Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira (Aprilia) finished 16th in time trial this Friday ahead of the MotoGP Dutch Grand Prix, the eighth round of the MotoGP World Championship season.
Oliveira will therefore have to tackle the first of two qualifying rounds, Q1, which will take place this Saturday morning, before the afternoon sprint race.
The Portuguese rider, who finished 13th in free practice this morning, ended the day with a time of 1,32,488 minutes, finishing 1,148 seconds behind the fastest, Italy’s Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), who beat Spain’s Maverick Viñales (Aprilia). ) by 0.065 seconds, and his compatriot Alex Marquez (Ducati), who took third place, by 0.255 seconds.
The day was dominated by two-time champion Francesco Bagnaia, who was fastest for the first time in the first two practice sessions of the Grand Prix.
The two-time world champion even broke the Dutch record with a time of 1:31:340 minutes. The first person to achieve the best result in Assen, considered the cathedral of motorcycling, was Maverick Viñales. But Bagnaia soon set a new record.
As for Miguel Oliveira, he had some difficulties with the handling of his Aprilia.
“It was a bit windy, which made things difficult,” explained the pilot from Almada.
Oliveira said “changes have been made to the bike” to help him “on the fast corners” of the track.
“I still have a lot to lose [tempo] because I can’t turn the bike. What we did during the session was not enough. We need to make deeper changes for tomorrow and I hope we can achieve more speed,” stressed the 29-year-old Portuguese rider.
Miguel Oliveira noted that “the other Aprilias are doing well” so he hopes to “find the missing speed and get a good position in qualifying”.
Oliveira’s Trackhouse teammate, Spaniard Rauld Fernandez, finished ninth to secure a direct place in Q2.
The North American team’s sporting director, Wilko Zeelenberg, said the Portuguese rider “had some difficulties with the soft tyre, the yellow flags and the feel of the bike.”
“On the medium tire he was faster, he did 1.32.4 minutes. But then he put on a soft tire to try to get a fast lap and got yellow flags,” he lamented.
However, he stressed that “this is not a drama”. “We will see what he can do tomorrow,” he concluded.
Spaniard Jorge Martin (Ducati), who was fifth fastest in time trial today, comes into this race as the championship leader with 171 points, 18 more than Bagnaia. Miguel Oliveira is 15th with 31 points.