Miguel Oliveira has only collected two unfortunate points in the last five races and the Portuguese feared this Grand Prix of the Americas on an Austin track which seemed anything but friendly for his KTM. A pessimism which was verified during testing and at the end of qualifying, positioning him in a modest eighteenth place. But in the race, there was a surge, so that this eleventh position at the finish felt like a victory...
Since the start of the summer break, Miguel Oliveira and KTM are absent from the outposts. A situation that is all the more damaging as within the Mattighofen clan, Brad Binder holds on to positions up to the top 5 whileIker Lecuona would even teach him a lesson if he wasn't so messy.
There are still three races left Olive tree to save what can still be saved in this season where his victory in Catalonia seems to be the happy exception. For the official KTM, we can still believe it on the basis of a performance Austin which showed that you could beat opponents with the RC16. Olive tree indeed started the race from 18th place on the grid and managed to gain seven positions on the hilly and adventurous COTA track until the checkered flag. “ As expected, it was a very difficult race », Analyzes the Portuguese. “ It was difficult to gain a lot of positions. At least we regained a few places and scored points ».
He adds : " we did very well in the race. We are now looking forward to the weekend in Misano. We need to figure out how we can improve in qualifying and then fight for better race positions ". The end result is all the more a relief for Olive tree that he was only 19th in warm up…
Miguel Oliveira: “ I am relieved«
The KTM rider, who was able to overtake Franco Morbidelli, Alex Márquez and Luca Marini, among others, finishes: “ at least we achieved something. I'm relieved now that we finished the race here. We have improved. It was an important step towards the future. In Misano we will give our maximum again in three weeks ».
We will specify thatOlive tree finished five seconds behind his South African teammate Brad Binder, and that he lost a total of 23 seconds in 20 laps against the sovereign winner Marc Márquez riding his Honda.
MotoGP Austin J3: ranking
Credit classification motogp.com
