After finishing 14th in qualifying, Miguel Oliveira managed to recover to ninth in the Sprint race of the Spanish MotoGP Grand Prix. However, he benefited from several crashes ahead of him during this recovery, facing more difficulties to gain and maintain position due to his pure competitiveness.
The Trackhouse Racing Portuguese rider told the press that he had problems right after the start: ‘My start was decent, but I couldn’t deactivate my holeshot device and until turn 6 I had the front down and no suspension or absorption. It completely ruined my start. And that’s it‘.
Oliveira was in eighth place before an overtaking attempt by Marc Márquez (Gresini/Ducati) forced him to widen a trajectory: ‘The rest, I saw everyone crashing, so I tried to stay on the bike. Three laps from the end I looked at the board and I was in the points, so I said: “Let me just try to finish without any major issues.” But then came Marc, Augusto [Fernández] overtook us‘, he said.
The ninth place was achieved after Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) had an incident near the end, but despite the result, #88 admitted that he was not pleased with how he achieved it: ‘Fortunately Zarco crashed in the last corner and gave me a point, but honestly that’s not how I want to compete, waiting for riders ahead to crash so I can reach a good position. So, we really need to move forward‘.
