Portuguese Miguel Oliveira (Aprilia) was “satisfied” this Sunday with having achieved “a place in the top 10 after three difficult races” at the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix.
Oliveira crossed the line in eighth place, 10.979 seconds behind the winner, the Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), after recovering six positions right at the start.
“We made a small adjustment to Warm Up [aquecimento] which seemed to work quite well. Furthermore, the fact that we mounted a medium tire on the rear was, for some reason, better for us and for my driving”, said Miguel Oliveira.
The Portuguese driver regretted, however, “two mistakes”, which cost him “two positions”.
“I went wide in turn 6 and that cost me a place in the [Enea] Bastianini. Then, on the 10th, I missed a checkout [de velocidades]my hand left the handlebar, touched the holeshot button [partida] and I had to do the entire last sector with the rear suspension lowered and the [Fábio] DiGiannantonio passed me there”, he explained.
The bikes are equipped with a system that, when starting, lowers the rear suspension in order to minimize the tendency of the bike to do a ‘wheelie’ when starting off and allow riders better power control.
The Portuguese, who will have a day of testing on Monday, stressed, however, that today “everyone made mistakes, going wide at some point”.
The Portuguese driver promises to focus “a little more on extracting speed from the soft tire at the rear”, something he admits he was unable to achieve “all weekend”.
“We will also try to refine some areas that we are not very satisfied with at the moment”, he concluded.
The Portuguese rider scored eight points in this fourth round of the season, was the best of the four Aprilia riders and rose to 13th place in the championship.
The next round is the French GP, from May 10th to 12th.
