Miguel Oliveira continues his adaptation to the new Aprilia RS-GP and today, on the last day of testing in Sepang, he showed an interesting pace but “failed” in terms of attacking the times. The rider reveals that he is still missing something, and that today he missed the temperature window for that same attack.
The Portuguese rider was one of the most prominent in terms of aerodynamic solutions with Aprilia and was able to discard some already, which should make his work easier in Losail, he believes: ‘We are getting somewhere and certainly [before reaching] Qatar we have already eliminated half of the things and there we will have a more simplified work, but we still have to test some things again. Overall, I am happier with the sensations on the bike’.
He then spoke about his performance on the track and admitted the lack of a more competitive lap time, explaining later that he did not do it at the right time: ‘I did good laps, it is true that I still lack rhythm for a lap, the improvement is not enough to be there, to be competitive. There are different reasons for that: today I completely missed the temperature window to attack the times, which was much easier. I did it late and then we went back and forth with the settings and then I stayed with the same bike and same settings until the end of the day and that helped me. In the end, I only had one rear tire available, I repeated the lap time again, the ideal time a little faster but… it’s that feeling that you evolve and ride well, the pace is good but the speed in one lap is not there’.
Já sobre a sua «arma» para este ano, refere, precisará de mais alguns dias até que se sinta mais confortável: ‘A moto tem muito potencial. O Aleix [Espargaró] ficou imediatamente muito confortável na moto enquanto eu e o Maverick [Viñales] tivemos muitas dificuldades para lá chegar e creio que ainda precisamos ainda de mais uns dias para ter a moto completamente adaptada ao nosso estilo de pilotagem’.
