Miguel Oliveira finished the first day of the MotoGP Japanese GP with the 11th fastest time in the second practice session, which dictates the direct qualification to Q2. As a result, he will have to go through Q1 tomorrow in Motegi, narrowly missing his target by just 56 thousandths of a second, despite having led the standings at one point.
The Portuguese rider from CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team said to the press that he is unhappy with the result: ‘It was going ok. In the last run I couldn’t put my best sectors together. I also got two yellow flags. I’m not happy. I finished 11th, so, out of the target’.
Oliveira considers that the margin for improvements is big, particularly in one single fast lap: ‘I could be a bit faster. I don’t know if it was enough or not, but for sure faster. So, for tomorrow we’ll obviously try to improve – especially the one-lap speed. Because when I used the soft mid-session was just in a kind of race configuration and I was very near to my fastest lap time. So, there is a big gap for improvements. We have to put everything together for tomorrow’.