Unbeatable Oliveira writes masterclass fairy tale at home, Kallio 17th

Portuguese hero Miguel Oliveira left no room for questions in today’s Grande Prémio de Portugal and brought home an outstanding second victory in 2020. Starting from pole the RedBull KTM Tech3 rider did not one single mistake, proving that he is the man to beat on home soil from lap one. He led the race in incredible form from the first to the final corner and crossed the line with more than three seconds of advantage. Therewith, he moves up to ninth in the final standings of the MotoGP World Championship 2020.

At the same time, Mika Kallio, who jumped aboard the KTM RC16 for the season finale in place of Iker Lecuona, was starting from P22 and improving on his feeling throughout the race, after he has been out of competition for more than one year. Towards the end of the race, he had a decent a fight with Tito Rabat and beat him on the line to take home 17th position at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve.

Miguel Oliveira:

“I knew I had a good pace, but as I said to everyone yesterday, it was going to be a little bit unpredictable after mid-race what was going to happen to the tyres. Surprisingly I kept doing the 40.1’s, 40.2’s quite easily without taking too much risks, so the tyres hold on very well. After five laps to the end, I really started to think about too many things, so I decided to just lose a couple of tenths and just tried to enjoy as most as possible. At that point, I honestly just wanted the race to finish earlier. I came to lead from start to finish, it was a good experience for me. I enjoyed myself on the bike, I had a little bit of pressure, but I could handle it and that’s the most important thing.”

Mika Kallio:

“It was tough. Of course, we knew that this track is quite demanding and you have to work a lot with the body. To come back to racing is especially on the physical side not easy. But I managed to do it, so I’m happy about that. I have to admit, that I thought I could do a bit better, ahead of the weekend, but in the end, this was the maximum I could do at the moment. Somehow, I’m still quite satisfied that I could make the laps quite consistently and repeat the same things, the same speed, the same lap times and no mistakes, which was really important. So, I’m satisfied with that.”