Miguel Oliveira recorded the fastest lap of the 12 Hours of Portimão (1min46sec087, at 155,8 km/h), but after a second crash with about 45 minutes to the end of the race, the driver and his Parkalgar team were forced to give up.
It was 20:52 minutes when, on foot, with a mechanic bringing his bike to hand, Miguel Oliveira entered the pit of the Portuguese team Parkalgar, which today had a journey marked by bad luck.
It all started in the first 50-minute inning, with Frenchman Mathieu Lussiana being the first rider in the Algarve team to drive the Yamaha R1. Parkalgar, which came out of 5th position, had already managed to move up to 4th, and was about to make the first surrender of drivers, stopped on the track when...the gas ran out. And the bike had to be towed to the stall.
Explaining this strange episode, which then got in the way of the plans, Paulo Pinheiro, director of Parkalgar Racing Team, told the Sul Informação that "we still can't understand what happened, because, within the tests we did, theoretically we had enough gas for three more laps". But that was not what happened, the Portuguese team lost time and four laps and dropped to last place.
But, as it was still at the beginning of the race, with many hours to recover, that was exactly what the team did, with the three drivers – Miguel Oliveira, Miguel Praia and Mathieu Lussiana – giving their all and managing to make up time and positions.
In such a way that Oliveira made a faster first lap (1min46sec291 (155,5 km/hour) and soon after improved his own time (1min46sec087, 155,8 km/h), which remained until the end, making the team rise to 9th place.
But shortly after having registered, for the second time in a row, the fastest lap, the Moto2 rider crashed and damaged his Yamaha R1. He managed to get back to the race, after mechanics worked, in the box, at full speed, to recover the bike, but in the meantime Parkalgar dropped from 9th to 20th position.
The bad luck would not stop here. When there were about 45 minutes to finish the 12 Hours of Portimão, and Parkalgar had already climbed five positions again, to 15th, the "gearbox broke", as Paulo Pinheiro revealed to our newspaper, causing another fall to Oliveira. Again, there were no physical consequences for the pilot, but Parkalgar was forced to withdraw.
In the end, after returning to boxing, Miguel Oliveira, despite being much applauded by his fans on the main stand and in the paddock, had his disappointment mirrored on his face. His first words were to his teammates, Miguel Praia and Mathieu Lussiana, to whom he explained what had happened.
The Parkalgar team director was also naturally disappointed with the outcome. But, even so, he made a point of saying, in final statements to the Sul Informação: «We have demonstrated the potential of our team, even though we have been out of these for some years. Now let's evaluate what happened».
The 12 Hours of Portimão were eventually won by the GTM94 Yamaha team, followed by the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (2nd) and Honda Endurance Racing (3rd).
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues|Sul Informação
Comments