Oliveira “quite happy” with excellent continued progress during second preseason test at Jerez

The Moto3 test at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit, the second of the class for the 2013 MotoGP World Championship season, ended earlier this afternoon with Miguel Oliveira opting not to take part in today’s last session, just like all other riders with the exception of only two. The Portuguese teenager finished the day with the fifth fastest time, posting a fastest time with his Mahindra MGP30 of 1.59’100s, seven tenths behind quickest rider Jack Miller.

But with today’s sessions affected by the rain like it was also the case on the first day of testing at Jerez, the Almada youngster’s overall best time was set yesterday, a lap of 1.46’805s which also translated into fifth position on the combined time sheets.

Miguel Oliveira and his Mahindra Racing Team took the best advantage of the weather to refine the wet set-up after the positive progress made yesterday with the setting and development of the bike for the dry. The team’s engineers have now lots of data to work with in order to present an even more competitive machine at the pre-season’s last test, again taking place at Jerez, between March 18th and 21st.

“We didn’t ride much today, but we tried to continue the work from on the first day on the wet and we found a set-up with which I feel comfortable, so I leave Jerez quite happy with this second pre-season test,” said the youngster from Almada.

This happiness is not only due to fact of “having found a set-up for the wet, but also for having found a strategy which will be very useful in the future. We did a lot of work, tested a lot of stuff, which allowed us to find out how to proceed to have a good bike.”

“Four months ago this project was only a draft and now we are on the track, so being regularly among the top ten on the second test of the year is very gratifying. The team and I leave Jerez quite happy with all the work done and aware that we must improve in the future. We are already very fast, a sign of how competitive this year will be, and now we go home to do some more hard work and we hope to be closer to the top in the next test. The goal is to tell the team my feelings about the bike in order to improve it, so as to fight for the top five when we get to Qatar, which seems to me a realistic goal for the first part of the season,” finished Oliveira.

Source: Miguel Oliveira Official Website