Although KTM’s Miguel Oliveira was only 17th on the opening day at Aragon, the Portu🐼guese rider believes he’s in a better position than the combined MotoGP times showed.

Oliveira was at his most competitive during the opening stages of FP2 as he fitted the hard tyres and jumped up to P2 behind Marc Marquez.&nbﷺsp;

Oliveir🔴a remained in that position for much of the session before slipping back out o⛄f the top ten late on, however, the Catalunya race winner did not complete a time attack compared to most of the grid. 

"I think it was a more positive day than what the standings show. We did a different strategy today," adde✨d Oliveira. 

"Instead of looking for the time attack from the middle💖 of the sessions we stayed with the soft rear to see what would have been like in the beginning of the race and we clearly saw that it cannot be an option for us with these ꦑkinds of temperatures. 

"I continued on to see if I could bring i♈t up to a performance level that was acceptable which didn’t happen. 

"We switched to the hard tyres which were immed✃💯iately much better. I think compared to the other riders that used a medium and hard front and rear we are competitive. 

"This is the work we di𒀰d today and tomorrow♍ we need to be faster to get into the Q2.”

Another factor to consider ꩵin Oliveira’s less than stellar position on the leaderboard is that he’s still recovering from a wrist injury 💝suffered in Austria. 

Oliveira doesn’t expect the pain to dissipate f♊or another two weeks, however, the 26 year-old is in better shape than🐈 Silverstone two weeks ago. 

"Still a bit painful but a little less than Silverstone. I ﷽know the pain will last for a couple of weeks but we know this and we cannot prevent it," said Oliveira when discussing his physical condition.&n𝕴bsp; 

"It is just about dealing with it as best as possible. ✨We have many left corners here, which helps."