Miguel Oliveira sets the pace as Qatar race weekend gets underway

The lights of the Losail International Circuit in Qatar were turned on tonight to start the Moto3 World Championship for 2015. In the first two practice sessions of the weekend, Miguel Oliveira had a starring role, setting a great pace and taking the best time of the night. Red Bull KTM Ajo teammates Brad Binder and Karel Hanika also enjoyed a good start, with the eleventh and seventeenth fastest laps, respectively.

It took less than five minutes for Oliveira to take command of the timesheets in the first practice session of the year. The Portuguese gradually kept improving his lap times, ending with a best of 2:06.699. Only Danny Kent was able to bet him, in the last minute and by 98 thousandths of a second.

In the second session the dynamics were the same, with the Portuguese rider the fastest from the early going. However, this time, a final lap of 2:06.580 undertaken completely by himself made him the quickest of the night.

Tomorrow, Oliveira, Binder and Hanika will be back on their KTM bikes to contest a third and final free practice session, from 7:00pm local time.

44 MIGUEL OLIVEIRA
“The first night was very good. It’s always good to finish the first day at the front, but we are keeping our feet on the ground, because we know that times will improve tomorrow. We must keep going and improve further because we have not yet matched the time from last year and we are aiming to improve on it. Today the track was in good conditions right from the first session, as it offered very good grip and there was no wind. We have not adjusted much with the bike, but enough so that tomorrow we can improve even more.”

Source: Red Bull KTM Ajo