Luck was not on Miguel Oliveira’s side in the MotoGP Japanese GP race. The CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team rider was strong in the rainy conditions in Motegi, fighting for a podium position when, on the 12th lap, he was forced to enter the pit lane. He ended up finishing in 18th place.
Despite the threat of rain, the Portuguese rider started with a hard front tire and a medium rear slick tire, quickly moving into the top ten on the first lap. The race direction displayed a white flag, allowing for bike changes if the riders chose to do so.
Like several other riders, Oliveira entered the pits after the first lap to switch to a bike with rain tires, dropping out of the top ten. However, he maintained the eighth position among the riders who made the same change right after the first lap. With the pit stops of Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) and Cal Crutchlow (Yamalube RS4GP Racing Team), he moved up to 11th place.
Double gain for Portuguese in the fourth lap, with an overtaking on track to Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini/Ducati) and a rise of two places following pit stops from Franco Morbidelli (Monster Energy Yamaha) and Stefan Bradl (LCR Honda). So, he was back to eighth… climbing to seventh in the next lap with the bike change by Michele Pirro (Ducati).
With a good pace, Oliveira continued to progress in the classification and in the seventh lap reached the top five by swapping with Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda). When he was already in fourth place, he lost the position to the Spanish in the 11th lap following a small mistake. In the same lap, he was overtaken by Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia).
After showing a strong pace in the rain, in the 12th lap Oliveira entered the pits to retire. However, he gained a second chance: the race was interrupted with a red flag at the end of that lap due to heavy rain and he was allowed to line up for the second start, from the pit lane.
However, the water on the track was too much and the race direction even chose to declare the race as finished. Thus, Oliveira was classified as 18th and penultimate, leaving Motegi without any points in a difficult weekend that was affected by bad luck when it seemed to be going well.
Hard slick tire in front and medium slick tire in the back
Lap 1: 8th
Medium rain tire in front and medium rain tire in the back
Lap 2: 13th
Lap 3: 11th
Lap 4: 8th
Lap 5: 7th
Lap 6: 6th
Lap 7: 5th
Lap 8: 4th
Lap 9: 4th
Lap 10: 4th
Lap 11: 6th
Lap 12: Pit stop (18th)
