Miguel Oliveira came close to going straight into the second phase of qualifying at the MotoGP British GP. The 13th place in this afternoon’s Practice at Silverstone left him just 0.178s off the top ten.
The Portuguese rider from Prima Pramac Yamaha confirmed there are encouraging signs coming from the YZR-M1: ‘It’s looking good, the bike made a nice step forward in one-lap performance. You definitely can feel it now that I’m getting up to speed. It’s nice’.
After a conservative start while still not in top physical condition, Oliveira went on the attack in the final stage of Practice… achieving a result that surprised him:
– I tried again to save myself a bit at the beginning of the session, not doing many laps. Then, I wanted to follow someone with the first tyre, but we were just too slow getting out of the pits. So, I knew I had a lot of room to improve with the second tyre and fortunately I could follow Jack [Miller] for one lap and that was it. There’s not much more to say. For sure, I didn’t expect to be close to top ten but it’s welcome.