Oliveira battles physical problems to take 7th, Moncayo out with technical issues

It’s been a strange weekend for the riders of Team Andalucía – Banca Cívica – Diputación de Cádiz. After two days of practice in which the pace of Alberto Moncayo and Miguel Oliveira continuously improved, various circumstances kept them from having a successful race which the whole team hoped for. A technical problem kept Moncayo out from the start while Oliveira suffered pain in his forearms which prevented him from maintaining a strong pace in the race.

The 125cc race schedule changed in the Estoril Grand Prix and was held after the MotoGP race. Until then joy and excitement was overflowing in the Team Andalucia box, because they knew their two riders were going all out in this GP. For Oliveira it was the opportunity to demonstrate to his home crowd that he is a great rider while Alberto Moncayo was convinced he could wipe away the bad memories he had of the performance of Jerez.

Miguel started from the first row of the grid and when the lights went out he got off like a gunshot to move up to second place behind Nico Terol, but several laps later he started to lose strength in his arms and could not avoid losing positions slowly but surely. Apparently the leathers he wore for the first time at his home race were very tight at the forearms which caused a loss of strength.

A mechanical failure in the warm up lap forced teammate Alberto Moncayo to return from the grid to the box and prevented him from going out to race with the rest of the field.

MIGUEL OLIVEIRA 7º
“I have started well and I moved to second. Nico was very strong and I could not match his pace, but when Cortese passed me I felt comfortable behind him and I think I could have stayed there, but after about six laps I started having constant pain in the arms and lost a lot of strength. My race today was a fight against Miguel Oliveira’s arms and it left me disappointed; I know I have the pace to fight with the front guys, but a physical handicap didn’t let me. It’s not a bad result, but I know I could have fought for a good position and this problem kept me from it.”

ALBERTO MONCAYO: “Well, I set out for the warm up laps and in the middle of the second lap I started to hear a noise that troubled me a lot, so I had to be careful to get back to the grid where we decided to go back to the pits to try to start the race from there, but it was impossible. We repaired the bike as quick as possible, but when we went back on track there was little point in continuing.
It is a shame because we were having a very good weekend and I think we could have done well in this race, but I will have to wait for the next Grand Prix to take the thorn out of my side and do a race at our level.”

Source: Team Machado