Miguel Oliveira had good prospects for the MotoGP Qatar GP, but ended up only in 15th place – after missing out on points in the Sprint race, although he was close to the top 12 in qualifying.
The Portuguese rider from Trackhouse Racing admitted that the Losail round served as a lesson, explaining to SportTV the incidents of his race: ‘We learned a good lesson. It was difficult, in the race we didn’t have a competitive bike for much more. Coming out of that position I knew I was going to suffer a bit right away with the Long Lap. The problem is not only the time lost doing the Long Lap, it’s also the position you end up in. I was there in a pretty compact group fighting for the top ten, then I re-entered the track in 19th. There was a period of seven laps where I tried my best to save the tire for the end. In the end, I pushed to try to have a better pace. But there was very little to do, I wasn’t close enough to overtake more riders and I finished in 15th. We are not at all satisfied. The bike behaves more acceptably in a fast lap, but then to maintain a race pace, with less grip, more laps, the bike heavier, we are still quite far away‘.
Despite the disappointment in the first round of the year, Oliveira showed confidence that he will reach the desired level: ‘Obviously we will get there; it will take a little time, but we will get there. We have that power, Aprilia has very competent people to work on it. I don’t know in what order of priorities our team can place itself there, but I believe that we are relying a lot on Aprilia, but at the same time we are also becoming more independent and following our own paths and our tuning philosophies and ideas for the bike. So, that is our path to the future’.
Segue-se o GP de Portugal em Portimão, onde o #88 conta já ter uma base depois do desempenho positivo do ano passado: ‘A partir daí é perceber que tipo de limitações é que nós teremos de trabalhar na próxima corrida. Mas, para já, daqui do Qatar prometia muito, mas a realidade foi outra’.
Questionado se gostaria de voltar à versão de 2022 da Aprilia RS-GP, Oliveira negou: ‘Não. Havia um passo intermédio, que era a de 2023 que era bastante boa e só a experimentei uma manhã em Misano – fiz duas ou três saídas e disse: «Eu não quero andar mais com esta moto porque não vou ter isto no futuro, portanto é impossível». E realmente havia essa expectativa para a de 2024. Mas por algum motivo ou outro ainda não encaixámos bem com o potencial da moto. Por isso, quero acreditar que é tempo que precisamos e, sem dúvida alguma, para já os dados indicam isso mesmo. […]. Não sei quando é que chegará o momento, mas acho que é com esta experiência que vamos tendo com o acumular das corridas que nos vai ajudar’.
