Rain spoils first day of testing at Jerez but good start for Oliveira

Less than a week after finishing the first test of the season in the Top 10, Miguel Oliveira has picked up where he had left off in Valencia to get back to work in Jerez de la Frontera, finishing 8th fastest in the combined timing of the first of three test days at Jerez.

The youngster from Almada completed 52 laps with his Mahindra GP30 Moto3 bike and posted a fastest time of 1.58’475s, which was 1.551 seconds behind from Danny Webb’s fastest time of the day, some of the riders had already lapped under last year’s pole position time. A very positive result, considering the rain which didn’t stop until noon and the fact that the riders never rode with slicks because it wasn’t sunny enough to fully dry up the track.

“The day went quite well, we improved our time by a big margin compared to our last outing,” said Miguel Oliveira, who used this first day of tests in Jerez to “find out what we need to change on the bike when the rain hits the track before a practice, or when we are on the grid and about to start the race.”

“Towards the end of the day the track dried up a bit, but it wasn’t enough to allow for a good lap time. Sometimes people think it’s easier to get a good time when there’s a dry line, but it’s not that easy. Rain tyres work best with more water on track, and when it starts to dry up the tyre temperature rises, and that’s a handicap,” explained the Portuguese teenager who, like all the other riders, never mounted slick tyres on his bike.

“I hope there’s no rain tomorrow in order to get further with our work plan, but so far it’s been a very positive test,” ended Oliveira.

Source: Miguel Oliveira Official Website