle much less. Now I need to keep building this base, and I think we are going in the good direction’.
Another aspect helping the Portuguese rider is the extra support he received from Aprilia after Aleix Espargaró was forced to withdraw from the German GP due to injury: ‘Also this makes a difference. Aleix with this injury, after he couldn’t ride, the team – especially the performance side – came over and they gave us a help. You can definetely feel the help’.