Mixed fortunes for Moncayo and Oliveira on first day at Catalunya

The Team Andalucía – Banca Cívica – Diputación de Cádiz returns to action at the Circuit de Catalunya for the fifth Grand Prix of the season near Montmelo. Miguel Oliveira and Alberto Moncayo have started today with the setup work on their bikes in the first two practice sessions, on a day marked by the changing weather conditions.

According to the forecasts it was expected to rain all day today, but it did not come until the second free practice. The 125cc riders were able to ride in the dry at first, but rain cut their work short in the second session which they couldn’t use as they would have liked.

Miguel Oliveira and Alberto Moncayo have begun the setup work for their bikes, having this time the direct support of the Aprilia racing department, which has been made available to the Cadiz team to solve the problems the team has been suffering with the official material.

Alberto has started the GP full of energy after several weeks of rest and despita a crash in the session, his overall feeling has been very positive.

Miguel Oliveira returns to a known track after the races in Portugal and France where he faced circuits which he had not previously raced at. Miguel had problems with the engine of his bike which prevented him to take advantage of the practice as he would have liked, but he remains confident and believes that tomorrow he can do a good job on the second day of practice.

Alberto Moncayo, 8 (1’54 .720)
“We’re having a good start to the Grand Prix with very good feelings about the bike and working on the setup. I made a little silly mistake in the first practice and I crashed, but it didn’t have serious consequences, just a little scrape on my arm and little else. The chassis setup is very good, I’m very comfortable with the bike and now we have to focus on the engine configuration. The good thing is that in this race we have a person from the Aprilia racing department who is helping us and hopefully we can take advantage of this situation. Tomorrow we’ll have to see how the weather is and try to fight for a good position on the grid.”

MIGUEL OLIVEIRA, 11 ° (1’54 .880)
“The practice has not gone as good as I would have liked. In the first session we encountered a problem with the setup of the chassis which would not allow me to take a good line and we have focused on solving that. In the second practice it was raining, but we have done very few laps because we had an engine problem which forced me to return to the box and we could only do three laps in total.
Montmelo is a circuit I know and this gives me confidence to start working, but it is not an advantage, because most of the riders also know it. We can say that this time I have a little less of a disadvantage, nothing more.
Tomorrow we will continue working on the setup and try to get a good laptime.”

Source: Team Machado