Mystery issue strikes Miguel Oliveira at Portuguese WorldSBK

Miguel Oliveira says he encountered a mystery issue on his second tyre in the second WorldSBK practice session in Portugal.

Oliveira had a decent day on the time sheets on day one at Portimao, 0.7 seconds behind Sam Lowes at the top of the times but only just over 0.3 seconds behind Yari Montella in third.

The BMW rider suggested afterwards that his position could have been better without running into a problem on his second tyre in FP2.

“It was overall a good day but one of those days where the position doesn’t reflect the work we did and the potential,” said Miguel Oliveira, speaking to WorldSBK.com after FP2.

“We had a good session in the afternoon, especially in the first stint with the first set of tyres.

“That alone was okay, I was feeling pretty fast, but then, on the second tyre, something happened.

“I don’t know if [it was] tyre-related or another issue, but we couldn’t really get good laps in. It was frustrating. 

“The potential was to be inside the top-five, just alone with the first stint, with the ideal lap time. 

“Just three-tenths off the first position, so that reflects the potential, but for some reason on the second stint we weren’t able to achieve it.

“The bike feels okay. We need some little tweaks to make it more friendly out of some corners. 

“But I would say the potential is there, we just need to get it to a place where we can do it.”

Oliveira’s World Superbike debut was undone in Australia by a crash in Superpole, so Saturday morning’s qualifying will be an important one for the Portuguese rider.

“After what happened in Australia the goal is for sure to do one lap in qualifying,” he joked.

“But pretty relaxed about it. We already did some laps on the SCX tyre here in the test, so I kind of know the behaviour of it, so it should be fine. 

“We just need to be in a position to get the best out of the tyre on that run.”