After the period at Red Bull KTM in MotoGP, Miguel Oliveira returned to a satellite team – in this case, Aprilia. First, it was RNF and now it is Trackhouse Racing, which has greater synergies with the Noale manufacturer, already providing a current bike.
The Portuguese mentioned that last year he felt that this type of situation could make the feedback more positive: ‘I had a year where obviously I had valuable comments about the bike, but I was using a one-year-old bike, and it was basically me repeating what the riders repeated in the previous year – probably in a different way, probably a bit more detail, less detail, but the comments were more or less the same. I feel that the impact could be much more positive if we all had the same bike specification. And that’s what is happening this year‘.
Oliveira mentioned that the way forward is to have two relatively close teams: ‘It is true that it is not easy to provide technical support in terms of people and create a kind of complete second factory team. But we are looking for that, I think that is the way to go in the future. At the moment, I basically have the same bike and that’s it. We added a performance engineer on each side of the garage – one for Raúl [Fernández] and one for me. But it is true that nowadays when you are not 100 percent in MotoGP it seems like you are not there. But the differences are so small that you come out from where the TV is filming. It’s not easy, but we are getting there‘.
About the difference between being in a satellite team and a factory team, #88 explained: ‘It’s different. The difference is that the staff is focused on you and everyone is thinking about your comments – not just at the end of the day, “we’ll have a meeting and probably try to help you”. That’s the main difference, let’s say – during the day, during the sessions‘.
