Miguel Oliveira concludes the rodeo in Austin with an 11th place once again. Always recovering, the Portuguese rider was severely affected by losing four positions after Franco Morbidelli’s fall, but he showed his class once again and recovered to the same position where he finished yesterday’s Sprint.
Everything is ready for the start of the main attraction of the weekend at the GP of the Americas, with good conditions for the riders to perform at their best. Oliveira starts from 14th place, where he finished 11th in the Sprint, after attacking Brad Binder on the last lap to be on the edge of the top ten.
The start of the race didn’t go well for the home team duo, with both riders losing three positions after the first two sectors. However, Oliveira wanted more and immediately recovered two places, reaching 15th place, but ended the first lap in 17th, behind Raúl Fernández and ahead of Augusto Fernández.
On the following lap, Oliveira returned to 15th place and positioned himself behind Binder, with 0.441s separating them. R. Fernández was following closely behind his teammate, two tenths back, and… eventually overtook him shortly after, dropping Oliveira to 16th briefly, with #88 returning the move and staying just 0.209s behind Binder once again.
Marco Bezzecchi was the next opponent ahead of the Portuguese rider, who had passed his former KTM teammate, Binder. However, Álex Rins was the one Oliveira focused on, as Bezzecchi overtook the Yamaha rider. Everything returned to the original form, with Oliveira in 14th place.
Rins was at 0.151 and Binder at 0.183s. Anything could happen at this stage of the race, with the anticipation that, at any moment, there could be changes… and so it happened, with Oliveira reaching 13th! Bezzeecchi was at 0.640s.
Oliveira was in attack mode and gained another position, moving up to 12th and placing himself behind Aleix Espargaró, with the Spaniard at 0.645s.
With 13 laps to go, Oliveira remained in 12th but something happened that caused a sudden loss of four positions: Oliveira went from 12th to 16th right after Franco Morbidelli’s crash.
In a matter of seconds, Oliveira gained two positions and returned to 14th place, behind Binder, but without images or explanations of what happened that led to a loss of four positions. The South African was at 1.3s, precisely the advantage Oliveira had over Augusto Fernández.
Álex Márquez was another victim of the Austin track and this promoted Oliveira to gain another position, making him 13th… and the disaster of the Márquez brothers did not stop here! Marc was in first place and crashed, causing Oliveira to gain a place again: he was now 12th. Binder was at 1.514s.
The difference to Fabio Quartararo, Oliveira’s closest pursuer, continued to increase but the same was happening to Raúl Fernández, the new opponent, once again, for Oliveira. However, the distance between #25 and #88 quickly decreased, now at 1.2s with seven laps to go.
The recovery of positions continued and Oliveira was now 11th, exactly the position he finished in yesterday’s Sprint, after Jack Miller, ninth a moment ago, dropped to 12th.
The top ten was at 0.711s and “one R. Fernández” away, but with four laps to go everything was still possible.
Despite the difference, this did not result in changes for now as R. Fernández once again gained some margin over Oliveira, with the duo from the home team being separated by 1.755s.
The race would end shortly after with Oliveira repeating yesterday’s 11th place and thus being well within the points despite the many obstacles he faced during the race.
