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The curtain fell on the 2020 MotoGP World Championship and, at the same time, new horizons were opened for the future of the Portuguese Miguel Oliveira, especially after having swept the last grand prix of the season, in Portimão, with a victory in all the line, which allowed him to repeat the highest position on the podium that he had already reached on 23 August in Austria, and finish the World Cup in ninth position.
What future holds for the Portuguese driver? For now, he is leaving KTM’s satellite team Tech3 to compete for the factory team, where South African Brad Binder will join. “Miguel will continue working to do the best he can,” said Paulo Oliveira, Miguel’s father and agent, in a brief conversation with DN, especially because the day after the weekend he dreamed of in Portimão, there is much to do. It is enough taking into account next season, specifically with regard to what will be the engine of the new motorcycle of the rider born 25 years ago in Almada.
The truth is that, theoretically, Miguel Oliveira will have at his disposal “more technical means” in what will be his third season in the MotoGP World Championship. “He has already shown that he can win with the satellite team, so with more means it is possible to achieve better results”, admitted Paulo Oliveira.
Vítor Martins, SportTV commentator on MotoGP races, explained to DN that the Portuguese rider “already had a direct connection with the KTM factory”, but considers that from now on “that connection is further strengthened”, because “They will be more involved in the development of the bike.” This despite the fact that “at Tech3 he had KTM engineers with him, but it was not the same.” “From now on you will be the first to receive everything new for the bike and, more than that, you will be testing and approving these new features”, he is stressed.
One thing is certain, according to Vítor Martins, the KTM motorcycle “has evolved a lot in the last four years”, so he is convinced that the Austrian brand will soon reach the top of MotoGP. “The executive director Stefan Pierer is very involved in this project, and where KTM always enters is to win, as it was in other competitions and here it will not be different, since it is a very focused brand for competition”, he stressed, in a clear demonstration that Miguel Oliveira will have a competitive motorcycle during the 2021 season.
In fact, in May 2019, Pierer promised that KTM would “dominate MotoGP”. “At supercross It took us 11 years to win, but when we did we entered a sequence of five consecutive titles. It also took us seven years to win the Dakar, but now we are going with a sequence of 18 consecutive victories. In MotoGP we can also take ten years to reach first place, but sooner or later we will dominate this category as well, ”promised the CEO of the Austrian brand, in an interview with Motorsport.com.
The dream of the title ever closer
As for physical preparation, no big changes are expected from the Portuguese rider. “Miguel is a very competitive athlete and has his personal trainer, who, apparently, will maintain this preparation,” stressed Vítor Martins, who believes that the conditions are being met for Miguel Oliveira to achieve the dream that he has already done several times. expressed publicly: be world champion. “It is guaranteed to be closer to winning the title,” he said.
“He will win more races and we will see him more often on the podium. The truth is, if we look at the final classification of the championship, we find that he was only 14 points behind third place.”, in which the Spaniard Alex Rins finished ”, highlighted the MotoGP specialist, who is convinced that the fight for the title will be soon: “I think in 2021 he will fight for the title or at least he will fight for the podium places … In the next year, he will certainly be a serious candidate to become world champion.”
Paulo Oliveira, father of the Portuguese driver, recalled about the title dream that “at the beginning of the year nobody imagined that Jon Mir would win the world title”, and warned: “MotoGP is changing and anything is possible.”
Miguel Oliveira’s talent no longer goes unnoticed and even his opponents show respect for his qualities, several of them highlighting the fact that the Portuguese was “unstoppable” during the Portuguese Grand Prix. To the point of Pit Beirer, KTM racing director, admitting that the Portuguese rider could be the team leader: “We need a new leader in 2021 and I think Miguel, with this performance, he became a strong candidate. “ Questioned by DN, Paulo Oliveira devalued this issue, guaranteeing only that his son “will compete” with others, so that “whoever works better will obtain better results.”
The 2021 MotoGP World Championship is scheduled to begin on March 28 with the Qatari Grand Prix. There will be a total of 20 races, during which Miguel Oliveira, 25, will seek to show all the talent that makes him already considered one of the great drivers on the circuit.
