Following a private test in Misano a few weeks ago, Red Bull KTM Tech3‘s Miguel Oliveira and Iker Lecuona eventually have been back in the saddle with two long test sessions at the scorching Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto today.
Thereby, Oliveira prepared the upcoming first race weekend with a fastest lap of 1:38.426, which placed him just 0.633 seconds apart from the top overall. Meanwhile Lecuona also managed to recover his feeling aboard the KTM RC16 to conclude the official test only 0.663 seconds behind his teammate ahead of this weekend’s Gran Premio Red Bull de España, which will kick off with FP1 at 9.55 local time on Friday.
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Miguel Oliveira
Position: 11th
Time: 1:38.426
Laps: 60
"It was a nice day, because we started here in Jerez with the whole grid, so it was finally good to compare ourselves to the rest of the field. The morning session was a bit easier for us, while in the afternoon we struggled to find grip and make the bike turn. This is what will be our target to improve on Friday."
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Iker Lecuona
Position: 19th
Time: 1:39.089
Laps: 57
"Today has been a very good for me. I continued to learn, to improve with the bike. I tried something new and immediately felt better. Compared to February, I felt a lot better. This morning I went very fast and also with used tyres I managed to improve, likewise this afternoon with truly high track temperatures. I’m very happy and ready for this weekend to finally start the MotoGP World Championship in 2020."
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Hervé Poncharal
Team Manager
"It was a very useful day for the Red Bull KTM Tech3 team. Although we have had the luck to do the test in Misano in June, it was important to do these two sessions of 90 minutes to re-understand our MotoGP bike. It was very interesting also to compare the data from November with cold weather and the 19+ bike with the 2020 version in hot temperatures. We can definitely see that there has been massive improvement done by KTM. Both of the riders feel at ease, feel good on the bike, which is a great sign for the coming weekend. Clearly, Miguel has shown one more time that he is now a proper top MotoGP rider and this is going to be a very interesting season for Miguel and we could see that our rookie, the youngest MotoGP rider on the grid, Iker Lecuona, has done massive improvement as well. He is feeling better and better with the bike and with the team. He is riding like a real MotoGP rider. We are happy to have that test behind us. It was tough for the crew, for the riders, but very important in order to prepare the race that is going to be in very similar weather conditions, which means hot and difficult to handle. But we are happy to be here, so thanks again to everybody who has been working hard to make this possible. I’m quite sure, there will be a great show on Sunday."
