In the end, it’s all about the results and Miguel Oliveira knows it well. The Friday of the San Marino MotoGP Grand Prix hinted at a tough round for Miguel Oliveira, but the rider finished in sixth place in the main race this Sunday in Misano, also being the second best Aprilia rider.
Good start for the Portuguese to place himself in seventh position in the first corners. It was the position he held in the early laps, not far from sixth-placed Maverick Viñales (Aprilia), but also with Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda) close behind.
On the seventh lap, Brad Binder’s crash (Red Bull KTM) while in fourth place promoted Oliveira to sixth. The rider continued to show a solid pace at this stage of the race. However, in the following lap, he made a braking mistake, was overtaken by Marc Márquez, and thus dropped back to seventh.
Without pace to keep up with the Spaniard, Oliveira started to be pursued by Álex Márquez (Gresini/Ducati), receiving a track limits warning 15 laps from the end. The Spaniard was overtaken by Raúl Fernández (CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team/Aprilia) around midway through the race, so #88 started to be pursued by his teammate.
With ten laps to go, Oliveira did not show a significant drop in performance. Proof of this was the fact that he set his best lap time so far on the 18th lap. Furthermore, he was closing in on sixth place… which he regained on lap 22.
Once in sixth, Oliveira held onto that position, which he maintained until the end. He couldn’t catch up to the top five closed by Viñales, but he achieved a sixth place that seemed unlikely after the many difficulties experienced in Misano on Friday.
Hard front tire and medium rear tire
Lap 1: 7th
Lap 2: 7th
Lap 3: 7th
Lap 4: 7th
Lap 5: 7th
Lap 6: 7th
Lap 7: 7th
Lap 8: 6th
Lap 9: 7th
Lap 10: 7th
Lap 11: 7th
Lap 12: 7th
Lap 13: 7th
Lap 14: 7th
Lap 15: 7th
Lap 16: 7th
Lap 17: 7th
Lap 18: 7th
Lap 19: 7th
Lap 20: 7th
Lap 21: 7th
Lap 22: 6th
Lap 23: 6th
Lap 24: 6th
Lap 25: 6th
Lap 26: 6th
Lap 27: 6th
