Miguel Oliveira narrowly missed out on direct qualification for the second phase of the MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix. The rider was a constant presence among the top ten in practice, even leading at one point, but ultimately finished in 11th place.
At the start of the session, the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team’s Portuguese rider was in seventh place. He quickly lost this position by not improving on his second attempt, and when he did improve, he only managed to reach 12th. On his fifth attempt, Oliveira returned to the top ten, climbing to eighth.
After fifteen minutes, he ended this first stint in eighth place, maintaining a consistent pace in the low 1m45s. About ten minutes later, after dropping to ninth, Oliveira returned to the track… and quickly rose to second place with his best lap of the day so far… then improving further to take the lead. He was at the top of the leaderboard when he returned to the pits with 25 minutes remaining.
In the final quarter of an hour, Oliveira was back on track, losing the lead to Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia). Not improving in this stint, he started losing positions, being eighth when he returned to the pits in the last ten minutes. It was a brief stay in the garage, before returning to the track for the final attacks on the clock.
There, Oliveira immediately improved to fifth, but – also conditioned by yellow flags – he could not lower his lap time anymore and ended up in 11th, missing direct qualification for the second phase of qualifying by only 56 thousandths.
Run 1: Hard tire in front and medium tire in the back Lap 1: Pit exit Lap 2: 1m47.411s Lap 3: 1m50.265s Lap 4: 1m45.732s Lap 5: 1m47.151s Lap 6: 1m45.191s Lap 7: 1m45.821s Lap 8: 1m45.263s Lap 9: Pit entry
Run 2: Hard tire in front and soft tire in the back Lap 10: Pit exit Lap 11: 1m44.825s Lap 12: 1m44.498s Lap 13: 1m48.581s Lap 14: 1m46.006s Lap 15: Pit entry
Run 3: Hard tire in front and soft tire in the back Lap 16: Pit exit Lap 17: 1m45.066s Lap 18: 1m44.562s Lap 19: Pit entry
Run 4: Hard tire in front and soft tire in the back Lap 20: Pit exit Lap 21: 1m44.317s Lap 22: Lap canceled Lap 23: 1m44.448s Lap 24: Lap canceled (end of session)
