After winning the opening round of the 2022 Indonesian GP, Miguel Oliveira was under the spotlight today in Mandalika and recalled his victory last year, but pointed out that the scenario is not the same today. For the portuguese rider, however, there’s no reason why he can’t see the Aprilia RS-GP performing well on Indonesian soil.
In his race preview, the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team rider began by recalling what happened last year: ‘Last year I had a good weekend overall and even with the dry conditions I had a good pace and felt comfortable and then it happened that I clicked in the wet conditions and did my race in the first half there and of course the start was crucial and that was it’.
He explained, however, that the circumstances are different now: ‘It’s a pleasure to return to a track where you’ve won in the past but the situation is a bit different today. I’m simply looking to get back to my normal form after two not so good weekends, to get back to a good speed’.
Regarding the track conditions, he said he believed they would improve and should not be a cause for concern: ‘I don’t expect the grip level to be low, the track looks good to me. It’s true that when you look at it it looks a bit dirty, but I don’t think it’s going to be any worse than it was in Qatar, when we start the weekends or testing, I think it’s going to improve over the weekend and I don’t expect any problems with grip’.
And then he showed confidence in seeing his bike perform well: ‘Maybe the line is quite narrow and we have to be more careful about going off course, but there’s also no specific reason why we shouldn’t believe that the bike will work well here. I’m looking forward to trying it out’.