The 21st place on the timesheets was not a good sign for Miguel Oliveira on the first day of MotoGP testing in Losail. The Trackhouse Racing rider struggled to adopt a competitive speed, particularly due to time lost in fast corners.
The Portuguese rider spoke about his difficulties to the press: ‘Today was not good. I was not fast, I hadn’t a good pace. I lose a lot of time in the fast corners due to the lack of turning of the bike. It’s basically the same feeling as I had in Sepang. I need to get that fixed for tomorrow – at least to try to be a little bit more competitive. I’m also sure that it’s not all the bike, I need to come half way. But somehow we need to find a way that we can meet in the middle and improve. So far I’m struggling to go fast because of this, but it’s true also that we didn’t touched a lot the geometry of the bike compared to Sepang. So hopefully we can get that tested tomorrow in order to understand which way to go’.
Regarding the origin of the problems with the Aprilia RS-GP, Oliveira mentioned that there isn’t much he understands: ‘For sure the main difference it’s a lot the aero package, the way this bike is using the air. But I couldn’t tell you much more because I really don’t know. For me the feeling is lack of turning and I need to get that improved quickly, otherwise will be though’.
The #88 also explained: ‘Essentially it’s a combination between the engine braking working and it’s really in the moment of the trail-braking phase. As soon as you go in, you have this sliding of the rear and then you have the pushing to the front. And this creates some instability. It’s a fraction of a second where you are here and you turn or you go wide. There are many points on the track that you can lose time here because of this. So of course this difficulty amplifies here, maybe it’s not so bad in Sepang, but here is worst, it’s more clear. And we need to get that fixed without compromising the other things that are actually working OK. The how to do it, that’s a bit more complex maybe. Hopefully we can get that out of the way tomorrow’.
There’s one day of testing left in Qatar. Can the problems be solved? Oliveira said: ‘I’m just a little bit affraid of the time window we have. If we get it right it’s fantastic; if we don’t, we might lose. We don’t have enough good hours during the test to actually find out and try a lot. So whatever we need to do, needs to be good’.
