Miguel Oliveira returned to the top ten results with a tenth place finish at the Barcelona round of MotoGP. However, he faced many problems and difficulties in trying to do more in the main race. So far, the best result for Trackhouse Racing’s rider in 2024 is an eighth place, and he believes he can do much better.
Days after the Catalunya GP, the Portuguese rider has some understanding of what didn’t go well last week: ‘The team analyzed quite a bit and it seems that we are still not balanced with the weight. We are overloading the front tire a bit, so on a track where you don’t have grip, it quickly becomes a problem. We also saw a big difference in terms of pace at the start of the race, and I simply didn’t have any extra grip at the beginning, so I lost a lot of time there. Then, you see that several riders were not insanely fast, but simply maintained the pace and some others broke down a lot. We were among those who broke down‘.
Asked if what Aprilia is doing for the riders is enough, Oliveira mentioned that he is not asking for more than he can ask for – extracting the maximum with the means available:
– It’s still the same. We have the same structure, the same people. Everyone is doing their best with the tools we have, and that is the main goal and what I can ask for: with what we have, do the maximum. At the moment, I simply feel that we can be much faster, but we are not reaching the potential of the bike. And when that happens, it is always frustrating for both parties, for me and for the team. But we need to keep our heads down, because there are still many races to go and we can shine much more than we are shining at the moment.
