There are often two ways of seeing things and this is also the case at the moment within the Red Bull KTM Tech3 team.
The first is to note that the two drivers of the French team are progressing. Indeed, on the evening of qualifying for the Argentine Grand Prix, Miguel Oliveira appears in 14th position, sandwiched between the two official drivers of the Austrian firm, less than a tenth of a second from a Pol Espargaró drafted in Q1. On the other side of the box, Hafiz Syahrin, although often in last position, reduced his gap to 1,7 seconds with pole-sitter Marc Márquez, instead of the 2,4 seconds recorded in Qatar.
The other approach nevertheless consists of noting that if the progression of Miguel Oliveira is very regular, session after session, Hafiz Syahrin seems to have had a sort of click since FP2 in Argentina. Certainly, the road still seems to be very long and all this requires confirmation, but the Malaysian pilot was today only 1/2 second behind Joan mir ou John Zarco.
After having achieved a good performance throughout the second day on the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit, Miguel Oliveira missed his first participation in Q2 by just 0,081 seconds and will start from 14th position on the starting grid, with the logical objective of obtaining his first point in the premier category.
His teammate will only have Andrea Iannone behind him at the start of an Argentine Grand Prix which will consist of 25 laps.
Miguel Oliveira : “Overall, the day was positive. We improved our qualifying position since the last race, which is a good thing. I improved my driving, and actually got very close to getting into Q2, so it wasn't a bad day. I felt better with the bike, the team worked really well and we kept improving. I understand how to ride the bike better and we’ve made a lot of progress, so now I’m just excited to race tomorrow.”
Hafiz Syahrin : “We made a pretty big improvement today, but we still need to find something a little easier to drive in relation to the pace of the race, because at the moment we have a very good pace but we are missing something in terms of traction when exiting the corners. Anyway, we think we are getting closer and closer now, but we still need to work more, understand better. I'm happy with this qualification, even if I know we are still far from the top, but my feeling with the bike is much better than in Qatar and than in all the previous tests. We must continue to work hard, and even more. We'll see what we can do during tomorrow's warmup to find a little more traction for the race distance."
MotoGP Argentine Grand Prix, Qualification 2 classification:
MotoGP Argentine Grand Prix, Qualification 1 classification:
Credit rankings: MotoGP.com
