Miguel Oliveira finished the first free practice of the Catalunya MotoGP Grand Prix in 12th place. It was a session where, as usual, the focus is on working on the bike and adaptation, rather than the stopwatch since the times don’t count for anything.
With his first flying lap in Barcelona, the rider from Almada was in 15th position, before significantly improving on the second attempt, reaching third behind the official Aprilias of Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales.
Without improving on the next lap, he dropped to tenth and, despite improving his time to enter the 1m40s, he couldn’t progress in the classification. After four flying laps, he entered the pits and was in 12th place.
He returned to the track approximately ten minutes later, when he was 13th, with the same previous tires on his Aprilia: a soft one in front and a medium one in the back. Without improving, he remained in 13th, completing a sequence of laps at a steady pace in the high 1m41s.
In the last five minutes, Oliveira started the final sequence of laps with a new soft tire in the front and a new medium tire in the back. When he improved his time, he had already dropped to 16th, only managing to advance to 15th.
On his final lap, #88 set his personal best time of the session (1m40.397s) to finish in 12th place. Nevertheless, he couldn’t avoid being the worst of the Aprilia riders: Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) was fifth, Oliveira’s teammate, Raúl Fernández, finished tenth, and Maverick Viñales (Aprilia) was 11th.
- Exit 1: New soft tire in front and new medium tire in the back
- Lap 1: Pit exit
- Lap 2: 1m44,408s
- Lap 3: 1m41,120s
- Lap 4: 1m44,212s
- Lap 5: 1m40,662s
- Lap 6: Pit entry
- Exit 2: Used soft tire in front and used medium tire in front
- Lap 7: Pit exit
- Lap 8: 1m41,797s
- Lap 9: 1m41,430s
- Lap 10: 1m44,602s
- Lap 11: 1m41,454s
- Lap 12: Pit entry
- Exit 3: New soft tire in front and new medium tire in the back
- Lap 13: Pit exit
- Lap 14: 1m43,183s
- Lap 15: 1m40,500s
- Lap 16: 1m42,504s
- Lap 17: 1m40,397s (end of session)
