MotoGP | Oliveira: “It’s not that I didn’t want to take risks, I didn’t have the risk to beat Martin”

Up until this weekend he had been a real mystery, to the point that there were even those who were starting to question his permanence on the MotoGP grid next season (in fact there are rumors of a possible move to Yamaha with Pramac), but the Sachsenring has finally given us back the Miguel Oliveira we knew. That rider that Aprilia had strongly wanted for its satellite team a year ago and for whom it made a great effort to provide him with a 2024 version of the RS-GP this season.

Before the German GP, ​​he had not managed to do better than the two eighth places achieved in Jerez, but this weekend the music suddenly changed: this morning he missed the pole position by just a handful of thousandths, then in the Sprint he managed to repeat the second place, conquering the first podium in a short race for both him and Trackhouse Racing.

“I felt good all weekend and I thought I had a good chance to get on the podium, at least in this Sprint. I have to say that the guys up front are very fast and it’s not easy to find yourself in the middle of them. I held on, I felt a lot of pressure from Pecco, but I managed not to make any big mistakes and bring home this great result”, he said as soon as he arrived at the parc fermé, before going to collect his well-deserved medal.

Making it to the front row is one thing, but repeating the feat in the race was far from a given, especially since Miguel managed to compete on equal terms with the two riders who are fighting for the title, Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia, slipping right in between the two contenders, who are certainly more accustomed to frequenting these positions than he is.

“Let’s say that after what we did this morning, it became quite clear that we had a good pace. It’s clear that in the race, when it matters most, things can also change. It’s been a while since I’ve fought for important positions, so I could have also made a mistake. Instead, everything went well, so I’m happy and curious to see what we can do in the long race tomorrow,” he added shortly after to the microphones of Sky Sport MotoGP.

From the outside, the feeling was that Oliveira could have the potential to try to threaten Martin’s victory, but that he did not want to risk jeopardizing a placement that for him is a real breath of fresh air in a season that has been very disappointing so far. The Portuguese, however, has dismissed this possibility.

“I didn’t have enough, it wasn’t a question of not taking risks. When I got closer to Jorge the pressure on the front tyre would rise a bit too much and this caused me to close down a bit in the most delicate points of the track. It’s not that I decided to give up, I really couldn’t do more. Then when he got a bit of an advantage, the tyre started to work better again, but we had the same pace at that point, so there was nothing to do”.

Finally, when asked how he found this sudden turn, he explained: “The track certainly came to meet me, but we also took a slightly different approach with the bike, trying not to touch the geometry too much. Up until now we had made a lot of changes to everything, but this weekend we decided to work only on the suspension and electronics and I have to say that it worked. With this bike I struggle a bit too much on the right-hand turns due to the use of the rear brake. The fact that there are few of them here is definitely helping me”.