Un jour où il a terminé 17e lors des deux séances, Miguel Oliveira a entamé le GP d’Inde de MotoGP loin devant. Le pilote de l’équipe CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team a dû s’adapter au circuit international de Buddh, tout comme ses adversaires, car cette course et la piste sont des premières absolues.
Le Portugais a expliqué à la presse que le FP1 en particulier a été difficile, avant que la situation ne s’améliore à l’entraînement : ‘La séance du matin a été un peu difficile. Je pense que nous avons raté l’apex dans tous les virages. Je pensais que la piste serait un peu plus rapide, pour être honnête. Mais je l’ai trouvée très étroite et un peu difficile à comprendre les points de freinage. Mais, dans l’ensemble, l’après-midi a été un peu plus amusant, la piste était aussi meilleure. C’était amusant à piloter, il faisait juste trop chaud. Voilà’.
According to Oliveira, the first corner was a particularly challenging point: ‘The first corner is a bit difficult to make, because it is very narrow at the exit, it is a 90º corner, so a 90º corner only has one trajectory anyway. But then you also have a left turn, but as the track continues a bit to the right and then you turn left. So, it’s not easy at all. And besides, it’s slightly downhill and then uphill. So, making that corner is a nightmare. Every time you go for a new lap, if you delay a bit looking at the screen or pressing any button, you’re done. You miss the corner’.
Regarding corners nine and ten, the Almada pilot commented: ‘I tried some different things. It’s a complicated corner, very interesting. You don’t see the entry, but somehow the apex is done very, very late after you lean. So, you just need to carry a lot of speed entering and then trust that the track will hold your bike and make it turn. So, it’s not that simple, but I got it right in the afternoon and it’s a very fun corner to make’.
Faced with the fact that Aleix Espargaró considers it a corner particularly favorable to Aprilia, Oliveira commented: ‘I don’t know. That’s a fun sector. That’s where the fun begins. You have a very difficult final part of the track, the last corner and the first three corners. Then you have two long straights that break the rhythm. So, braking for corner four and exiting corner four. Then, you really start to have a bit more fun in the other parts. But it’s simply a track where the long straight kind of breaks the rhythm’.
