The 2021 British Grand Prix was a race that Red Bull KTM rider Miguel Oliveira will be in a hurry to forget, after a disastrous weekend at Silverstone for the Barcelona race winner that left the Portuguese racer and his team scratching their heads about exactly how badly the weekend had gone.
Never once looking to be close to the pace of the frontrunners throughout practice, qualifying or the race, he ended up in a distant 16th place at the chequered flag – the third time in three races that he has failed to score a point.
Adding insult to injury, it was a strong race not only for his factory team-mate Brad Binder, who finished sixth, but also for the satellite Tech3 KTM duo of Iker Lecuona and Danilo Petrucci, with the Spaniard an excellent seventh and Petrucci coming home in 10th to ensure that Oliveira was the fourth of the Austrian manufacturer’s four machines.
While many were quick to think that Oliveira’s pace was because of the lingering effects of damage to his wrist sustained in a monstrous highside during practice for the Styrian Grand Prix three weeks ago, to his testament he downplayed his physical condition instead of using it as an excuse.
“Physically I feel fine,” he insisted ahead of the race. “My wrist is hurting a bit more than normal, that is true, but with painkillers and the different straps we’ve been using to try and make it tight and to keep some pressure on it, it’s been OK. Physically I think I’m fit to do the race without having it affecting my race.”
Instead, it seems like Oliveira has become one of the riders that former KTM racer Pol Espargaro was referring to when he highlighted what allowed him to have his strongest weekend of the year on the Repsol Honda.
“We have much more grip than we’ve had in other places where I’ve heard Ducati guys or Suzuki guys or even my brother [Aleix Espargaro on the Aprilia] complaining about grip,” Espargaro explained after qualifying on pole.
“For us, it’s the complete opposite, and it shows that we’re not in an easy situation. When the others struggle we are enjoying it, but normally the others are enjoying themselves and it means we are struggling.”
And that’s exactly the position that Oliveira found himself in over the weekend, as he explained on Saturday after qualifying, with the team working hard to find a way to manage Silverstone’s high-grip surface and to convert that mechanical grip into traction on the bike.
“We lose a lot of traction,” he said. “This track has a lot of grip and it seems like we’re not able to really use the grip of the track and the tyres. It’s a bit frustrating because we’ve improved the bike so much from 2019 to 2021, but it took until qualifying before I was able to match my FP2 time from 2019, when I was a rookie on a completely different bike.
“It’s kind of frustrating to see that things we’ve tried don’t work. The team is trying hard to make it work, but it is what it is, and we have to keep our heads down and keep working to get out of this place.”
The good news for him is that, as Espargaro alluded, to, the unique conditions of a cold Silverstone track and high natural grip from their relatively-new asphalt means that it served up a perfect storm for KTM – one that is unlikely to repeat itself again in 2021 as the series heads south to Europe.
Oliveira’s difficult weekend highlights just where KTM are now at in its progression, as the Mattighofen factory continues to work towards the ultimate goal of building a MotoGP title-winning motorcycle.
Able to win races and a consistent podium threat in the latter stages of the 2021 season (after a rapidly designed and produced new chassis addressed issues with Michelin’s latest tyres), it clearly doesn’t yet have the consistency that is needed to launch a complete title campaign.
However, with considerable resources continuing to flow into the project from both KTM and title partner Red Bull and both Oliveira and Binder rapidly maturing as racers, and with a whole stable of hotshot rookie talent waiting in the wings, it’s just another obstacle for it to overcome.
