Miguel Oliveira unhappy despite the top ten: ‘It was a bad race; there are no positives’

Miguel Oliveira returned to top ten results with a tenth-place finish in the MotoGP Catalan GP – bouncing back from yesterday’s Sprint race DNF.

Throughout Sunday’s race, which he started from 15th, Oliveira progressed very slowly in the standings, mostly due to crashes or penalties ahead of him. In fact, he crossed the finish line in 11th but was promoted to tenth due to a 32-second penalty imposed on Enea Bastianini (Ducati) ahead of him.

The Trackhouse Racing rider told the press that despite the result, he was dissatisfied with the performance: ‘It was a bad race, to be honest. I couldn’t find any positives today. The grip was very poor since the beginning. I tried to manage it as best as I could, but I was still sliding, trying to manage the tyre. I had no speed; the pace was decent, but just not enough to challenge for anything better. Finally finishing P10 it’s okay, but I’m really disappointed with today’s performance, it’s not ideal’.

After yesterday’s tyre issue, Oliveira was now hindered by a lack of rear grip, as he mentioned: ‘Yesterday we had a little problem with the front tyre that actually didn’t help me to avoid the crash, and today just low grip in the rear in general, so it was really hard to go forward. It’s a shame. I had no vibrations, just a really poor grip since the beginning’.