The start of the MotoGP Italian GP was encouraging for Miguel Oliveira, who clocked the fourth-fastest time in this afternoon’s practice session at Mugello.
However, some uncertainties remain for the rest of the weekend.
First, the Trackhouse Racing rider explained that he doesn’t yet have a solid assessment of his race pace: ‘It’s hard to judge the pace because I was a lot of time in the garage because during this change we had a slight problem with a sensor, so it took us a little bit longer to get that sorted. But the pace is not that bad, I think we can see and analyze deeper tomorrow morning and see what the pace looks like’.
Regarding another technical aspect, there isn’t a clear direction yet concerning tyre choices: ‘It’s not easy to chose because it feels like the soft can give you a lot for one lap pace, but the medium is not that bad either and not so far in terms of lap time. So we don’t really know. For sure we’ll see more softs than mediums for the Sprint, but I don’t know about Sunday; Sunday will be a gamble again. So let’s see if we can do the work with the medium tomorrow and see if we can carry’.
The Aprilia showed relatively low top speeds for a circuit like Mugello, but this doesn’t concern the #88: ‘No, not really. I think we didn’t get the gearing 100% yet, but we’ll get that sorted for tomorrow’.
On the other hand, Oliveira talked about his approach to the corners: ‘Of course you cannot super long in the corners because the turning is not as effective. But if you can be a slightly longer doesn’t affect too much. So we need to find that compromise now without touching the gearing too much in the corners. But I guess it will only be about fifth and sixth gear’.
