Miguel Oliveira will have to go through the first stage of qualifying for the MotoGP Americas GP. The Trackhouse Racing man was in a qualifying position for Q2 until the final moments of Friday afternoon’s practice in Austin, but at the end he dropped to 11th place.
In his first outing on track, the Portuguese rider completed four flying laps, setting a pace between 2m04s and 2m05s. He was briefly in the top ten, but when he entered the pits he was only 17th with 46 minutes remaining.
On his return to the track, Oliveira immediately improved to 2m03s, but this did not translate into advances in the standings and, after three laps back in the garage, he was only 18th. A tough session ahead for #88, in an essential session that determines the top ten directly advancing to the second stage of qualifying.
With 17 minutes remaining, Oliveira embarked on another sequence of laps and immediately reached 2m02s to return to the top ten. However, with several improvements in that phase, the standings quickly changed and when he returned to the garage two laps later, the Almada native was already 12th.
In the last five minutes, Oliveira went out on track for the final time in this session. On his first attempt in this sequence, he moved up to tenth place, but he gave up on the last lap and ended up losing the position to Franco Morbidelli (Prima Pramac/Ducati). Thus, he finished in 11th place, 0.108s away from advancing directly to the second stage of qualifying.
Exit 1: Medium tire in front and soft tire in the back
Lap 1: Pit exit
Lap 2: 2m05,870
Lap 3: 2m04,346
Lap 4: 2m04,778
Lap 5: 2m05,017
Lap 6: Pit entry
Exit 2: Medium tire in front and soft tire in the back
Lap 7: Pit exit
Lap 8: 2m03,994s
Lap 9:
Lap 10: 2m04,496s
Lap 11: Pit entry
Exit 3: Medium tire in front and soft tire in the back
Lap 12: Pit exit
Lap 13: 2m02,759s
Lap 14: 2m02,798s
Lap 15: Pit entry
Exit 4: Medium tire in front and soft tire in the back
Lap 16: Pit exit
Lap 17: 2m02,466s
Lap 18: 2m11,338s (end of practice)
