In a second, Miguel Oliveira found himself from seeing the first position occupied by Francesco Bagnaia a few meters from him, to seeing all too well the asphalt of the escape route of Curva 3 at Portimao, his home race and venue for the first round of the 2023 MotoGP World Championship.
Marc Marquez, arriving at the braking point for the third corner – a few tens of seconds from the start of the grand prix – got the braking point wrong and first hit Jorge Martin, then literally hit the Aprilia RS-GP RNF of his home idol .
The impact between the number 93 Honda and Oliveira’s Aprilia was extremely violent, with the RC213V also hitting the Portuguese’s right leg, causing him to remain on the ground for a long time. Fortunately, after a few minutes of apprehension, Miguel sat down again and was taken to the Medical Center for the first checks.
According to initial analyses, Oliveira would not have found any fractures, although the pain in his right leg is persistent (increased by the pain caused by a home match not held when he was in second place…). Only bruises, therefore, but the RNF team rider will do other checks, followed by his personal doctor to avoid any bone damage.
At the end of the race, Oliveira spoke to Sky Sport to talk about his physical condition and what happened at Turn 3, during the first lap.
“I have some pain in my right leg, but nothing is broken. And that’s good, considering the blow I took. I could only understand what happened by looking at the pictures.”
Miguel Oliveira, RNF MotoGP Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“What happened was a bit strange. Marc certainly jumped in from too far, beyond the limit. There’s nothing more to say. He avoided Martin, but avoiding Martin he went right and caught the rider in front to Martin, that was me”.
Marquez allegedly spoke of a fault with his bike, which would therefore have led him to enter Turn 3 that way and hit Martin first and then hit Oliveira. The Portuguese, however, bluntly admitted that he would not accept any apologies related to breakdowns on the number 93 RC213V.
“But, I don’t think he had a problem. And even if he had a brake problem, he should have braked earlier… ok?”.
We recall that Marc Marquez, once he returned to the pits following the accident, went to the RNF team pit to look for Oliveira and apologize for what had happened, but the Portuguese was not in the pits because he was busy doing the first checks at the Medical Center of Portimao.
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