First race of the year and Miguel Oliveira ended up with a slight improvement… but an improvement nonetheless. The Portuguese rider finished 13th in the Sprint at Losail, with the final overtake happening on the last lap.
The Portuguese rider narrowly missed out on Q2 directly and once again failed to qualify in Q1, by a small margin. However, he has shown in several occasions during races that he has other strengths and that is precisely what could happen today, in a Sprint race where he will start from the fifth row of the grid, in 14th position, between Johann Zarco and Marco Bezzecchi.
After the first lap, Oliveira was 16th at the end of the second sector and would finish the first lap, out of 11, in that same position. Ahead of him was Joan Mir and behind him was his teammate Raúl Fernández.
In the second sector of the second lap, the Portuguese overtook Mir and now had Fabio Quartararo ahead, just over 1s away. Marco Bezzecchi would be the new rider ahead of #88, after losing some positions, but Oliveira would be promoted one position shortly after and returned to the starting position after Fabio Di Giannantonio crashed dramatically.
Eight laps from the end, Bezzecchi was 0.506s ahead and Fernández remained behind, 0.558s away. With four laps completed, Oliveira was closer to Bezzecchi, 0.365s away, and Fernández was also closer, 0.256s away.
In the fourth sector of the sixth lap, Fernández confirmed the overtake and Oliveira returned to 15th place, but at the beginning of the next lap, the Portuguese returned the maneuver to his teammate and returned to 14th place.
This is how the Portuguese stood in the classification four laps from the end:
Bezzecchi was getting closer, 0.161s away, and the Portuguese’s pace was steady and faster than the rider ahead of him, as well as the one following him at this moment. Fernández was further away (0.8s) and Bezzecchi was 0.140s away.
Two laps from the end, Bezzecchi overtook Johann Zarco and the Frenchman became the Portuguese’s new closest opponent, with #5 now leading a Honda RC213V from LCR, 0.142s away.
Oliveira’s overtake on Zarco was confirmed moments later, in the fourth sector of the tenth lap.The race would end shortly after with Oliveira bidding farewell to Sprint in 13th place, a better position than his initial one in the race.
