Miguel Oliveira rides to strong 6th place in #SanMarinoGP, career best 8th for Raul Fernandez

The San Marino Grand Prix turned out to be a very hot affair for the entire MotoGP World Championship and especially the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team today with their best ever result as a squad in 2023 so far. While Miguel Oliveira managed to ride a strong race in sixth, Raul Fernandez brought home his best ever premier class result to date with eighth position after 27 scorching laps at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

Starting from 10th on the grid, Oliveira came off the line in a fantastic way to find himself in P7 already after the first few corners. With a very strong and steady pace, the Portuguese managed to hold onto this position for the majority of the race and even progressed to sixth with five laps to go. He eventually brought his Aprilia RS-GP machine home safely and in an impressive way, collecting 10 World Championship points.

Fernandez likewise showed a masterclass on Italian soil. The Spaniard started from P12 and lost one position in the first lap, but quickly made it up again on lap two. He found into a great rhythm and was already inside the top 10 by lap eight. And in P8 on lap 15. Like his teammate, Fernandez had a super consistent pace throughout the entire race and was even fighting for seventh in the final laps against the likes of Marc Marquez and Luca Marini to eventually bring it home in eight position.

A total of 18 points was grabbed by both riders at the penultimate European round which places the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team in eighth position currently in the overall team standings, surpassing both GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 and LCR Honda this weekend.

MIGUEL OLIVEIRA

I’m not over the moon but I’m happy. I’m happy with how the weekend finished. We started this week with a lot of difficulties to adapt my riding style to this track and to the bike. Finally, we could turn things around on Saturday though not transforming the Sprint race into a good result, but eventually today I could find a bit more feeling with the bike. The team helped me with a few more changes to make me feel more comfortable and I’m happy with that. I’m also very happy for the guys, they work hard to help me and to give them a good result is always the best.

RAUL FERNANDEZ

Honestly after the summer break, the feeling changed a lot. I changed my training and how I prepare for the race. Secondly, I also tried to change my mentality. But even more important now is, that I start to enjoy riding the bike again, rather than changing the bike or the mind. Now, I enjoy riding more and this is why it’s obvious to see, that I am back. However, 90% of the reason I could do this is because Aprilia and Razlan spoke to me every day, they believe in me and that gives me the confidence. If it wasn’t for that, it would have been hard for me to make this comeback. I’m happy to do the race that I did, I’m not on 100% yet, but we can improve. We know where to improve and we will do it tomorrow in the test and do as much steps as possible to try and do even better.