For the brand new Trackhouse Racing team MotoGP, it was the first day of school in Lusail and, despite a frantic winter to prepare everything, the two students Miguel Oliveira et Raul fernandez did not stand out in Qatar, which is already a victory in itself…
Respectively 12th and 14th in FP1, the only session without any real challenges having taken place in the dry, the two pilots of the American team even took the liberty of supervising the Aprilia official Maverick Vinales, thus showing that the vacation homework had been well done.
Of course, they haven't yet faced the test and stress of a race, but so far everything seems okay, especially in the dry, where for that matter Miguel Oliveira occupies the same position as during the recent test on the same circuit, while Raul fernandez was content to lay the foundations, without trying to repeat his 5th place acquired during the IRTA tests. However, in the wet, Raul Fernandez, 6th, confirms that his recent injury suffered at Sepang is well on the way to becoming a memory.
It is therefore a perfectly good return for the two men in the top 15, with undoubtedly the mention “can do better” in mind…
Raul Fernandez: “The first day was very positive overall. In the morning I felt good. The first free practice session was calm, I just tried the bikes to see if I could get the same feeling I had during practice. It was important not to take risks and to discover the sensations of the track. Now we know that everything works and is a success. I had never tried MotoGP at night on a wet track, but it was fun. I think it was a good decision to call the second session FP2 and not have it timed for qualifying. I hope there won't be any rain tomorrow, so it will be better and it will be a normal day. »
Miguel Oliveira: “Today was the first day and the start of the season. I think everyone was a little nervous and relieved to be done with the first practice session. It was a mixed day as we had a dry session and a wet session. The wet session didn't go very well, but in the dry I felt good and had some room for improvement. I hope we can do it tomorrow. »
Wilco Zeelenberg : “We had a first day with mixed conditions. FP1 was dry, FP2 was wet, which is a bit strange here in Qatar. It started to rain, but the conditions were pretty good. In the dark it's not always very practical, but here there is so much light that riders can ride really well in the wet. The track was quite dirty after the rain, the bikes were very dusty, because the desert dust seems to embed itself deeply in the roughness of the asphalt. Raul felt very comfortable, they put together a complete rain setup and he did some good laps. It was just to feel good, even if he didn't do too many laps, but just enough. The pre-qualifying practices have been replaced by the second free practice session and tomorrow we will finally be able to qualify for Q1 or Q2. Miguel struggled a bit, he couldn't get the right traction from the bike and didn't use the full wet setup in FP2. Tomorrow I hope it will be dry, but if it rains again we will have to tweak the settings and find the right way to do it for him. If it's dry, we'll go back to what we had, because this morning it was working pretty well. »
Combined J1 MotoGP standings from the Qatar Grand Prix at Lusail:
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
