Miguel Oliveira finished in 15th place in both Friday’s practice sessions for the French MotoGP Grand Prix. The Trackhouse Racing rider was unable to get into the fight for the top ten that would grant direct access to the second qualifying session in Le Mans.
The Portuguese rider explained that he had some difficulties with the tires and also some misfortune with the timing of his attack on the clock: ‘It was a good afternoon. I made some changes to the bike and didn’t feel very comfortable with the soft rear [tire], especially in the second set of laps I had a huge drop in the tire. In terms of pace, I was a bit off. Then, in the attack on the clock, maybe I was too conservative in the first stint and then in the second I started to attack and had the yellow flag on the last lap after setting my best first sector‘.
On the positive side, Oliveira believes there is room for improvement on Saturday: ‘So, I was simply disappointed with that, because the overall performance is much better, the ideal lap time is much faster, which means we have that margin to improve tomorrow. It will be a tough Q1, but we have to go through it and qualify as best as we can‘.
Regarding the higher temperatures than expected, “Falcão” commented: ‘Usually when it’s a bit cooler, I remember that we didn’t suffer so much with the rear tire. I say this even comparing it to the warmer conditions we had last year, we have 10ºC higher asphalt temperature and slightly more tire wear, but it is much safer to attack with the front tire, so there are advantages and disadvantages. But I think we much prefer to have this heat than cold in Le Mans for sure. It is much more complicated to deal with‘.
