Oliveira looking to ‘turn the tide’ after Austria ‘weight-loss’ problem

Oliveira, who had battled for a podium at the previous Silverstone round, was forced to retire when the extreme heat generated by the larger brakes needed for the Red Bull Ring melted the glue holding the wheel-balancing weights.

“We had a huge issue with the front. The wheel became so hot that the weights came off because the glue melted,” explained RNF team manager Wilco Zeelenberg.

“Miguel had a lot of vibration and he could not ride anymore because he had no brakes and also Raul [Fernandez] struggled a lot.

“The Red Bull Ring is a special track with a lot of heat, especially too much heat on the front and we need to manage that. We learnt a big lesson, so we will look at the details on what happened here and learn from it for Barcelona."

The Austrian issues thwarted Oliveira’s hopes of building on his strong Silverstone form. But with factory Aprilia star Aleix Espargaro a frontrunner throughout last year’s Barcelona event on the 2022 RS-GP – until backing off one lap earlier – Oliveira is looking to ‘turn the tide’ this weekend.

"I was fast for the [Austrian] weekend, but we had a little issue during the race, a strange issue to be honest,” Oliveira had said. “It was a very simple detail but it made me retire… I could not hold enough pressure on the brakes because of the vibration."

Looking ahead to Barcelona, where he finished ninth for KTM last season, Oliveira added: “After the disappointing result in Austria, I’m excited to turn the tide in our favour and bring a good result for the whole team.

“We have been as effective whenever we had the opportunity to show it and knowing that last year Barcelona was particularly good for Aprilia, I can’t wait to get there and on the bike.”

Catalunya will be another home event for team-mate Raul Fernandez.

“I’m very, very happy to do another Spanish race with all my friends. I think it will be an important weekend,” he said.

“In Austria, we had some bad luck due to some issues with the bike. We weren’t able to show our full potential there, because I think our pace was really good.

“Anyway, I am training very hard and I arrive here in Montmeló with the big goal to show our potential. It’s time to attack and to show that we can fight for a good result!”

“We need to refocus, regroup and learn from last weekend and do the best we can,” said team owner Razlan Razali.

“Clearly, we did a good job in Silverstone, Austria was not good, so we need to step up the game, try to be more consistent and faster in the races,” added Zeelenberg.

Oliveira and Fernandez are currently 15th and 20th in the world championship standings, with RNF ahead of only Repsol Honda in the teams’ standings.