Following a historic first premier class win for Miguel Oliveira, his home nation Portugal and the Red Bull KTM Tech 3 team at the RedBull Ring in the previous round of the world championship, the entire squad is now eagerly awaiting the arrival of Misano this week.
The latest MotoGP™ winners are keen to continue their strong recent showings at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, and Oliveira feels prepared ahead of the Lenovo Grand Prix of San Marino and Rimini Riviera.
“I think it’s going to be physically tough to handle three weekends in a row again, but we had a good rest and we are for sure motivated to start working again.”
“To begin at a track where we’ve been testing before in June and where we have information, I think we can do very well in the races. I just expect to keep our level, that we showed in Spielberg and keep fighting for the top positions.”
Oliveira’s team-mate, rookie rider Iker Lecuona, is also excited about the upcoming rounds, where he will be looking to improve upon consecutive Top 10 finishes.
“For Misano I want to follow the way we found the last two rounds. I like our work inside the garage a lot, I learned, I improved and I finished the last two races with two top 10 results. I know, it’s not always easy and possible to do that, but I’m also sure now, that it is a realistic objective for us.”
“If we can continue our good work with the bike and continue to learn, I’m sure it will be achievable to land inside the top 10 again, although my main target is to finish the race, enjoy it and end up inside the points.”
Team manager Herve Poncharal is looking forward to seeing how his team cope at the Misano circuit, as well as how the organisers deals with fans in attendance.
“The circuit is very different to the ones we’ve been riding during the summer and it will be very interesting to monitorize the performance of the KTM RC16 with our four riders on that twisty circuit. We’ve been doing some testing prior to the restart of the 2020 season here and the feeling for both, Miguel and Iker was quite good, but of course, not the whole grid has been there.”
“It’s going to be more back to back rounds on the same venue and I have to say, I like it quite a lot, the team likes it a lot and the paddock is pretty happy with that organization. It’s interesting to have two GPs at the same track, you can experience and test things, which you couldn’t with only one round”
“Two races at that time of the year in such a great place are amazing and it will be very interesting to see how the organizers handle the spectators, as it will be the very first time this season. This is very good news. Congrats to them and Dorna to make that happen.”