Month: July 2018

Miguel Oliveira has once again impressed the motorcycle-loving community. The Red Bull KTM Ajo Portuguese rider who had left 15th on the grid made a magnificent start and was 9th still in the first corner of the Sachsenring circuit in Germany. As he fought for the 8th position, the initial crowd of riders made him suffer a touch from Xavi Vierge, fact that pulled him away to 11th please, but quickly Miguel Oliveira started a series of recoveries as he has accustomed us, with an impresse race pace towards front positions.

The Portuguese bravery and perseverance quickly put him in the fight for the 7th place with Alex Marquez, at a time when there were two riders (who were ahead of Miguel Oliveira) that went down. The Portuguese rider continued his journey with his extraordinary race pace and managed to fight for 5th place with Sam Lowes, when there still missing 14 of 28 laps to the checkered flag. Riding consistently at the low 1min25s, Miguel Oliveira overtakes the English rider and then starts the battle for 4th place with Marcel Schrotter. With 10 laps remaining, Miguel Oliveira holds the 4th place and escapes to the trio who heads the race. He is able to shorten the distance for this group with his usual race pace mastery, but crosses the checkered flag in the same position after having obliterated 11 positions in total on the Sachsenring track.

Miguel Oliveira #44

"It was a very hard race, but it was a shame that I couldn’t get up to the front group because I felt good. I wanted the podium, and that's why I fought for the third position until the final laps, but in the end we fell a little short. I am very happy with the result, especially in terms of the title, because we have cut the gap to the leader. Now we are 7 points behind and this gives us a lot of motivation to continue working when we come back from the summer break".

With 141 points, Miguel Oliveira is now just 7 points off the lead of the Moto2 World Championship. A two week break awaits for the Red Bull KTM Ajo Portuguese rider, who will return to action at Brno, from August 3rd to 5th.

Results (Race)

1. Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 39:46.306

2. Joan Mir (Kalex) +0.779

3. Luca Marini (Kalex) +0.933

4. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) +2.143

5. Sam Lowes (KTM) +6.376

Moto2 World Championship Standing 2018

1. Francesco Bagnaia (Kalex) 148 points

2. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 141 points

3. Alex Marquez (Kalex) 113 points

4. Joan Mir (Kalex) 95 points

5. Lorenzo Baldassarri (Kalex) 93 points

The Red Bull KTM Ajo Portuguese rider took on qualifying for the German GP this Saturday afternoon, and lap times were incredibly tight amongst the Moto2 field. The top times were set on the opening laps, and Miguel Oliveira -15th- obtained a place on the fifth row of the grid, amidst favourable track conditions.

Miguel Oliveira devoted the last Free Practice session looking for his race pace. Running new tyres at the start of the session, the Portuguese rider put in opening stints of 19 consecutive laps. It was after a pit stop that Miguel Oliveira has clocked his personal best laps of the Free Practices, being tenth -1:24.652. The Top 10 were separated by just 4 tenths of a second.

In the afternoon, Miguel Oliveira had another evenly matched qualifying session. The Portuguese rider was unable to lower his 1:24.360 time that he set on the third of twenty-two laps, finishing the session in 15th position.

Miguel Oliveira #44

“We are a little further off than we would like. Both the team and I gave everything, but for now it has not been enough to place higher on the grid. We have to look ahead to the race; the positive is our race pace with the hard tyre, which is the one we will use tomorrow. I will try to overtake as much as possible at the beginning and look for a good position to get closer to the front. The section up until the first corner is somewhat short, but anything can happen and we will do our best”.

The objective for tomorrow's 28-lap race, held at 11:20pm local time, will be to make another of his trademark fightbacks and place on the podium. Miguel Oliveira has previous rostrum at the Sachsenring, in 2017 in Moto2.

Results (Qualifying Practice)

1. Mattia Pasini (Kalex) 1:23.787

2. Luca Marini (Kalex) 1:23.968 +0.181

3. Francesco Bagnaia (Kalex) 1:23.970 +0.183

4. Sam Lowes (KTM) 1:23.971 +0.184

5. Lorenzo Baldassarri (Kalex) 1:24.021 +0.234

15. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:24.360 +0.573

The Red Bull KTM Ajo Portuguese rider had a somewhat deceptive first day at the Sachsenring on Friday. Placing thirteenth might not serve as a true reflection of Miguel Oliveira's performance or level of comfort in the two practice sessions. A tremendously tight combined timesheet saw the Top 20 riders separated by less than half a second.

Miguel Oliveira showed, right from his first stint in the morning, that the Sachsenring is excellently suited both to his riding and to the characteristics of his KTM bike. The Portuguese rider quickly moved into the Top 5. After a single stop in the pits, Miguel Oliveira continued to lower his times, and his 1:25.331 put him fourth -one tenth off the top spot.

For the afternoon session, the Red Bull KTM Ajo Portuguese rider ran one new set of tyres. Miguel Oliveira clocked his best time for Friday after a red flag with 10 minutes left, finishing thirteenth -1:25.034.

Miguel Oliveira #44

“It's been a positive day. We can look back on this Friday as a good day of Free Practices; we can still improve some aspects of the setup, but we have managed to run a good pace and set a time that isn't too far away from the fastest lap of the day. It's true that our position is a little unfair, because we only missed out on the Top 5 by two tenths, but we will fight to reduce this small gap tomorrow.

Last year this race went pretty well, so we already knew more or less what kind of plan we have to follow with the bike. We will continue working in this direction in order to improve”.

Tomorrow sees qualifying for the German GP take place from 2:10pm Portuguese local time, providing a chance for the Portuguese rider to move further up the order and place high up on the starting grid for Sunday's race.

Results (Combined practice times FP1-FP2)

1. Xavi Vierge (Kalex) 1:24.750

2. Alex Marquez (Kalex) 1:24.775 +0.025

3. Marcel Schrotter (Kalex) 1:24.779 +0.029

4. Khairul Idham Pawi (Kalex) 1:24.830 +0.080

5. Francesco Bagnaia (Kalex) 1:24.836 +0.086

13. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 1:25.034 +0.284

Only 66 thousandths of a second denied Miguel Oliveira the win at the German GP last year. This time around, the Portuguese riders hopes to achieve great results at a favourable track, after struggling at the previous round in Holland. This will be the ninth race of the season and will mark both the halfway mark of the calendar and the start of a two-week summer break.

Resolving the difficulties that prevented him from being among the fastest riders in the last set of Free Practice sessions and Qualifying will be the primary objective of Miguel Oliveira and his crew this weekend, after demonstrating that his performance on raceday is almost exclusively excellent. Starting from the top positions on the starting grid should be key to getting back onto the podium at Sachsenring, where he placed on the rostrum last year. Second in the overall standings, only 16 points behind the leader, a sixth Top 3 finish of the season would round off a very good first half of the year.

Miguel Oliveira #44

“We reach Germany after having worked very hard and we want to continue doing the same thing to solve the difficulties we have had at recent Grands Prix -especially in the practice sessions. Last year we were very competitive at this track, taking second position after fighting for the win until the last moment. I hope that this year we can find ourselves in a similar situation and return to the podium to continue adding points in the overall standings, and finish this first half of the season feeling good”.

This ninth round of the season will follow the usual schedule for European Grands Prix, with the Moto2 race taking place at 11:20am (Portuguese local hour) on Sunday

Circuit information – Sachsenring

Length: 3.671 m / 2.281 miles

Width: 12 metres

Left corners: 10

Right corners: 3

Longest straight: 700 m / 0.435 miles

Constructed: 1996

Modified: 2003

Continuing the trend of recent rounds, Miguel Oliveira put in his best showing of the weekend on raceday at the Dutch GP. The Red Bull KTM Ajo Portuguese rider had some good first laps, which allowed him to move from the sixth row of the grid into the Top 10. Miguel Oliveira managed to maintain a great pace throughout the 24 lap contest and claim important points with his sixth place.

With the straight at Assen the shortest of the year, overtaking is always tricky, but Miguel Oliveira was able to fight his way back from seventeenth place. The Portuguese gained 5 positions on the first sector and caught the Top 10 at the end of the second lap. From there, he moved up to seventh place, a position that he kept for much of the race. A crash for another rider in the final stages allowed him to gain another place.

With his 10 points earned today, Miguel Oliveira continues to have scored points at every round so far in 2018. He remains in second position -with 128 points- and is 16 points off the series leader. 

Miguel Oliveira #44

"It’s been a weekend for learning. We tried to test out many options to solve our problem in qualifying and also to understand how we could go better in the race. I’m not completely disappointed with the result because in the end it was the best we could do today, but I am positive about the future. I know that the team are completely focused on trying to find a good solution for me. We got a good handful of points for the overall standings and now we have to focus on continuing to work on this aspect. In Germany we’ll be going for more".

Results (Race)

1. Francesco Bagnaia (Kalex) 39:30.436

2. Fabio Quartararo (Speed Up) +1.748

3. Alex Marquez (Kalex) +2.179

4. Marcel Schrotter (Kalex) +4.094

5. Joan Mir (Kalex) +4.342

6. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) +5.230

Moto2 World Championship Standing 2018

1. Francesco Bagnaia (Kalex) 144 points

2. Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Ajo) 128 points

3. Alex Marquez (Kalex) 110 points

4. Lorenzo Baldassarri (Kalex) 93 points

5. Joan Mir (Kalex) 75 points