It took a while, but the right direction seems to have been found by Miguel Oliveira and Trackhouse Racing at the Qatar tests, with the Portuguese rider talking about the difficulties he initially experienced, which seem to have been partly overcome. His record improved considerably from one day to the next, and could be even better.
Analysing what could be the first round of the MotoGP World Championship, Oliveira explained that he wasn’t the only individual to improve, and that he feels he still has «something more»: ‘Not just me, but the team finally managed to make a good step forward on the last day of testing. We struggled with the feelings with the bike at the beginning, in Sepang and here, and finally the team found a way to help me and we immediately saw the gap, I was two seconds and something a bit quicker than the day before and I finished with the feeling that I had a bit more speed than I showed, and I’m hopeful that we can continue this way here during the race weekend’.
The Portuguese then explained some of the difficulties: ‘Basically the way the bike was built was with the focus on having more downforce in all parts, and of course you have to adapt especially the height and how the front suspensions will work with that, and I was struggling a lot in the fast corners to have that feedback, to have the bike really stable to enter the corners and I lost a lot of time there’.
Oliveira is therefore feeling confident, as it seems that the first big hurdle has been overcome, and the way forward has been found, he believes: ‘During the test we finally understood which direction to go in terms of the settings to help me and to be fast. That was it’.