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MotoGP
72 hours with Miguel Oliveira: can he bounce back from 2023’s rough ride?
The Austrian Grand Prix didn't go to plan for Miguel Oliveira, but we caught up with the five-time MotoGP™ race winner at the Red Bull Ring to learn about his will to win.
“It’s hard, challenging, fun, tiring. It makes you proud, sad, angry, a lot of things together…”
You might think that’s an accurate description of life as a MotoGP™ rider, but only Miguel Oliveira is actually talking about his life’s greatest task yet: parenthood.
Straight off the bat, you should know that this ‘72 Hours With’ piece is a stark contrast to other riders we’ve featured over race weekends: a second-place finish on home soil for Pedro Acosta, a double victory in the Sprint & Grand Prix for Jorge Martin in Germany. But unfortunately, the story of Oliveira’s race weekend in Austria was a non-finish in both the Sprint & Grand Prix – neither failure was the five-time MotoGP™ race winner’s fault.
Meeting the Red Bull Ring mascot
© Philip Platzer/Red Bull Ring
Oliveira must be one of the unluckiest riders of the 2023 MotoGP™ season. At this home race to start the season, he was wiped out by another rider while fighting for the podium. This left him side-lined for the second round with a knee injury. After a fifth place in the USA on his return, he suffered a dislocated shoulder the next race in Spain after another rider collided with him. He missed the following round in France in order to let his wounds heal… again.
Recovery issues and mechanical problems with his motorcycle left him with just two full-distance race finishes in the first half of the season.
But the first weekend back after the summer break offered a glimpse of a long-awaited turn in the tide for the #88, a fourth-place finish from sixteenth on the grid in the UK – surely his luck was on the up, and just in time for the venue where he took his first MotoGP™ win back in 2020.
Err, nope. Lap one, turn one of the Saturday Sprint race in Austria, a multi-rider pile-up took Miguel out of the race. Sunday, a technical issue forced him to retire his Aprilia to the pit box.
Miguel Oliveira is looking for the positives after crashing out in Austria
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
That’s motorcycle racing for you. Fortunately, Miguel has a new side to his life to help him deal with the trials and tribulations of elite athletic life: parenthood.
“If you take parenthood as it should be undertaken, which is really taking care of your kid, being there during the night, helping your wife go through the daily shit in the house, you become tough,” he says as we sit down in his team’s hospitality unit, his wife Andreia and one-year-old daughter Alice on the next table.
I looked at Aprilia as a family and a team that I could slowly build up the process and do it
The MotoGP™ paddock has been going through a baby boom in recent years. No less than seven on the current grid have young children, three of whom became fathers in the past two years, with another due to become one for the first time in a matter of weeks at the time of writing.
The saying used to be “each kid will cost you half a second per lap,” but Oliveira disagrees, and clearly, so do the other riders. The resilience and perspective that parenthood can bring makes it a competitive advantage. This is ideal during the kind of season he’s having.
Racing is cruel. It chips away at a rider’s motivation in any number of ways. In many cases, ‘becoming a World Champion’ is enough motivation, but there has to be more to it – another primary, or a secondary factor that fuels that fire. Miguel’s case became somewhat obvious when I put to him that personally I think he’s the best rider on the MotoGP™ grid yet to win a World Championship in any of the three categories.
Before even taking a breath, he interrupted with a wry smile, saying “yep, true,” followed by a laugh.
On the grid and ready for action in Austria
© Matt Dunn
It’s not like I have two seconds to make up in qualifying, you’re talking two-tenths of a second or three-tenths now. Little gains that are here and there
In 2015 he finished second in the lightweight series, Moto3. In 2017, he was third overall in Moto2, the championship directly beneath MotoGP™. A year later, he was second again by nine points. Few have come so close, so consistently without taking a crown.
“At the time I was really angry about it," he says. "Coming short isn’t the same as being so far from it. I would have done a few things differently but I have no regrets – I did the best I could at the time with my abilities and what I knew.”
Is it a chip he carries on his shoulder, missing out on those titles?
“I think now a title would validate this feeling that I have, your opinion and other’s opinions about me.”
He can certainly talk the talk, but he’s already walked the walk to some degree. On his day, he’s better than everyone else out there and the results show it.
Happier times in Austria. Oliveira won at Spielberg in 2020
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
His first win in Austria in 2020 was a last-lap thriller, playing the smart game into the final corner and pipping both Jack Miller and Pol Espargaro to the chequered flag, while on a KTM bike at their home GP. How’s that for pressure?
Well, nothing compared to what he was under for his second victory, his first home race in Portugal with the entire nation watching every lap of his weekend:
“Remember that at the time it was the opportunity [for a home victory], it was not settled that we would have a race there next season.
“So when you get there and you know, ‘OK, I have this opportunity’ - I’m gonna take it.
“I don’t care about anyone else or the title, I’m going to just put all my energy there and smoke everyone. And that’s basically what happened.”
Pole position, the perfect start, off into the distance, didn’t miss an apex all race long. The dream win. The only thing missing were the fans in the stands, but he was on front pages all over the country the next morning nonetheless.
Miguel Oliviera, winner for the second time in 2020
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Miguel Oliviera en route to winning in Portugal
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Miguel Oliviera celebrates a home win in Portugal
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Incredible pressure, embraced and dealt with to produce the finest rides. When others, even greats of the sport, would crumble, Miguel presses on. How?
“I’m a bit too much of a [keep things] under control kind of guy,” he explains.
“Once I’m fast it’s very hard [rare] that I crash or make a mistake because I know what I’m doing, you know what I mean?”
Similar performances have come in Barcelona the following year, Indonesia and Thailand in tricky wet conditions last season, too. Each time, unstoppable. He “smoked them”.
Heading into Qualifying
© Matt Dunn
Ready for action at the Red Bull Ring
© Matt Dunn
But that’s not enough for Miguel. To win a MotoGP™ race is one thing. It’s another to add your name to the Tower of Champions at the end of the season. These kinds of rides prove to Miguel he has what it takes, but until now there have been a few pieces to that puzzle missing, including that ability to relinquish control.
“That sometimes really backfires on me and doesn’t allow me to show everything I have," he says. "I’m working on it, to change a little bit.”
Somewhere this would come in handy is qualifying, given that starting grid placements can have a huge impact on the result at the finish line.
“One of the things is this crazy fast lap, the bikes allow you to push so much now," he says "But these things, it’s not like I have two seconds to make up in qualifying – you’re talking two-tenths of a second or three-tenths now. Little gains that are here and there, I think it’s about mentality, nothing technically that I can’t do. I think that’s the wall I have to break down and get through.”
Out on the circuit things didn't go to plan
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Another is the bike and the team around a rider, a recurring theme in these stories as we’ve heard the same from Acosta, Martin and Arbolino as well thus far. After losing his factory KTM seat for this season, he moved to the ‘independent’ RNF Team on an Aprilia:
“I looked at Aprilia as a family and a team that I could slowly build up the process and do it.
"I would not ever chase a factory seat based on the salary if you know what I mean. If I knew the bike wasn’t competitive, I wouldn’t do it. If I had a competitive bike on a satellite team, regardless of the fees, I would do it. This is why I came here.”
Back in the saddle
© Matt Dunn
This sport is too short for regrets, I think I have my mentality right so sooner or later, it will pay off
With the misfortune that both Saturday and Sunday brought the team in Austria, you could see the family-like atmosphere as they closed ranks and attempted to lift each other’s spirits.
One figure in the box had no comprehension of the struggles going on around them, nor did she care. Even after a tough day at the office, Miguel still had his real job to get on with – being Alice’s Dad.
A shot at the championship this year is long gone. But that’s OK for now.
I expected this weekend to hear or at least get the impression that having a child can change a MotoGP™ rider’s perspective on pressure and that there’s more to life than trophies. But that was ultimately naïve. There’s no question that it makes the pain of the tough days easier to handle, but dampening the fire inside and that desire to win the ultimate prize? Not a chance. It only accelerates it.
“This sport is too short for regrets, I think I have my mentality right so sooner or later, it will pay off.”
